Princess of Thorns (21 page)

“It has to go through.” I snap off the fetching and lay a hand on Ror’s back, offering what comfort I can even as I wrap my fingers around the arrow’s shaft. Ogres tend to do a better job of attaching their arrow tips than human archers. I can only hope the angle will stay true when I apply pressure. There isn’t time to go hunting for a knife to use instead. We have to get deeper into the forest. Darkness is our only hope. We won’t be able to see where in the gods’ green lands we’re going, but the ogres won’t have the moonlight to help them get a clear shot, either.

“Niklaas, wait,” Ror says, his voice already thin and breathless.

“On three,” I say. “One … two!” I push on two, jabbing the arrow through with a sharp thrust. Ror’s entire body tenses, but he makes only the softest mewl as the arrow comes free.

“You’re a fierce thing,” I say, breath coming fast as I fling the bloodied arrow to the ground. I catch Ror as he slumps forward and pull him upright, only to have his head roll limply back against my arm.

He’s fainted, which is a blessing when it comes to his pain but may end up being a curse on his life.

I grit my teeth, fighting a wave of panic. “At least you’re small.” I reach for the sleeve I tore away and wrap it around Ror’s wound, staunching the flow of blood, trying not to be distracted by the arrows that continue to whiz within hands of where we’re hunched on the limb. It’s only a matter of time before the ogres overcome their fear of the Feeding Tree we’ve taken refuge in and climb up to fetch us. We have to move. Now.

“I’ll carry you if I have to,” I mutter. “Don’t worry, little man.” I shift Ror in my arms, balancing him on one knee while I tie his makeshift bandage, causing his torn shirt to gape open, revealing the bandages binding his chest.

I stare, frozen.

I can’t … I never …

I am … I am an
idiot,
so devoid of sense I might as well be blind, deaf, and dumb.

I have a fleeting memory of feeling those bandages under my hand, a hazy recollection from the night Crimsin drugged me, but I don’t dwell on it. There are too many other memories rushing in, little morsels from the moment I woke a giggling Ror in the mercenary tent to the moment he burst through the water with a girlish gasp, a hundred clues I was too stupid to catch until this very
female
bound chest was laid bare before my eyes.

Ror,
my hound’s ass. It is
Aurora
unconscious in my arms. I’ve had the princess sleeping next to me for over a week, and I never even
paused to consider
that my traveling companion wasn’t a small, soft-cheeked pretty boy of fourteen, but a
girl.
A flaming
girl
!

“Fool!” I growl, angrier than I can remember being in my life, shaking with it, sweating with it, wishing I could smash something with the hand balling into a fist behind Ror’s—
Aurora’s
—head.

I’m furious with her, with myself, with every minute of my life before I met her, every experience that made me so certain a girl could never pass as a boy, never fight like a boy, never do half the things Aurora does every day without thinking twice.

The realization that it was a
girl
of seventeen who shoved me into my saddle when I was hurt, who bested that monster of a man in the practice ring, who took out five Kanvasol soldiers and is stubbornly bent on raising an army to march on Mercar hits me fully, sending my thoughts stumbling like headless chickens until an arrow shoots past within a breath of my neck and my ability to focus returns. Thank the gods.

There’s no time to dwell on my stupidity. I have to get the princess of Norvere out of danger before she’s captured by ogres and the entire world damned to darkness.

I reach for the pack with my feet, dragging it close enough to dig into the top with my free hand. I find Aurora’s purse and shove it into the back of my pants before tucking the flint and waterskin in the pocket of my borrowed cloak. If we manage to escape the ogres, we’ll need fire, water, and, soon after, gold. The rest of the pack is weight I can’t shoulder while carrying Aurora.

Still, I know there’s one other thing I can’t leave behind.

I lay her on the tree and come onto my toes, squatting low. Tensing, I kick the pack over the side, taking advantage of the ogres’ surprise as it falls to dash back to where Aurora was shot, snatch her staff, and hurry back toward the shelter of the trunk.

