Princess of Thorns

  I return her smile. “I do, when there are people to fool. But you know my secret.”

  She rolls her eyes again. “I do, and again, I’m sorry. I hope you won’t tell the counselors. They’d have my hand cut off.”

  “Of course not,” I say, seeing my chance to win a promise of my own. “And I hope you will keep my secret. I would prefer to meet your counselors as a prince. Sometimes it’s easier to get a straight answer as a boy.”

  “I believe that,” Crimsin says with a sigh. “I’m lucky to get crooked answers, and those I have to tickle out while men are staring at my chest.”

  “Then you won’t tell your leaders the truth?”

  “I am your subject, Princess. I will do as you command. You’ll see the rest of my people are the same,” she says, a warmth in her voice that makes me want to believe her, to relax and let relief flood through me, but I can’t. Even if Crimsin is right, this is only a single step forward. There are still fields to go to free Jor. And after that …

  I haven’t allowed myself to think beyond making sure my brother is safe, but I know Jor and I can’t slip back into hiding for the rest of our lives. My subjects are suffering under Ekeeta’s rule—half their crops are seized for taxes, and their loved ones sentenced to feed the ogres’ hunger for the slightest crimes. I owe it to them to fight for my throne. Even if I rescue Jor and we escape to Malai, sooner or later we will have to raise another army and fight. But at least we will be able to fight side by side and die with a weapon in our hands and our souls our own.

  “But I would suggest we leave soon.” Crimsin bounces back to her feet. “It will be easier to get out of the city unnoticed in the dark. I’ll send Hund ahead with a message for the counselors to expect us.”

  “I can’t leave tonight.” I silently curse Niklaas for drinking himself into uselessness. “My companion really is drunk. I doubt I could keep him awake for longer than a few minutes, let alone mounted on his horse.”

  “Then we leave without him. You can write him a note saying goodbye.” She crosses to the bedside table, pulling parchment and a stick of charcoal from the pocket of her cloak as she goes. “I’ll rip my paper, and you can have half. It’s better if my message is brief. Easier to fit inside the hole in Hund’s collar.”

  “I can’t,” I say, though for a moment I’m tempted.

  How much easier would it be to leave without saying goodbye? Without having to see Niklaas’s face once he learns I’ve deceived him?

  But we’ve made a deal, and Janin raised me never to give my word lightly. A broken promise breaks something inside of you, leaving less of you than there was before. Besides, I have a feeling Niklaas would hunt me down if I left without honoring my half of the bargain. He is insanely determined to meet my “sister.”

  “Don’t tell me the Kanvasola prince can’t read,” Crimsin says, her attention focused on scratching out her message. “I’ve heard he’s a pretty, lazy thing, but really …”

  “He can read,” I say. “But I made a promise. If I leave without him, I won’t be able to honor it.”

  “But we’re women,” Crimsin says with a conspiratorial grin. “According to men, we have no honor. We can’t really be expected to keep all our promises.”

  “I can’t do that,” I say, uncomfortable with her suggestion. “I honor my promises, and I hope you will honor yours. Can I trust you, Crimsin?”

  Crimsin stands, the smile vanishing from her face. “Of course you can, Princess. I would never break a promise to a woman, especially you. And I respect that you have an honorable heart, but it really is best if we leave tonight. Who knows if the passage into the mountains will still be unguarded come tomorrow?”

  She crosses back to her dog and crouches to slip her rolled note into his collar. “The queen hunts for you and your brother, and there are others who hunt for the Kanvasol prince. It’s dangerous for you to remain his traveling companion.”

  “Who’s hunting Niklaas?”

  “His father, of course,” Crimsin says. “The prince is about to turn eighteen, and that isn’t allowed in Kanvasola.”

  “What do you mean? How do you forbid someone from having a birthday?”

  I haven’t spent much time studying Kanvasol law—Janin assured me my hours were better spent studying the Herth customs—but surely not even a king who believes he’s eaten enough infant whales to become immortal can be that mad.

