Thorns of Decision (Dusk Gate Chronicles)

by Breeana Puttroff

  William closed his eyes for a moment and then nodded. “I know you are Nay.” He did feel bad at how often things happened that Linnea didn’t get to be part of. And he felt even worse, because there was something else he’d taken away from her recently, too, something that he now realized might not have been the right decision.

  “Look, Nay, we just heard some really bad news, and I can’t talk about it right now and stay at the party and do what I need to do – and I think Quinn feels the same way. I promise I’ll fill you in on it tomorrow, though.”

  And he would – at least the parts that were his to share. But the hurt didn’t disappear from her eyes.

  A little way across the floor from them, he could see from the expression on Thomas’ face that he and Quinn were having a similar conversation. As hard as he tried to enjoy the rest of his party and entertain his guests, dancing with everyone, he was preoccupied the whole time, always watching Quinn, wondering how she was doing.

  All of this was an awful lot for a sixteen-year-old girl from another world to absorb – too much, he thought. Finding out that she was the heir to the throne in a kingdom in another world was bad enough without walking into the middle of a war, too.

  She was holding it together impressively, though. As he watched, she danced with Thomas, with his older brothers, even some of his cousins, though he chuckled quietly when he saw her excuse herself for a few minutes when his cousin Gavin was approaching. She smiled and laughed, looking every bit like it was all natural to her, as if she belonged here. He was surprised to find himself following her lead, trying to navigate his interactions with his guests with the same grace she was showing.

  It was only when she danced with him again that she seemed to let her mind wander back to reality, and then the deep crease showed itself between her eyebrows, and her hands trembled slightly in his.

  When the night was over, William upset his siblings again by asking for a few minutes alone with Quinn as he walked her up to her room.

  As soon as he’d closed her door behind them, she looked up at him. “Well, that wasn’t how I envisioned your birthday party.”

  He smiled softly. “No. I guess things really don’t go according to plan sometimes.”

  “I don’t have any idea what to do, Will.” She sank down onto her couch.

  “I know you don’t.” He perched on the edge of her small table, putting his hands on her knees, tracing the lines of velvet flowers on her skirt with his fingers, trying to sort out his own thoughts.

  “Part of me wants to run off to Philotheum tonight and tell Tolliver to get off my throne and send Dorian and James back home, right now.”

  His eyes widened for a second – it surprised him that she’d actually thought that far. Trying to keep the pressure off her, he chuckled. “I know, love. I don’t think it’s that simple though.”

  “No, it’s not. Especially because the other part of me really wishes that the biggest thing I had to worry about right now was how I’m ever going to get my grade back up in World History.”

  At the moment, part of him felt that way, too. “Maybe you’ve been studying the wrong world,” he said with a wry grin.

  Quinn snickered, and the suddenness of the noise caused him to burst out laughing, too. The pair of them sat there, laughing hysterically for several minutes. “In either case,” she finally agreed, out of breath, as she was overcome with another bout of the giggles.

  When she was finally calm, though, her expression took on a serious tone that erased all of the laughter from the last several minutes.

  “What are you thinking, sweetheart?”

  Her chin shook as she swallowed, the crease on her forehead deepening. “I was thinking that I want to join the Friends of Philip.”

  Somehow, her words didn’t surprise him at all; that should have seemed all wrong to him, but it didn’t; it felt right. Still, he had to ask the question. “Are you sure, Quinn? You’re still not obligated to this world, you know? I don’t think you should make any huge decisions this fast.”

  She stood and walked over to the window – he could see from her posture that she was deep in thought, trying to figure out how to express what was on her mind. He waited while she looked outside for a long moment before finally turning back to him.

  “I don’t know a lot of things, Will. But it’s too late now to pretend that none of this ever happened – maybe it’s even too late to pretend that I never should have followed you and walked off that bridge. I don’t know what it was – but I don’t believe it was just a freak accident anymore.”

  She turned back toward the window again, looking out as her voice dropped low, almost as if she was speaking to herself more than she was to him. “I know now that I can’t ever just completely walk away from this world. No matter what I decide, this is still half of who I am. This is who I was born to be. And I don’t know everything. I don’t know what I believe, and what I don’t. But I can see what’s right. And I know whose side I’m on.”

  As she finished, a warm feeling settled in his chest. He stood and crossed the room to her, taking one of her hands in his, and with the other catching a long tendril of her auburn hair that had slipped from the intricate braid. Her breath caught as he twirled the strand around his finger, and he looked into her eyes, the warm feeling inside of him growing more intense, building slowly into something more, a warm glow that spread through every part of him.

  “I love you, Quinn.”

  He hadn’t planned on telling her that, hadn’t known until that moment that it was true. He didn’t have any idea how she would react – she’d probably feel like he was pushing her, except he wasn’t. He knew what the stakes were, knew that there was a good chance that he couldn’t keep her regardless, but at that moment he knew – down into the deepest part of his being, he knew that it didn’t matter. None of it, not how they’d gotten here, not where it was going to go, mattered. He loved her, would always love her, and she deserved to know.

