Princess of Thorns

I have seen our fate.

The sun was rising when the guards forced us along the wall walk five mornings past. I saw the waves crashing far below the keep. I saw the ladies in their fine dresses and the men in their shining armor washing in and out on the tide, their limp bodies knocking against the rocks like dolls some spoiled child had thrown away.

I realized they were dead—all the human members of my father’s i

I will never be more than seven years old.

“As soon as it’s over, take Jor and go down the waste chute,” Mama says.

The waste chute? I look up, lips parting, but Mama pushes on before I can protest.

“There is no other way. It will be tight, but you will fit, little button.” Mama smoothes my hair from my face with her soft hands.

We’ve been in the dark with the biting beetles, the filth of the prisoners who slept here before us, and the sour water leaking down the walls for five days, but her hands still smell like spring blossoms.

Mama always smells like flowers. Daddy says it’s because she is as beautiful as a flower, the most beautiful woman in the world. The fairies made her the most beautiful when she was only a baby. Mama wouldn’t let the fairies bless me when I was born—she said it was too dangerous, that fairy blessings, no matter how well intended, too often become curses—but she’s going to bless me today. She’s going to give me the fairy magic hiding inside her. Time is ru

“Are you ready, Aurora?” Mama cups my cheek.

“Will it hurt?” I try not to cry, but fail. Hot tears spill down my cheeks, and my body shakes hard enough to wake Jor, who has fallen asleep with his head in my lap.

“Ror,” he mumbles. He pats my face with one pudgy hand. He turned four last month but still has a baby’s hands.

I love his baby hands. I love my little brother. I can’t imagine a world without him. But we are both briar-born—children birthed within the circle of enchanted fairy briars—and Mama says the queen will kill us if we don’t escape. Even if Mama is wrong, and the queen sincere in her promise to hold Jor and I captive until the long summer of the ogre prophecy, a life lived in a cell is worse than no life at all.

I am Jor’s only hope, which makes me even more afraid.

“Don’t cry, Ror.” Jor sounds near tears himself as I settle him on the floor beside me and tuck his blanket beneath his cheek.

“It’s all right, biddle bee, go back to sleep.” I sniff away my tears and rub his tummy until his eyes drift closed, trying to be brave the way Mama wants me to be.

But I’m not brave. I am so frightened that frightened is too small a word to describe the feeling crushing my heart to liquid inside my chest. I need a bigger word, a word with fangs and blood dripping from its chin, but I haven’t learned a word like that yet, and now I never will. I will die tonight. I know it. I can’t do what Mama asks. I’m too little, so small people often mistake Jor and me for twins when we go to visit the castle with Father. I will never be a hero, not even with the help of fairy magic.

“There is no more time, love. Be my brave, strong girl.” Mama plucks the long knife from the floor. “I know you will make me proud.”

One of the prison guards smuggled the knife in with our breakfast this morning. He is loyal to Ekeeta but can’t bear to see two i

“I love you both so much,” Mama says, her voice breaking as she begins to cry. “Tell Jor how much. He’s so little he might forget. You must help him remember.”

I’ve heard Mama cry before—when Daddy would leave our estate with bags full of gifts, bound for some secret destination in the east—but I’ve never heard her sound this sad. Despite everything she’s told me, and the hours spent discussing her plan, it is only now that I realize she truly intends to do it, to take herself away from us. Forever.

I clutch her soiled skirt in my hands. “Mama, no, I—”

“You and your brother are the brightest lights I’ve ever known,” she says, trembling as hard as I was a moment ago. “You will shine for this kingdom. You will grow up strong and brave and clever and kind, and you will make everything right. I know it.” She pulls in a desperate breath. “And I will always be with you in your heart, button. Always.”

“Mama, don’t! Please!” I throw my arms around her waist, press my face to her chest, and hug her tight, but Mama doesn’t hug me back. She tenses and her body jerks.

Moments later, I feel it—something hot and wet rushing over my forehead, sticking my hair to my skin, ru

Blood. Mama’s blood. Because fairy magic will only leave a body in blood, when a human chooses death in order to pass the power to another.

Mama is dead. I am alone. Alone!

I open my mouth to scream for Mama to come back, to beg for help, but before words can escape something flickers within the hollows of my bones and a transformation begins deep inside of me. Deeper than blood or sinew, deeper than this dungeon, deeper than the sea crashing against the rocks below the keep or the world the ogres believe exists beneath ours. A place so secret and deep I had no idea it was there until the light of Mother’s magic fell into the darkness and lit me up.

But now it has, and I know I am more than a frightened little girl; I am a briar-born child, beloved by the Fey. I am a daughter and a sister and a princess, and as fierce and strong as I choose to be.

And I choose to be strong. I choose to fight, even if I am small and alone. I choose to be the hero my mother wanted me to be.

Without a sound, I ease Mother’s body back onto the stones and hurry to the pallet we’ve shared since the morning we were brought to the dungeon. I use our thin covers to clean my face and hair as best I can, then lay the blanket gently over Mama, refusing to look too closely.

I will not remember her as a corpse. I will remember her smile and the way her eyes danced when she built castles of pillows for Jor and me on days when it was too cold to go outside. I will remember her stories and songs and the way she never let a day go by without whispering “I love you” in my ear. I will remember the flower smell of her clothes when she hugged me tight and her laughter when we would sneak out to dance in the rain without Jor, because rain dancing was our secret, just between Mama and me.

I will remember her, and I will avenge her.

“Goodbye, Mama,” I whisper, ignoring the stinging in my nose. There will be time to cry later, when Jor and I are safe.

Being careful not to wake him, I scoop my brother into my arms and carry him to the dungeon’s waste chute. He is tall for four and I am short for seven, but it’s easier than I thought it would be to hold him to my chest as I shuffle across the stones. I’m glad. It will be better if Jor doesn’t see Mama again, and if he doesn’t realize he’s falling until he’s halfway to the bottom.

The waste chute empties onto a street outside the castle walls. The kind guard promised to have a cart of straw waiting there to break our fall, but even if he’s changed his mind about helping us, there’s a chance we’ll survive the thirty-hand drop to the stone road, a better chance than we’ll have if we stay here to await the coming of the ogre priest.

I saw Illestros yesterday, his long white robe dragging along the filth-caked floor as he came to fetch Father’s spymaster from the cell next to our own. He is even taller than the other ogres, with dozens of tiny coin-shaped tattoos marking his large bald head. Queen Ekeeta wears a wig to cover her hairless skull and looks nearly human—though taller than a mortal, with larger eyes and mandrill fingers Mama said are leftover from a time when the ogres consumed more than human spirits, when they would pry between our bones for each tender piece of meat—but the priest makes no effort to hide what he is. He flaunts the tattoos that show how many souls he’s captured inside of him; he bares his pointed teeth when he smiles.