Princess of Thorns Read online

  “I appreciate your concern, but I don’t require your advice.” And I don’t require an army big enough to take Mercar. I only need an army big enough to distract Ekeeta and her ogres long enough for me to sneak into the castle and free my brother.

  “Require it or not, you’re going to get it,” Niklaas says with an arrogance that makes me blink.

  But I shouldn’t be surprised. Human princes take for granted their right to bully anyone smaller or less powerful than they are. Princes like my father, who lied and deceived and stole the things he wanted without stopping to consider the lives he destroyed in the process.

  “Reclaiming your sister’s throne will take more than a few thousand men,” Niklaas continues. “You’ll need ships to defend the coast. Without them—”

  “I’m raising an army,” I say as I wring out the sleeves of my linen undershirt. “If you want to meet my sister, you’ll keep your thoughts to yourself and help me find one.”

  “Cocky thing, aren’t you?” he asks, eyebrows lifting. “Well, big britches, you’ve already failed to secure the one army for hire this side of the Gefroren Mountains, so how exactly am I—”

  “I hear the people in the Feeding Hills might be willing to fight for me.”

  “The Feeding Hills?” Niklaas chuckles. “I’m not going to the Feeding Hills.”

  “What about you, then?” I ask. “Do you have an army? One I could … borrow?”

  “You want to borrow an army?” His lips curl at the edges.

  “Yes,” I say, pinning him with a look I hope makes it clear how little I enjoy being the object of his amusement. “If you plan to marry my sister, then your army will be her army sooner or later, now, won’t it?”

  “Hers,” he says, still grinning. “Not yours.”

  “My sister and I are very close.” He has no idea how close. “She would want you to lend me your aid.”

  “I bet she would.” His smile sours as he runs a hand through his hair. “Too bad for the both of you, I don’t have an army. I’m an eleventh son. Eleventh sons are lucky to have a horse and a sword and a copper pot to piss in, and I lost my copper pot to the witch who sold me this charm.”

  I try not to let my disappointment show or to give in to the urge to ask Niklaas what the devil he has to offer an ousted princess if not an army to help her reclaim her kingdom. I can’t afford to scare him away. He might still prove useful as a guide, if nothing else.

  “All right.” I cross my arms, sending water streaming from beneath my vest. “Then you will escort me to the Feeding Hills in exchange for an introduction to my sister.”

  “I’m not taking you to the flaming Feeding Hills,” he says with a strained laugh. “They’re halfway across the world, and I—”

  “They are an eight-day journey. Less if the horses are traveling light,” I say. “And you’ll take me where I ask.”

  “Now see here, boy—”

  “And I am not a boy or a little man,” I snap. “I’m fourteen years old.”

  He snorts. “You look on the weaning side of twelve.”

  “And you look like a prince who’ll have no princess to pester if he doesn’t do as I say.”

  “Listen, boy,” Niklaas says in a harsh whisper, his blue eyes growing darker. “I can put you back in that tent as easily as I plucked you out. Maybe you should think on that before you start giving orders.”

  “Then leave.” I sit down on the edge of the trough, calling his bluff. “Good luck finding my sister alone. She’s been hidden for ten years, and unlike me, she’s very good at staying out of the way of dumb princes with no armies, who think they—”

  “All right then, you cursed little …” Niklaas’s grumble ends in a sigh and a forced smile, a grimaced baring of his teeth that would be amusing under different circumstances. “We have a deal. Do you know how to ride?”

  “Of course I know how to ride. And how to fight.” I draw myself up to my full height, but the top of my head is still barely level with Niklaas’s shoulder.

  Jor takes after my mother—tall and long-boned, with white-blond hair and blue eyes. I take after my father—short and delicate, with hair the color of a dusty yellow dog and flat gray eyes as mysterious as spring drizzle. Without berries to paint my lips and burnt nutshells to stain my lashes black, my face is as interesting as a lump of dough.

  If Ekeeta had birthed a child who had lived past his cradle days and I were no longer the rightful heir to the most powerful throne in Mataquin, I wouldn’t have to worry about kings or princes wanting to marry me. I wouldn’t have to dread the day I’ll be forced to bind myself to a man I don’t love, a man I will destroy the moment his lips meet mine.

  “All right, runt.” Niklaas claps my shoulder hard enough to make me stumble. “We’ll see if we can find you a sword on our way out, as well as a horse.”

  “I prefer a staff,” I say, rubbing my shoulder. “I’ll fetch my pack and staff from the treasure tent and we can be on our way.” I turn to cross the camp to where the Boughtsword prostitutes sleep amidst the mercenaries’ other stolen treasures but am stopped by a hand clutching my elbow.