  “Eighteen is the age it is legal for a son to inherit the Kanvasol throne.” Crimsin fetches the pitcher on the washbasin and sloshes water into the bowl meant for washing up before putting it on the floor for the dog. “And so, not one of King Eldorio’s sons has ever lived past his eighteenth birthday.”

  “You mean …”

  She nods and mimes shoving a knife into her own gut. Mine twists in response.

  So that is the beast lurking in wait for Niklaas. Suddenly his fear of an early death, and his refusal to speak of what happened to his brothers, makes terrible sense.

  “That is …” I shake my head, at a loss for words.

  “Wicked?” Crimsin supplies.

  “Unbelievably wicked,” I say, my heart breaking for Niklaas. What must it be like to grow up knowing your father intends to kill you before you become a man? To see your brothers slain, one by one, while every year you grow closer to sharing their fate?

  “How does the king get away with it?” Loathing rises inside me, making me certain I could come to hate Niklaas’s father as much as I hate Ekeeta. “Surely his advisers and his people don’t—”

  “His advisers are snakes, and his people are afraid, like we in Norvere are afraid,” she says, stroking Hund’s head as he laps water from the bowl. “But from what I hear, the king is careful not to make what he’s done too obvious. His sons’ bodies are never discovered, but everyone knows when a prince’s bed is found empty on the morning of his eighteenth year that it will never be slept in again.”

  I imagine Niklaas, his throat cut in his sleep and his body dumped into some Kanvasol sea, and shiver. Silently I vow not to let him out of my sight until I can be sure he is safe from the monster who sired him.

  “That’s all the more reason for him to stay with me,” I say. “I won’t leave him behind. We’ll have to wait until morning.”

  Crimsin sighs and her dark eyes flash with irritation. “Please, think this through. The ogres won’t follow us into the hills, but King Eldorio’s men have no fear of the Feeding Trees. If they find out the prince has left Goreman in our company, they will follow us and punish my people for sheltering their fugitive.”

  “But your camp is well hidden, isn’t it?”

  “It is, but—”

  “And none of the other guides would lead King Eldorio’s men to your location.”

  “There are no other guides in Goreman. They left two days ago, when the ogres arrived. I’m the only one who’d rather risk a run-in with ogres than crawl back into the wretched mountains to hide,” she says with no small amount of pride.

  She’s either brave or stupid, or a combination of both, which is probably the most dangerous, but unfortunately she’s also my last chance at securing a guide.

  “Then we won’t have to worry about the king’s men being led to your settlement,” I say, “and surely you have defenses in place to protect your people if by some miracle Eldorio’s men find it on their own.”

  Crimsin wrinkles her nose. “Yes, but the counselors won’t protect a Kanvasol prince. They’ll hand him over if it will send the king’s men away.”

  “But he’s an innocent. How could they—”

  “We were all innocent once, but the ogre queen stole our innocence. The counselors won’t weaken our position when we’re so close to overthrowing her. They will kill the prince themselves first.” She crosses her arms and shoots me a hard look. “We are loyal to you and your brother, Princess. That boy means nothing to us.”

  “He means something to me.” I meet her hard look with one of my own.
br />   She lifts one perfectly arched brow. “Well now … it’s like that, is it? I suppose you’ll be making us a batch of royal babies before too long, then?”

  I roll my eyes as if the idea is absurd and hope my performance is enough to convince her. “He’s a friend and an ally, nothing more.”

  “Right.” Crimsin’s lips curve. “That’s why you were mooning about outside his door.”

  “I’m worried about him. That’s all.”

  “Of course.” Crimsin nods in an exaggerated fashion.

  “Truly, we’re just friends,” I say, though I’m starting to sound absurdly defensive. “He doesn’t even know I’m a girl.”

  Crimsin wryly lifts a brow. “So he doesn’t know you’ve got a tender spot for him.”

  I roll my eyes again but know better than to keep arguing. Anything I say will only make things worse. “Tender spot or no tender spot, I’m not leaving without him.” I pull off my boots and stretch out on the bed, hoping she’ll understand that’s the end of it. “You’re welcome to stay here tonight if you’d like.”

