Free Thorns by Kate Avery Ellison

squeezed at the words first assignment . I waited for him to continue. Snow fell around us, and I realized how cold I was without my cloak.
    “You have to be sworn in, taught the rules,” he said. “Joining isn’t as simple as saying it.”
    “I know,” I said.
    He didn’t smile, but I saw faint amusement in his eyes at my impatience. “Meet me tomorrow at dawn. Follow the path to the charred oak and then go fifty paces. I’ll meet you under the stingweed.”
    “Under the stingweed?”
    “It’s a test,” he repeated. “I want to see if you can figure it out.”
    “Adam—” There was so much I didn’t understand still.
    His eyes softened slightly. “Until then, remember the signal. I will keep in touch, sometimes by note. It is our main method, although it can be exploited, so be watchful. I’ll always transcribe mine with the blossom.”
    I thought of my parents. They’d been betrayed by such a note, when Cole had lured them out into the Frost. I shivered. “I’ll always look for it.”
    He smiled faintly. “Be safe, Lia Weaver.”
    I watched him slip into the barn for the children, and then I returned to the house before my siblings awoke.
     
     

SEVEN
     
     
    THE SACK FILLED with our quota of yarn thumped against my knee as I hurried down the path for the village. The sun speared the forest around me with beams of dazzling sunlight, banishing the memories of the night before—the Farther children. The Watchers. Adam. Joining the Thorns.
    It all felt so unreal.
    I hadn’t said anything to Ivy or Jonn yet, and the familiar rat of apprehension gnawed at my stomach. Would they be angry? Or would they support my wishes to follow in our parents’ footsteps on such a dangerous path? I’d been quiet to the point of near silence at breakfast, but they’d probably interpreted my reticence to speak as reluctance to take the quota into the village or leftover turmoil from the night before. And I’d let them think whatever they wanted—my mind was reeling, my stomach was twisted in a dozen knots, my fingers shook as I fumbled with my cloak strings. I was still in an emotional snarl myself, and I had to sort it out in my own head first before I could even think of explaining anything to them.
    The sunlight playing over the snow turned the path ahead into a diamond-encrusted road. Bluewings swooped and fluttered overhead in the bare branches of the trees, and a tiny part of me danced too, because a tiny part of me had ignited with hope. If the Thorns succeeded in driving out the Farthers, the Frost would be ours again.
    Gabe’s name took shape in my thoughts, but I pushed it away. Even if the Farthers left, he wouldn’t be able to come back. He’d gone through the portal. He was gone, and the ache I felt whenever I thought about it made it hard to breathe.
    I rounded the curve in the path, and the Farther soldiers swung into sight. Was it just my imagination, or were there even more of them than before?
    Steeling myself with a deep breath, I hurried again for the gate to the village.
    Ann waited for me in the town square, her cloak and hood standing out in a shock of red color against the grays and browns and blues around her. When she spotted me, her eyes fluttered closed, and she pressed a hand to her mouth.
    “You’re all right,” she gasped as soon as I’d reached her. She grabbed me and hugged me hard.
    “What’s wrong?” I said, pushing her back so I could peer into her face. “What is it?”
    “Three men are missing, and they think Watchers…” She grabbed my hands as if she had to be sure I was real. “Your farm is out there all alone, without walls or weapons, and when you were running late for the quota delivery, I was afraid you weren’t coming. Ever.”
    Dread spread through me. “Men are missing? Who?”
    There hadn’t been a Watcher-caused death since Cole. Sometimes a bear got some unsuspecting Hunter, or a snow panther sprang on a Trapper when he wasn’t vigilant. But