Princess of Thorns (5 page)

“And why’s that?” Ror asks. “Have you had a hard life?”

“Hard enough.”

“My life with the Fey hasn’t been hard, but I’ve lived through horrible things, and lately I’ve done … horrible things,” he says, something in his voice killing the mocking remark on the tip of my tongue. “Most mornings, I wake up feeling a thousand years old and terrified that my sister or I will be captured and used to usher in an age of ogre rule.”

“The ogres rule most of Mataquin already,” I say, my jaded view of the current politics creeping into my tone. “The world won’t be so different if the prophecy is fulfilled.”

“The Fey know better.” Ror leans his cheek against Button’s glossy shoulder as he walks. “The world as we know it will cease to be. There will be no sun. Plants and animals and the Fey will die, and humans will live in terror. Once their reign begins, the ogres’ sole purpose will be to consume the spirit of every human in Mataquin. They believe it’s the only way to open the gates to the Underworld where their Lost Mother waits for them.”

I’m silent for a moment, my drink-soured stomach clenching. The Fey are flighty, emotional, prone to dramatic gestures, and a dozen other things I’ve been raised to disdain, but they are also masters of foresight. If they say the ogre prophecy is something to fear, they are no doubt right. And Ror has awoken with this knowledge, and the fate of the world, weighing on him every morning since he was not much more than a babe.

I stop Alama and reach out to squeeze Ror’s narrow shoulder. “All right then. You’re not a child. I’ll do my best to remember.”

Ror’s gray eyes go wide and his brows lift toward the warrior’s knot atop his head, his shock so apparent I can’t help but laugh.

“I’m not really a dumb oaf,” I say, swinging up into my saddle. “I admit it when I’m wrong. On the
rare
occasions when I am, of course.”

“Of course.” Ror shakes his head before jogging forward, using his staff to boost him level with Button’s back. The horse sidesteps when Ror’s feet leave the ground, but the prince is quick to slide his leg over Button’s back and take his seat before the startled animal moves out of reach.

“There, there,” he mutters, stroking Button’s throat before glancing back to me. “Thank you, by the way. For rescuing me.”

“Thank you for the whipping you gave the man creeping up behind me. But then, I wouldn’t have had a man creeping up behind me if it weren’t for you.” I nudge Alama with my heels and she moves off down the path. “Practice being less foolish in the future, will you?”

“Only if you practice being less insufferable,” Ror calls after me.

“Can’t.” I sniff. “Have to keep myself in prime condition for your sister. Girls like insufferable boys. It’s the nice ones they can’t be bothered with. Store that pearl away for your future, Ror, if you hope to fare well with women.”

Ror grumbles something foul beneath his breath that makes me grin, and a weight lifts from my shoulders.

It isn’t healthy for two men to talk soft to each other for too long. Better to leave the feelings to women and fairies and others who have the time for them. A man’s energy is better spent getting his work done, and at the moment my work is to get Ror across Norvere as quickly as possible, leaving me ample time to woo his lovely sister.

My insufferable guide and I reach the ridge above the forest proper—where the trees are thinner and the unusually warm autumn sun hotter on our bare heads—by midmorning and continue east.

We ride hard through the middle of the day, stopping only to water the horses and take a quick meal in the shade, sharing dried meat and crackers from Niklaas’s pack, accompanied by hard, sour apples I gathered as we traveled.

Mercifully the ridge road is narrower and less trafficked than the road below. We see signs that someone has camped off the trail a few days’ past but meet not a soul the entire day. The scarcity of travelers isn’t surprising. The Boughtswords rule these woods, a state of being Niklaas says is encouraged by both Ekeeta and his father. The woods serve as a buffer between two kingdoms that have never entirely trusted each other, though they have been allies since before my grandfather’s time.

“You’ve met Ekeeta, then?” Niklaas asks.

“When we were little, my father would take Aurora and me to court on festival days. Ekeeta would give us toys and sweets, but I remember being afraid of her. Even then. Why my grandfather chose an ogre for his third wife is something that was never explained to my satisfaction.” I shift my weight forward on Button’s back, doing my best not to wince in pain.

I don’t want Niklaas to know how raw I’m feeling after so many hours of riding without a saddle. The fact that my britches were damp for the first several hours of the ride hasn’t helped matters, but I would be feeling a lot less chafed if I’d taken the time to saddle Button before fleeing the mercenary camp.

“Well, Ekeeta is a beautiful woman,” Niklaas says, pressing on, though the sun is sinking into the trees behind us, painting the forest in dreamy pink light. “All long legs and creamy skin and tits as pert as a girl’s a tenth her age.”

I wrinkle my nose at his crass description as I shift my weight again, still unable to find a comfortable position. “Maybe. But she has disturbing fingers.”

“Disturbing fingers?” he asks with a laugh.

“Long and spindly like spider legs. Not to mention that she’s a monster who feeds on mortal souls. She may look human, but she isn’t.”