  “You want to sleep?” she asks. “It’s not even ten o’clock.”

  “We might as well. That way we’ll be ready to leave early in the morning.”

  Crimsin sighs and runs a hand through her hair. “Very well, but I’m going down to the tavern. We won’t be leaving early. We’ll be lucky to get the prince up and about by noon. I put enough Vale Flower seeds in his last beer to put a stallion to sleep for a week.”

  I bolt into a seated position. “You drugged him?”

  Crimsin shrugs. “I paid the innkeeper’s wife to drug him. I knew it would be easier if he was asleep when we left.” She snorts again. “He’s a massive thing, isn’t he? But not as handsome as the stories would have a girl believe. I was expecting a god with lightning shooting from his fingertips the way the whores talked about him.”

  I drop my legs to the floor, hands shaking as I squirm my feet into my boots.

  “Decided to come for a drink?” Crimsin asks.

  “I’m going to check on Niklaas,” I say, barely concealing my anger. I need this girl, but right now I want to ball up my fist and punch her in her lying, drugging mouth.

  “He’s fine.” She waves a breezy hand in the air. “He’ll sleep like the dead but—”

  “Unless the seeds make him sick,” I say, a harsh note creeping into my voice. “If he gets sick while he’s unconscious, he could choke to death.”

  I pluck my key from my vest pocket and throw it across the room. It lands near Hund’s paws, summoning a growl from the creature that I answer with a glare. Let the beast come for me. It would feel good to fight something other than my own rising panic.

  “I’ll stay with him tonight,” I say, transferring my attention to Crimsin when the dog lowers his head, evidently deciding he doesn’t want to bite a chunk out of me after all. “You can sleep here. I’ll fetch you when Niklaas is fit to travel.”

  “Princess, please.” Crimsin hurries across the room, laying her hand on the door before I can open it. “I wasn’t thinking. I never meant to put your friend in danger. I’ll keep watch over him. You stay. You’re fresh from a long journey and need your rest.”

  I freeze, hairs on my arms prickling. “How do you know I’m fresh from a journey?” I turn, fingers tightening on my staff. “I could have been at this inn for days.”

  Crimsin’s eyes dart to the left before sliding back to my face. I know she’s going to lie before she opens her mouth.

  “I don’t know,” she says, her gaze carefully blank. “I only assumed. Have you been here for days?”

  I look up at her, but not too far up. She is, as Niklaas would say, a “wee thing” like me, a hand shorter than the average woman, soft and feminine-looking and so beautiful I’m certain she’s accustomed to people thinking she’s equally harmless, but I won’t make that mistake. This girl isn’t harmless. She’s unpredictable and dangerous and not someone I’m inclined to trust. I will be sleeping with my weapon in my fist for as long as Crimsin is a part of our company.

  “I want to believe you’re not a liar,” I say. “But I don’t.”

  She looks up with a startled expression before dropping her eyes back to the floor. “That’s … honest of you.”

  “I am honest when I can be and kind as long as I am allowed to be. Niklaas and I need you to guide us into the mountains, but if you betray us. …” I pause, waiting for her to look up before I reach for the door again. “Sleep well.”

  “And you, Princess,” she murmurs, her sober tone leaving no doubt she understands that if she betrays me things won’t go well for her. “Tell the prince I’m sorry when he wakes up.”

  I slip out the door and down the hall, hurrying to Niklaas’s door, my pulse leaping with worry, but I know he’s alive before I let myself into his room.

  Even from outside in the hall, I can hear him snoring.

  I close the door behind me and lock up before padding over to where Niklaas lies sprawled as I left him. I watch him snuffle, unreasonably happy to be facing a night filled with his dreadful racket, before helping myself to his rosemary and mint ash, shedding my boots, and placing my staff within easy reach of the bed. Then, with a muffled groan, I roll Niklaas onto his side and lie down beside him.

