Princess of Thorns (7 page)

I wake to darkness so complete it swallows my gasp and stuffs it deep into its pockets.

I lift my head from the stones of the bank and shift my weight on the underwater ledge, stomach lurching. I can’t believe I fell asleep—I’m lucky I didn’t slip into the water and drown—but there’s no other explanation for closing my eyes on a forest filled with moody gray light and opening them to blackness.

I pull my knees in and cross my arms over my chest beneath the water, feeling my nakedness in a new and uncomfortable way. Ever since those days in Ekeeta’s dungeon, I have loathed the darkness with a passion exceeded only by my hatred of biting beetles, roaches, and anything else black and crawly with crunchy outsides and liquid innards.

My mother’s fairy blessings have made me nearly fearless, but not even magic can banish my irrational terror of tiny crawling things.

The thought of chancing upon a Skittery Small electrifies my nerves as I reach out to search for my clothes on the bank. But it’s not a crawly thing racing across my hand that makes me scream, it’s the brush of my fingers against stiff feathers and the guttural hiss that follows.

I scream and the creature
glock-glocks
and hisses again, a warning echoed from the rocks all around me. I kick to the center of the pool, heart slamming against my ribs, staring wide-eyed into the night. After a moment, I’m able to make out hunchbacked shadows, denser concentrations of black that pitch back and forth on the rocks, stretching their wings, bobbing their bald heads up and down as they grumble and hiss.

The vultures.
Ekeeta’s
vultures. They have to be hers. There’s no other explanation for why the creatures have tracked me down to keep watch on my bath. Normal vultures don’t hunt people—they don’t hunt at all, preferring to scavenge for their meals—and they roost at night. I knew that even before Niklaas reminded me that—

“They don’t see well in the dark.” The pulse racing in my throat slows.

If they can’t see me clearly, that means Ekeeta can’t, either. Ekeeta’s magic allows her to see through the eyes of animals, but her spells don’t give the creatures supernatural powers. Theses vultures can’t see or hear any better than an unmagicked vulture, which means they can’t be transmitting a clear picture of my location. There’s still a chance Ekeeta doesn’t know where I am, a chance that Niklaas and I can escape.

No sooner have I thought his name than I hear him calling mine.

“Ror!” He sounds panicked. He must have heard me scream. “Ror!”

“I’m all right!” I swim hard for the bank. Torchlight bobs beyond the rocks. Niklaas will be here in a moment, and I must be dressed when he does.

“Shoo! Get out of here!” I splash water at the creature closest to my clothes and it hops to the side with a nasty growl. Seizing the opportunity, I haul myself up onto the bank and fumble for my clothes.

My pants stick and cling to my wet skin, and the vulture I frightened away returns to peck at my legs as I bind my breasts, but by the time Niklaas appears atop the boulder overlooking the pool—sword in one hand, torch in the other, illuminating the vultures surrounding me like beggars at the royal gates—I am pulling my borrowed armor over my linen shirt and reaching for my staff.

“By the Lands …” Niklaas pauses to take in the alarming gathering before leaping off the rock and waving his torch at the nearest knot of birds. The vultures hiss and grunt as they hop away from the crackling flame, but they don’t go far, clearly determined to stay by my side until their master orders them to leave.

“Get moving or I’ll burn the lot of you!” Niklaas shouts.

“No, don’t!” I knock two birds out of the way with my staff as I hurry to his side, bones aching with the fairy magic that compels me to choose mercy whenever possible, even when it comes to carrion-eating creatures. “They’re innocent.”

“Innocent?” he asks, keeping an enormous raptor at bay with the tip of his sword.

“They’re only animals, loyal to the one who’s fed and magicked them. They don’t know any better.” I snatch the torch from his hand and hurl it into the pool, plunging the woods back into darkness.

“What did you do that for!”

“It will make it harder for them to follow us.”

