City of Thorns by C.N. Crawford

Chapter 38

Ileaned back on my bed in my basement apartment, staring at the wall. I poured myself another paper cup of cheap red wine, no longer caring that the spiders were crawling all over my bedspread.

Let them crawl.

I’d been down here for nearly a day, and I was on my second bottle.

If Orion wanted to come find me and throw me in prison again, it wouldn’t be hard. I hadn’t bothered to hide. I’d just come back to where I’d started—the mildewed basement I shared with six other people. Now, I had less fear but a lot more self-loathing. If Orion dragged me back, I’d go dressed in old leggings and a David Bowie T-shirt covered in wine stains. And I’m not sure I’d put up that much of a fight.

My gaze wandered around the room, then landed on the fire extinguisher. I broke out into a sort of hysterical dark laughter and spilled some of my wine on the duvet.

Guess I could get rid of all the fire safety equipment now.

My phone buzzed—another text from Shai, desperate to know what was going on. I hadn’t been answering, because frankly, I had no idea what to say.

I was a demon, yes. But I wasn’t going to deliver that news over text. Still, I should let her know I was alive.

I flicked open my new, extremely cheap phone. Unable to come up with anything better, I texted her a smiley face and a bottle of wine emoji.

That should cover it.

My head was swimming, and I was starting to feel faintly nauseated. When had I last eaten?

The room seemed to be wavering. Apparently, being a demon made you faster and stronger, but it didn’t raise your alcohol tolerance.

And yet, I didn’t want my head to clear. I couldn’t face the possibility that my own fire magic had killed Mom.

When my phone buzzed again, I found a frantic all-caps message from Shai:

ARE YOU OKAY??! WTF IS HAPPENING? TWO MORE DUKES ARE DEAD?? I saw Legion in the Sathanas Ward. I got up the courage to ask him where Mortana was. He said no one had seen you, and rumor was that you’d burned two dukes. ARE YOU OKAY?

I dropped my cup of wine on the bedside table and started typing back to her.

I’m fine!

You know what? Fuck it. I was always so worried about what people would think or that I’d make them uncomfortable with the darkness I carried with me. I never wanted to burden anyone with my most disturbing thoughts. Maybe I could actually learn a thing or two from Orion. Maybe I could try…just coming out and saying things.

With a strange feeling of giddiness, I typed:

Turns out I’m a demon. I have fire magic. And a star mark. What if I’m the one who killed Mom? What if I’m evil?

I watched as the dots moved on the screen while she wrote back to me, and my heart pounded as if the judgment of St. Peter awaited me.

Evil people don’t worry that they’re evil, Rowan. They don’t care.

My chest unclenched, and I dropped the phone. Holy shit. Of course she was right.

Why hadn’t I been able to think clearly enough to consider that? A psychopath doesn’t worry that she’s evil. She doesn’t feel anxiety. And me? Even as a demon, I had plenty of that.

I rose from my bed and yanked open my basement door. Orion described someone who at her core did not care for other people. And what I’d said to him was true—my emotions rose to the surface when I felt like I desperately wanted to protect him.

And I couldn’t be Mortana.

I mean, I remembered being a kid. Crying in the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese and peeing my pants in the second grade. Mom sending me to school with waffles for a year because I refused to eat anything else, and other kids laughing at my bony knees. The nights Mom spent petting my head because I had nightmares and kept asking for water.

I remembered being the fastest kid in my gym class but never being able to climb the ropes, and having a crush on Matt Logan even after he told me I was annoying. I remembered watching The Price is Right with my mom over early lunches and getting excited at the prizes.

I remembered getting Communion when I went to church with my friend Amy, even though I wasn’t Catholic. I’d immediately puked over a statue of Santa Lucia.

And…now I understood why I’d puked, I guess.

Maybe magic could suppress memories, but could it really fake a childhood? With that level of specificity? I wasn’t a five-hundred-year-old demon. I was Rowan Morgenstern, and that was all there was to it.

And most of all, I remembered how much I loved my mom because I’d felt safe near her. No matter how mad I’d been at her, there was no way I’d killed her. At least not on purpose.

When I went outside, I was surprised to find that it was night—I’d completely lost track of time. I blinked at the moon over Osborne, feeling oddly at home under its light.

Holy shit.

I was Rowan Morgenstern, but I was also a succubus, wasn’t I?

A creature of the night. I belonged out here.

I glanced at the key tattoo again on my arm—now permanent. I still didn’t know what had happened, but I could only guess that Mom had given me the spell to make sure I was always safe. That my blood tasted mortal, just in case.

I started walking toward the waterfront. It was colder here than in the City of Thorns, and goosebumps rose over my skin. The air tasted of salt and smelled of seaweed. By the cold sea, I let the shadows swallow me. I didn’t actually have to be scared of being outside at night anymore. The mortals couldn’t hurt me. The demons wouldn’t dare.

The thing was, if I was a demon, I didn’t really belong out here in Osborne, did I? If I didn’t get within the city walls again, I only had about another day or two before my magic faded.

I wasn’t mortal. Neither was Mom. She was Lilu—one of the exiled. She’d been living out here in hiding, always looking over her shoulder. Banished just because she was a succubus.

And my dad? If he was, in fact, Duke Moloch, he’d been killed just after I was born. About twenty years ago. Maybe he’d gone back to try to save me.

My mind snagged on the nursery rhyme I’d found, the one in the book. Had that meant anything?

The Maere of Night

Gave girls a fright,

But one queen loved him well.

He lost his throne

But seeds were sown

In the garden of Adele.

A swindler king,

A golden ring

To keep his heart alive.

Take the ring,

Fell the king,

The city yet will thrive.

It sounded like a nursery rhyme, but I was sure something important had been written into that poem. A secret I needed to unlock.

From deep within my brain, an ancient instinct was rising to the surface, and magic tingled down my shoulder blades.

I needed to take to the skies. I needed to be free.

My back arched, then wings burst from my skin. When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw them, black and feathered, flecked with gold. Beautiful.

This was a release—the unveiling of my true self. My wings started to pound the air, instinct carrying me higher and higher into the briny wind.

Orion hated me now. He was convinced down to his marrow that I was Mortana.

But I was going to find out the truth. I was going to learn exactly what happened to Mom, and who I was.

What makes a person who they are, their essence? Was it a soul or their memories? I didn’t know. I only knew I wasn’t the monster Orion imagined me to be.

I breathed in deeply and stared at the locked gates of the City of Thorns.

Deep within my bones, I knew that was where I belonged. I’d always known.

I was a Lightbringer—blessed by Lucifer. And whether he liked it or not, I would fight him for my place in the city I was destined to lead.

* * *

Thankyou for reading City of Thorns. We will be having discussions online through C.N. Crawford’s Coven.

If you would like to read a short deleted chapter from the perspective Orion—giving a glimpse into his last meeting with Mortana in the 1820s—click here.

You can order the sequel here —> Lord of Embers.

On the following pages, I’ve included the opening chapters of another one of our novels, The Fallen.

Our full list of books can be found on Amazon or Goodreads.