Taming the Thorny Rose novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Witness Dies

The hall roared.

Twelve houses were on their feet, and half of them were shouting.

Osric lifted one hand, and the noise fell, because he had spent six hundred years learning how.

"Good houses, a prisoner points at a man who bears him no good will.

"Let the Charter's custom be kept.

"A witness who speaks is given water."

He turned his head toward the wall.

A servant in the king's black livery stepped out with a silver tray and a single cup.

My skin crawled.

The livery was Aldric's.

"I'll take that," I said.

"The Thorn has called the witness," said the old vampire at the dais.

"The custom gives the cup to the one who is called."

I looked at the cup and at the hunter, and I did the arithmetic I should have done first.

Everything on that tray was meant to look like it came from Aldric's table.

"Don't drink it," I said, to the hunter.

He was parched.

He had been in a cell for a night and a day, and his lips were split.

"I only want a sip, Kes."

"No."

"I'm so thirsty."

He took the cup from the tray before I could reach it.

He drank half of it in one swallow and wiped his mouth with his splinted hand.

For three heartbeats nothing happened.

Then his face turned the color of old tallow, and he gripped his throat.

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