Princess of Thorns

“Tell us,” we hiss into the prince’s ear. “Or your suffering will never end. You will not be allowed to take your own life. We will not allow you the mercy of death.”

Jor presses his lips together, muffling the whimpers escaping from the back of his throat, still refusing to speak, as if he knows his silence is more infuriating than words of defiance could ever be.

We are the queen. We are the vessel of the prophecy. We have been trusted with so much and will fall so far—so very far—and we will not be ignored by a boy barely old enough to grow whiskers!

“Tell us!” we shout, bringing our fist down on the board beside his head.

“My queen.” Our brother’s voice reaches our ears a moment before his hand alights on our shoulder. “Come away from the boy.”

We shiver as we turn, meeting Illestros’s gaze. He is disappointed in us. We have failed our brother, the most powerful prophet the world has ever known, at the moment when our success means everything to our people.

We shiver again.

“Release him.” Illestros motions for our man to ease the tension on the ropes. “Take the prince to his cell and give him a restorative to drink.”

“We will try again later,” we whisper.

“There’s no need.” Illestros watches with pitying eyes as the solider unstraps Jor and leads the limping prince from the room. The boy casts a glance over his shoulder as he goes, his expression filled with a chilling mix of hatred and resolve. He may never confess, no matter how we torture him, and what will we do then?

“But we had no answer,” we say, shamed by our admission. “We must try again.”

“It would do no good, my queen. The boy has no answer to give.” Illestros strokes our back, soothing us with his touch before soothing us with his words. “He is not the fairy-blessed child. It is the girl.”

The girl. Aurora. We never imagined Rose would choose her daughter as her champion.

“A hawk brought word from the Locked Forest this morning,” Illestros says, handing over a small scroll. “The Boughtswords believe they have captured the lost prince of Norvere and are demanding his ransom be paid.”

“But the prince is here,” we mutter as we read the missive.

“We know this, but they do not,” Illestros says. “You were wise to keep the boy’s capture a secret. They say a boy dressed as a fairy attempted to hire them to attack the castle, and when they refused he put up such a fight twelve men were injured before he was contained.”

A frown tugs our brows together. “It could be a Fey boy. Surely the princess—”

“They sent a lock of hair,” Illestros says. “My divinations confirm it belongs to one briar-born.”

“Then it is the girl.” Our relief is tinged with only a hint of fear. “And she is blessed with strength in battle. Will this knowledge be enough?”

“Perhaps.” Illestros takes our hand, drawing us across the room and up the stairs, out of the blackness of the dungeon. “If not, there is still time to discover her secrets. I have sent word to Keetan and his men. They aren’t far from the Locked Forest. They will have her in hand by tonight.”

The Locked Forest. Only two days’ hard ride from the castle. We could have as little as two days left. We do our best to believe it will be enough.

Chapter Four

Niklaas

I catch up with the boy a field before the splitting of the road and force him onto a deer trail in the woods. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem compelled to argue for argument’s sake and allows me to lead the way through a grove of southern beech trees and into the denser forest on the hillside.

We are halfway up the hill, barely out of sight, when the sound of hoofbeats pounding across hard dirt rumbles through the trees.

I motion for Jor to stop, straining for a sign that a rider has turned off to follow us. There wasn’t time to conceal the hoofprints leading into the woods. If the mercenaries are watching the ground, one of them will spot the place where we left the road.

But the hoofbeats soon fade, replaced by the silence of watchful woods. Jor lifts a pale brow, but I raise my hand, motioning for the boy to wait. Finally, when one bird and another resume their song, I urge Alama forward, thanking the gods for a bit of luck. Jor and his horse follow behind, and we travel in blessed silence for close to a quarter hour. I thank the gods for that as well.

My headache has blossomed into a carnivorous flower determined to devour my brainmeats from the inside out. The last thing I want is to be forced to make conversation with the Brat Prince.

But sadly, no reprieve lasts forever.

“I assume we’ll turn east when we reach the ridge?” Jor asks as the path grows steeper. His voice sounds even more feminine when drifting to my ears from behind than it did talking face to face.

You can tell the boy was raised among fairy folk, where the men and women act so much alike it can be hard to tell one from the other. The Fey have become reclusive in recent years, since Ekeeta placed a bounty on every fairy head, but I’ve run into enough fairy men to know that, despite their skill in battle, they’re far more interested in singing and dancing and fussing over their ancient plants than in any respectably masculine pursuit.

The manliest thing about Jor is the scar above his left eyebrow, that puckered bit of skin the only part of his face that isn’t smooth and pillowy. From his apple cheeks to his button of a nose to his smooth chin and mouth with the upper lip curving in a bow, the boy might as well be Fey himself. I’ve been called a pretty boy myself a time or two, but I was never as delicate as the boy behind me. Even my brother Valerio, who my father bitingly called his “firstborn daughter,” had the shadow of whiskers by fourteen.

“Did you hear me?” Jor asks, that uppity note creeping into his voice again.

“I heard you,” I grumble. Thank the gods I’m the youngest of my cursed brothers and accustomed to a certain degree of abuse. Nariano and Ninollo would have exercised their fists on anyone who dared to use that tone with their princely selves.

“And? Will we be turning east?”

“Considering turning west will take us closer to Mercar and people who want your head on a pike, I think east is best.” I close my eyes for a moment, knowing Alama will keep to the trail. “Unless, of course, your sister is hidden somewhere to the west …”

“I told you, I’m not taking you to Aurora until you—”

“Your army. I know.” I open my lids a crack and regret it immediately as the sun flickering through the canopy stabs its cruel rays into my eyes. “Have you thought of how you’re going to pay for that army? I notice you didn’t bother with your pack.”

“I was trying to hurry,” Jor says. “You said you had enough gold for both of us.”

“I have enough gold to keep us in food and drink and pay for an i

Jor sighs. “Well, I may not need gold. I’m told the people in the Feeding Hills are sympathetic to my cause.”

I grunt. I would wager the cowards in the Feeding Hills are sympathetic only to their own cause. The entire population is composed of nobles who swore loyalty to Ekeeta and her ogres during the takeover of Norvere—watching those who stood against the queen robbed of their souls and thrown into the sea—only to sneak away in the night in the months following to hide in the one place the ogres wouldn’t dare hunt them down.