Princess of Thorns

by Unknown

  “No, it’s not Aurora,” Ror says, but there is something coiled behind the denial, a secret lurking like a rat in the flour.

  “Then tell me where she is,” I say. “You owe me an answer. I honored my half of our bargain. Now it’s time for you to honor yours.”

  “Are you ready to go our separate ways, then?” Ror asks, voice trembling.

  “I’ll see you to Beschuttz, but I want to know where your sister is hiding. I’ve earned the truth from you.”

  “All right.” Ror’s hands tighten around the wooden bar. “I’ll tell you tonight. As soon as we find a place to rest.”

  A part of me wants to keep pushing, but the wiser part advises to bide my time. What’s a few hours? I’ve waited a week, I can wait a little longer.

  Ror and I fall silent except for the occasional word when a lever needs to be pulled, and after a time I find myself enjoying the flight. The vast expanse of trees is soothing, like a calm ocean stretching before the prow of a ship, and the sharp, herbal smell of the Feeding Trees refreshing. We drift long enough that our sail takes us a day closer to Mount Ever, when the wind gives out and the glider drifts toward the ground.

  “We should put down on that lake.” Ror points to a horseshoe-shaped patch of black ahead. “We could make it farther, but we’ll risk being ripped apart by the trees when we land.”

  The foliage surrounding the lake is thick, and the moon too low to light the surface of the water. The thought of landing in that inky black isn’t much more appealing than taking our chances with the treetops, but Ror is right. Wrestling a Feeding Tree would be a good way to break a bone or three, and we can’t risk it. We have to be ready to keep moving as soon as we hit the ground.

  “Can you reach my pack?” Ror asks. “I’d rather be wearing it when we land.”

  “I’ll wear it.” I grab the pack and swing it over one arm. “I was born on the coast and practically raised in the water.”

  “I was raised on an island and swim almost as fast as I run.” Ror sounds crankier than he has in days. “Drop the lower lever a few fingers when you’re ready.”

  “Aye, aye, little man.”

  “You know, it’s good we’ll be together a little longer,” Ror says, ignoring my jab. “I’ll be able to protect you for a few more days.”

  “You protect me?” I ask, nerves vanishing as I laugh. “I think you’ve forgotten who fetched your wee ass from its sling tonight.”

  “I think you’ve forgotten who taught you to steer a glider.”

  “And you’ve forgotten who told you not to go to the flaming Feeding Hills in the first place,” I say, my words ending in a gulp as the surface of the lake grows close enough to smell the mineral and moss scent of the water.

  “We’ll be all right,” Ror says. “Get out from under the wings and swim for shore. Dump the pack if you have to. You’re worth more than the gold inside it.”

  I realize Ror has paid me a compliment—and was likely provoking me to keep my mind off our landing—and then the lake is thirteen … ten … two hands away and we hit. We hit, toes sliding across the ice-cold surface for half a field before the last of our forward momentum runs out and we sink like knives through rotten fruit.

  I hear Ror gasp as the water soaks into his clothes and then we are both under and I’m shocked still, paralyzed by snow-fed water so cold it stops every thought in my brain. My head throbs and my blood slows and for a moment I forget where I am, forget everything but the cold chilling my skin and bones, creeping icy fingers in to wrap around my heart.

  But finally, after who knows how many frozen seconds, a stinging, aching, burning in my chest reminds me I have arms and legs and ought to be doing something with them. Fighting the sluggish feeling in my limbs, I kick for the surface, struggling against the added weight of the pack, my boots, and my sword tugging at my waist, breaking through just as my lungs are turning inside out with the need for breath.

  I suck in air and cough through teeth that clack like hooves on cobblestones, echoing across the otherwise silent lake.

  “R-r-ror?” I shove at the water, fighting to stay warm. “Ror? Ror, where—”

  His gasp as he breaks through the surface is positively girlish, and his voice when he calls my name is an octave too high. “Niklaas?”

  “I’m here. This way.” I would tease him about sounding like his stones have crawled inside his body if I weren’t losing sensation in my joints. Nothing is funny in water this cold, and I doubt we’ll feel much warmer out of it. If we want to avoid dying of the quick chills, we’ll have to get out of these wet things.

  I crawl onto the shoreline, sword dragging across the stones, vaguely sensing the sharp edges of rocks and shells beneath my hands, but too numb to be bothered by them. Once I’m a safe distance from the water, I shrug the pack off my back and pry it open. The dress Ror shoved into the top is soaking wet, but below it Ror’s second set of clothes, wrapped in the oilcloth cloak we purchased in Goreman, is relatively dry.

  “He-here.” I clap him on the back as he crawls—coughing and shivering—onto the bank beside me. “Change your clothes. I’ll wrap up in your cloak.”

  “N-n-no. I’m fine.” Ror bites his lip.

  “You’re not fine, and neither am I. We’ll die of the quick chills if we don’t get dry.” I pull at my shirt, wrestling the sodden fabric over my head. In the dry mountain air, my skin dries instantly. Almost as quickly, I begin to feel a little warmer.

  “Hurry.” I pull the oilcloth cloak around my shoulders, grateful they didn’t have a size small enough for Ror at the mercantile in Goreman. The cloak is tighter than my own, but it will provide enough cover to keep me warm while my clothes dry. “We should start moving north, cover more ground before we stop.”

