Princess of Thorns

Ekeeta nods. “It saddens us to see cruelty in another when we are so recently free of it, but … we owe you that much.”

“You owe me everything,” I spit, so angry I begin to shiver with it. “My throne, my family, my heart. You owe me more than you can ever repay. And if I’m cruel it is because of you.”

Ekeeta watches me, eyes shining with a mix of tenderness and sorrow that makes me wish I could strike her, if only to slap that stupid expression from her face.

Her lips part, but she wisely decides against speaking to me again and turns to Nippa. “Stay with her. If I’m needed, send Herro. I’ll come straightaway.”

Nippa curtsies, bowing her head so far to her chest she develops an extra chin. “Yes, my queen. Blessed be, my lady.”

“Blessed be, my friend.” Ekeeta touches a light hand to Nippa’s shoulder and leaves without a backward glance.

I’m glad. I don’t want to look at her a second longer. I hate her so much I can taste it, like cork-fouled wine filling my mouth, destroying my ability to recognize any flavor but its bitterness. I stomp around the bed, tearing off my gown as I go, not caring if Nippa sees me naked. She’s already bathed me. It’s not as if we can be on more intimate terms.

“Is it not more extraordinary for one so lost to be found than it is for one who never strayed in the first place?” Nippa asks, plucking my gown from the floor and folding it as I pull on the boy’s pants—which fit as perfectly as I suspected they would—and reach for the black shirt.

“Yes,” I say in a falsely pleasant voice, working my buttons with trembling hands. “She should be given a medal for finally realizing it’s wrong to go about killing people as if they are grouse.”

Nippa frowns. “I know your heart is kinder than that. Even half of your mother in you is enough to make you three times the person your father ever was.”

I pause in pulling on my new stockings. “You knew them?”

“I knew your father when he was a young man, and, after your mother moved to the city, I would attend her when she was ill.” Nippa sets the gown on the bed and begins spreading up the covers. “I came here as a junior nurse when the queen was married to King Radord. She lost so many babes during those years.” Nippa tuts beneath her breath. “Little ones born of a human and ogre union rarely survive, and when they do it is often only for a few days. Ekeeta would hold the babes, rocking them until the light went out of their eyes. It made her … frail, easy prey for Illestros and his allies. Her brother convinced her the only way to end her torment was to allow him to poison King Roland.”

“He killed my grandfather and my father?” I ask, not wanting to think about Ekeeta rocking her dying babies. She has destroyed too many lives for me to have pity for her suffering. “Is he the one who ordered the executions of Mother and the others loyal to my father, as well?”

Nippa nods. “And ogres, too.” She opens the armoire across from the bed and pulls out a sliding shelf, revealing a brush and comb set and a bowl full of ribbons.

“My sister died for refusing to swear allegiance to the new rule,” Nippa continues, handing me the brush and a blue ribbon and watching as I pull my hair into a swift braid. “She made me swear to go along with the takeover and … everything else. She believed one day our queen would see that Illestros had led her astray and need allies. Those who’ve been in hiding are glad that day has finally come.”

“After ten years.” I shove my feet into the black boots.

“Better than twenty.” Nippa says, clearly a pragmatist. “Better now than after our world has been plunged into darkness. I believe your mother would have agreed. She wasn’t the sort to hold on to anger.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” I mumble as I tie up my laces. If Mother hadn’t held onto her anger at Father, then she wouldn’t have wished for me to possess a heart no man would dare defy and Niklaas and Thyne’s minds would still be their own.

“I am. She had such a kind soul. She was the only person who could bring out your father’s gentle side. I only ever saw him smile in her presence.”

“Will you tell me about them? My father, especially?” I ask. “I remember my Mother, but I—”

I stop, head swiveling as a terrible howl breaks the silence outside. I hurry to the window, with Nippa close behind, coming onto my tiptoes to see down into the garden.

What I see makes gorge rise in my throat.

“Goddess,” Nippa murmurs, hand flying to cover her mouth.

Three floors below, on the east side of the royal garden, ogre soldiers are busy in the animal pens. A company swarms into the neatly ordered holdings, slitting throats and shattering cages, claiming a life with every slash of their blades. A few birds manage to escape their enclosures and take to the air, but dozens of vultures, crows, and other birds I can’t name are not so lucky. Feathers fly and wings go limp as the animals fall and are trodden into the dust by black boots.

In the dog and wolf pens, teeth flash and claws scratch, but it is steel that sends blood spraying onto the grass, onto the stone walls, onto the uniforms of the ogres who have set about killing the queen’s pets with a single-minded rage.

What could these animals have possibly done to deserve such a fate?

It isn’t the animals; it is their mistress this is meant to harm.

“We have to go. Now.” I grab the sleeve of Nippa’s brown dress and pull her from the window. “Where is my staff?”

“The guards took it,” Nippa says, clasping her hands together, terror and misery mixing on her face. “Why are they doing this? What’s happening?”

I ignore her and turn, sca

“Our plan has been discovered. Take me to my brother,” I say, motioning for her to follow as I dash to the door. “If we hurry we can—”

My words end in a growl of frustration as ogre soldiers appear in the doorway, swords drawn. I rush at them, knife slashing in swift diagonals, puncturing chain mail and nicking ogre flesh, but it’s only a matter of seconds before I’m disarmed and my arms wrenched behind my back. There are too many of them and I am still weak. Too weak even to resist as they haul me from the room.

I hear Nippa cry out behind me, but I know a plea for mercy from me will only make things worse for her.

I am the enemy, and it seems I’ll have my chance to suffer for it, after all.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Aurora

The golden hall leading to the throne room is even more magnificent than I remember. Floor-to-ceiling windows as tall as Gettel’s cottage line the walls, granting an unparalleled view of the city on one side and the castle grounds rolling down to the sea on the other. In sharp contrast to my dreams of a crumbling Mercar, the city is in excellent condition—every whitewashed building standing tall and strong, every shutter straight, every street so clean it’s hard to imagine horses ever travel them.

There are no horses now. No people, either. It’s as if the citizens have sensed the darkness building inside the castle and have shut themselves up against it, though the evening is warm and the setting sun makes the city glow a glorious pink, like roses dipped in honey.

It is beautiful, so beautiful it makes me ache all over. The light, the sea, the elegant lines of the castle my ancestors commissioned after the last fairy war—they paint a picture that fills me with such bittersweet longing I’m tempted to close my eyes against it, but I don’t. I focus, sealing this last glimpse of Mercar away in my heart.