Princess of Thorns

I swallow hard, suppressing the revulsion tightening my stomach. “Please. Is there nothing more? I ca

“Aye, it does. Not even the darklings will survive if the prophecy is fulfilled. Not even my beautiful darklings.” She seems to shrink, burrowing into her filthy purple robes. “Trust in the gifts your mother gave you, princess. If you don’t, it may be the end of us all.”

My heart races as I glance from side to side, terrified that someone has heard her use my title. But there is no one close. Even the roughest men seem content to give this booth a wide berth.

“Go to the ring,” she says, gathering her cards in a gnarled hand. “I’ll tell the boy where to find his friend.” She smiles, a wry baring of her teeth and gums. “Some prince,” she mutters. “Doesn’t recognize a princess when she’s sleeping curled up beside him.”

“Don’t tell him.” I adjust my grip on Button’s bridle, deciding I will look smaller if I walk to the ring leading a giant horse than riding one. “It is my secret to keep.”

“And his to discover.” The fate reader chuckles and the shadows behind her rheumy gaze writhe, as if they, too, are amused. “Sooner or later those pretty gray eyes will give you away, girl.”

I don’t respond. I won’t think about what my eyes might betray. I won’t think of anything but my brother and how desperately I need gold in my pocket. I will draw first blood before my opponent has a chance to lift his weapon. I can practically taste victory, hot and salty on my tongue.

Chapter Twelve

Niklaas

The ancient fate reader who called my name from the side of the road points to where Ror has gone to seize the destiny she foretold for him.

I follow her crooked finger in time to see the boy entering a makeshift battle ring, looking like a doll plucked from a toy house compared to the man across from him. His opponent is a monster with a long black braid, a jaw hacked from a hunk of rock, and a bluish tinge about him, like all people raised in the extreme north. His veins are dark streams visible beneath his pale flesh, angry rivers pumping blood from forearms as big as Ror’s waist to shoulders twice the width of my own.

The fool’s going to die. He’s going to flaming die!

The thought is barely through my head before I’m digging my heels into Alama’s sides and she’s off, charging through the crowded market.

Shoppers leap out of my way with angry shouts and threats to my life, but I don’t rein Alama in. I have to reach Ror. The fights in the practice rings are supposed to end at first blood, but first blood can too easily become lifeblood. One firm jab in the wrong spot with the sword the northern man is lifting could be enough to end Ror’s life.

“Ror, stop!” I shout.

Ror turns at the sound of my voice, and the Northerner seizes on the boy’s momentary distraction.

The giant rushes forward and the world slows. My pulse lurches in half time as Ror faces his opponent, crouching down and sweeping his staff in a low circle across the dirt. The giant’s feet tangle in the wood and he begins to fall, but manages to keep his sword aimed at Ror’s chest, preparing to drive the blade through the boy’s leather armor with a single shove of his massive arms.

My insides seize, my mind already imagining Ror’s body split in two, when he dives forward. He rolls beneath the giant’s knees heartbeats before the other man falls to the dirt. The northerner is quick to recover, but not quick enough. Before he can turn, Ror brings his staff down on the man’s temple, hitting where the skin is thi

I suck in a ragged breath as an enraged shout rises from the crowd, but the Northerner doesn’t seem to realize he’s lost. He surges to his feet with a bellow, swinging his sword around in a hacking motion that would have sliced Ror in half if he hadn’t leapt backward like a circus performer a second before.

Ror’s hands reach for the ground as his feet flip over his head—once, twice, three times, with his staff somehow still in his grasp—until he’s at the edge of the pen. He turns to leap over the side, but the men there grab the boy and throw him back in, straight into the path of the blue monster.

I decide then and there that if Ror dies, I will kill those men. I will slit their throats and watch their blood soak into the soil, without a moment of regret.

“Let the boy out! He’s drawn first blood!” I vault from Alama’s back and charge the pen, grabbing spectators and hurling them to one side with growls that send most stumbling away even before they turn and see that I’m a good head taller than they are.

Aside from the beast bringing his sword down to clash against Ror’s staff with an angry thwack, I’m the largest man near the practice ring. I flinch, expecting the staff to break, but it holds strong for several blows, long enough for me to part the crowd and jump the fence, drawing my sword as I enter the ring.

“Leave him alone!” I shout.

The northerner turns to me with a roar of outrage. I take advantage of his split focus, grabbing Ror by the back of his armor and shoving him behind me

“The boy drew first blood!” I lift my sword, preparing to meet the northerner if he refuses to admit defeat. “It’s ru

The man’s forehead wrinkles, but I’m not certain he’s understood me. I’ve begun to worry that he doesn’t speak the language of Norvere, and that this will end badly because I was too lazy to learn more than two of the Herth languages before abandoning my studies, when he lifts his hand to his temple and swipes his sausage fingers through the red ru

Still, I don’t dare pull in another breath until he trudges to the edge of the ring and climbs out of the pen, rejoining a group of his northern brothers. Only when I’m sure he’s gone for good do I snatch Ror up by the arm and drag him in the opposite direction.

“I won the match!” Ror shouts, digging in his heels. “I have to go again. I said I’d fight until I lost.”

“I don’t care what you said,” I growl through clenched teeth.

“I’m doing well. I drew first blood. I—”

“You’re lucky you weren’t killed!”

“At least let me collect my wi

I grab for him, but he’s already across the ring with his hand under the bet keeper’s nose. The weasel-faced man glares at Ror, his close-set eyes shining with rage, but he’s a more honorable sort than the men who threw Ror back into the ring. He has a business to run, one that will not continue to profit if it’s heard that the ringmaster refuses to pay out on occasions when a fighter wins against extraordinary odds.

The man counts off an impressive number of coins before dumping them into a small burlap sack and throwing them at Ror. The bag hits Ror in the chest, but he doesn’t flinch. He only clutches his wi

“Now we can leave.” Ror crosses the pen and leaps the railing, shouldering his way through a cluster of men clearly not pleased to have lost their bets but unwilling to attack a boy who bloodied a man twice his size in thirty seconds flat.