Princess of Thorns

Aurora

Immediately after breakfast, Niklaas is spirited away by a wagon full of men on their way to the festival grounds to set up the stages, dancing boards, benches, and fenced yard for the littlest children to play in while their mothers and fathers enjoy the celebration. He doesn’t return until late afternoon, right as Gettel is forcing us all to take a nap in preparation for staying up well after midnight for a second night in a row.

I go to my bed grudgingly, cursing myself and my failure.

Some temptress I am. I was gaining ground this morning—I could tell Niklaas was softening toward me—but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and stop fighting with him long enough for softening to become anything more. Still, a twisted part of me relished every contrary word out of his mouth, knowing all too soon he might never disagree with me again.

Or he might defy me until the minute he rides out of the valley tomorrow morning. I can’t decide which is worse—to learn he loves me and ruin him, or learn he doesn’t and watch him walk away.

“Hold still, I’m nearly finished,” Gettel says, pi

She’s been stabbing at my hair for the better part of an hour. My neck is stiff and my bottom numb from the hard seat of the chair, but I do my best to hold still. Gettel has done so much for me—from saving my life to taking in a lovely lavender gown of hers to fit me for the festival—the least I can do is indulge her passion for arranging hair.

“My youngest daughter has hair even longer than yours,” she says, a fond note in her voice. “But dark brown and coarse as anything. It would take hours to get it braided or combed out and rolled onto curlers when she was little.”

“Is that Kat’s mom?” I ask, silently thanking the stars Gettel decided my hair only needed curling in the front. An hour spent fussing with hair, I can suffer. Anything more would have been more than I could bear.

“Yes. I stole her away from her birth parents when she was not quite a year old,” Gettel says with a wry smile. “Some of the stories about we witches are true, you know. We do steal children, but only those who need to be stolen. My daughter’s parents were thieves by trade and neglected her terribly. I took her away and gave her a kinder life.”

“That was good of you.”

“No, that was lucky for me,” she says. “She was a blessing.”

“Is she … ?” I pause, not wanting to finish the question.

“Dead? No, but she’s … lost to me. And Kat.” Gettel plucks more flowers from their stems, leaving the blossoms on the handheld mirror on the mantel. “Kat’s father supplies the kingdoms of Herth with Elixir of Elsbeth’s Rose. He supplied my daughter as well, until she nearly wasted to death. To save her, I was forced to lock her away.” She pins another flower in my hair. “There is a tower in the woods beyond the valley. You may see it on your ride out. My daughter has lived there since last spring but still craves the elixir above all else. She expresses no desire to see Kat or … myself.”

“That’s terrible.” I can’t understand how anyone, no matter how poisoned, could cast their mother from their life, especially a mother like Gettel. “I’m so sorry.”

Gettel pats my hand. “I still have hope. One day I will climb the tower and she will be the girl I raised again, I know it.” She sets her pins down and takes a long look at her creation. “You should send your mother a message,” she says, eyes still on my hair. “She deserves to know where you’re going.”

“My mother is dead.”

“No she isn’t, sugar.” Gettel smiles and pats my hair like a pet that’s performed a brilliant trick. “She’s on an island far away, but not so far I can’t feel her searching for you. She has great magic, but not enough to find you here.”

“She’s Fey, my fairy mother,” I say, feeling terrible. I haven’t thought of Janin in days, haven’t even paused to imagine how concerned she must be.

“She loves you, and she’s worried.” Gettel turns, fetching paper and a charcoal pencil from the mantel and pressing them into my hands. “Write her. I’ll have the message sent by falcon first thing tomorrow. Now I’m going to fetch something to give you a little color. Don’t look in the mirror until I get back.”

I nod and bend over the paper in my lap, but when I put the charcoal to it I don’t know where to start. “I’m sorry” is inadequate, and “forgive me” will probably come too late. I know there’s at least a fifty-fifty chance I will die in Mercar. Janin will know it too.

In the end, I simply tell her that my attempt to secure an army has failed and that I’m going to the capital to free Jor myself. And then I tell her “thank you” and “I love you” and ask her not to blame herself. Not that she would.

Fairies don’t feel guilt the way humans do. They live for thousands of years, long enough for the weight of their past mistakes to crush them to dust if they allowed them to. Janin will not regret taking me in and loving me like a daughter and working so desperately to protect me, only to have me deliver myself into danger.

That will be my burden to bear, for however many days are left to me.

“I can get that out now if I hurry,” Gettel says, bustling back into the room. “If we’re lucky, the master of birds won’t have left for the festival just yet.”

Gettel tucks the paper into her apron before leaning down to dab something sticky from a pot in her hands onto my cheeks, lips, and a touch above my eyes.

“I make this to aid in healing, but it’s the prettiest pink. It might make your lips tingle, but that will pass.” She stands back, and claps her hands. “Perfect! Take a look while I give this to Bernard. If Kat comes in, tell her not to eat anything or she’ll ruin her supper.”

I wait until Gettel is out the door before standing and fetching the mirror. It’s a lovely, heavy thing with a silver frame and only gently clouded glass.

It may also be enchanted.

It must be, I decide, as I stare, slack-jawed, at my reflection. That can’t be me. That girl with the riot of golden curls forming a flower-dusted frame around her face, with dewy pink cheeks and sparkling eyes that look more lavender than gray. I tip the mirror down, taking in the whisper-thin violet gown that bares most of my shoulders and clings tight to my chest before falling in gossamer waves to my ankles. It is as beautiful as my good gown back home, but fits me even better, emphasizing my curves, making me look plush and healthy instead of scrawny and small.

For the first time in my life, I look like a woman. I feel like a woman. Tonight I am not plain or boyish, I am as lovely as a girl in a fairy story, nearly as lovely as my mother, the woman whose name for me will always be synonymous with beauty and kindness. She may have cursed me, but she didn’t mean to. She only wanted to keep me safe, to prevent me from marrying a man who would betray me the way my father betrayed her. She didn’t know what her wish would do to me … or to the boys foolish enough to love me.

I close my eyes, remembering the press of Thyne’s lips on mine, the ocean and star fruit taste of him on my tongue. I remember pulling away to watch the spark fade from his eyes, sucked away like smoke up a chimney after the fire is put out, leaving nothing but an empty hearth, waiting for me to fill it.

My breath rushes out with a sob. I can’t do it. I can’t, no matter how—

“Aurora?”

I open my eyes to find Niklaas standing by the fire, wearing a crisp white shirt with a traditional Frysk vest the same dark brown as his riding pants and freshly shined black boots. His patchy whiskers from this morning have been shaved away and his hair cut and combed through with something that makes it shine like spun gold.