Princess of Thorns

I pluck my key from my vest pocket and throw it across the room. It lands near Hund’s paws, summoning a growl from the creature that I answer with a glare. Let the beast come for me. It would feel good to fight something other than my own rising panic.

“I’ll stay with him tonight,” I say, transferring my attention to Crimsin when the dog lowers his head, evidently deciding he doesn’t want to bite a chunk out of me after all. “You can sleep here. I’ll fetch you when Niklaas is fit to travel.”

“Princess, please.” Crimsin hurries across the room, laying her hand on the door before I can open it. “I wasn’t thinking. I never meant to put your friend in danger. I’ll keep watch over him. You stay. You’re fresh from a long journey and need your rest.”

I freeze, hairs on my arms prickling. “How do you know I’m fresh from a journey?” I turn, fingers tightening on my staff. “I could have been at this i

Crimsin’s eyes dart to the left before sliding back to my face. I know she’s going to lie before she opens her mouth.

“I don’t know,” she says, her gaze carefully blank. “I only assumed. Have you been here for days?”

I look up at her, but not too far up. She is, as Niklaas would say, a “wee thing” like me, a hand shorter than the average woman, soft and feminine-looking and so beautiful I’m certain she’s accustomed to people thinking she’s equally harmless, but I won’t make that mistake. This girl isn’t harmless. She’s unpredictable and dangerous and not someone I’m inclined to trust. I will be sleeping with my weapon in my fist for as long as Crimsin is a part of our company.

“I want to believe you’re not a liar,” I say. “But I don’t.”

She looks up with a startled expression before dropping her eyes back to the floor. “That’s … honest of you.”

“I am honest when I can be and kind as long as I am allowed to be. Niklaas and I need you to guide us into the mountains, but if you betray us. …” I pause, waiting for her to look up before I reach for the door again. “Sleep well.”

“And you, Princess,” she murmurs, her sober tone leaving no doubt she understands that if she betrays me things won’t go well for her. “Tell the prince I’m sorry when he wakes up.”

I slip out the door and down the hall, hurrying to Niklaas’s door, my pulse leaping with worry, but I know he’s alive before I let myself into his room.

Even from outside in the hall, I can hear him snoring.

I close the door behind me and lock up before padding over to where Niklaas lies sprawled as I left him. I watch him snuffle, unreasonably happy to be facing a night filled with his dreadful racket, before helping myself to his rosemary and mint ash, shedding my boots, and placing my staff within easy reach of the bed. Then, with a muffled groan, I roll Niklaas onto his side and lie down beside him.

His snores remain long and deep throughout the entire process. He really is dead to the world. I should have realized this was more than a case of having a few too many. I should have trusted him to know better than to drink too much.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, wedging my back more firmly against his to keep him from rolling over in his sleep. “I should have listened to you.”

Niklaas doesn’t say a word, of course, but the heat of his body is soothing all the same. After only a few moments, sleep creeps into my limbs, relaxing my shoulders, and I know I will pass a better night here than I would have in my own room. I’ve become accustomed to Niklaas. Even in sleep, he comforts me, making me feel calmer and safer than I do when I’m alone.

“I will keep you safe, too,” I say, my whisper becoming a yawn. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

I won’t. I will protect Niklaas the way he’s protected me, but in order to do so I must keep him by my side. I can’t risk telling him the truth. He must go on believing I’m a prince leading him to his princess for as long as it takes to make sure he is beyond his father’s reach.

A quiet voice inside me whispers that I should feel terrible about continuing to lie to him, but the rest of me is relieved to have an excuse not to confess. I’m not ready to lose my friend. I need him too much, and he needs me.

I close my eyes and drift, prepared for the fears that come to torment me in my sleep, but tonight I don’t dream of the crumbling castle or my brother’s screams. I dream of a picnic in the meadow behind Mother’s old house, of a blanket beneath the trees and honeysuckle thick in the air. I wear my white fairy dress with the silk flowers at the neck, and Niklaas is asleep with his head in my lap, while our friends play wickets in the meadow beyond.

It is the most beautiful dream. I fight to hold on to it, to stay asleep even as the birds begin to sing and sunlight warms the bed. I fight until I hear Niklaas moan and the day begins with a hellish smell and the splatter of sickness.

Chapter Fifteen

Niklaas

Despite my aching head and foul-tempered stomach, I manage to pack my things and drag my wretched body out of the i

Two ogres with soul tattoos etched onto their gleaming bald heads guard the gate, but Crimsin—in her second skin of a dress, minus the red cloak that would give her away as an exile—distracts them while Ror, the horses, and I slip out of the city along with a group of lumber wagons bound for the lower forests.

Ogre men are as susceptible to feminine charms as their human counterparts, and Crimsin certainly isn’t lacking in “charms.” If she hadn’t drugged me into the worst bout of sickness I’ve experienced since the night Usio and I ate bad oysters off the coast of northern Kanvasola, I’m sure I’d have a hard time keeping my eyes off her bosom.

At the moment, however, I’m having a hard time resisting the urge to wring her pretty white neck.

As Ror and I guide the horses into the trees beyond the city, another wave of sickness grips my midsection. I force it down with only the softest moan, but Ror seems to have especially keen ears this morning.

“Try to make it a little farther,” Ror says, fussing over me like he’s done all morning. “Let’s get up the mountain. Then we’ll stop and you can have more water while we wait for Crimsin to catch up.”

“I don’t want more water,” I say, forcing the words out through a clenched jaw.

“You need to keep drinking,” he says. “If you don’t, you’ll never work the poison through. I could find some wild mint to calm your stomach if you think—”

“Quit fussing. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’ve been—”

“Leave me be, Ror,” I warn, voice rough from all the retching I’ve done since sunup.

Blasted poison, blasted girl. If Crimsin weren’t the last guide in Goreman, I swear to the gods I would have kicked her out of the i

“I will not leave you be.” Ror pulls at Button’s reins, stopping the horse in the shade of two young Feeding Trees. “If you’re not able to keep water down, we shouldn’t have left the i

“I’ll drink the raging water! But only if you’ll shut your flap for ten minutes at a time!” I snatch the waterskin from my saddle and tear off the cap, chugging as much as my miserable stomach can hold before plugging it with a glare in Ror’s direction. “I don’t know what’s worse. The sickness or your damned mother-he

Ror’s eyes tighten in an expression so wounded I immediately feel even worse.