Isolde was on her knees at the thorn-line west of Aldwick, tracing the faint grooves of half-legible script along a stem thick as her wrist. The whole black tangle of it shivered once, all at once, like something under the ground had noticed her hand and decided to answer.
She snatched her fingers back a half-second before Thane’s grip closed hard over her wrist and hauled her a full step back from the thorn, his own breath gone short and fast at her ear.
“It moved,” she said, staring at the stem, which had gone still again as though it had never stirred at all. “Thane. It moved when I touched it.”
“I saw.” He didn’t let go of her wrist immediately, and she found she didn’t ask him to. “It’s never done that before. Not with soldiers. Not with scholars. Not with me. I’ve stood right where you’re standing…
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