Princess of Thorns

“Yes,” she says, sniffing as she reclaims my hand. “Of course. I can’t do this without you. I need you to help me save Jor.”

I smile, feeling as if the sun has come out from behind the clouds. To be needed, to be led, to please my love—it is all I want. No curse can frighten me with her by my side. “Anything you need,” I say. “Anything at all.”

But for some reason, my words make Aurora sad again. When she turns to lead me back to the village, her shoulders shake and the sound of her sobs carries to my ears on the wind. I move closer, tucking her under my arm as we walk, promising I will devote myself to her happiness, but she only cries harder. She cries and cries, until it feels as if her misery will drown us both.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Aurora

Once, when I was a little girl and still new to the island, I wanted nothing more than to learn to ride the waves the way the fairies did. I would watch them bobbing in the ocean beyond the reef on their sandalwood boards, waiting for a swell, and ache to be beside them, ready to hop to my feet when the perfect wave came and ride it like a bird riding the wind. I could imagine the taste of that kind of freedom, the giddy thrill of harnessing the power of the sea and dancing atop it.

But Janin said I was too little and not a strong enough swimmer. She said I must wait until I was twelve, and no amount of swimming practice in the quiet cove where the babies learned to paddle and float could change her mind.

So one morning, on a cool, rainy day, when not a single fairy was out drifting on the gray sea, I stole the smallest board I could find from the shelter and ran with it into the ocean. I made it out to where the waves were cresting and, after more tumbles than I’d imagined possible, finally caught a wave and rode it … all the way into the barrier reef.

I knocked my head hard enough to leave a goose egg, slashed open both knees, and limped to shore with an abundance of bruises and scrapes, feeling terribly sorry for myself and angry at Janin for being right.

“You have to be more careful, Aurora. You won’t always get a second chance,” Janin said to me later as she cleaned and dressed the wounds on my knees. “Some mistakes are for forever.”

“You mean I could have died,” I said, wanting to show her that I was brave, that I wasn’t too little to handle scary words.

“Yes. You could have died. Or worse.” She brushed my sandy, salt-matted hair from my face, her expression so disappointed and fearful that I finally began to feel something other than sorry for myself. “Do you understand, Aurora?”

“Yes, Janin, I’m sorry,” I mumbled, tucking my chin to my chest. “I understand.”

But I didn’t understand. Not then, and not years from that day. Even when I was the mercenaries’ captive and feared I had failed my brother and my kingdom, there was still hope of redemption, still a second chance waiting around the corner.

It is only now—with the shell of the boy who used to be Niklaas riding beside me and not a shred of hope of changing him back or saving him from his curse—that I truly understand. I understand and I ache like a rotting tooth that will never be pulled. There is no chance of relief. I have made a forever mistake, and now I will learn what it feels like to pay a price more terrible than death.

“There’s the tower.” Niklaas points to the thin structure spiraling out of the mist that has settled in this part of the valley.

I glance at it but quickly look away, not wanting to think about the girl held captive there, the girl I was so quick to judge and find lacking, when I am the last person who should ever turn up her nose at another’s failings. I am the lowest of the low, and I don’t even have Elsbeth’s Rose to blame for it. I have no one to blame but myself.

“Aurora? Did you hear me? I said the tower is—”

“Yes, I see it. We should reach the cabin soon,” I say, though I feel like I’m talking to myself. A part of me insists there’s no point in responding to this not-Niklaas, but to order him to be quiet would be like kicking a dog in the stomach for daring to wag his tail. Niklaas is not who he was, but he doesn’t deserve to suffer.

“Good. I’m tired.” The real Niklaas would never admit to being tired. The real Niklaas was as defiant of bodily weakness as he was of me.

By the stars, I miss him so much. This is so much worse than I imagined it would be. I would rather see him dead. Worse, I know the true Niklaas would rather be dead.

I clench my jaw and grit my teeth, refusing to cry again. I vowed to be done with crying when we left Gettel’s cottage. Tears only upset Niklaas, and I don’t deserve to cry, not when all of this could have been avoided if I’d only asked for someone else’s advice. Janin was right. Niklaas was right. My pride and my stubbor

“Are you tired? Can I do anything to help you?” Niklaas asks.

I suppress the urge to sigh. “No, but thank you for asking. That was kind.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, pleasure at even that small praise obvious in his voice. “Anything for you.”

I bite the inside of my mouth, resisting the urge to curse my mother for this “blessing.” Mother was i

By the time we reach the cabin, I’ve replayed how I would save him a hundred times, each one more painful than the last.

“This looks nice,” Niklaas says.

He’s right. The cabin is a pretty little thing made of split oak logs, nestled at the edge of a moonlit glen. It even has its own miniature barn and a privy with a window in the roof to let in the moonlight. Once Niklaas and I have made use of the privy, we unsaddle the horses, pen them into the two-stall barn, and give them fresh hay.

“We’ll water them in the morning,” I say, lighting the oil lamp we found hanging from a hook on the cabin’s front stoop. “It sounds like there’s a stream nearby. We’ll be able to see it better in the daylight.”

Niklaas doesn’t say a word, but I know he agrees with my decision. He will always agree with my decisions, until the day he is transformed into a swan and the last of his humanity is stolen away.

Inside the cabin, the interior bears signs of Gettel: a mantel crowded with unusual odds and ends, a kitchen nook with pans hung above the cook table by long hooks, and rugs of all sizes, shapes, and colors warming the floor. The coziness of it makes me sadder. Even Gettel loathes me now. Gettel, who I believed incapable of hating a spider hiding in her sheets. But she couldn’t bear to look at me another moment and was willing to give away her favorite horse—a mare with a black satin coat so shiny it reflected the moonlight as we road—to get rid of me. She may be a witch and the one responsible for cursing Niklaas, but I’m the monster, and we both knew it.

“Are you hungry?” Niklaas pulls a bag of food from his pack. “I have biscuits and apples and—”

“No, let’s get some rest.” I set the lamp on the small eating table and tug off my boots. “We’ll have to pull a long day tomorrow and be ready to keep moving after only a few hours of sleep if we need to. We have to make sure you’re the one to deliver me to Ekeeta. If we’re overcome and brought in by her men, our chances of saving my brother will be even worse than they are already.”