Princess of Thorns

Love makes her stronger, and our task more difficult. She fights us bitterly, writhing on the floor, cursing us for long hours until her last breath shudders from her body with a ragged sigh and her soul flickers into the altar glass moments before we become too dizzy to stand.

By the time we draw the souls from the glass into the goblet, we are trembling with exhaustion, but as soon as the spirit mead flows down our throat, we are restored. The souls feed and sustain us, blessing us as surely as we will one day bless them.

We remove our wig, open our robe, and lie prostrate on the floor beside the empty body. We will lie here until Illestros returns to mark us and remain until the first light of dawn, meditating on the bounty and wisdom of the goddess. And when the sun rises, we will deliver the corpse to our creatures that dwell in our gardens and they will gather to feed and we will stroke their fur and feathers and hum along as they buzz and chitter and caw and take comfort in the nearness of good things.

Soon Aurora will be our captive, and the moment of the prophecy at hand. Soon the world will be transformed and our people will feed until the final human shell falls to the ground with the last sigh the air will ever hear and the Lost Mother is free to call her children home.

If Illestros speaks the truth … If this prophecy isn’t false like the—

We banish the thought before it can reach its end. Illestros left the hall when he realized the girl’s soul would take some time to claim and has yet to return, but he could be close. And if he is close, he could be listening. We are born of the same parents and share a co

It isn’t safe to doubt our brother when he might hear. It is never safe to doubt the prophet. All who doubted are dead, slaughtered and thrown into the sea without the final sacraments, their souls cursed to dwell in the black depths of the ocean forever.

The memory of those dear ones drifting on the tide breaks the wall holding our thoughts at bay.

Better cursed than used. Better one woman damned than all the beauty of creation lost and nothing at day’s end but destruction and despair. If this prophecy is a lie, there will be no descent into the underworld. If it is a lie, we are not a shepherd gathering her sheep into the safety of her flesh and bones … we are …

We are a murderer. We are a monster and the most tragic fool ever born.

We press our forehead into the stone floor. We cry out silently to the goddess for guidance, for some sign that our doubts are nightmare children born of our weakness, but she doesn’t answer. She never does. She tests our faith with silence. She draws just close enough for us to feel her presence before flitting away, pulling the comfort we crave out of our reach like a sweet held too high for a child to snatch.

Illestros was never the sort of brother to play tricks like that, not when we were younger. When we were children, he would bring us treats and presents; he was always protective, determined to keep us safe.

These doubts are madness. Illestros wouldn’t demand this sacrifice if the prophecy weren’t a true one. He has betrayed others, but he would never betray us. We are different. We are special.

We shiver, but we do not reach for our robe. We relish the suffering of our body. We focus on our discomfort and will ourselves to believe we suffer for the salvation of the world. If we let our doubts take root and flourish, we will be lost.

It is too late for doubt. It is too late for salvation. We’ve come too far down this foreign road to ever return home again.

Chapter Nine

Aurora

We ride until the horses begin to stumble and dawn stains the horizon an ugly brownish orange before finding a decent hiding place beneath the far-reaching limbs of two alders bending low over the bank. We tie the horses near a creek that dribbles down to join the river and lay our bedroll out in the deep shade of the trees.

I stay standing long enough to lay the damp Cavra leaves I gathered across Niklaas’s wound—too exhausted to feel awkward about touching his bare stomach—before I plop down on my weary bottom and set to tugging at my boots.

Niklaas makes some vague noises about staying awake to keep watch, but I shush him with a finger in the air and a motion of my hand across my throat.

“What does that mean?” he asks with a chuckle that quickly reshapes itself into a yawn. “Someone has to take first watch.”

“Sleep. Both. Useless without it.” I throw my boots to the rocks with a grateful sigh. “Sleep. Now.”

I point to the other side of the bedroll before turning and falling onto my half of our shared sleeping space. The bedroll will be big enough for two so long as we let our legs dangle off the edges, and right now I could share a hammock with a litter of baby tigers and have no trouble falling asleep.

I curl into a ball inside Niklaas’s cloak with my head pillowed on my arm, and am asleep almost instantly. I have no idea whether Niklaas took my advice and got some rest as well, until I wake up hours later to find a wide, warm back pressed to mine, and a snuffly snore drifting through the air.

He snores. The realization makes me blush.

I’ve never known such a private thing about a boy before. I’ve never slept with a boy—in any sense of the word—but I certainly never imagined that simply sleeping at the same time in close proximity with one would feel so intimate. But it does. I am suddenly shy, unsure what to do next.

I lie still, blinking as the sunlit world beyond our shadowed hiding spot comes into focus. From the glare, I’m guessing it’s at least noon, maybe later. We’ve slept six hours or more, but I’m still as tired as twice-boiled meat. I could close my eyes and sleep another hour or two easily.

I might have been tempted—it’s peaceful in the shade and the gentle hum of insects and carefree calls of the river birds make me certain trouble is nowhere near—if my bladder weren’t in serious need of an emptying. After a moment it becomes obvious that the tickling low in my body is what awoke me in the first place, and no sooner is the need obvious than it becomes imperative.

Moving quietly, I sit up and shove my feet into my boots, glancing over my shoulder when Niklaas rolls onto his back with a soft moan.

He’s still dead to the world, his eyes closed and his lips softly parted. Despite the increasingly serious bald places in his increasingly furry beard, he looks sweet in his sleep. Younger. I

I remember that I have to tell him the truth—that my sister will never have a husband if she can help it, and certainly never ensnare a decent person like him—and my stomach lurches. I have to do it. He risked his life for mine last night. If he refuses to believe me, then I won’t feel guilty about taking advantage of him, but if he does, this could be the first and last time I wake next to this prince. The notion is oddly disappointing, but my bladder is aching too fiercely to dwell on the feeling for long.

Pulling Niklaas’s hood over my head, I scurry along the hard clay, past where the horses sleep, up the bank to a patch of dense brush. With one last glance over my shoulder to make sure Niklaas hasn’t awoken and decided to follow me, I rearrange my clothes and squat behind a sticker bush, comforting myself by thinking how much easier it will be to relieve myself if I don’t have to worry about being discovered.