Princess of Thorns

“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 stu

“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.