Taming the Thorny Rose novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Fever

Osric looked at his smoking sleeve, then at his nephew's burned hands.

"Tell her all of it, Aldric," he said.

"She has earned the whole ugly shape."

"Go home, Uncle," said Aldric.

"The sun is on your coat."

"Then I'll see you both on the road."

He went out through the side door with a hunter's cloak pulled over his head.

Smoke trailed behind him across the flagstones.

The hall was empty.

Aldric set the Thorn blade on the table, very carefully, because his palms were raw.

"Plainly, then," he said.

"The fever began at the first frost.

"Every king has it.

"It starts as hunger, and it ends as something that has no name."

"How long?"

"I will be a man until the longest night, perhaps.

"After that, I will be a thing that kills what it loves first."

"And the Rite?"

"The Rite is the law's mercy.

"If I am past saving, my wife ends me before I reach the town."

"Your wife."

"A hunter who would not lie and would not flinch."

He said it without any heat at all.

"I chose you, Kestrel.

"I won't pretend that I didn't."

I looked at the blade on the table.

It was a thin, plain thing, and it had been waiting for me since before I was born.

"You wanted me to put that through your heart."

"I wanted an honest verdict.

"The knife is the law's, not my wish."

"Don't you dare hide behind the law."

"Then I wanted a clean death," said Aldric.

"Four hundred years, and I would not end as a beast in a tower."

"No."

"Kestrel."

"No.

"I'm not your knife."

My voice rang in the empty hall.

I was shaking, and I let him see it.

"You don't get to pick my hand and my reason and my grief, and call it a gift."

"I know."

"You should have asked me.

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