“It’ll also make it harder to find our way back to the camp!” Niklaas growls, sounding like the kinsman of the birds grumbling all around us.

“I can use my staff to keep to the path.” I reach for him in the dark, finding his chest with my fingers and following his arm down to grasp his hand. His palm swallows mine, making me feel absurdly small, a fact I immediately resent.

“Come on. Let me lead you.” I give his arm a tug. Thankfully, after a moment of resistance, he allows me to guide him away from the spring.

I tap the stones in front of us, using my staff to find the easiest route to the large boulder where Niklaas and I drop hands to climb over before linking up again on the other side. Behind us, much croaking and hissing and flapping of wings ensues, but none of the birds seem inclined to follow us just yet. Vultures don’t care for flying at night. Hopefully that will buy Niklaas and me some time.

“What the devil happened back there?” Niklaas asks as I find the path and aim us back toward the petrified forest. “Did they all come down from the trees at once, or—”

“I don’t know. I think I … fell asleep,” I mumble.

“You
think
you—”

“I fell asleep!” I snap, cheeks burning. “And when I woke up there they were.”

“You could have drowned,” Niklaas says in his big brother tone, the one that reminds me of Janin when she chides me for forgetting that even a fairy-gifted human body has its limitations.

“I know,” I mutter through clenched teeth.

“You could have been killed.
Killed
by your own bath before you—”

“I know! It was foolish. It won’t happen again.” I debate dropping his meaty paw and letting him find his own way back in the dark.

“It will be a miracle if I manage to keep you alive. Flaming ridiculous,” Niklaas scolds, but the way he squeezes my hand makes it clear his temper is coming from a place of concern, and I feel bad for snapping.

“Thank you for coming to help me,” I say softly.

Niklaas acknowledges my gratitude with a grunt. “I can’t see a damned thing! Are we even walking in the right direction?”

“We are. We’ll be back to the horses in a few minutes.” I pick up my pace, relying on memory and the shadowy outlines of obstacles along the path as much as my staff. I have a good eye for ground and rarely forget a trail once I’ve traveled it. “There should be enough moonlight in the clearing to saddle Alama and gather our things.”

“We can’t ride now. The path to the grasslands is too steep to travel at night.”

“We have no choice,” I say. “An ogre battalion could be on their way. Ekeeta can communicate what her creatures see to her Captains of the Guard.”

“More magic?”

“No, it—” I break off when my staff finds an obstacle in the trail. “We’ve reached the fallen log. About three hands in front of you.” I climb over and wait for Niklaas to do the same before hurrying on. “It’s not magic. Ogres of the same clan have a telepathic connection. That’s why Ekeeta chooses her captains from her closest family members.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“That’s how she organized the takeover of Mercar,” I say, my palm beginning to sweat. Niklaas’s hand isn’t only large, it’s as warm as a fresh coal. “Her family’s telepathic connection let her know the moment her kinsman killed my father on the west road, and her cousin waiting off the coast know exactly when the king’s guard entered the chapel to pray for their prince. The ogre fleet attacked during the vigil. The only guards on duty were the ones Ekeeta had bribed into her service. The city fell within hours.”

“So you don’t believe your father was killed by bandits, then?”

“Does anyone?”

“No. Not even my father, though he’d never admit it.” Niklaas drops my hand as we reach the clearing, where a small campfire burns and the moonlight has turned Alama’s white mane to shining silver. “Put out the fire and conceal it as best you can. I’ll saddle Alama.”

I do as he says, hesitating only a moment to let the fire warm my fingers before scattering the burning sticks and stamping them out. I shiver as the wind rushes through my clothes, raising gooseflesh on the damp skin beneath.

It seems I’ll be starting a ride in wet britches again, but at least they aren’t as wet as they were this morning, and Button and I have had a couple of hours’ rest. I just hope a few hours will be enough to keep the horses going. The farther we get from our current location, the better.

