Thorns of Decision (Dusk Gate Chronicles)

by Breeana Puttroff

  Stephen’s eyes grew wide for a moment, and then he nodded. “How much did he tell you?”

  “That my father was his brother – that he’s really my uncle.”

  Stephen was silent again, clearly considering his next words.

  “He said there was more to it that he wasn’t telling me. I’m going to guess that you won’t tell me, either?”

  Though she didn’t know how it was possible, his expression grew even more apologetic. “I’m sorry. I can’t, Quinn. I’ve made promises …”

  “Promises to my mother? What does that even matter when I find out she’s been hiding something like this from me? I just found out that my father was from a different world, and my mother has been keeping that a secret from me for my entire life! How much worse could it get?”

  Stephen’s expression turned soft, and suddenly he was off his couch, kneeling in front of Quinn. “Precious girl, it doesn’t get worse than that. The only thing worse than finding it out is the fact that there are those of us here who have always loved you, and we’ve been missing you this whole time.”

  She was taken aback by the sadness and apology on his face, and she allowed him to take her hands in his. He stared at her for what felt like a long time, long enough for her to see the truth of his feelings, even if he wasn’t telling her the whole story. Stephen reached up and ran his hand down the side of her face. “Whatever else happens, Quinn,” he said, “please know that we always loved you, and every decision we ever made came first and foremost from our need to love and protect you.”

  Quinn had no idea how to respond to that, but she nodded, and Stephen retreated back to his spot on the other couch.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me, Father?” William asked.

  “What were we supposed to tell you, and keep the secret safe? Knowing something like that would have put an enormous burden on you. Alone in a world with her? It would have been too hard.”

  “But why keep it a secret from me in the first place?” Quinn demanded. “Especially after I found the gate? Why does my mom get to make all of the decisions?”

  Stephen shook his head. “First of all, Quinn, remember how difficult this must be for Megan. She lost her husband so suddenly, and then she was left alone with you. I know it was hard for her to think that at any time, someone from here could decide to just snatch you away, or something.”

  Her eyes widened. “But you would never do that.”

  “No, of course Charlotte and I wouldn’t have done anything like that, and nor would Nathaniel, but she had no reason to trust that. Secondly, the decision was not hers alone. Your father never intended for you to know everything either, not before you were of age.”

  “Why?”

  “He wished for you to have a normal childhood, a family life in your world with him and your mother. He thought that involving you in all of this was too much for a child.”

  Quinn stared hard at Stephen’s expression. He was telling the truth, she was sure of that, but there was also a nagging suspicion in the back of her mind that he was leaving something out – maybe a big something. “Why else?” she asked.

  Stephen closed his eyes. “He also believed – and he passed this fear on to your mother, as well – that you would be in danger here, in our world.”

  “In danger from what?” William asked, his voice taking on an edge that surprised her.

  For a long moment, Stephen stared across the room at them, not answering. The expression on his face turned to one of curiosity, and Quinn realized just how close she and William were sitting to each other on the couch, and how William’s posture had changed to one of protection. Her cheeks grew hot as she realized what it looked like.

  Suddenly, the king glanced down at the floor and took a deep breath before he looked back up, his eyes fixed directly on hers. “Quinn, have you ever been in a situation where you have absolutely no idea what the right thing to do is? Where, no matter what you decide, you’re going to end up doing something wrong, or hurting someone you don’t want to hurt?”

  She sank back into the couch cushions, trying to wrap her mind around the question. She thought about what she’d just done to Zander – was that only last night? Finally, she nodded.

  “Well, it doesn’t get any easier just because you grow up. Or just because you become a parent. And it definitely doesn’t get easier when you become the ruler of a kingdom.”

  “So you’re telling me that you don’t know what to do?” she asked.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is this. The situation is complicated. If the secret of the gate were to get out … all of us would be in grave danger. And it’s not all mine to share, and I’m torn between protecting you, and honoring your father’s wishes, and hurting you even more.”

  He sighed. She’d never imagined that a king could look so … vulnerable?

  “There wasn’t a plan in place for what would happen if you somehow found your way here on your own, Quinn. And when you did, we were all so stunned; we had no idea how to react. How could we keep anything secret, while finding out what you already knew – finding out enough to keep you safe, the gate safe, when the only thing we wanted to do was to thank the Maker that you’d found us? We – Charlotte and Nathaniel, and I – we all just wanted to wrap our arms around you and tell you how glad we were to see you again. How much we’d missed you.”

  She swallowed hard as an image of that played in her head. And then she suddenly caught a word she’d missed when he first said it. “Again? What do you mean, again?”

  “Well, Nathaniel, of course, has always been able to see you as you’ve grown, at least from a distance. I saw you a couple of times, when you were little and I visited Nathaniel in Bristlecone for various things. Charlotte had only ever actually seen you twice. Once, when your father brought you here for your Naming Ceremony, and the other time was when we went to Bristlecone for your father’s funeral.”

  Quinn suddenly understood the expression about picking one’s jaw up off the floor. “My father brought me here? I had a Naming Ceremony?”