Niklaas chuckles again. “At least the ogres stopped eating our flesh. That’s something, right?” He reins Alama in, giving Button and me the chance to pull even with them on the trail. “And a beautiful woman is a beautiful woman, disturbing fingers, questionable eating habits, or no.”

I blink up at him. “You aren’t serious.”

“Why not?” He grins as he leans forward to stroke Alama’s long white throat. “Men are fools when it comes to a pretty face.”

“I’m sure there were prettier faces in the capital at the time,” I say. “Prettier and
human.
Grandfather could have had his pick of any woman in Mercar.”

“Ah, but he didn’t want
any
woman. He wanted one
particular
woman.” He glances over at me, that increasingly familiar “big brother about to impart wisdom to the youngster” look in his eyes, the one that makes it practically impossible to resist rolling mine. “Women fall in love a dozen times before their fifteenth birthday, but when a man falls, he falls heart, body, and soul, and no woman but the one who has captured his imagination will do.”

“Is that right?” I lift a brow in his direction.

“It is,” he says. “The poor bastard becomes obsessed. Every bit of sense he possesses flees his head to set up camp in his britches, and there’s no reasoning with him until the spell is broken.”

“Or until his imagination is
captured
by someone else,” I add.

“Exactly.” Niklaas laughs; I squeeze the reins tighter. He may find man’s fickle nature amusing, but I don’t. Mother was Father’s second wife, but she may not have been his last. Father was gone more often the year before he was murdered. I remember the servants whispering, wondering why he packed silk in his saddlebags if he wasn’t going to court a woman.

Mama knew something was wrong, and it ate away at her, turning the last of her love for Father to hate. It was during one of his absences that she told me the true story of how she and Father met, of how he woke her from her long sleep and led her to believe she was his only wife, lying to her for years, until it was too late for her to escape him.

Human men can’t be trusted, not even fathers.

“I was under a woman’s spell once,” Niklaas says as he turns Alama into the woods to the left of the road. I follow, hoping the change of course means we’re near our camp for the night. “A girl’s spell, anyway. It wasn’t too awful. While it lasted.”

“What broke it?” I ask, feeling no need to subdue my curiosity. Niklaas has done his share of nosing into my business. It seems only right to return the favor.

“My father married her.” Niklaas snaps a branch off one of the trees and uses it to bat at the low hanging leaves. “She’s been my stepmother for a year.”

“Oh,” I say, unsure how to respond. “That must have been … difficult.”

He shrugs. “Regiene didn’t love me; she loved being with a boy with ties to the crown,” he says, not a trace of hurt in his tone. “As soon as she had a crown of her own, her true colors began bleeding all over the castle. She’s been a terror to the other ladies, including my little sister, and I could never love a girl who treated my Haanah poorly.”

I stare hard at his broad back, wondering if he’s being sincere, the way he seemed to be when he promised not to treat me like a child. “That’s … good of you.”

“I’m a good, good man. You should tell your sister as much.” He glances over his shoulder with a wiggle of his eyebrows. “And tell her I’m more than ready to fall under her spell. It’s been too long since I’ve been stupid over a beautiful girl, and I mean to fall dumbly in love with my future wife.”

I barely resist the urge to gag. I’m
sick
of listening to him go on and on about his future with my “sister,” and we’ve only been traveling a day. By the time we reach Goreman, I’ll be ready to cut his tongue out to spare myself the torture.

As if I’d ever marry a boy so arrogant he believes every girl he meets is tripping over her own feet in her eagerness to leap into his bed. Even if it were safe to lose my heart, Niklaas wouldn’t get within spitting distance of snatching it away.

But it isn’t safe. …

Thyne.
It still hurts to think his name, though it’s been over a year since it became clear that my fairy gifts have a dark side, a wicked side as black as an ogre’s belly. Over a year that I’ve known I will never kiss a boy again, at least not a boy I love. It’s too dangerous.

I didn’t even love Thyne in
that
way. He was like a big brother to me, a best friend who taught me to fight and climb trees and sneak the last of the cocoa cakes from the kitchen while Janin was busy. He carved my first staff when I was nine and gave me my current weapon—blessed ironwood coveted by every boy on our island—for my sixteenth birthday.

That was when I kissed him. At first, a peck on the cheek, but then a brush of my lips against his, a brush that turned into something more, something … nice, but too strange to be a proper kiss. I expected us both to pull away and laugh, putting the possibility of something more than friendship behind us forever, but when the kiss ended Thyne wasn’t Thyne anymore.

He was a lamp with the wick blown out, waiting for me to light him.

Janin told me long ago that my mother had blessed me with a heart no man I loved would dare defy, but none of us could have imagined the damage the blessing would inflict. I’m sure Mama didn’t intend for my kiss to steal away the free will of the boys I love—especially not a boy I loved as a brother—but she said herself that fairy blessings have a way of becoming curses. …

My curse means that I will never know romantic love. Not all human men are wicked, and there are so many kind, handsome Fey boys I daydreamed about when I was younger, but I will never know what it is like to love one of them. I will never know what passion feels like. I will always be alone.