  “Are you mad?” Niklaas asks, his eyes wide.

  “My gold is in my pack.”

  “I’ve got gold enough for the both of us.”

  “And my staff is fairy ironwood and sized for a small fighter,” I say. “I’ll never find another so perfectly suited to me.”

  “Then you’ll make do with one a little less perfect,” he says through clenched teeth, clearly on the verge of losing his temper. “If you go prancing around the camp, you’ll be caught, and we’ll both be killed.”

  “I won’t prance. And I won’t be caught.” I break his hold, freeing my arm with a twist of my elbow learned while training in hand-to-hand combat with Thyne. “And if you’re captured, you won’t be killed. Pretty oafs fetch a good price at the slave market.”

  Niklaas shoots me a menacing scowl—confirming my suspicion that he can look suitably dangerous—and lunges for me, but I anticipate the move and sidestep at the last moment.

  His momentum sends him tumbling to the grass with a grunt that makes me grin as I dash away, the only sound a soft squish as water oozes from my boots.

  Chapter Three

  Niklaas

  Flaming son of a demon. Arrogant, briar-born slog. Stuffed and trussed, barely teat-weaned, fuzz-faced baby man!

  I call the Brat Prince every foul name I know and a few I make up on the spot as I follow the slip of a boy across the sleeping camp. I move as quickly as I can with my head drink-fogged and not an hour of sleep the entire night, but I can’t catch up with Jor before he reaches the treasure tent and slips inside.

  He’s a spare thing—shorter than my sister, Haanah, and narrower, too, with pigeon legs covered in linen pants sticking out beneath his brown leather overshorts and his scrawny chest swimming in an armored vest two sizes too big—but he’s wretched fast.

  And wretched foolish.

  He’s scrapped our easy escape and practically delivered us both into Boughtsword hands. Now we’ll have to fight our way out of the camp and hope the mercenaries are still too drunk to prevent us from stealing their horses and getting far enough down the road to avoid an arrow in the back.

  “Cheek licker,” I mutter as I pull back the tent flap.

  I reach for my sword—expecting to find the little man already snatched up by mercenaries—but once my eyes adjust to the murky light, I see his boots sitting on a carpet a few hands away and the prince silently picking his way across the body-littered ground in his stocking feet.

  It seems more than a few of the Boughtswords stumbled to the treasure tent after our drinking games to visit the pleasure girls and never made it back to their own beds. Men and women in various states of undress lie snoring on straw pallets on the ground, blankets and pillows strewn about, ripp
ed and leaking feathers, as if a battle was fought with the bed things before the revelers passed out for the night.

  The tent stinks of garlic and onions and barley spirits, with a hint of soured milk that makes me wager someone couldn’t hold their drink, but beneath the stink are the sharp tang of gold and silver and the smoky scent of magic, the smell of treasure drifting from the crates stacked on the far side of the tent.

  The Boughtswords are primarily concerned with increasing their stores of hard currency, but they traffic in magical items as well. It was my enchanted charm, which I assured them would lead them to the legendary pirate Swain’s lost treasure, that earned me their welcome last night. We were still debating the price for the charm when the Boughtsword leader passed out before the fire, giving me the chance to go hunting for the briar-born captive I suspected was being held in his camp.

  I managed to stay conscious after the final Boughtsword fell, and I have Usio to thank for it. My brother and I built up quite a tolerance to spirits in the months before the curse claimed him. Knowing that our debauchery helped me avoid being robbed and taken prisoner makes me even more determined to see this adventure through. I have to succeed in my quest, if only to live to tell Haanah she was wrong and that my days spent drinking and wenching my way through half the kingdom weren’t a tragic waste of time.

  I will succeed. Three weeks remain until my eighteenth birthday; three weeks to find the lost princess, convince her to marry me, and escape my brothers’ fates.

  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 innocents, mortals and immortals—for the both of us. I am determined to be his son in no more than name, and that not any longer than I can help it.

  It’s customary in Norvere for the wife to take the husband’s family name, but I’m planning to break with tradition. I look forward to being Niklaas Ronces. I will have my new initials engraved on a seal and use it to close the letter I’ll send to my father telling him to go straight to the Pit and rot there.

  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 beginnings of a rager headache, a sour stomach, and a parched throat I know I’ll have no chance to ease for hours. We can’t risk stopping to refill my skins until we’ve put distance between us and the mercenary camp.

  “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 whinny that I take as an agreement with my assessment. She’s a clever horse, after all, and knows a pain in the arse when she sees one.

  In the Castle at Mercar

  The Ogre Queen

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

  We cannot be above it, when so much is at stake.

  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 si
ckly white. His pain aroused our pity in the beginning.

  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.

  “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.”