  “You wouldn’t remember, of course. You were only a few weeks old – though already you looked so much like Samuel. You have his eyes, exactly.”

  “How could I have had a Naming Ceremony and yet nobody knows about me? Weren’t there people there?”

  Stephen sighed. “It was a small, private ceremony, Quinn. You saw Hannah’s, and yes, it was a big deal. She’s the child of the reigning king. All of my children have had ceremonies like that. But in our world, all children have the ceremonies. Often, they’re just in a family’s home, attended by close family, or during a service at a village church.”

  “Where was mine?” she asked. There was something in the tone of his voice that nagged at her. He wasn’t telling her everything here, either, though he wasn’t lying, exactly.

  “Yours was here at the castle. In my private chambers, actually. Your mother and father were there, and Nathaniel, and myself and Charlotte.”

  “My mother came here? To Eirentheos?”

  “Just the once. It was overwhelming for her. I think in many ways she always had denied the truth of what Samuel had told her; it seemed like something she didn’t want to believe. But Samuel wanted you to have an official Naming Ceremony, even though of course you already had a name in your own world. Babies born here are officially unnamed until the actual ceremony.”

  She nodded, remembering the baby girl that William had delivered when they were in Philotheum, remembering not knowing Hannah’s name until the ceremony she’d attended on her first visit here.

  “So none of us were even included?” William asked.

  Stephen smiled. “You were, actually. It was a commonplace event, you know. Simon and Maxwell were quite bored by another baby naming. Rebecca was a toddler; we had to keep stopping her from trying to pick up the baby. You had barely started walking. You were the youngest then, and having a baby in the castle for ten days enchanted you. Quinn, I think, enchant
ed you,” he looked at both of them with an unfathomable expression.

  “I’m sure you need time to process all of this, Quinn. If you’ll excuse me, I really want to go and visit with Thomas.” He stood. “We’ll talk again when you’re ready.”

  * * *

  There had been times that William had felt speechless about the situation with Quinn, but tonight he literally had no words as he led her into her bedroom after their conversation with his father. Linnea was already inside, sitting on the couch, staring at three silver trays sitting on the low table in front of her. Mia was nowhere to be seen, although the room had again been transformed from an empty guest room into Quinn’s home.

  He realized now that there might be a whole different story to this “guest room” – right in the middle of a private, family hallway, next door to Nathaniel’s room – that had never in his memory held a guest until Quinn’s first visit.

  “Thomas is more comfortable now,” Linnea said. “I think he’ll be able to sleep soon.”

  “Good,” William replied.

  “Father went in to see him.”

  William nodded, leading Quinn over to the couch. After his father had left the room, she’d finally broken down and cried for several minutes. Her eyes were still puffy and red, and she hadn’t yet said anything to him. He couldn’t blame her – he, too, was feeling shocked and drained from the events of the day.

  “You need to eat, okay?” he said softly, pulling the cover off one of the trays and setting the plate in her lap.

  “So what is going on?” Linnea asked, eyeing both of them. “Is everything okay? Is there something you’re not telling me about Thomas?”

  William stopped and knelt down in front of his little sister, looking her in the eyes. “Thomas is going to be fine, Nay. He really will. He’s home, and we’re taking care of him, and the worst part is done, okay?”

  She nodded. “Then what is it?”

  “You’re going to want to eat, too, before you hear this.”

  8. William

  “How are you doing with everything?” Linnea asked.

  Quinn shrugged, “It’s still really a lot to absorb. I’m not sure I’ve even really stopped to think about all of it.”

  Her first three days back in Eirentheos had passed in a blur. She was pretty sure she’d been in shock for most of it, and there was a lot she didn’t really remember. After her conversation with Stephen, her mind had sort of shut down, and she hadn’t really processed most of what she had learned.

  Yesterday, she’d finally had a chance to have a private conversation with Charlotte, but the kind, motherly queen had just nodded in understanding when Quinn had told her that she wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. Charlotte had hugged her, though, holding her for several minutes and then kissed the top of her head before she’d gone away again, leaving Quinn to absorb herself in spending time with Thomas, William, and Linnea.

  By last night, though, Thomas had been getting frustrated with everyone hovering over him. He said they were too cooped up in his room, and that, given a choice, he wouldn’t have been in there himself. This morning, after they’d eaten breakfast in Thomas’ room, he had turned to the girls and told them in no uncertain terms that they needed to get out of the castle today and get some sunshine.

  They were out in the back gardens now, sitting in the sun near the gazebo, listening to some of the younger children playing on the nearby swings and slides. Thomas insisted that William was to join them in a little while, but he still had quite a bit to do in attending to Thomas.

  It was a lot of work for William, being Thomas’ primary physician. He had help – his cousin Lily who had been a healer in Philotheum before she and her husband Graeme had been captured along with Thomas was now living in the castle, too, and she traded shifts with William whenever he would allow her to, which wasn’t often. And the day before yesterday, another healer cousin, Jacob, had left his clinic in Mistle Village in the care of his wife, Essie, and come to spend the day with Thomas.

