Page 89 of A Treason of Thorns

The room is bare and roofless, and I pick my way around rubble.

“Have it your way, Violet Sterling,” Burleigh says from across the room and I startle. There he sits, on the pile of moldering linens discarded in one corner, wearing the body that was once Wyn’s. I swallow, and steel my nerves.

“Bind us or unbind us. Do what you wish,” Burleigh continues, an almost sorrowful note in his shattered-stone voice. “The truth is, after all these years, we’re tired. So tired, little girl. And it might be more than we could bear, to start over again. We don’t have the strength of spirit or the force of will or the sense of purpose left fornew beginnings. So do as you wish—have your way with us.”

Through a window behind Burleigh, I can see the back woods. They’re all ablaze now, and flames are beginning to lick at the wildflower meadow. Not long before they consume it, and come for the rose garden, and then start to gnaw at the walls as well.

I bite at my lower lip. Oh, Burleigh. How you break my heart. Whatever Wyn and my father did for me, I’ve never been anything but bound to you. And what shall I do, here at the end? Break my own binding—not one of blood and mortar, but of love and expectation and countless years of history—in hopes that I can buy Wyn a second chance at life? Or honor the bond between us, and give life to you instead?

“This is the right place, then?” I ask Burleigh. “Your very heart, where I can bind or unbind you?”

Burleigh shrugs, an all too human and Wyn-like gesture, and I wonder. He jerks his head toward the room’s far wall. “Our heart isn’t a place, Violet Sterling. You could have unbound us the moment you laid hands on that stone.”

I glance over at the far wall in confusion and tears prick at my eyes. Because there it is, still carved into the plaster in tall and brutal capitals.

VI. My own, mortar-scarred name.

I have always been the heart of Burleigh House, though it is no longer wholly mine.

Smoke burns at my eyes and I don’t want this, Papa. I’m not enough for it. How do I choose between two halves of myself? How will I live if from this moment on, my soul is split in two?

A good Caretaker puts her House first.

Before king.

Before country.

Before her own heart.

I kneel in front of Burleigh, choking on tears. Pulling my gutting knife from one pocket, I draw it across my palm. Blood wells up, bright and vital, full of life and still-unbroken promises.

“Give me his hand,” I say to Burleigh. The House holds out its hand that once was Wyn’s. But when I cut it, there’s no blood left in these veins, only the gritty grey slick of mortar.

Putting my gutting knife aside, I take the heartstone out and set it on my own bloodied palm.

“Go on,” I say to Burleigh, and the House fixes me with a devastating look. There are eight hundred years of pain and exhaustion and brokenness in those eyes that don’t belong to it, and resignation, too. Right now, in this moment, Burleigh is entirely within my power.

Wyn’s hand cups the top of the heartstone, my blood and Burleigh’s mortar mingling together.

“Burleigh House,” I say. “My name is Violet Sterling, last of my line, and my family has always served you well. By the blood in my veins and the mortar in your walls...”

Burleigh fixes his sorrowful, stolen eyes on me, and dear God, all I want is to see Wyn looking out from that face at me again.

“... I unbind you. Be whole again, Burleigh. Be well again. Be free.”

Rain slams into me from above as the clouds split apart. A great, earth-shattering roar of thunder shakes the skies, and the foundation of the House. Wind howls through the broken windows. Andbefore me, Burleigh rises in power.

Blinding light radiates from the creature that is no longer Wyn and no longer the House I knew, either. I put up a hand to shield my eyes, and am struck by the sudden, irrational thought that perhaps this isn’t Burleigh at all, but one of the seraphim Mira told me stories of on the fens. An angel of life or death, or perhaps both at once.

Everything around me is wind and thunder and light and rain.

“Remember this, Burleigh,” I call out in a panic, my voice barely audible in the tumult. “Remember how I loved you. And if you can, give him back. Mend my heart again, as I mended yours.”

There’s no answer but the scream of wind and the growl of thunder. At last I’m forced to shut my eyes against the burning light and the driving rain.

When I dare to open them, the noise of the storm has grown bearable. Rain still pelts my skin, but I’m no longer on the grounds. Instead, I’m in the lane, my back to Burleigh’s great iron gate, which has been restored to its prior form.

In front of me stands His Majesty the king and a regiment of soldiers, all of them soaked to the skin and looking like they’ve seen the dead rise up from their graves. Behind me, the House is swathed in a pillar of cloud and fire. The sounds of its restoration are a terrible and mighty thing.