  His snores remain long and deep throughout the entire process. He really is dead to the world. I should have realized this was more than a case of having a few too many. I should have trusted him to know better than to drink too much.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, wedging my back more firmly against his to keep him from rolling over in his sleep. “I should have listened to you.”

  Niklaas doesn’t say a word, of course, but the heat of his body is soothing all the same. After only a few moments, sleep creeps into my limbs, relaxing my shoulders, and I know I will pass a better night here than I would have in my own room. I’ve become accustomed to Niklaas. Even in sleep, he comforts me, making me feel calmer and safer than I do when I’m alone.

  “I will keep you safe, too,” I say, my whisper becoming a yawn. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  I won’t. I will protect Niklaas the way he’s protected me, but in order to do so I must keep him by my side. I can’t risk telling him the truth. He must go on believing I’m a prince leading him to his princess for as long as it takes to make sure he is beyond his father’s reach.

  A quiet voice inside me whispers that I should feel terrible about continuing to lie to him, but the rest of me is relieved to have an excuse not to confess. I’m not ready to lose my friend. I need him too much, and he needs me.

  I close my eyes and drift, prepared for the fears that come to torment me in my sleep, but tonight I don’t dream of the crumbling castle or my brother’s screams. I dream of a picnic in the meadow behind Mother’s old house, of a blanket beneath the trees and honeysuckle thick in the air. I wear my white fairy dress with the silk flowers at the neck, and Niklaas is asleep with his head in my lap, while our friends play wickets in the meadow beyond.

  It is the most beautiful dream. I fight to hold on to it, to stay asleep even as the birds begin to sing and sunlight warms the bed. I fight until I hear Niklaas moan and the day begins with a hellish smell and the splatter of sickness.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NIKLAAS

  Despite my aching head and foul-tempered stomach, I manage to pack my things and drag my wretched body out of the inn by ten o’clock. Ror, our new guide, and I reach the gates at Goreman’s northern edge an hour later.

  Two ogres with soul tattoos etched onto their gleaming bald heads guard the gate, but Crimsin—in her second skin of a dress, minus the red cloak that would give her away as an exile—distracts them while Ror, the horses, and I slip out of the city along with a group of lumber wagons bound for the lower forests.

  Ogre men are as susceptible to feminine charms as their human counterparts, and Crimsin certainly isn’t lacking in “charms.” If she hadn’t drugge
d me into the worst bout of sickness I’ve experienced since the night Usio and I ate bad oysters off the coast of northern Kanvasola, I’m sure I’d have a hard time keeping my eyes off her bosom.

  At the moment, however, I’m having a hard time resisting the urge to wring her pretty white neck.

  As Ror and I guide the horses into the trees beyond the city, another wave of sickness grips my midsection. I force it down with only the softest moan, but Ror seems to have especially keen ears this morning.

  “Try to make it a little farther,” Ror says, fussing over me like he’s done all morning. “Let’s get up the mountain. Then we’ll stop and you can have more water while we wait for Crimsin to catch up.”

  “I don’t want more water,” I say, forcing the words out through a clenched jaw.

  “You need to keep drinking,” he says. “If you don’t, you’ll never work the poison through. I could find some wild mint to calm your stomach if you think—”

  “Quit fussing. I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. You’ve been—”

  “Leave me be, Ror,” I warn, voice rough from all the retching I’ve done since sunup.

  Blasted poison, blasted girl. If Crimsin weren’t the last guide in Goreman, I swear to the gods I would have kicked her out of the inn with a boot in her shapely backside.

  “I will not leave you be.” Ror pulls at Button’s reins, stopping the horse in the shade of two young Feeding Trees. “If you’re not able to keep water down, we shouldn’t have left the inn. It’s not safe to be—”

  “I’ll drink the raging water! But only if you’ll shut your flap for ten minutes at a time!” I snatch the waterskin from my saddle and tear off the cap, chugging as much as my miserable stomach can hold before plugging it with a glare in Ror’s direction. “I don’t know what’s worse. The sickness or your damned mother-henning.”