Princess of Thorns

“There you are!” The outraged shout comes from behind me.

I drop Aurora’s hands and turn to see Kat, still in her nightgown, standing barefoot in the grass. “I thought you might be out here. Gram told me not to bother you, but I snuck out the back door. I didn’t want you to miss breakfast. Baba made scones!”

“Did she now?” Aurora asks in a light voice, slipping around me with a smile.

“She did. And they’re fresh out of the oven.” Kat skips across the grass to grab Aurora’s hand as Gettel comes around the corner of the barn.

“You sneak,” Gettel scolds. “I’m sorry, loves, hope she wasn’t bothering you.”

“Not at all. She saved Niklaas from losing his scone rights in battle,” Aurora says, glancing back at me as she’s dragged away. “Are you coming?”

“In a minute,” I say, catching Gettel’s eye. “You go on ahead.”

“All right, but you’d better hurry,” Aurora says. “I’ll keep my hands off your scone, but I can’t make any promises for this one.” She skips ahead of Kat, making the girl giggle as she has her turn to be pulled along.

I wait until they’re out of sight before I turn to Gettel. “I need to talk to you. About Aurora.”

Gettel nods. “You want me to keep her safe.”

“Yes, but it won’t be easy. You’ll need help. She’s strong and stubborn and—”

“I’m sorry, Niklaas,” she says, a sadness in her eyes I haven’t seen there before. Gettel always seems to be in a cheery mood, even when bathing fevered patients or cleaning up a mess Hund made. “She isn’t meant to stay here.”

“You said I could stay. Why not her?”

“Aurora is meant to face the queen.” Gettel pulls her shawl around her shoulders, as if chilled by the thought. “The time is nearly at hand.”

“But she’s too weak. She almost died, how can she—”

“If she chooses wisely, she won’t need strength to defeat the queen,” Gettel says. “And if she chooses unwisely, all the strength in the world won’t matter.”

“What does that mean?” I ask, feeling stupid all over again.

“I don’t know.” She holds out her hands, palms up, and looks to the pale morning sky, as if waiting for wisdom to fall from the clouds. “It’s what the magic tells me, and I feel it’s true.” She glances back at me. “But I can’t say for sure what it means. We must trust Aurora will know when the time comes.”

“She has to go, then?”

“She does, dear boy.” Gettel lays a warm hand on my arm. “I’m sorry.”

I want to argue with her, to insist that Aurora facing the queen is the last thing she or Mataquin needs, but … I trust Gettel, and her magic. This valley is the happiest place I’ve ever been, and all the people here love Gettel and trust her with their lives. If she could protect Aurora, I believe she would. But if she can’t …

“It’s all right.” I can’t deny that I was dreading going alone. Aurora may be impulsive and stubborn, but she’s a hell of a fighter and a quick head in a crisis. If she’ll allow me to temper her “rush in” with a little strategy, we might have a chance. “I’ll go with her. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

Gettel smiles. “She’s lucky to have you.”

I shrug and drop my eyes to the ground, not sure what to say.

“She is,” Gettel says. “And she knows it. She’ll be happy you’re going together.”

“She’ll be happy to have her way,” I say with a wry laugh. “I’ll go tell her, and maybe we can make it through the rest of the day without a fight.”

“Why don’t you tell her tomorrow?” Gettel crosses the damp grass, heading back toward the house. “Fairy-gifted or not, she could use another day to heal. I’m afraid she’ll drag you onto the road after breakfast if you tell her now.”

I chuckle as I fall in beside her. “You know her well, considering she spent her first three days here asleep.”

“I know heroes,” Gettel says a little sadly. “Heroes are all the same.”

For a moment, it’s odd to think of Aurora as a hero, but then, just as suddenly, it isn’t. Of course she’s a hero, a person willing to face extraordinary odds, to rise to any challenge, and to put the welfare of others before her own.

I believed her last night when she said she’d kill herself before she’d put the four kingdoms in danger. I believed her, and it scared me. I’ve always known my life was going to be cut short, but the thought of Aurora dying before she turns eighteen, before she has a chance to hug her brother again or realize that one failed love doesn’t mean her heart is doomed for life, is … unbearably sad.

“Will she live?” I ask beneath my breath. We’re close to the house now, and I don’t want Aurora or Kat to hear.

“I don’t know that, either,” Gettel says, patting my hand. “So be sure to make the most of every moment you have left.”

She disappears into the house, but I pause on the stoop, needing to think, to understand the racing of my heart and the tightness in my throat. I feel panicked, but I’m not sure why. It isn’t the possibility of death—that’s always been there, from the moment Aurora and I escaped from the mercenary camp—it’s what Gettel said.

Make the most of every moment. How do I make the most of my time with Aurora when I’m not even sure who she is, or who I am when I’m with her?

“I saved this for you, but just barely.” Aurora appears in the doorway with a scone in her hand. “You were this close to doing without.” She pinches her fingers together to illustrate the nearness of my escape as she drops the scone into my palm.

“You really are a hero,” I say, but the joke falls flat.

“What?” she asks, forehead wrinkling.

I clear my throat. “Nothing.”

Aurora tugs at her ear. “Can we start this morning over? With no arguments?” she asks, wandering a step closer, wiping her hands on an apron she’s tied on over her pants.

“Sleep well?” I ask, smiling as understanding lights her eyes.

“Very well.” She lifts her arms over her head and comes onto her toes, stretching like a cat. “I’ve been cutting apples for another pie to take to the festival. Would you like to help spice them? I know you have firm opinions on pie.”

“I have firm opinions on most things,” I say, taking a bite of my scone.

“Just one of the things I love about you,” she says in a breezy voice, but for some reason the words steal our smiles away. For some reason they make us stand staring for a long, strained moment, until I remember to swallow and Aurora clears her throat and motions me in with a nervous wave.

“Come on,” she says. “I’ll shave the ci

I follow her inside, watching her tiptoe across the floor to the cook table in her bare feet, as graceful as a dancer, marveling that this scrap of a girl with the pretty hands is capable of inflicting so much damage on my person.

That unexpected longing rises inside of me again, but this time it isn’t simply a longing to touch her, or at least not the way I’ve known it before. It’s a warmer feeling, desire wrapped up in furs to keep it safe from the cold, lust softened like a wine aged for years in gentle darkness. It’s not something I’ve felt before—the need to possess and to treasure so tangled together. It’s uncomfortable, foreign, but also …

Right. And maybe I don’t have to fight it. Maybe I should let it be, and see if … Maybe …

“Will you get the sugar?” Aurora asks, busy with the ci

I fetch the sugar from the far end of the table and place it by her elbow, hope rising inside me like a ghost from the grave.

Maybe if she knew, maybe if I tell her, and if she feels the same …

If she does, everything could be different. Absolutely everything.

Chapter Twenty-Two