A Bargain Made in Thorns
Synopsis
Ashenmarch is walled by the Briar, a living thorn hedge grown from a bargain struck three centuries ago, and Idonea Brackwater is one of the briarwrights licensed to prune it. When her shears bleed a Heartthorn that shouldn't exist, the Thorn Court sends its Debt-Keeper, Ossian Thray, to audit a balance the city has never once been asked to pay — and Ida buys herself forty-one days with a counter-bargain that binds her wrist to his in living thorn. What they find in the Registry of Bargains is a forged page, a tithe paid in Brackwater women, and a debt that was settled two hundred years ago; what they find in each other is the one thing the Ledger cannot price, and only one of them can pay to close the account.
Chapters 6 of 6 chapters free
- 1 The Bloom That Shouldn't Free
- 2 The Debt-Keeper Free
- 3 Forty-One Days Free
- 4 Thornbound Free
- 5 Inside the Wall Free
- 6 The Registry of Bargains Free