Princess of Thorns

But at this point, it seems I’ll have to make due with no military force at all.

My eyes slide closed and a pained sound vibrates in my throat. No friends in the Feeding Hills means no army. It means Janin’s vision will come to pass and my brother will die come the changing of the leaves.

“No,” I whisper into the darkness. There is still time. It’s cold in the mountains, but it’s still summer in the west. I could have weeks before the leaves turn, and I will make the most of every day. I will find allies, I will secure an army, even if I have to—

The knock on the window shatters my thoughts.

I throw off my quilt and jump out of bed, staring hard at the shadow outside. I recognize the outline of Niklaas’s shoulders and my breath rushes out in relief.

“I was waiting to come to you,” I whisper as I open the pane.

“Are you alone?” he asks, peering past me into the room.

“Yes.” I motion him inside. “Did they see you crossing the common?”

“No, I climbed down the cliff from the cabins.” Niklaas shoves his pack through the window and then follows it, dropping down to crouch on the floor in a pool of moonlight. I squat beside him, not bothering to close the pane. If I have my way, we’ll be going back through it in a few moments.

“I couldn’t wait,” he says. “The sooner we leave, the better.”

“I agree,” I say, relieved he won’t require any convincing. “I don’t trust Crimsin—she’s too changeable—but something isn’t right. The young men seem to think we’re going to war, but Lord Heven and the other counselors are hiding something. I can feel it.”

“I feel it, too. In my gut.” Niklaas presses a fist to his stomach. “There were Vale Flowers in my drink again.”

“What?” I curse myself for not warning him to be careful. The counselors have hardly paid him any attention, but he’s still a prince with a price on his head.

“Are you ill?” I ask, searching his face in the dim light. “Can you travel?”

“I’m fine,” Niklaas says with a grimace that betrays his words. “Crimsin spilled the glass before it was half empty and warned me to fake a true poisoning.”

“I assumed the stumbling was an act,” I say, fetching my pack from beneath my bed and dragging it to the window. “It wasn’t nearly as convincing as the real thing. Better stick to princing. I don’t see a future on the stage.”

Niklaas doesn’t smile. “Crimsin was the one who drugged me. She was told to make sure I wouldn’t be up and about tomorrow. The counselors don’t want me interfering when the ogres come to collect you.”

My lips part. “But the ogres wouldn’t dare come here.”

“The exiles sent men to lead them in through the tu

“But why would they help her?” I ask, pulse speeding. “By the gods, what could Ekeeta have promised that—”

“She’s promised the Feeding Hills and the fertile flatlands to the east, all the way to the sea,” Niklaas says. “The exiles are to be recognized as their own nation, provided they turn you over to her general tomorrow morning.”

I shake my head, too numbed by betrayal to know what to say.

“This is my fault.” Niklaas grips my shoulder, a strained look on his face. “I knew the exiles were traitors. They change their allegiance like stockings. Probably more often than they change their stockings. I shouldn’t have let you come here. I should have found another way to your sister.”

“You couldn’t have known.” I cover his hand with mine. “According to everything I’ve ever heard, the exiles and the queen are enemies.”

“That’s the other thing. …” Niklaas pulls away with a sigh.

“What other thing?” I ask, not sure I can take more bad news.

“We weren’t as good at evading Ekeeta’s spies as we thought. Crimsin said the queen was watching our journey through her creatures the entire time.” He turns to dig in his pack. “That’s how Ekeeta knew to send word to the exiles, offering her deal and telling them to watch for us in Goreman.”

I sit back hard enough for the floorboards to bruise my bones through my thick overshorts. But the pain is a welcome distraction from the misery filling my heart. If this is true … If Ekeeta has been watching us all along …

Then there is no hope, no chance I’ll be able to outwit her and save Jor.

I cover my mouth with my hands, holding in the moan that tries to escape as I squeeze my eyes shut and curse every soul on this mountain. Everyone knows that the ogres require a briar-born child to fulfill their prophecy.

How could the exiles do this? How could they damn our world in exchange for lands that will be worthless when the ogres plunge all nations into darkness?

“They don’t believe,” I mumble into my hands.

Like Niklaas when we first met, the exiles must consider the ogre prophecy a mad legend. It’s the only explanation, unless …

Unless the exiles know Ekeeta has Jor and figure they might as well give the ogre queen a matching set, seeing as she already has one briar-born child locked in her dungeon. But even then, I can’t understand why they’d give up and await their own destruction rather than rage against it.

“They don’t believe,” Niklaas says, pulling me from my thoughts. “Or they simply don’t care. Either way, we need to be gone before morning.” He pulls a wad of cloth from his bag and tosses it into my lap. “Crimsin gave me something she thinks will help.”

“What’s this?” I lift the fabric between two fingers.

“It’s one of Crimsin’s dresses and a shawl. You’re about the same height. If you wrap the shawl around your head, it should hide the fact that you’re not her.”

I blink, drop my eyes to the dress, and blink again. “You want me to—”

“I want you to put on the dress,” Niklaas says. “And Crimsin and I are going to go for a walk. She’s gone swimming after dark before. If anyone sees us bound for the road, they shouldn’t question us, and if they do, you’ll look at the ground and giggle and let me do the talking. We’ll have to leave the horses, but this is our only chance.”

I’ll be a girl … pretending to be a boy … pretending to be a girl. The thought alone is enough to make me dizzy. “But how will we get across the falls?”

“There’s a lever set into a stone by the road that diverts the water. Crimsin described it well enough. I’ll be able to find it.”

I bite my lip. “You trust her?” I ask, hesitating. There’s no way I’ll be able to conceal my true identity from Niklaas wearing Crimsin’s dress. The plunging neckline will reveal my bound chest. I don’t have nearly as much to bind as Crimsin, but without my shirt to conceal the bandages, it will be obvious I’m a girl.

“Of course not,” Niklaas says, nervously ru

“None that I can think of.”

“I believed she was afraid for you when she told you to run. She didn’t want you trapped here,” he says, waiting until I look up before he continues. “You got to her. You made one of your subjects love you. Now get changed and let’s get out of here before you lose the chance to win over the rest of them.” He stands, moving to the window.

When he turns back, I’m still on the ground, the dreaded dress puddled in my lap.

“This is the only way we’ll get past the guards, Ror,” Niklaas says. “It’s a dress. It won’t bite.”

“I know.” But I don’t move. I’m frozen, rendered immobile by the force of my indecision. It’s not only that I hate for Niklaas to find out the truth this way. This is dangerous for Crimsin, as well. If someone sees me in her clothes, she’ll be implicated in our escape. But I can’t leave dressed as myself, and there’s only one way out.

“There can’t be only one way,” I mumble, letting the dress fall to the floor as I join Niklaas at the window, staring out at the cliffs and the mountains beyond.