Taming the Thorny Rose novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Treaty Table
Kestrel throws a silver thorn at the vampire king during the signing, and must marry him or watch Ashby Cross fall; her guardian tells her to sign.
I threw the silver thorn from forty feet away, and the vampire king caught it in his bare hand.
The hall at Hollin Keep went silent.
Smoke rose from his palm where the metal touched him.
He didn't flinch.
He looked down at the thorn, then up at me across the long treaty table.
"Hunter," said Aldric Morrowe, "you missed my heart by a hand's width."
"I didn't miss," I said.
"No?"
"I wanted you to catch it."
That was a lie, and every person in the hall could hear it.
Two vampire guards took my arms before I could pull the wire from my belt.
Their grip was cold and exact.
I didn't fight them.
Behind me, three thousand people in Ashby Cross were counting the hours until sunrise.
That was the deal on the table.
For nine weeks the Night Court's army had sat around my town with torches and silence.
No one in Ashby Cross could leave, and nothing could come in.
The Silver Guild had sent a delegation to end it.
I was the delegation's bodyguard, and I had just tried to kill the man we came to beg.
Oswald Crane stood at the table's far end with his hat in his hands.
He was fifty-six, grey-bearded, with a stiff knee from an old bite.
He had raised me from the age of nine.
He didn't look at me.
"Your Majesty," he said, "the girl acted alone."
"The girl," said the king, "is the best killer your Guild has."
He set the thorn on the table between us.
A black burn the shape of a petal sat in the middle of his palm.
"I have read the Guild's roll of names for ten years," he said.
"Kestrel Harrow, twenty-four.
"Twenty-two vampires dead.
"They call her the Thorn."
I kept my chin up.
"Twenty-three," I said.
Somebody in the court laughed, low and ugly.
The king raised one finger, and the laugh stopped.
He was a tall man with black hair that fell to his collar and grey eyes.
A scar split his left eyebrow in two.
He looked about thirty-one, and I knew he was over four hundred.
He did not look like a monster, and that made it worse.
"Here are my terms," he said.
"I lift the siege tonight.
"The border stays at the river, and Ashby Cross keeps its walls and its grain.
"Your Guild keeps its blades."
Crane nodded slowly.
"And in return?" he asked.
"A hunter will wed the king of the Night Court at dusk tomorrow," said Aldric.
"One of the Guild's own, so the treaty has a human hand on it.
"If there is no bride by sunrise, the siege goes on and the walls come down."
My mouth had gone dry.
"Who," I said.
He didn't answer.
He only looked at me.
"No," I said.
"You'll have to kill me first."
"You tried," said the king.
The court laughed again, and this time he let them.
I turned to Crane.
"Tell him no," I said.
"We're not trading a person for a town."
Crane finally lifted his eyes.
They were wet, and I almost believed them.
"Kes," he said, "there are children in those cellars.
"There's the infirmary, and your friend Astrid's whole family.
"Three thousand people."
"There's got to be another way."
"There isn't."
"You can't ask me to do this."
"I'm not asking," said Crane.
The words hit me.
He had never said one thing to me in fifteen years without softening it first.
"Sign it, Kestrel," he said.
A quill lay on the table beside a roll of black paper.
My name was already written at the bottom in a clean, careful hand.
Not Guild's champion.
Not any hunter of the Guild's choosing.
Kestrel Harrow.
I read it twice.
The name was written in Crane's hand.
I knew that curl on the capital T.
I had learned to write it from the man standing beside me.
"You named me," I said.
Crane didn't answer.
"You wrote my name before I ever walked in here."
"Sign it, girl," he said, and his voice cracked.
Across the table the king watched me, very still.
For one second I thought I saw something move in his face that wasn't triumph.
Then it was gone.
Outside, a bell tolled the hour, and I heard the first child crying in the cold beyond the walls.
I picked up the quill and signed.
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