Princess of Thorns

“I know that, and I … love you, too,” I say, bringing a smile to his face that sets self-loathing to sharpening its claws on my heart. “But to save my brother we have to pretend to be enemies. From the moment we leave this cabin until we escape the castle with Jor, there must be no kindness between us. Do you understand?”

He nods, but I’m still not entirely convinced.

“Nothing will make me happier than if you are cruel to me until you deliver me to Ekeeta at Mercar,” I whisper, crossing to take his hand in mine and stare deep into his eyes. “Be as cruel as you can be. We have to make Ekeeta believe you hate me. Can you do this for me, Niklaas?”

“I’ll do my best.” He gives me a shy grin. “I’d do anything to make you happy.”

“Good.” I back toward the door, already needing a moment away from the stranger Niklaas has become. “I’m going to wash up and water the horses. When I get back, we’ll decide how to travel. I’ll need to be bound so it’s clear I’m your prisoner.”

“I’ll make breakfast and get some rope from the barn,” Niklaas says, throwing off the covers and practically leaping from bed in his rush to do my bidding.

I try to take his eagerness as a good sign, but I can’t help but worry as we go about our morning tasks, preparing for the journey. It will take four days to reach the capital, and that’s if we ride hard all day, swapping our horses for fresh ones when we can, and part of every night. Is Niklaas capable of keeping up an act for that long?

And what about when we reach Mercar? Will Ekeeta be able to see he’s under an enchantment the way Gettel could? Ogre magic isn’t the same breed of magic as that of witch-born women, but still … Ekeeta is powerful and likely to be suspicious. If she asks too many questions, Niklaas may falter and end up in the dungeon right along with me.

I’ll have to remind him what to say and how to behave, I think, palms sweating with nerves as we leave the cabin and set out toward the open road, where we will no longer be sheltered by Gettel’s wards. I’ll remind him every hour if I have to.

“Niklaas, I—”

“Quiet!” Niklaas snaps at me over his shoulder, making me blink with surprise. We agreed he should ride ahead, leading my horse by a rope tied to his saddle, since my hands are bound behind me, but at the moment I wish I could see his eyes.

“But Niklaas, I—”

“I said quiet.” The hatred in his expression when he turns co

I swallow and nod, heart racing as I begin to wonder what mad thing I’ve done now, ordering a person determined to do precisely as I say to be cruel to me. I know the real Niklaas would never hurt me, but I have no idea what this shell will do in the name of obeying my order to the letter.

“Next time, we’ll stuff something in there to keep you quiet,” he says.

I shiver, ducking my head to my chest until he turns back around, shocked to find I’m truly afraid. Shocked and strangely … satisfied.

Because if anyone deserves to suffer …

And suffer I do. I ride for hours without anything to shield my face, until my skin begins to itch, the discomfort becoming torture when I’m unable to lift a hand to scratch my throbbing nose. I’m forced to relieve myself with Niklaas hovering on the other side of the bush, shouting for me to hurry up, and am hauled up from the stream where I kneel to suck down a drink and cool my scorched forehead by a handful of my own hair.

When we finally stop for the night, Niklaas leaves my hands bound behind my back, ensuring I pass the few hours we stop to rest in a fitful sleep interrupted by flashes of pain from my strained shoulders.

He doesn’t speak to me at all the first day or the second, not even when we barely outrun a pack of wild dogs or when carrion flies swarm around us for nearly an hour—crawling in and out of every orifice in my head, making me shudder and shake and scream with my mouth closed. Even when the wind picks up and we lose the flies and I beg him to tie my hands in front of my body so I can defend myself if the insects return, he acts as if he doesn’t hear a word.

I don’t give him an official order to untie me, but I’m not sure it would matter if I did. He has taken my mandate in the cabin so completely to heart that there seems to be no room in his mind for anything but fulfilling his mission and making his mistress happy.

Even if her happiness is to be won with abuse.

By the time we reach western Norvere—racing across a farmer’s wheat fields and down into a hidden canyon just seconds ahead of an ogre patrol—my wrists are so chafed that they sting constantly, making me whimper when Niklaas urges the horses into a gallop and I can no longer hold my hands still.

That night, he only allows me an hour of sleep before ordering me to wake up with a nudge of his boot in my side. When I don’t move quickly enough, the nudge becomes a rough hand that hauls me to my feet and shoves me toward my horse. Still half-asleep, I stumble on an unseen rock and fall to the ground, bursting the skin on my cheek in the process.

Niklaas doesn’t pause to see if I’m seriously hurt, only hauls me up and onto my horse with an order to “move faster next time.”

The only good thing about getting so little sleep is that I am spared my nightmares. I’m too tired to dream of my brother’s death or the ogre queen or Niklaas’s transformation, and Niklaas seems to have forgotten that he is cursed, his awareness of his fate banished by his need to serve me. I am thankful for those things, thankful for every little kindness, even if that kindness is only the absence of further misery.

We ride and ride, day and night, stealing fresh horses three times, until I lose track of how long we’ve been traveling and measure our progress in how many minutes I’m able to go without crying out in pain.

By the time we reach the coast and begin backtracking to Mercar on foot—hoping to sneak into the city through the aqueducts, putting us inside the castle walls without a

My trembling hands, with the fingers swollen into near uselessness from being forced behind my back for so long.

A sob escapes my lips, but Niklaas doesn’t order me to be quiet. Perhaps he can’t hear me over the wind sweeping in from the ocean. I look up to see if he has turned around only to have the hair escaped from my warrior’s knot lash into my eyes and stick to the crusted scab on my cheek where the blood was never wiped away.

What have I done? By the gods, what have I done?

My hope is in pieces, lethal shards that threaten to slice me open if I try to put them back together again. I doubt everything, I trust no one, especially not myself. I am so weary I can’t feel my legs, as close to broken as I have ever been, filled with self-hatred and panic and perilously close to losing my co

I pray my sad state will be worth it. I pray it will be enough to convince the ogre queen to believe Niklaas’s story. If it isn’t …

Oh, if it isn’t …

I bite my lip to stifle another sob and turn my head, blinking until the hair is swept from my eyes by the wind. When my vision clears, I find I’m able to see the five gently rounded towers of Mercar Castle barely visible above the cliffs.