I’m less than ten hands from Aurora’s side when the tree begins to vibrate, the limb beneath me shaking hard enough to knock me off my feet. I fall to my belly, clutching at the thick bark with clawed fingers as a quake rocks the Feeding Tree, sending Aurora sliding closer to the edge of the limb.

Closer … closer …

Going … going …

I’m on a glider, soaring through a starless sky. Below, fields wither and people weak with hunger run from ogres come to herd them into cages and I know the living darkness has come to pass.

I watch through tear-filled eyes as an old woman is dragged by her hair into a pen intended for animals and the ogres fall to feasting on her like wolves, forgetting their “enlightened transition” and their vows to forego human flesh, knowing they need not fear retribution now that the world is theirs.

I see the old woman’s head snapped from her body and draw in breath to scream, but before I can make a sound, the glider vanishes and I am falling, tumbling through the air toward where the ogres feed for a heart-stopping moment before—

My eyes fly open with a howl. I scream before I understand why and then scream again as I realize I am dangling in midair by my injured arm, swaying back and forth while the Feeding Tree shakes like a dog out of water.

“Please!” I shout, too dizzied by agony to do anything but beg for mercy. I can’t think how to end it, can’t explain what’s happening or how I came to be hanging here, watching the bark of the tree peel from its trunk like lips curling from a giant set of teeth.

Rotten
teeth, so sticky with black sap it looks like the bark is oozing decay as it moves apart, opening a passage into the midnight hollow at the behemoth’s core.

With one last shudder, the tree’s shaking ceases and the wood falls silent. The ogres don’t shout or run; the wolves cower with their heads tucked. Even the wind seems to hold its breath.

“Aurora. Take my other hand!”

I recognize Niklaas’s voice and realize he must be the one holding my arm, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the tree’s mouth. Wisps of black smoke drift from within, spreading out to touch the ogres, twining between their thin legs, caressing their bald heads, beckoning with graceful smoke fingers until, one by one, the ogres’ eyes slide shut and their weapons fall to the ground. And then, slowly, stumbling like sleepwalkers, the soldiers shuffle into the impenetrable darkness at the Feeding Tree’s heart.

I catch a smell, like ancient dust and heat rising from long-baked bones, accompanied by the tang of sap nearly turned to syrup before the wood groans and the passage into the tree’s belly begins to shake closed. It is nearly a human sound, that groan, a mixture of vengeance and relief, succor and restitution that makes me shiver. It’s a cry of satisfaction after being too long from what you crave, a feast after too many months of famine.

Or years … or centuries …

Who knows when this tree last had a meal, but if the legends are true, it should have a few human lifetimes to enjoy tonight’s spoils. The Feeding Trees are said to take centuries to digest, leaving their ogre prey alive for a hundred years or more before the hardy monsters finally succumb to starvation.

The thought is almost enough to make me pity the ogres who shot me. Almost.

“Aurora!” Niklaas calls over the moaning as the tree rearranges its bark, sealing itself so completely no one would guess there had been a gaping hole at its center a moment ago.

I look up, blinking into his worried face, my heart racing though the ogres are gone and the wolves crouched in the shadow of the tree, whining in shock and confusion. My arm has begun to go numb, and the pain that was overwhelming is now a manageable misery, but for some reason I’m still afraid.

“Take my hand,” Niklaas demands, reaching his other hand down for mine. “I need it to pull you up.”

“Niklaas.” I gasp his name as I reach for his hand, as confused and panicked as I was a moment ago. Something is wrong, something—

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ve got you, Aurora.”

Aurora.
Aurora.

He
knows.
I don’t know whether to be outraged or terrified, to weep with relief or demand that he keep calling me Ror, that nothing be allowed to change now that my secret has been revealed.

But that would be stupid, pointless.

Everything
has changed. I can hear it in Niklaas’s voice, feel it in the careful way he pulls me up and over the edge of the limb.

The skin below my bandaged chest scrapes against bark as I slide, revealing what gave me away. As soon as Niklaas releases me, I clutch my torn shirt with my good hand and pull it up, for modesty’s sake. It’s too late for anything else. Too late to tell Niklaas the truth the way I wanted to tell it, too late to make him understand that not everything between us was a lie, that he is still my friend whether I am a prince or a princess.