  She didn’t look away, which was encouraging, though he saw the surprise register somewhere in the depths of her gray eyes. As he watched, other emotions battled there, too, though she grew completely silent, until she finally did look down, studying the way their hands were entwined. When she finally looked back up, her lower lip trembled.

  “We were set up, you know. The whole reason your parents sent you to Bristlecone was because they hoped you and I would somehow meet and hit it off.” Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, and her hands were shaking now, too.

  He lifted a finger and pressed it softly against her lips. “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “Yes, the other night, after you and I talked, I went straight to my parents’ room. We had a long conversation about it. Very long.” He shook his head, trying to dispel the memory.

  “You’re not mad?”

  “I was, Quinn – not at you,” he added quickly, feeling her hand grow clammy in his. “It wasn’t your decision or your fault. You were a pawn in this game, too.”

  “I didn’t tell you.”

  The fear in her voice hurt his heart. He moved his face close to hers, looking her in the eye. “You just barely found out, yourself. I didn’t have any idea how to bring that up in a conversation, and I knew you already knew.”

  “So ... when did you decide you weren’t mad about it?” She was looking down again, her voice so quiet he had to strain to make out all of the words.

  He sighed, taking one of her hands in both of his now, studying the texture of the soft skin, tracing it with his finger. “I don’t know that I’ve actually decided I’m not mad. What I have decided is that as far as my feelings about you are concerned, how we got to this point – whether it was by accident or someone else’s ridiculous design – it doesn’t matter. It’s how I feel. I love you.”

  His breath caught as she finally returned his gaze, her eyes searing through him, somehow seeing right into the depths of his being. “I love you, too, William.”
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  There were no words to describe the way the feeling exploded in his chest then. If he’d felt he was consumed a moment ago, it was nothing compared to this – to her returning his feelings. Their lips touched then, and the warm glow suddenly sparked into a flame, a raging fire that flowed through every part of him, burning away any doubt he’d ever had about her, replacing it with something new.

  The kiss went on for a long time, building in intensity until he finally pulled away, knowing exactly what was going to happen if he didn’t, desperately hanging on to the small piece of him that knew he didn’t want to take that from her, not until the day when he could pledge every part of himself to her.

  It took several minutes for them to recover, both of them out of breath as they stumbled back, Quinn to the couch, and him to an armchair a safe distance away.

  When he finally felt he could speak again, he looked over at her. “Are you okay?”

  She blinked. “Um … more than okay, I think.” The edges of her lips curved up in a half-smile for a few seconds, and then suddenly the smile faded and a crease appeared between her eyebrows. “Why? Are you okay?”

  She looked so worried that he couldn’t help dashing back toward her. Sitting down next to her on the couch, he stretched his hand toward her, and gently turned her face to meet his. “I’m perfect, Quinn. Even with everything else that’s going on – I’ve never been this happy, never imagined I could be this happy.”

  He paused, trying to swallow back the new kind of nervousness that had risen in his throat. “I just … I know your world is different from mine. I never thought about girls there, never tried to understand how this whole thing works there. And I don’t know what you expect from me – when I’m pushing you too far, or … or when you might be wishing for something more. I don’t know what you and Zander …”

  She put her finger against his lip, silencing him. “I know you’re not asking, Will, I know. But Zander and I kissed – that’s all. You and I have done more than Zander and I ever did … and I’m good with this. This – you and I, where we are, where we’re going … it all feels right to me. This is good.”

  Relief washed over him in an enormous wave, although a new worry edged in at the corner of his mind. “You know it’s not that I cared what you and Zander…”

  She frowned. “Really, Will? You wouldn’t care? I mean, I appreciate that you’re trying to be so open and understanding about everything, but if we were talking about you and another girl here – I would care.”

  The second wave of relief took him by surprise; the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding exploded out of him in an unexpected chuckle. Quinn was smiling, her eyes soft and warm, and she took his hands in hers.

  He squeezed her hands gently, rubbing his index finger against her thumb. “Our worlds are so different … the rules are much simpler here – what’s expected and appropriate when you’re courting, and what’s not.”

  “It’s not so different, Will,” she said, shaking her head. “Not for everyone, anyway. I was raised … well, my mom did marry someone from your world, so …”

  He smiled, leaning in to kiss her on the forehead, amazed at how much better he felt having this open between them. “So we’re on the same page about this – both of us okay with the way things are.”

  “Like I said … more than okay.”

  Pulling her into his arms, he held her against his chest for a long, comfortable time, thinking that he’d never felt so safe or so calm before. Quinn’s breathing, too, was soft and slow as she played absently with the pendant she’d pulled out from under his shirt.

  He kissed her hair, deep in thought now. “I was going to tell you – maybe not tonight, but tomorrow, that I’ve decided the same thing. I want to join the Friends of Philip, too.”

  There was no surprise on her face as she looked up at him. She simply nodded, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to say right now.