Sometimes it seems a small price to pay for my fairy gifts. Sometimes it makes my body ache with a loneliness so profound I fear my soul will forever be bruised. I am a prisoner in a cell of my mother’s good intentions and I will never, ever escape

“Are you all right?” Niklaas asks, startling me from my thoughts.

I glance up to find him studying me. “I’m fine,” I snap.

“Don’t bite me a third eye,” he says, holding up a hand in a gesture of surrender. “Just trying to be ‘good’ is all. You look a little pale.”

I take a breath and force my face into the expressionless mask I’ve perfected in the past year. It has become my armor, a way to survive living side by side with the boy I destroyed and the people who love him. People too gracious to hate me the way I deserve to be hated, too honorable to banish the human girl who was never really one of them, too polite to watch when Thyne leaves the supper table to follow me to my cot, awaiting the chance to do my slightest bidding, to weep outside my window when I refuse to let him share my bed.

“I’m bone-weary.” I swallow past the tightness in my jaw. “The Vale Flowers kept my head too clouded for rest. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in at least three days.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’re here.”

We pass out of the last of the close-growing pin oaks onto a bald hilltop inhabited by the reclining corpses of ancient, hollowed-out trees. The petrified forest is smaller than I had imagined but lovely and peaceful, with a stunning view of the softly rolling grassland below. The golden grass beneath our overlook shimmers like a thousand mini-torches set fire by the sunset, while beyond the outlines of great blue mountains brood in the graying distance.

“Are those the Feeding Hills?” I ask.

“They are.” Niklaas swings off Alama with a soft groan that makes me feel better about how damaged our ride has left me. He ties her to a dead tree’s gnarled limb, leaving enough lead for her to graze on the short grass.

“They’re bigger than I thought they’d be.” I bite my lip to stifle the moan that tries to escape as I slide off Button’s back.

“Meaner, too,” Niklaas says, removing Alama’s bridle and reaching for the belt of her saddle. “There’ll be wicked snowstorms and avalanches up there come winter. It’s good we’re making the journey now. Though in a normal year we’d still be risking snow on the higher trails.” He sets Alama’s saddle atop the tree with a grunt and motions for me to bring Button closer. “Hopefully the fair weather will hold.”

“It will,” I say, limping as I hand Button over to Niklaas, who ties the horse next to Alama with an extra length of rope.

Button dips his head and begins to lip contentedly at the grass. At least he doesn’t seem sore from our ride, but I hadn’t expected him to be. One of the few advantages of being a runt is knowing you won’t give your horse an aching back at the end of the day.

“How can you be sure?” Niklaas asks. “The fairies tell you?”

“We’re in the long summer of the ogre prophecy. We should have warm weather until Nonstyne. Or until the rise of the living darkness,” I add in a sour tone. “Whichever comes first.”

“What is the living darkness?” he asks, fetching his waterskin from his saddlebag. “I’ve heard of it, but I always thought it was more ogre madness.”

I lean against the fallen tree and pull my overshorts lower on my hips, hoping to grant my tender parts a little relief. “No one knows, not even the Fey.”

“But the prophecy says a briar-born child will usher in the Final Age.”

I nod, accepting the skin he passes over. “Yes, but we don’t know how. Aurora and I would never aid the ogres willingly, but it might be our blood they need for a ritual or … something. It isn’t clear. Hopefully, we won’t ever find out.”

“Assuming Ekeeta doesn’t get her hands on you or your sister.”

I nod again.

“She doesn’t have Aurora now, does she?” Niklaas asks, making me choke on my gulp of water.

“Of course not.” I cough, cursing myself for letting my guard down. He’s too close to the truth. “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know.” Niklaas watches me with deceptive calm, but I can feel his gaze boring into me the way it did when I was half out of my mind on Vale Flowers and certain he could see through my skin. He eyes aren’t merely beautiful; they’re as crafty as a thief’s. I’ll have to be careful if I want to keep my secrets.

“I’ve been wondering why a prince in your position would need an army,” he says, “aside from getting your sister’s kingdom back, which we both know you’re in no position to do without ships to secure the coast and an army five times the size of the one you may or
may not
secure in the Feeding Hills. You’re not a fool, so you must have a compelling reason. Getting your sister away from Ekeeta would be a good one.”

“Ekeeta doesn’t have my sister, but she has someone … dear to me. A Fey friend who was captured while carrying a message to Aurora,” I lie, grateful that Ekeeta has kept her capture of Jor quiet for whatever reason.

I have to tell Niklaas something if I want him to stop picking before he rips the scab off the truth. If he really wants to be introduced to the princess of Norvere as badly as he says, then telling him Ekeeta has “my sister” would gain his support for raising an army—but it could create other problems.