“Here, take this,” he says, untying my cloak from his shoulders and swinging it around my own, leaving his chest bare.

“No, you need it. It’s cold,” I say, clearing my throat as I realize there’s no need to drop my pitch. “You’ll need it,” I repeat in my natural voice, a high, floaty thing that feels unfamiliar after so long pretending to be someone I’m not.

Niklaas’s breath rushes out as he shakes his head. “I can’t believe I didn’t see … You must have had a good laugh, eh?”

“No.” I reach for him, wincing as the muscles shift in my wounded shoulder, but he pulls away like my fingers are made of fire. Or feces. Fire and feces mixed together.

“No,” I repeat, ignoring the tightening in my ribs, the panic that courses through me at the thought of Niklaas hating me. “It wasn’t like that. I was going to tell you the truth so many times.”

“But what? You were having too much fun making a fool of me?”

“No! I … At first … I was afraid,” I confess, voice quavering.

“Right.” Niklaas’s laugh is bitter. “Afraid of what? I’ve seen you fight,
Ror.
”

I flinch at the venom in the last word. “I wasn’t … I was afraid you wouldn’t help me. Ekeeta has my brother,” I say, relieved to finally tell Niklaas the truth. “Jor was captured on his way to visit me. He and the mountain Fey made the journey safely every summer, but this year Ekeeta had ogres waiting at the port near Sifths. We don’t know how she learned they would be boarding a ship there, but … She took Jor and killed the fairies who fought to protect him.

“Not long after, Janin had a vision of Jor’s death. When the Hawthorne tree in the courtyard at Mercar turns red, Jor will die. Unless I change his fate.” I swallow the lump rising in my throat, dropping my eyes to the bark beneath my crossed legs. “I thought if I raised an army and marched on Mercar, Ekeeta might be convinced to give up Jor in exchange for my withdrawal. And if not, I planned to send my forces to attack the gates, while I crept into the city to free my brother myself.”

Niklaas grunts.

My throat squeezes tighter. “At first I didn’t trust you enough to tell the truth, but then … I was afraid if you knew I was a girl, even a girl fairy-blessed with skill in battle, that you’d tell me to forget about saving my brother. And I was afraid that once you knew … once you learned I would never agree to marry you that—”

Niklaas’s laugh is so sudden it makes me jump.

My eyes dart back to his face and I watch nervously as he laughs and laughs. Laughs until his breath comes in a rhythm more akin to a sob, until his eyes shine and he covers his face with his hands and draws a long, ragged breath. “What a joke.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Me too.” He grins as he swipes the wet from his cheeks. “You were my last chance and now …” His grin grows wider as his eyes grow colder. “Now I wouldn’t marry you if your fairy mother came begging for me to take you off her hands.”

I blink against the tears pressing at my eyes and fight to keep my lips from trembling. Niklaas has the right to be angry, and it’s good that he’s giving up his dream of making me his wife, but still … it hurts. It hurts to have him look at me with revulsion, to feel his disgust fouling the air between us.

I suck my top lip between my teeth and bite down as I nod.

Niklaas snorts, and for a moment I’m afraid he’s going to resume his nerve-mangling chortling, but instead he jumps to his feet and prowls to the edge of the limb.

“Doesn’t look like the wolves are going anywhere,” he says, cursing. “We’ll have to stick to the trees. Unfortunately, I threw the pack down when I thought I’d have to carry you. All we have left are the flint, the waterskin, and a bag of gold that won’t do us a damned bit of good until we reach a village.”

I struggle to my feet, careful of my arm, not knowing whether to be grateful or disappointed that Niklaas seems ready to stop fighting.

At least for the moment.

“I’m fine to walk,” I say, “but I’ll need help climbing when it’s time to move to another tree.” I slip my wounded arm through the cloak’s sleeve, swaying as a fresh wave of pain makes me gasp and my eyes squeeze shut.

