Taming the Thorny Rose novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Ashby Cross

I left Hollin Keep before the sun was up.

Aldric did not stop me.

He stood at the gate in his shirtsleeves with a split lip and said only, "The road is yours.

"No one will follow."

"You'll keep the treaty?"

"While you're gone, and while you're not."

I looked at him a long moment.

I had my mother's ring on a cord around my neck and my thorned wire over my shoulder.

I rode the grey mare Astrid had found for me, and she rode behind on a pony.

It was four miles to Ashby Cross.

The siege had lifted overnight, as promised.

The torches along the river were gone, and the road was empty and white with new snow.

We rode through the town gate at midmorning.

People lined the street.

They stared at me, and some of them started to cheer.

A woman ran out of a doorway and kissed my hand.

"You saved us," she said, over and over.

"You saved the children."

I couldn't speak.

I rode on to the Guild house at the top of the hill.

It was a grey stone building with a hawk over the door.

Crane's study was on the second floor.

I kicked the door open without knocking.

The hall was full.

Thirty hunters in grey sat at the long table, eating breakfast.

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