“Can you find the trail we were on earlier alone?” Niklaas asks when I join him by the horses.

“I can,” I say, wondering if, now that the danger is real, Niklaas has changed his mind about staying with me.

Something inside me cringes with disappointment, but I should have known better than to place my trust in an arrogant prince I’ve known less than a day.

“Good.” Niklaas presses Button’s bridle into my hands. “We should split up. Give the ogres two trails, and divide their forces. You take the road, and I’ll take the steep path to the grasslands. I’ve ridden it before, and Alama knows the way. It would be more dangerous for you and Button.”

I nod, ashamed for my thoughts a moment before. “Which way should I go?”

“Ride hard back the way we came. When you reach the stream where we watered the horses, give Button a drink and let her walk through the water for half a field or so. If they have dogs, that should throw them off your trail. Then start through the forest toward the low road,” he says, lacing his hands together and forming a step I use to climb onto Button’s back.

“There’s a trail near there,” he continues, “but if you can’t find it, Button should be able to pick the easiest way through the wood. When you reach the main road, head east until you reach an abandoned gristmill. About a field past, there’s a grove of scorched birches that burned in a fire. Hide there and wait for me until first light.”

He swings onto Alama’s back and reaches into his saddlebag, pulling out something I can’t see clearly in the moonlight. “If I don’t join you by then, keep going on the low road. Choose the southerly branch for the first two forks before you turn north.” He reaches out, dropping a bag full of coins into my palm. “Take my purse and—”

“No, I’ll wait in the grove until you arrive.” I shove the purse back into his hands. “It’s smart to give them two trails, but we’ll want to join up again as soon as possible. We’ll both be safer.”

“I agree,” Niklaas says. “But I’m not sure if I’ll make it to the bottom in time to lead the ogres north without being caught. Alama isn’t rested, and those torches are moving fast.”

“Torches?”

“Down in the valley, coming from the north.” Niklaas pulls Alama a few steps to the right, giving me my first clear glimpse of the world below the clearing. There, still far enough away for their torches to resemble matchsticks decorating a harvest cake, a group of riders at least forty strong makes quick progress across the valley.

Ogres. Coming for us on their range horses, the ones they’ve bred tall and fierce and perfectly suited for their abnormally long riders.

The hairs at the back of my neck stand on end and my hands squeeze the reins hard enough to make my knuckles crack. They’re coming. The monsters who’ve taken everything from my family, whom I’ve feared my entire life, are close enough to hear the hoofbeats of their horses echoing through the valley.

“I’ll try to lead them away and then double back and meet you in the grove,” Niklaas says. “But if I’m captured, I—”

“You won’t be captured, you’ll be killed,” I say. “
I’ll
take the steep trail.”

“No,” Niklaas says, his tone as stubborn as my own.

“Yes,” I insist. “I’m lighter and riding a bigger horse. Button and I will make it down to the grasslands faster and—”

“And be in greater danger, no matter how fast you ride.” He captures Button’s bridle in his fist and holds tight. “You’re the one we have to protect. I don’t matter.”

“You
do
matter,” I say, horrified by the thought of him risking himself for me, though I know he’s right.

I can’t be captured. If I don’t retain my freedom and find some way to liberate my brother, it could mean the end of everyone, including Niklaas. But that doesn’t mean he should take this risk. Using him to get what I want is one thing; letting him sacrifice his life for mine is quite another.

“Come with me. Please,” I beg. “We can find somewhere farther down the road to split up. Someplace safer.”

“No. Two riders are easier to track than one, and it’s—”

“Please.” I wrap my fingers around his arm, knowing the muscles there won’t do a thing to protect him from ogre arrows, arrows poisoned with the monsters’ own tainted blood. “I don’t want you to die for me.”

He sighs, but even in the dim light I can see the softening in his expression. “All right,” he says. “We’ll stay together as far as the low road.”

“Thank you.” I release his arm after a grateful squeeze.