Page 99 of Thornlight

The Bound Hurts

Afriend was not a thing Cub had had since the day the Vale split.

And now—lucky Cub—he had two.

Fern and Ford were their names, and it was easier to climb now that they were beside him. They told him he was brave. They sang songs that left all the tired edges of his heart feeling soft, as if he was lying in a meadow on a summer’s night, his big furry belly full of sap and clovers.

But the else-hand did not like Cub feeling happiness.

The queen stewing at the other end didn’t like it either.

Cub enjoyed two days of quiet stories and slow climbing, and listening to his human friends breathe as they slept curled up in each other’s arms.

Ford and Fern. Fern and Ford.

Brier, and Thorn. Their daughters. Cub hoped he would meet them someday.

He was muttering their names to himself, drifting toward sleep, when the else-hand awoke and clenched hard around his neck.

Punch the beast,came the else-hand’s voice.Pound him and kick him and shove him down, down, down.

Cub lurched upright, clawing at his throat. Through the else-hand’s dark magic, he saw a flash of something from the up-above world—Queenie, running through her castle with a sword in her hand.

Ford and Fern reached for him, shouting his name, as if two mere humans could ever keep a beast like Cub from falling.

Then, tugging sharply, tightening like a noose around Cub’s neck, the else-hand dragged him down into darkness.

And this time, something was different.

The else-hand felt angrier than it had ever been, and more afraid.

It sank into Cub’s neck like a collar of thorns, and pierced him deeper, and deeper, until its nails scraped his tongue.

Cub fell. He slammed into a cliff, and then a cluster of rocks, and then a canyon carved by the rivers made by his own sadness. He lay there shaking and began to cry, huge fat tears that spilled over his paws like oceans, for he had climbed so far and now had to do some of it all over again, and he wastiredof climbing, and even more tired of falling.

Through his great beastly eyes, Cub looked up. Darkness bled up the walls of the Break, rustling like a forest at night. He saw Fern and Ford leaning out from their cliff, far above him. Fern called out his name and told him not to be afraid. He was brave, Ford said, and they weren’t going to leave him. He would never be alone again.

That was when Cub saw the curious thing.

Not the thousand black fingers reaching up the Break for the surface, made of the same wicked meanness as the else-hand. No, Cub was used to seeing those, though he’d never stopped fearing them.

What Cub saw instead was much more interesting.

The else-hand squeezed, its tendrils licking the corners of Cub’s mind, and once again he saw the young queen of the up-above world.

Now she was holding a girl in the air—a girl with pale skin and soft brown hair and wide, frightened dark eyes. She looked like Fern, and Ford too.

A word came to Cub’s tired mind:Brier?

Or Thorn?

The queen dropped the girl.

A spinning star jumped after her.

And the queen...

Cub raised his old black nose into the darkness, sniffing. He followed the cord of the else-hand, holding his mind very still around it. Nose quivering, he traced the else-hand higher than he’d dared follow it before. He followed it zipping up the Break, then racing like an arrow up the great black cliffs above, and then, finally, into the white stone castle that belonged to a queen named...