Niklaas steadies me with a hand on my good shoulder. My eyes open on his bare chest, a sight that sends a different sort of pain worming into my heart. He is as beautiful and untouchable as ever, but knowing I would never press my palm to his skin and feel the rhythm of his heart didn’t hurt this badly before. When I was Ror, I had Niklaas’s affection and friendship and respect. Now … I have nothing but his contempt.

“Can you walk? Tell the truth.” Niklaas sighs as he realizes what he’s said. “I mean … I can carry you. I
will
if you need me to. We have to move quickly. The arrow was tipped with ogre blood. We only have a few days to get you to a healer.”

I look up and see the kindness behind the hurt in his face, and my composure slips. “Please don’t hate me,” I whisper, eyes filling. “I care about you, Niklaas. That part was real. You’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”

“You were a friend to me, too,” he says in a strained voice. “When we were landing I kept thinking …”

“Thinking what?” I ask softly, not wanting to ruin this opportunity to mend the rift between us.

“That you were like a brother to me. A
brother,
” he says with a miserable laugh.

“We can still be like brothers,” I say, trying to believe it, though the words feel like the worst kind of lie. A lie to myself, a lie my head is trying to sell my heart.

“No, we can’t.” Niklaas’s hand falls and his features firm up, shutting me out once more. “You’re not who I thought you were. I don’t know who you are.”

“Yes, you do! I’m still the same person.”

“No, you’re not. And neither am I. That Niklaas had hope. I have none, and you to blame for the loss of it.” He clears his throat. “Now can you walk, or can’t you?”

I lift my chin and take a deep breath, refusing to cry or beg or make any more of a fool of myself than I have already. It wouldn’t do any good—Niklaas is too angry to listen—and he’s right, we have to get moving.

“I can walk. For now.” I pick up my staff with my good hand, silently vowing to find some way to convince Niklaas to forgive me. “I’ll let you know if that changes.”

He nods. “Maybe we’ll have some luck and the wolves will be too spooked to follow us.”

My breath rushes out as I remember we’re standing on the arm of a monster. “Did you see that?” I ask, pointing toward the trunk. “The way the tree opened up and the ogres simply … walked in?”

“It would have been hard to miss,” he says, crossing his arms at his chest.

“I wonder what drew them in?” I peer over the edge. “Do you think they saw something we didn’t? Or maybe it was that smoke, some toxin in it that only ogres—”

“I’m a dumb oaf, Aurora, too dim to know a girl from a boy. What would I know about Feeding Trees?” he asks, obviously not in the mood for talk. Or forgiveness.

With one last glance at the wolves cringing before the Feeding Tree, bellies scraping the ground, I turn and start down the long limb, walking until it grows as thin as a canoe bed, then a horse’s back, then the ridge of a roof.

A part of me wants to keep going, to see how far I can get before I lose my balance, but I am fairy blessed, not immortal. A drop from this height could end badly, and I’m sure a broken leg would probably hurt more than the wound my pride will suffer from asking for Niklaas’s grudging assistance.

Probably.

I stop, waiting for Niklaas to catch up and help me climb into the arms of another Feeding Tree, a baby monster with limbs barely long enough to deposit us onto a third branch leading deep into the forest. Beyond that, we rely on touch to find our way. It is too dark to see the trees or the ground or anything aside from the branches of the canopy shining silver in the moonlight.

It’s too dark to see Niklaas’s broad back when he moves ahead to lead the way, or judge his expression when a fever begins to burn beneath my skin and I grow too dizzy to walk, necessitating being thrown over his shoulder. Too dark to see my hands gripping Feeding Tree bark when the ogre blood reaches my belly or to see if there is worry in Niklaas’s eyes when he asks if I am strong enough to hold on to him as he climbs down from the trees.

Once on the ground, I stumble on for another hour or more, leaning heavily on Niklaas, keeping my leaden feet moving through force of pure stubbornness alone. I manage to keep my eyes open long enough to see the sun rise beyond the hills and to hear Niklaas promise that we are within a day’s walk of a village before fever claims me.