Princess of Thorns

“I can’t. I need someone to spar with me before Gettel wakes up and tells me to take it easy.”

“You should take it easy.” I close my eyes and am halfway asleep again when Aurora takes a ru

“But this is your last day, and my last chance to spar with someone who knows how to fight. Come on, you can nap later.” She pokes at my ribs with her bony fingers. “Wake up, Niklaas, wake up, wake up, wake up,” she says in a singsong voice, accompanying each “wake up” with another jab to my ribs. “Waaaaake up, waaaake—”

I roll over and tackle her, knocking her flat on the mattress and covering her face with my pillow, muffling her laughter. “I should smother you back to sleep,” I say. “Better for everyone. Keep you out of trouble.”

“You wouldn’t!” she protests with a giggle, her hands finding my bare chest and shoving at the ribs she was prodding a moment ago.

Her touch is cool against my blanket-warmed skin and surprisingly nice. Familiar but unfamiliar and … interesting in a way I wouldn’t have expected, making me aware of the fact that there is a girl in my bed, and that we are alone in the barn, and that there is no chaperone around to interfere.

“I can’t breathe!” she says, banishing the odd thought with a pinch.

“That’s the point.” I pull the pillow away, revealing a red-cheeked Aurora, wisps of hair standing out around her face. “You look like you’re up to something.”

“I am up to something: getting back into condition,” she says, wrinkling her nose in a way that I have to admit is cute, despite the fact that she’s awoken me from the best sleep I’ve had in weeks. “Come on, we can practice behind the barn.” She sits up, throwing the pillow at my chest before rolling off the bed. “Gettel won’t see us from the window, and I’ve put down straw on the grass to break our falls. First one knocked off their feet three times in hand-to-hand has to give up their scone.”

“What kind of scones?” I throw off the covers, wondering if Aurora will be flustered by the fact that I’m not wearing anything but tight long underwear pants Gettel pulled from her son’s old things.

But of course she’s seen me in much less.

The thought makes my cheeks heat. I’ve never been shy around a girl, but I’ve never been nearly naked in front of a girl who wasn’t nearly naked herself.

“I’m not sure.” Aurora grabs my shirt and throws it onto the mattress without a glance at the nakeder parts of me. “They were still cooking when I snuck through the kitchen, but I think I smelled blackberries.”

Blackberry. I shove my arms into my sleeves. “Hand to hand, no swords or staffs?”

“I figured that was the only fair way for us to fight.” She crosses to the ladder and steps onto the top rung. “Seeing as I possess superior skill in armed combat.”

I snort and reach for my pants, suddenly more inspired about this sparring match. “In your dreams, runt.”

“In your nightmares,” she says with a wink as she disappears down the ladder.

I dress, shove my feet into shoes, and hurry down the ladder to find Aurora already outside the barn, standing on a patch of hay-covered grass. Her hair looks lighter in the dawn light, a shining white-blond that trails nearly to the ground.

“You should have put your hair up.” I stalk toward her, stretching my arms across my chest as I go. “I fight dirty when scones are involved.”

“That’s all right, I’m fairy-blessed.” She tosses her braid over her shoulder and steps back, making room as I take my place across from her. “But no blows to the face. We don’t want you ugly for the festival tonight.”

“What are you fairy-blessed with?” I bend my knees and roll my shoulders, waking up my body. “I mean, obviously strength and skill in battle, but is that all?”

A strange looks flits across her face, but it vanishes before I can read it and she is smiling again when she shrugs. “Not much else. Just bravery and mercy.” She bends her neck side to side and circles her wrists. “I couldn’t hurt a defenseless man even if I wanted to. So don’t worry, you have nothing to be afraid of.”

I smile, a baring of my teeth that feels wonderfully vicious. But before I show the runt what I learned in twelve years of hand-to-hand combat training with the meanest men in Kanvasola, I have to know—

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” I ask. “You were looking pretty fragile while you were sleeping yesterday.”

“Aw, Niklaas, were you watching me sleep?” She bats her lashes in an excellent imitation of myself when I’m teasing her. “That’s sweet. A little odd but sweet.”

I scowl. “I was worried.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry anymore. I’m nearly back to normal, which should give you just the barest chance to—”

Before she can finish her taunt, I rush her, aiming for her midsection, already visualizing the way I’ll sweep my arm back, buckling her knees and knocking her off her feet with one hand as I pin her chest to the ground with my shoulder. I move as fast as a person recently wrenched from their bed can be expected to move, but Aurora is faster. She sees me coming and jumps, shoving her hands into my shoulders and launching herself into the air. There is enough time for my jaw to drop as I realize she’s going to jump over me and then her boot is on my shoulder and she’s gone.

I spin to face her, but she has already landed and slipped her leg between both of mine. When I turn, I trip, and when I trip Aurora is right there to pounce on my chest and take me to the ground like a feral squirrel defending its winter stash.

I hit the grass with a grunt as the air rushes from my lungs and pull in my next breath with Aurora’s arm across my throat.

“One for me,” she says with a gleeful grin. “Do you want me to try the next round with my good arm pi

“Laugh while you can, feral squirrel. I’m ready for you now.”

“Is that my new nickname?” She laughs as she pulls her arm from my neck and sits back on her heels, tossing her braid back over her shoulder in a way that draws my attention to the fact that the first two buttons on her shirt have come undone, revealing an intriguing triangle of skin. “I like it. Much better than ‘runt.’ ”

“How about ‘feral runt’?” I jump to my feet, mentally vowing not to give her the satisfaction of taking me down again. At least, not so easily.

“That I don’t like,” she says with mock seriousness. “If you call me that again, I’ll have to exact vengeance.”

I grin. “Exact away. Feral runt.”

This time, she makes the first move, feinting to my right before stepping in tight to the left and hooking her leg around my ankle. She shifts her weight forward as her elbow comes to the center of my back, ready to leverage me to the ground.

Instead of fighting her, I let her propel me forward, tucking my head and diving into a roll across the grass before springing back to my feet. Sensing her close behind, I kick backward, hoping to knock her away long enough to turn around. Instead she grabs my leg and holds it locked against her as she runs forward, bringing the limb up and over my body, flipping me onto my back.

I land with an oof of surprise. A second later she is straddling my chest, her arm once again at my throat.

She leans in, bringing her face close to mine before she whispers, “Those scones probably aren’t any good anyway.”

“Don’t count your scones before they’re on your plate.” I ignore the rushing feeling in my chest as her breath feathers over my lips. “I could still reach three before you do.”

She lifts one pale brow, making it clear what she thinks of that possibility.

“How’d you get that scar?” I ask, ru

“I don’t remember.” She hops back to her feet. “It was the day the queen ordered my mother, my brother, and me imprisoned. I was bleeding when the soldiers threw me into the dungeon, but I don’t know how I was wounded.”