  “F-fine,” Ror says, inexplicable anger in his voice as he drops his staff and tugs his oversized leather armor over his head, flinging it to the ground with a huff.

  “I’ll turn my back if you like,” I say, remembering Ror’s penchant for privacy. “No need to get your britches in a …”

  I freeze halfway around, every chilled muscle in my body pulling tight as I get an eye full of the woods beyond the shore, woods as dark as midnight in the Pit, lit up by yellow eyes shining like constellations of stars amidst the blackness. Even before I smell fur and musk, I know what the creatures are.

  Wolves. More wolves than I’ve ever seen together at once, enchanted creatures sent by the ogre queen to hunt her prey.

  “Stop,” I say in a calm voice, knowing no good will come from allowing fear into my tone.

  “I’m getting my shirt on,” Ror says, his voice muffled by fabric.

  “Get ready to run,” I say. “There are wolves in the woods. Fifty. Maybe more.”

  Ror’s breath rushes out. “No.”

  “On the count of three, grab your staff,” I say, feet itching. “I’ll get the pack.”

  “And then what?” Ror asks in a steady voice. The boy is braver than most men twice his size, I have to give him that. “I can’t overcome that many. I couldn’t if they were men, and I’m used to fighting people, not wolves.”

  “We’ll only fight if we have no other choice. Until then, we’ll run.”

  “We’ll never outrun them,” Ror says. “They’re too fast.”

  I curse beneath my breath, knowing he’s right.

  “But maybe …” Ror’s words trail away. “Follow me.” Before I can tell him to wait, he snatches his staff from the ground and races down the shore, summoning a series of growls that ripple through the darkness seconds before the wolves burst from the trees.

  “What happened to three!” I sling the pack over my shoulder and take off after Ror, running faster than I would have thought possible with sodden boots and wet britches sticking to my legs like a second skin. But then, it’s amazing how motivating a pack of snarling wolves ca
n be. After a few moments, I find myself pulling even with Ror, keeping pace as he races for a Feeding Tree down the shore, a beast so ancient it must have been planted before humans had language.

  I understand he means to climb the thing and have a split second to wonder how in the Pit we’re going to manage it, and then he’s jumping into the air and I’m jumping along with him and somehow, my fingers find holds in the thick bark and my feet gain purchase and I’m scrambling up the scaled wood behind Ror, reaching the first giant limb and climbing on top just as the wolves leap for us, jaws snapping at the air.

  “By the gods,” I gasp, crouching beside Ror on the wide limb, lungs full of salt and razors from our sprint. “Give me some warning next time.”

  “Sorry,” Ror pants, peeking at the wolves snarling in frustration below our refuge. “I just thought … this way we’ll be able … to keep moving.” He points along the limb, which stretches through the surrounding trees for half a field before narrowing to a point too thin for a man to walk on. “The trees are close enough to jump from limb to limb, but we’ll get farther faster if we stick to the oldest ones.”

  I squint into the darkness beyond the trees clustered around the lake. “We’ll need a torch. Once we get deeper in, it’s going to be too dark to see where to jump.”

  Ror nods. “The flint is in the front pocket of my pack.” He stands, looking frailer without his leather armor covering his linen undershirt and his sodden warrior’s knot flopping to one side like a crooked hat. “I’ll see if I can find a dead limb to—”

  There is a sudden whistle and Ror’s words end in a startled gurgle, but it isn’t until he falls to his hands and knees and I see the arrow protruding from his arm that I recognize the whistle for what it was—an arrow cutting through the air, followed by more arrows with raven feathers for fletching and ogre blood staining their tips.

  Ogres. They’re here. In the Feeding Hills.

  I realize the truth, realize how desperately Ekeeta must desire Ror’s capture if she’s willing to send troops into Mataquin’s most unholy place for the ogre race, and wince against the violent clenching of my gut as it insists there is no way Ror and I will leave this wood free men.

  Chances are we won’t leave the hills alive.

  No. I won’t die here. Not now, when I’m so close.

  Ignoring the growls from the wolves, shouts from the ogre soldiers, and arrows whizzing by too close for comfort, I grab Ror and drag him closer to the trunk of the tree, staying low to take advantage of the cover the wide limb provides. I have to get the arrow out before we try to escape. The ogres tip their arrows with their own blood, black fluid poisonous to humans. If left untreated, exposure to ogre blood will kill a man within days, and the longer the thing sits beneath Ror’s skin, the more poison he’ll absorb.

  “Ogres.” Ror looks over his shoulder with wide eyes. “What will we—” His question ends in a pained cry as I rip the sleeve from his shirt. I do my best not to disturb the arrow, but the shaft still tilts a bit, digging the tip deeper into Ror’s pale flesh.

  “Let’s get this out of you first,” I say, heart racing as I evaluate the wound.

  The good news is that the arrow hit the meat and muscle of his upper arm, doesn’t seem to have struck a bleeding vein, and is in so deep it should be easy to push it through.

  The bad news is it’s going to hurt like the bottom level of the Pit on the way out.

  “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 finger
s as a quake rocks the Feeding Tree, sending Aurora sliding closer to the edge of the limb.

  Closer … closer …

  Going … going …

  Chapter Eighteen

  Aurora

  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.