Princess of Thorns

He is even more beautiful than usual, so stu

“Are you all right?” he asks.

I shake my head, my eyes filling.

“Don’t cry.” He takes the mirror from my shaking hand. “You look beautiful.”

My face crumples.

“Well, that’s not so beautiful,” he teases as he pulls me into his arms. “Come on now, stop it. You’ll make your face all red.”

“I was just … thinking of my mother.” It’s partly true.

“Evensew is for celebrating the dead, not mourning them,” Niklaas says, rubbing my back in slow, comforting circles. “Let’s go to the festival. We’ll sing your mother a song and dance a dance in her honor and enjoy ourselves the way she would have wanted. I want to … make the most of tonight, of the time we have left.”

He’s right. There will be time for tears and regrets and hating myself when Niklaas is spared from his curse and Jor is free.

I pull away with a sniff, wiping my eyes with my fingers, careful not to rub the pink from my cheeks. “You’re right.”

“There’s something I don’t hear very often.” He winks as he takes my hand, twining his fingers through mine, making me aware of every bit of skin between my fingers, of the way our calloused palms press together in their own timid kiss.

My nerves hum with longing and my heart aches with misery, sending such conflicting feelings coursing through my body that for a moment it feels I’ll be torn apart. But just when I’m sure I can’t keep holding Niklaas’s hand without bursting into tears again, my head steps in and shuts the misery away, shoving it into the dark corner of my mind where the things I can’t bear to think about fight and claw and fester.

It will escape to tear at me later, but for now, I refuse to think of it, refuse to think of anything but putting one foot in front of another until this night is over.

I’ve made my decision. Now I will see it through.

“Ready?” Niklaas asks.

“Ready.” I force a smile as he pulls me out the door.

Outside, a wagon half full of villagers—including Kat and Gettel, who share the seat beside the big-armed driver—is waiting. As we emerge, the chatter stops and a cheer goes up. The men and women smile as Niklaas helps me into the back of the wagon, wishing us a Merry Evensew, lifting their candles high in the air.

I take a seat on a hay bale and Niklaas settles down beside me. We are handed candles in honor of those we have lost and light them from the flames of the candles of two little girls sitting across from us, symbolizing that we are all co

Niklaas

She is beautiful, so flaming breathtaking I can’t believe I ever thought her merely pretty.

It’s more than her hair or her dress or the shine in her eyes, it’s the way she smiles, the way our eyes meet across the feast table and words pass between us without anything being said, the careful way she takes my hand as I lead her onto the boards to dance, as if she senses the way things are shifting between us and she’s as frightened as I am that somehow we’ll drop this precious thing and it will shatter to pieces.

She’s … magical. Like a dream you try to forget upon waking, something so perfect you have to push it from your head to keep from weeping into your pillow wishing it were real. But she is real, real and warm and in my arms, her breath rushing out as I lift her into the air and set her back down to the beat of the drum.

My hands tighten at her waist and her palms come to rest on my chest, setting my heart to pounding even harder. All around us, men laugh and women squeal as the wild country dance ends with a frenzied fiddle solo that sends couples spi

“Walk with me.” I take her hand, leading her off the dancing boards and into the grass, heading for a grove of white-barked ghost gums at the edge of the field where evening is gathering, creating purple shadows beneath the trees.

I expect her to ask me where we’re going, to say we shouldn’t roam away until the torches are lit, but she doesn’t. She follows me, her hand easy in mine. We walk in silence except for the music drifting across the field and the chirp and hum of summer insects that should have died long ago rising from the grass. I take their calls as a sign, an assurance that miracles can happen.

We reach the trees and I turn to Aurora, bowing over her hand. “May I have this dance, my lady?”

“My lady.” She laughs. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”

“I haven’t forgotten a thing,” I say, pulling her into my arms.

She stiffens and a wrinkle forms between her eyes. “Niklaas, I—”

“Just dance with me, runt,” I say, refusing to let her pull away. “Whatever you’re fretting about can wait.”

She sighs but doesn’t protest as I spin her under the limbs where silver leaves whisper in the breeze, singing along to the blissful lament of “The Last Waltz.” The waltz is a traditional Evensew song I’ve heard dozens of times, but I’ve never appreciated it the way I do now, when I am on the verge of a moment that will change my life.

Every yearning note wrung from the fiddle’s strings vibrates inside me, making my blood rush and my breath ache in my lungs. I have seduced more girls than I can count on my hands and feet, and I’ve even imagined myself in love once before, but I’ve never cared whether a girl said yes or no as much as I do tonight. Knowing my life depends on Aurora’s answer is part of it, but not even close to all. She is already my dear friend, but by the end of the night she might also be the girl I’ll spend my life with, the girl I’ll make a family with. A family where people love and trust each other, where children are treasured, not cursed and thrown away, and no one has to pretend to be something they’re not.

The thought is thrilling and … terrifying. Together we could be magical … or a disaster … or maybe a magical disaster, I’m not sure which. I only know I want the chance to find out if this is real love, the kind that lasts after the first rush is gone, the kind that makes a home a place to find refuge instead of a prison to escape.

“What is this, Niklaas?” Aurora’s whisper is so soft I can barely hear her over the rustling of the trees.

“It’s called dancing,” I say, so anxious that the palm I’ve placed at her waist begins to sweat. “I think we’re pretty good at it.” I draw her closer, gaining confidence when she doesn’t pull away.

“Niklaas …” Her hand squeezes mine. “I have to tell you something.”

“What?” My stomach pitches. What if I’m wrong? What if she doesn’t feel what I’m feeling? What if I’ve tricked myself into believing she cares in order to soothe my pride, to make it all right to accept her offer of marriage and save my own skin?

“I …” She looks up, the torment in her eyes making me forget where to step.

We stop dancing at the same moment, but neither one of us pulls away.

“What’s wrong? Just tell me.” I firm up my expression, making sure she can’t see how deep it will cut if she says something to hurt me.

I’ve been covering hurt with a smile my entire life. I can do it for another eight days. After that, it won’t matter. I’m sure a swan knows nothing about what it’s like to long for a proud father, or a mother who’d lived, or a future without any dark certainties in it and a life without the ending written in stone.