  For all of that, though, William had still spent nearly every waking moment with his brother – and Quinn wasn’t sure he’d been sleeping more than a few hours at night.

  Linnea, too, had been Thomas’ constant shadow – Quinn could see how difficult spending thirty worried days without her twin had been on her.

  “Well, I, for one, am not disappointed to find out that you really belong here in our world.”

  Quinn smiled. It wasn’t the first time that Linnea had told her that. “I’m not disappointed about it either. It’s just kind of shocking to find out something like that, you know? And I am upset that I never knew that before.”

  “Me too. I would have liked to have known you the whole time we were growing up.”

  “Yeah …” She paused, watching as a bee flitted diligently from flower to flower in the small garden at her feet. “I would have liked to have you as a cousin always.”

  “Of course, I bet William’s glad that you’re not actually related to us by blood.”

  Quinn looked up at Linnea in surprise. From the grin hiding in her friend’s eyes, she figured she’d been holding on to that remark for the last couple of days. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Linnea rolled her eyes. “You know exactly what I mean. What is going on between you and my brother, anyway? Sometimes I watch the two of you together and I wonder when you’re going to be announcing your betrothal. And then the rest of the time, you make me wonder if you even know each other.”

  Quinn raised an eyebrow.

  “You know me. I say it the way I see it.”

  There was a reason, she supposed, that Linnea was known for her ability to read people – perhaps it was part of her birth gift of influence.

  “I don’t know the answer to that, Nay. We’ve never really talked about it – not that we ever get a chance to.”

  “So there is something! When did he kiss you?”

  Quinn’s mouth fell open. “Who said he kissed me?” Of course, the flash burn across her face was going to give her away completely.

  “Was it when you were in Bristlecone, or before that? Because there seemed to be something already going on when you came back from Philotheum.”

  “You’re dangerous, Linnea. You know that, right?”

  “When? I want details!”

  “You want details about someone kissing your brother?”

  “I don’t want to kiss him. I want details about you kissing him.”

  Quinn gave an exasperated sigh, but it was hard not to admit that Linnea’s excitement had her heart thumping excitedly. “Fine. It was when we were in Philotheum.”

  “And …?”

  “I don’t know … we were locked in this weird basement, and we’d just found out that Ellen was Tolliver’s sister, and we were both completely freaked out, and then suddenly we were laughing about something … I don’t even remember … and then we kissed.”

  Linnea’s eyes widened along with her grin. “And then what happened?”

  “I don’t know. I think something happened that scared us again, and by then it was done; it had happened. We never really talked about it after that, but ever since then, things have just been … different. He’s been different. I think I’ve been different.”

  “He’s a guy, Quinn. He doesn’t know how to do these things.”

  “And you think I do? Seriously, Linnea. I was still technically dating Zander when I kissed him. And I screwed that whole relationship up big time.”

  “Oh, whatever. You and Zander were never meant to be, anyway. How long do you think that could have ever lasted once you found out you were actually from Eirentheos?”

  “Yeah, well, that little tidbit of information changed everything, but it’s not like I knew that at the time.”

  “So you two never kissed or anything again after that?”

  “No. We haven’t kissed, we haven’t talked about it. It’s like nothing is different and everything is different.”
r />   “What do you want things to be between the two of you?”

  Quinn closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to think. “I don’t even know, Linnea. There’s been an awful lot going on since then. Thinking about kissing William seems awfully trivial compared to everything else, you know?”

  To her surprise, Linnea frowned. “Is love something trivial in your world, Quinn?”

  “Um,” she paused, “I don’t know.” It was a question she’d never even considered. “I guess sometimes it is. Or, at least, relationships when you’re sixteen often are.”

  Linnea nodded; her face more serious than Quinn was used to. “In our world, sixteen cycles is old enough for a girl to get married.”

  Quinn’s mouth fell open. “Who brought up marriage Linnea? I told you we kissed. Once. Quite a while ago now.”

  “I’m not saying I expect you to marry him. I was just pointing out that here, in our world, at your age, relationships aren’t trivial. Rebecca was seventeen when she married Howard. Now she’s barely nineteen, and they’re expecting their first baby.”

  Quinn was still struggling to concentrate after Linnea had brought that word into the conversation. “You said girls are old enough at sixteen. What about guys?”

  “Men in our world are of age at eighteen. Which William will be before long, by the way.”

  She took a deep breath. “I don’t think I’m ready to think that far ahead, Linnea. It’s hard enough trying to figure out if that kiss meant something in the first place.”

  “Fair enough,” Linnea said. “And there’s no time like the present to sort that one out. I’ll see you at lunch.” She smiled and stood to walk back toward the castle, leaving Quinn staring after her, dumbfounded.

  She was still staring at the path when, a second later, a different figure appeared around the hedge, making her heart thump erratically. It was William. She didn’t know if it was because her mind was already there from the conversation she’d just been having with Linnea, but her breath caught a little at the sight of him in his neatly-pressed gray slacks and white, short-sleeved polo shirt. His wire-framed glasses were tucked in his shirt pocket; he didn’t need them unless he had to read something, but he always kept them close.