The Iron Thorn

Tremaine threw back his head and cackled at the rapidly graying sky. “I don’t want your money, child. I don’t want any sort of tribute. You are not the Gateminder. Not like your father, and never will you be.”

“All right.” I dug my feet in. “You’d better tell me what you do want, or I’m not going another step.” We had reached the edge of a pine forest, the sharp scent of the trees scraping the inside of my nose. Gravel paths wound away like ribbons, well groomed but eerily empty.

Tremaine stroked his tail of hair like it was a pet. “Do you see anyone else in this place, child, anyone to aid you? I could do you harm so easily. Your blood would stain the Winnowing Stone and the Stone would drink your offering down.”

My father’s book had talked about the Winnowing Stone. I had the distinct feeling I didn’t want to meet it. Not yet, anyway.

“If you were going to kill me,” I said, raising my chin so he had to meet my eyes, “you would have done it the first time I came through the hexenring. Or left me for the corpse-drinkers. Either way, you want me alive. For something.”

I only hoped my fate wasn’t worse than being consumed by one of those cackling, horrid things in the mist.

“So it is,” Tremaine said, all traces of humor gone from his face. “You must think you’re a clever girl, Aoife?”

My jaw set. “I do my best.”

Tremaine’s delicately hewn face rippled, just for a moment, with anger. It was the first emotion of any kind I’d seen pass over his features. “I despise clever girls,” he spat. “Come along. I’ve something to show you.”

When he got a few steps ahead of me and I stayed immobile, he threw up his hands. “It’s the truth, you wretched human. I swear on silver. Now come along before I fetch you by that bird’s nest you call hair.”

I felt my eyes go wide. Even when I was just an orphan, not even an Academy student, people rarely spoke to me like that, either out of breeding or out of fear of my madness.

“Where are the other Folk?” I blurted. The question had been niggling me since the day before. “My father’s writings speak of Folk. Not just one. And his chambermaid has seen scores of you.” I put my hand on my hip, cocked it, doing my best imitation of Dean. He was the only person I could picture standing up to Tremaine.

The pale man scoffed, his nostrils flaring out like the sails of a weather ship. “So?”

“So,” I returned, “what’s happened to the rest?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” Tremaine said quietly, his tone like a knife in the dark, “for someone who won’t like the answers.”

“Why did you bring me here?” I pressed on. “Why do you want me and not my father?”

“I do want your father!” Tremaine exploded. He closed on me, looming a head taller, his eyes ablaze.

I went cold and insensible all over, but I let the fear root me to the spot rather than drive me on. I wasn’t running from Tremaine. He’d enjoy it far too thoroughly.

“I would vastly prefer him,” Tremaine amended through gritted teeth, his nostrils and body quivering with suppressed rage. “You think I want a simpering child when I could have a gifted future Gateminder? I do not. But you are all that is left, Aoife, and the sooner that you accept that, the better off you’ll be.”

“I want my brother.” I could grit my teeth too.

“And I want the sky to open and rain down fine green absinthe,” Tremaine returned. “Neither of us will be gratified today.” His hand snapped out, quick as the traps of Graystone, and seized my arm. It was the first time he’d been overtly violent, but I can’t say he surprised me. Tremaine jerked at me. “Now, are you going to come along, or do I have to drag you?”

I looked up, away, so I wouldn’t have to meet those burning coal eyes any longer. If I stared Tremaine in the face, I’d lose my nerve. We’d come a distance—the sky was pure white now, clouds giving me a glimpse of a pink sunset—but only a glimpse. The air tasted cold and sharp. Winter seemed to hold sway, and I pulled Tremaine’s jacket closer with my free arm.

“Tell me where the rest are,” I whispered, “and I’ll follow you.”

Tremaine warred with himself a moment, shutting his eyes. His lashes were long and crystalline, and if I hadn’t known what he was I’d have thought him beautiful beyond compare. As it was, he just reminded me of a wicked springheel jack—the creature with the beautiful face hiding a ravenous monster.

“The Land of Thorn is no longer a fruitful land,” he finally bit out. “Many of the Folk have gone or fled, and many have simply wasted away. I am stronger, and I remain. That’s all the answer your clever mind is getting.” He snatched my arm again and growled through his pointed teeth. “Now, come.”

Having no way of getting back to Graystone on my own, I had no choice but to follow.

“You do what I ask and I will answer you one question,” Tremaine said as we cleared the pines and entered a low heath, heather scraping my legs. “That is the bargain. Say yes. Or say nay, and I’ll return you to your home and never trouble you again.”

I stayed quiet for a moment. What would Conrad or Dean do? They’d bite the bullet. They’d do what needed to be done. “I suppose I don’t have any choice,” I said, slogging on through the peat. Tremaine stopped striding and looked at me. He reached out a hand and put it on my shoulder. When we touched, I felt a deadening prickle down my arm, like I’d rolled over on it in my sleep.

“There is always a choice, Aoife. But often it is between the jaws of the beast and the doorway to death. This is fact, and I cannot change it.”

It wasn’t a debate for me, not really. I didn’t even want to hesitate. Tremaine held the answer I’d sought so fervently. I was one simple indulgence away from finding my brother.

I sucked in a breath. “Fine. Show me what you have to show me.”

“This way,” Tremaine said. “Over the hilltop. They’re not far.”

Tremaine was a silent man, and his countenance forbade any effort to spark a conversation, so while we crossed the heath I busied myself with memorizing the details of my journey through the Land of Thorn.

Trees with blue leaves waved in the distance, a grove on the unbroken rolling hills of heather, pricked only by stone tors. The sky darkened slowly, like an oil lamp spending the last of its fuel. Everything smelled different, overpowering. The same mountains I’d seen from the hexenring loomed larger now, a bit like the Berkshires of my home, but they weren’t. The Land of Thorn was as alien as the surface of the moon. You could taste it in the wind and see it in the bend of the horizon. It was beautiful, in a cold, frightening sort of way, like staring at a solar eclipse for just a split second too long, so that your eyes dazzled.

“Almost there,” Tremaine told me, ending my plodding through the heather. “We’re passing through a singing grove.” He removed his goggles and handed them to me. “The agony trees sing the memories of those who’ve passed before and cloud your senses. Wear these.”

“How can they do all that?” I demanded. “They’re just trees.”

“Aye, and the dryads who call the trees home exude a power that can sway you to their side for the rest of time. Would you like that, child? To put down roots here?”

I snatched the goggles and strapped them to my face. They were too large and pressed painfully against my cheekbones. But through the blue glass I saw things very differently.

The trees were alive, arms and hands reaching for me with a delicate hunger as we passed through. Even the wind had a shape, and bore a laughing, dancing rivulet of tiny things with fangs.

“Blue is the color,” Tremaine said. “The color of truth. Keep the goggles. Use them if you venture here on your own.”

“Don’t worry,” I whispered. “I never will.”

“So you say now,” Tremaine murmured. The trees knotted and formed an archway, dying and overgrown with fungi and vines. The dryad who crawled headfirst down the trunk was emaciated, her barky body and vine-twisted hair dry and wilted.

“Everything is so bleak,” I said softly, because it seemed as if speaking loudly would break the delicate balance of this grayed place.

Tremaine lifted a curtain of ivy and ushered me farther into the grove, as the agony trees moaned and sang around us. He looked just the same through the blue glass, his face pale and his teeth sharp as ever. Tremaine wasn’t hiding himself from my gaze. He wasn’t setting out a lure—the ice-sculpture beauty was his true face. That worried me far more than the sweet and seductive song of the trees. If Tremaine’s cruel visage was his true one, I