Princess of Thorns

I shake my head. “No, I—”

“I gave a priceless suit of armor and a piece of my soul for a charm to help me find a briar-born child.” He reaches into the front of his shirt and pulls out a pendant shaped like the spokes of a wheel. It is made of flat, unremarkable gray stone, but as soon as it is free of his shirt it rises of its own accord and strains toward me. I’m certain if Niklaas took it off, the charm would glue itself to my face. “Seeing as you and your sister are the only two such creatures left, I know exactly who you are.”

“What do you want?” I reach up to squeeze the water from my hair, grateful that my warrior’s knot is holding strong atop my head.

I look boyish enough with my braids down—it takes more than long hair to make me easily recognizable as female, especially when I’m dressed in a Fey warrior’s clothes—but I’m grateful my hair won’t be in the way if I need to fight. I can’t imagine what a Kanvasol prince wants with a briar-born child, but I’m certain he’s up to no good.

“Relax, boy, I mean you no harm,” Niklaas says, obviously reading the distrust in my expression. “I’m going to help you escape, and in exchange you’re going to help me find what I’m looking for.”

My first thought is to tell him to take his “help” and shove it so far between his ass cheeks he’ll waddle down the road—I stopped speaking like a princess the day I began training to be a warrior—but I bite my lip. I came to the Boughtsword camp alone, certain the Fey gem in my pocket and the promise of more once Jor was freed would be enough to secure an army.

Instead, the gem, which in my naïveté I hadn’t realized was far too valuable to be used as a token payment, was stolen and I was taken captive. I wounded a dozen or more men before I was locked away, but still …

“How did you get the chains off?” I ask, rubbing the chafed skin at my wrists.

“Picked the locks.” Niklaas pushes to his feet and reaches a hand down to help me from the trough. “It’s a skill best learned early in my family.”

I ignore Niklaas’s hand and allow my eyes to flick up and down his long body, considering the eleventh son of the immortal king. He’s tall and strong, with thick muscles obvious beneath his gray shirt and dusty brown riding pants. I imagine he could be dangerous-looking if he would smile less, and he can pick locks and sneak u

I’m a well-trained fighter, strengthened by magic, light on my feet, and nearly fearless, but I’ve been too isolated on my fairy island. I need an ally who knows the ways of the mainland in order to secure an army, and I need to find that ally quickly. I must free my brother before the Hawthorne tree in Mercar Castle’s courtyard turns crimson. If I don’t, Jor will die come the changing of the seasons. Janin saw his death in a vision, and her visions are rarely wrong.

Rarely, but not never. Mortal interference can change the course of fate.

Janin foretold that my mother would live a long, happy life once her hundred years of sleep had passed, but my father fought his way through the fairy briars to wake the Sleeping Beauty twenty years early and changed all that. I have to believe I can change Jor’s fate as well. If I move quickly.

Summer is lingering this year, but the crisp in the air this morning warns it will not last forever.

“Come on, then,” Niklaas says, frustration creeping into his voice. “The camp will wake soon, and I’d rather you stay alive. At least until we locate your sister.”

“What do you want with Aurora?” I eye the sword at Niklaas’s waist, gauging my chances of taking it from him. Ekeeta put a bounty on my head as soon as she realized I had escaped her dungeon. If this prince means to find “my sister” and deliver her to the ogre queen, I will be better off finding another ally.

“I want to court her. What else would a prince want with a princess?” Niklaas asks with a grin I’m certain has convinced more than a few girls to tumble him without the benefit of sacred vows. “But sadly, my charm was magicked only to take me to the nearest briar-born child and won’t work a second time.”

“That is sad,” I say in my flattest tone.

“Could be worse,” he says, still gri

He pats my cheek; I slap his hand away. “Perhaps. If your father weren’t Ekeeta’s only ally.” I glare at him, not bothering to hide my suspicion from my alleged suitor.

Suitor. Ha! This pretty lion-boy would gag on his own tongue if he knew I am the girl whose hand he hopes to win. A girl who has no trouble passing as a boy, with not a whisper of the beauty her mother was so legendary for.

“Exactly.” He winks. “Nothing could make my father angrier than his son shaming him before the queen. So I mean to marry your sister, assuming she’ll have me.” He braces his hands on the trough “Now let’s go, little man, before we lose our chance.”

He’s lying. No one within spitting distance of his right mind would marry the most hunted girl in Mataquin simply to irritate his father. I have no idea what Niklaas’s true motives are, but it doesn’t matter, not so long as I get what I want before he realizes he’s been played for a fool.

“All right. I’ll take you to Aurora, but first I’ll need your help securing an army.” I stand up, wincing at the sound the water makes as it pours from my clothes.

I glance around at the camp. The only movement comes from two buzzards circling high in the leaden sky and a wispy ribbon of smoke rising from the remains of last night’s cook fire. The brown tents remain tightly wrapped, and even the animals are still asleep.

“An army, eh?” Niklaas watches me struggle out of the trough and squeeze the water from my overshorts with an assessing look. “Better be a flaming big one, boy. Even then, you may be able to take the capital, but holding it will be another thing.”

“I appreciate your concern, but I don’t require your advice.” And I don’t require an army big enough to take Mercar. I only need an army big enough to distract Ekeeta and her ogres long enough for me to sneak into the castle and free my brother.

“Require it or not, you’re going to get it,” Niklaas says with an arrogance that makes me blink.

But I shouldn’t be surprised. Human princes take for granted their right to bully anyone smaller or less powerful than they are. Princes like my father, who lied and deceived and stole the things he wanted without stopping to consider the lives he destroyed in the process.

“Reclaiming your sister’s throne will take more than a few thousand men,” Niklaas continues. “You’ll need ships to defend the coast. Without them—”

“I’m raising an army,” I say as I wring out the sleeves of my linen undershirt. “If you want to meet my sister, you’ll keep your thoughts to yourself and help me find one.”

“Cocky thing, aren’t you?” he asks, eyebrows lifting. “Well, big britches, you’ve already failed to secure the one army for hire this side of the Gefroren Mountains, so how exactly am I—”

“I hear the people in the Feeding Hills might be willing to fight for me.”

“The Feeding Hills?” Niklaas chuckles. “I’m not going to the Feeding Hills.”

“What about you, then?” I ask. “Do you have an army? One I could … borrow?”

“You want to borrow an army?” His lips curl at the edges.

“Yes,” I say, pi

“Hers,” he says, still gri

“My sister and I are very close.” He has no idea how close. “She would want you to lend me your aid.”