  “There’s something else I haven’t told you.” He hadn’t intended to, actually, because he’d already made a decision about it – or he thought he had, but tonight at the party, and after everything that had happened in the last couple of days, it had come back into his mind, and he knew, now, that his original decision had been wrong.

  She raised an eyebrow, sitting up and turning slightly to face him. “More secrets?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Well?”

  “When a prince – or a princess – comes of age in our world, it’s traditional to take a journey around the kingdom, visiting villages they’ve never been to, and getting to know the people there, helping out with a project, that kind of thing.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that,” she said. “But Linnea said you’d decided not to go – she was really mad, actually. Something about the next youngest child gets to go on the trip, too?”

  “Yes, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.”

  “So what made you decide not to go, and to risk the wrath of Linnea?”

  He sighed, his eyes tracing the trail of flowers on her skirt again. “I guess, in a way, I was feeling like it didn’t really apply to me. I already have traveled to so many of the villages, helped with so many projects, gotten to know so many of the people. I even went along on Rebecca’s trip two cycles ago, when I was the next-youngest. It seemed – I don’t know – superfluous to take another trip just because.”

  Quinn frowned again, but she didn’t say all of the words he could see hiding behind her eyes. “And now?”

  “And now – after the conversation earlier tonight, and the one you and I had the other morning – I realize that as a prince, I can’t just decide what things to be a part of, and which ones I can just blow off, even if I think my excuses are good. Well, I can – my parents were upset, but especially given the higher level of danger, it was my adult choice to go or not go. I can choose that, but what does it say to the people of our kingdom, and to my family? Even to myself, really?”

  “And definitely to Linnea.”

  He nodded. “Right. I wasn’t making the decision only for myself. And it wasn’t fair.”

  “So you’re going to go?”

  “Yes.”

  Tiny creases appeared in the corners of her eyes. “How long is the trip?”

  “Usually for an entire moon.”

  “Wow.” Her throat quivered as she swallowed. “When would you go?”

  “Before I answer that,” he said, meeting her eyes again, “I should say that I would like you to come along with me.”

  Her eyes widened. “Is that allowed?” The concern in her expression made him smile.

  “Encouraged, actually, if we’re courting. If I wasn’t courting anyone, one purpose of the trip would be to meet more young ladies.”

  “We’re definitely courting,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

  He grinned. “I think we’ve established that.”

  “Just saying.”

  “I would want to leave soon, in maybe three or four days.”

  She nodded. “I still have plenty of time before Spring Break ends. I’ll come.”

  “Good.” The heavy feeling had been sitting in his chest without his even noticing, until suddenly it was gone, and he felt oddly light. This was the right thing to do. “Although,” he paused now, rethinking the timing, because he really did want to take care of the other thing first. “I want to join the Friends of Philip before I go. I want to be clear about where I stand – with my people and with myself.”

  Quinn nodded. “So what happens with the whole “next youngest child” thing when there are twins? Who gets to go? Is Thomas even ready to travel?”

  “I’m not leaving Linnea behind this time,” he said. “I feel bad enough. She was really devastated when I told her I wasn’t going.”

  “What about Thomas?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Probably. His leg is doing much better now – I think he could safely travel in a wagon. But we could just ask him.”


  25. Canceled

  As Quinn had expected, Linnea was ecstatic when William told her he planned to go on the trip after all. He had apparently managed to find her as soon as she woke up in the morning, because Quinn had just finished getting dressed when Linnea came bouncing in to her room, excited about the news.

  She stood there with her hair still dripping as Linnea gushed about finally getting to go “on an adventure” with Quinn and her brothers.

  “If Thomas is able to go,” Quinn said.

  Linnea raised an eyebrow. “It’s Thomas. He’ll find a way.”

  “That I will,” he said from the doorway. “I’m sure I’ll be just fine.” He came in the room, smiling as usual, but Quinn noticed that his demeanor was off, just a little bit, as it so often had been since his time in Philotheum.

  He caught her studying him, and he must have noticed that she was more somber than usual, too, judging from the look he gave her. “So what happened last night at the party, Quinn?”

  A heavy feeling washed over her. As devastating as the news about the Blackwelders had been to her last night – she was dreading Thomas’ reaction. “You might want to sit down,” she said.

  “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” William’s voice, coming from the doorway, startled her. He came in and closed the door behind himself.

  Although Linnea was upset after Quinn and William told them what they’d heard about Dorian and James, by the end of the story Thomas had gone completely white. He sat in one of the armchairs, perfectly still, and staring at a small vase on the table, not saying anything.

  Quinn looked over at Linnea, who shook her head, her eyes growing wide as she looked at her twin brother. Although he was still the sweet, lighthearted Thomas that they loved, there were times they all had seen how his time in Philotheum had affected him more deeply than anyone wanted to admit. This was one of those times.

  Linnea moved over toward him, hovering close by, but they could all sense that he wasn’t ready to be touched, and they waited.