Princess of Thorns

Beyond the city, the Feeding Hills loom like giants, dwarfing even the largest of Goreman’s hills. They are monsters in dusty white hats, dressed in humorless gray robes of evergreen trees, Feeding trees—some young and relatively new, some tall enough for their trunks to stretch fields above the rest and old enough to be the stuff of ogre legend.

I long to aim Button toward those trees and ride until it’s safe to throw this cloak from my shoulders, to let my hair down to blow as I ride, to be free of Niklaas and my false self and the confusion twisting my insides into knots. Instead, I give Button’s reins a tug. He obeys with a snort and a twitch of his heaving sides, slowing to a walk as we reach the edges of the market.

As my horse catches his breath, I peer out from beneath the safety of my hood. The market is not as rough a place as I expected, but it’s rough enough. The hard men on the road look positively friendly compared to the adamantine men—and few women—occupying the stalls spreading like an inky rash across the flat land to the left of the road.

All the stalls are black. Black pens contain half-starved animals, black shelves hold food and drink and potion bottles like the ones Janin keeps locked in her trunk back home, and black canvas stretches over the tops of the stalls to keep the rain out.

The air is as dry as it has been for days, but it must have rained recently. The market has been pitched for a while—there is dust on the potion bottles, the shelves holding baskets of potatoes have sunk unevenly into the dirt, and the one-eyed woman squatting behind a table covered with fate cards looks as if she lives in her filthy stall—but the canvas has a shine to it, a glisten that gives the market sharp, dangerous edges.

The New Market looks like a good place to catch a curse or a knife in the ribs. Or maybe simply to have your purse stolen. If you’re lucky.

I’ve decided to keep going and wait until I reach the other side to let Button graze and Niklaas catch up, when I see the ba

Practice Ring. Battle till first blood. Try your weapon before you give your life. A gold purse for every fight.

The pen sits farther off the road than the other stalls but not so far that I can’t see the two men going at each other within its confines—one with a sword, the other with a staff like my own. The man with the staff is wi

Just like that, I know. I know I’ve found a way to release the frustration building inside me and earn some coin in the process. It won’t be enough gold to tempt the people of the Feeding Hills—wi

And if I play it right …

Visions of a saddle of my own dance before my eyes, whispering sweetly to my aching backside, banishing the last of my hesitation.

After checking the sky and ground and finding no carrion creatures in sight, I untie my borrowed cloak, roll it up, and shove it into the saddlebag. I muss my hair, widen my eyes, and slouch as I turn Button toward the ring. It will go better for me if I look as small and defenseless as possible. I want the odds weighed decidedly in my opponent’s favor before I place my bet. I don’t have money of my own, but Niklaas won’t mind if I borrow a few coins, and surely he’ll be able to figure out where I’ve gone. No fourteen-year-old boy with “Ror’s” skill with a staff could resist a prizefight.

But in case he rides through without seeing the ba

“What do you want, boy?” she asks, her voice as gritty as the riverbed we left behind days ago. “You don’t look old enough to have a care for your fate.”

The pale blue eye is blanketed by a layer of milky white, cloudy with age and too much peering into realms where humans are better off not poking their noses, let alone their eyes. Still, she seems to see me well enough. Surely she’ll be able to spot a sun god parading through the market on a great white horse.

“My companion is behind me,” I say, nodding toward the pass. “A tall blond boy of nearly eighteen years riding a white horse bareback. If you’ll tell him I’ve gone to the practice ring, I’ll have a coin for you on my way back through the market.”

“How about a coin now?” She holds out a palm crisscrossed by miniature rivers of dirt. “I’m an old woman. I forget things, I do. A coin would help me remember.”

With a sigh, I fish a gold piece from Niklaas’s purse and slide off Button’s back. There’s no time to waste bargaining. The staff fighter has indeed won his match and acquired a new opponent, a monster of a man I wouldn’t mind being pitted against in the name of terribly weighted odds, but I want to be in the ring before Niklaas arrives. Niklaas has seen me use my staff once, but once might not have been enough to convince him that a “boy” of my size can handle himself against fully grown men.

“You’ll tell him, then?” I ask, dropping the gold into the woman’s palm.

“Aye, young master. I …” She trails off, then tilts her head and lifts her thin brows, as if listening to someone whispering over her shoulder. As she moves, the ratted bun pi

Before I can walk away—I know enough about dark spirits that feed on humans in exchange for supernatural favors to realize this woman is drowning in black magic and no one safe in her presence—she draws her arm back and flings the coin at my feet.

“I don’t want your gold.” Her hands tremble as she sets to picking at the wounds on her neck with a jagged nail. “I’ll tell the boy, but you’ll need the gold. You’ll need that and more if you hope to make it in time.”

I stoop to pick up the coin. I know I shouldn’t say a word, but I can’t keep from asking, “What do you mean?”

“You’ll lose that horse and need another, and horses don’t usually come for free, do they?” She barks with laughter before narrowing her cloudy eye in Button’s direction. “You won’t be lucky enough to steal one next time.”

I shiver, feeling naked beneath her all-seeing eye, and lay a hand on Button’s throat, hating the thought of losing him.

Unfortunately, there are bigger things to lose.

“You said something about making it in time,” I say, so desperate for assurance I stay put though every sensible bone in my body screams for me to run from this woman as fast as my fairy-blessed legs will carry me. “Will I? Will my brother live?”

“It remains to be seen.” She swallows something she must have had stored in her cheek before continuing. “There will be a choice. You must make the right one.”

“What choice? What must I—”

“A difficult choice. That’s all we see.” Shadows move behind her eye, and I suddenly feel even more watched than before. Watched by this woman, and by whatever dark forces dwell within her. “To look closer will draw her attention.”

The queen.

The fate reader nods as if I’ve spoken aloud. “Soon she will hunt you in earnest. You must be in green hills, near a bewitched stream, before that happens.” She begins to chew again, this time with her mouth open enough to catch a flash of inky flesh—flesh too black to be living yet still squirming as it’s crushed between her few remaining teeth.