Princess of Thorns

“I bet she would.” His smile sours as he runs a hand through his hair. “Too bad for the both of you, I don’t have an army. I’m an eleventh son. Eleventh sons are lucky to have a horse and a sword and a copper pot to piss in, and I lost my copper pot to the witch who sold me this charm.”

I try not to let my disappointment show or to give in to the urge to ask Niklaas what the devil he has to offer an ousted princess if not an army to help her reclaim her kingdom. I can’t afford to scare him away. He might still prove useful as a guide, if nothing else.

“All right.” I cross my arms, sending water streaming from beneath my vest. “Then you will escort me to the Feeding Hills in exchange for an introduction to my sister.”

“I’m not taking you to the flaming Feeding Hills,” he says with a strained laugh. “They’re halfway across the world, and I—”

“They are an eight-day journey. Less if the horses are traveling light,” I say. “And you’ll take me where I ask.”

“Now see here, boy—”

“And I am not a boy or a little man,” I snap. “I’m fourteen years old.”

He snorts. “You look on the weaning side of twelve.”

“And you look like a prince who’ll have no princess to pester if he doesn’t do as I say.”

“Listen, boy,” Niklaas says in a harsh whisper, his blue eyes growing darker. “I can put you back in that tent as easily as I plucked you out. Maybe you should think on that before you start giving orders.”

“Then leave.” I sit down on the edge of the trough, calling his bluff. “Good luck finding my sister alone. She’s been hidden for ten years, and unlike me, she’s very good at staying out of the way of dumb princes with no armies, who think they—”

“All right then, you cursed little …” Niklaas’s grumble ends in a sigh and a forced smile, a grimaced baring of his teeth that would be amusing under different circumstances. “We have a deal. Do you know how to ride?”

“Of course I know how to ride. And how to fight.” I draw myself up to my full height, but the top of my head is still barely level with Niklaas’s shoulder.

Jor takes after my mother—tall and long-boned, with white-blond hair and blue eyes. I take after my father—short and delicate, with hair the color of a dusty yellow dog and flat gray eyes as mysterious as spring drizzle. Without berries to paint my lips and burnt nutshells to stain my lashes black, my face is as interesting as a lump of dough.

If Ekeeta had birthed a child who had lived past his cradle days and I were no longer the rightful heir to the most powerful throne in Mataquin, I wouldn’t have to worry about kings or princes wanting to marry me. I wouldn’t have to dread the day I’ll be forced to bind myself to a man I don’t love, a man I will destroy the moment his lips meet mine.

“All right, runt.” Niklaas claps my shoulder hard enough to make me stumble. “We’ll see if we can find you a sword on our way out, as well as a horse.”

“I prefer a staff,” I say, rubbing my shoulder. “I’ll fetch my pack and staff from the treasure tent and we can be on our way.” I turn to cross the camp to where the Boughtsword prostitutes sleep amidst the mercenaries’ other stolen treasures but am stopped by a hand clutching my elbow.

“Are you mad?” Niklaas asks, his eyes wide.

“My gold is in my pack.”

“I’ve got gold enough for the both of us.”

“And my staff is fairy ironwood and sized for a small fighter,” I say. “I’ll never find another so perfectly suited to me.”

“Then you’ll make do with one a little less perfect,” he says through clenched teeth, clearly on the verge of losing his temper. “If you go prancing around the camp, you’ll be caught, and we’ll both be killed.”

“I won’t prance. And I won’t be caught.” I break his hold, freeing my arm with a twist of my elbow learned while training in hand-to-hand combat with Thyne. “And if you’re captured, you won’t be killed. Pretty oafs fetch a good price at the slave market.”

Niklaas shoots me a menacing scowl—confirming my suspicion that he can look suitably dangerous—and lunges for me, but I anticipate the move and sidestep at the last moment.

His momentum sends him tumbling to the grass with a grunt that makes me grin as I dash away, the only sound a soft squish as water oozes from my boots.

Chapter Three

Niklaas

Flaming son of a demon. Arrogant, briar-born slog. Stuffed and trussed, barely teat-weaned, fuzz-faced baby man!

I call the Brat Prince every foul name I know and a few I make up on the spot as I follow the slip of a boy across the sleeping camp. I move as quickly as I can with my head drink-fogged and not an hour of sleep the entire night, but I can’t catch up with Jor before he reaches the treasure tent and slips inside.

He’s a spare thing—shorter than my sister, Haanah, and narrower, too, with pigeon legs covered in linen pants sticking out beneath his brown leather overshorts and his scrawny chest swimming in an armored vest two sizes too big—but he’s wretched fast.

And wretched foolish.

He’s scrapped our easy escape and practically delivered us both into Boughtsword hands. Now we’ll have to fight our way out of the camp and hope the mercenaries are still too drunk to prevent us from stealing their horses and getting far enough down the road to avoid an arrow in the back.

“Cheek licker,” I mutter as I pull back the tent flap.

I reach for my sword—expecting to find the little man already snatched up by mercenaries—but once my eyes adjust to the murky light, I see his boots sitting on a carpet a few hands away and the prince silently picking his way across the body-littered ground in his stocking feet.

It seems more than a few of the Boughtswords stumbled to the treasure tent after our drinking games to visit the pleasure girls and never made it back to their own beds. Men and women in various states of undress lie snoring on straw pallets on the ground, blankets and pillows strewn about, ripped and leaking feathers, as if a battle was fought with the bed things before the revelers passed out for the night.

The tent stinks of garlic and onions and barley spirits, with a hint of soured milk that makes me wager someone couldn’t hold their drink, but beneath the stink are the sharp tang of gold and silver and the smoky scent of magic, the smell of treasure drifting from the crates stacked on the far side of the tent.

The Boughtswords are primarily concerned with increasing their stores of hard currency, but they traffic in magical items as well. It was my enchanted charm, which I assured them would lead them to the legendary pirate Swain’s lost treasure, that earned me their welcome last night. We were still debating the price for the charm when the Boughtsword leader passed out before the fire, giving me the chance to go hunting for the briar-born captive I suspected was being held in his camp.

I managed to stay conscious after the final Boughtsword fell, and I have Usio to thank for it. My brother and I built up quite a tolerance to spirits in the months before the curse claimed him. Knowing that our debauchery helped me avoid being robbed and taken prisoner makes me even more determined to see this adventure through. I have to succeed in my quest, if only to live to tell Haanah she was wrong and that my days spent drinking and wenching my way through half the kingdom weren’t a tragic waste of time.

I will succeed. Three weeks remain until my eighteenth birthday; three weeks to find the lost princess, convince her to marry me, and escape my brothers’ fates.