Princess of Thorns

Finding her will be the hard part. I’ve yet to meet a girl who can refuse me when I crave her favor, and I’ve never wanted a girl the way I want Aurora of Norvere. I will find her and marry her and Haanah and I will finally be out of my father’s depraved shadow, and the Land Beyond help this reckless prince if he thinks he can deter me from my course.

The woolly-headed boy is now across the room, climbing a stack of crates like a ringtail. He reaches the top and balances on one foot as he paws through the weapons in the uppermost crate and pulls out a fairy staff more slender than my wrist. It hardly seems sturdy enough to last a sparring session, but it’s tougher than it looks. When the boy jumps from the crates—aiming the staff at a clear place on the floor and using it to leverage his body up into the air before giving a shove that sends both him and his weapon sailing over the sleeping mercenaries to land in a silent crouch ten hands from where I stand—the wood doesn’t even creak, let alone crack.

The boy looks up, meeting my eyes with a satisfied grin before padding across the carpet to stuff his tiny feet into his boots.

“Madman,” I mumble, but I can’t keep a grudging smile from my face.

Prince Jor is a runt and a brat and lacks the sense the gods gave a blind goat, but he is an agile thing, I’ll give him that. I’m not sure how much good he’ll be in a fight, but at least it seems his staff will help keep him out of trouble.

I cock my head and hold the tent flap open to let the boy pass, but instead of ducking under my arm he lunges forward, jabbing his weapon into the air behind me. I hear a deep groan and spin to see a bleary-eyed mercenary with a mangy red beard drawing his weapon.

I reach for my sword, but the prince is already slipping around me, staff flying. He brings the wood down on the mercenary’s hands hard enough to make a cracking sound and, when the man drops his sword, goes for the bastard’s head, batting at one side of Red Beard’s face and then the other—back and forth, back and forth, sending the man’s head rocking before finishing him off with a final slam of the staff atop his skull.

Red Beard sinks to the ground, gripping his head with a pitiful moan.

Before his knees hit the grass, Jor is turning to run.

“The horses are this way,” he says as he flies past me, swift as a river rushing over slick stones.

“I know where the horses are,” I say in a harsh whisper.

I glance back at the man curling into a ball in the damp grass, wondering if I should kill him to keep him from alerting the rest of the mercenaries to our escape, but I decide it isn’t worth bloodying my sword and run after Jor.

Jor and I are traveling light, we’ll have a head start, and I know the secrets of these borderland woods as well as any Boughtsword. Usio and I explored every inch of Kanvasola and the surrounding borderlands, from the Locked Forest to the sea caves at Sivnew to the dying volcano high above Eno City—any adventure to keep us away from my father. I’ll have no trouble finding a safe place to camp come nightfall and will have avoided committing the ultimate crime against my fellow man for another day.

I have yet to take a life. My father has killed enough people—enemies and friends, criminals and i

It’s customary in Norvere for the wife to take the husband’s family name, but I’m pla

The thought makes me smile as I jump the remains of last night’s fire and race past the Boughtsword leader, still senseless on the ground beside it. He’s snoring, openmouthed, where I left him, making me feel that much better about our odds of escape.

By the time I reach the remains of an ancient stone wall where the horses are tied, Jor has bridled a handsome bay with an ink-black mane and matching stockings and is swinging up to ride the beast bareback.

“Saddles are in the tent at the far end of the wall. I suggest you get one, unless you want to be thrown before we leave the woods.” I hurry past him to where Alama is tied—already saddled, bagged, and ready—a few horses down.

She snorts and tosses her white head as I approach, glaring at me with accusing brown eyes that seem to demand to know what I was thinking when I saddled her and walked away.

“Poor girl,” I coo, smoothing a hand down her throat as I untie her. “Saddled and left to stew.”

I had the sense to saddle my own horse before allowing the charm to lead me to where Jor was being held captive. Unfortunately, I was too drunk to have the forethought to saddle a second horse for my newly liberated companion.

Truth be told, I’m still half in my cups. We stopped shooting barley brown less than two hours ago. I didn’t drink as much as the other men, but I made a good show of it. Now I wish I’d dumped my cup’s contents on the ground. I’ve got the begi

“Hurry up, big man. We haven’t got all morning!” Jor shouts as he rides past, urging his horse into a canter with a squeeze of his legs.

I see he’s ignored my advice to fetch a saddle, and curse the boy, then curse him a second time as he turns his horse east and gallops off down the main road, racing away beneath oak trees tangling fingers above the dusty lane.

“We’re not taking the main road, you fool!” I shout after him, but he’s already too far away to hear.

“Blasted twit,” I mumble as I swing up onto Alama’s back and urge her after the latest burr in my britches.

As we gain speed out of the camp, she lets out a harsh whi

In the Castle at Mercar  The Ogre Queen

We do not relish torture, but we are not above it.

We ca

We lift our arm, signaling for our soldier to turn the wheel another revolution, tightening the ropes pulling at Prince Jor’s arms and legs. The boy cries out, squeezing his eyes shut as his already pale skin blanches a sickly white. His pain aroused our pity in the begi

Now we loathe him for drawing out his suffering. And our own.

“You have the power,” we whisper, leaning close to his sweating face. “Reveal your fairy blessings and the pain will stop.”

The boy doesn’t answer, but his eyes open, his gaze fixing on the ceiling with silent determination. It has been three days and nights and still he refuses to reveal the nature of his fairy blessings, knowledge our brother must possess in order to conduct the ritual to fulfill the prophecy.

We have tended to the interrogation personally, certain we could break the boy, but the child has proved exceptionally strong. Exceptionally enraging. Our patience is at an end, our desperation too great to allow any room for mercy in our heart.

“Again.” We snap our fingers and our man turns the wheel. This time the boy’s wail lasts several moments, becoming a howl more fitting a beast than a prince blessed with fairy magic. It is a satisfying sound—one we hope carries to our brother’s divining room a floor below the dungeon—but it is not enough. Not nearly enough.