Princess of Thorns

by Stacey Jay

  For the first time in my life, I look like a woman. I feel like a woman. Tonight I am not plain or boyish, I am as lovely as a girl in a fairy story, nearly as lovely as my mother, the woman whose name for me will always be synonymous with beauty and kindness. She may have cursed me, but she didn’t mean to. She only wanted to keep me safe, to prevent me from marrying a man who would betray me the way my father betrayed her. She didn’t know what her wish would do to me … or to the boys foolish enough to love me.

  I close my eyes, remembering the press of Thyne’s lips on mine, the ocean and star fruit taste of him on my tongue. I remember pulling away to watch the spark fade from his eyes, sucked away like smoke up a chimney after the fire is put out, leaving nothing but an empty hearth, waiting for me to fill it.

  My breath rushes out with a sob. I can’t do it. I can’t, no matter how—

  “Aurora?”

  I open my eyes to find Niklaas standing by the fire, wearing a crisp white shirt with a traditional Frysk vest the same dark brown as his riding pants and freshly shined black boots. His patchy whiskers from this morning have been shaved away and his hair cut and combed through with something that makes it shine like spun gold.

  He is even more beautiful than usual, so stunning that looking at him would be enough to break my heart … if it weren’t breaking already.

  “Are you all right?” he asks.

  I shake my head, my eyes filling.

  “Don’t cry.” He takes the mirror from my shaking hand. “You look beautiful.”

  My face crumples.

  “Well, that’s not so beautiful,” he teases as he pulls me into his arms. “Come on now, stop it. You’ll make your face all red.”

  “I was just … thinking of my mother.” It’s partly true.

  “Evensew is for celebrating the dead, not mourning them,” Niklaas says, rubbing my back in slow, comforting circles. “Let’s go to the festival. We’ll sing your mother a song and dance a dance in her honor and enjoy ourselves the way she would have wanted. I want to … make the most of tonight, of the time we have left.”

  He’s right. There will be time for tears and regrets and hating myself when Niklaas is spared from his curse and Jor is free.

  I pull away with a sniff, wiping my eyes with my fingers, careful not to rub the pink from my cheeks. “You’re right.”

  “There’s something I don’t hear very often.” He winks as he takes my hand, twining his fingers through mine, making me aware of every bit of skin between my fingers, of the way our calloused palms press together in their own timid kiss.

  My nerves hum with longing and my heart aches with misery, sending such conflicting feelings coursing through my body that for a moment it feels I’ll be torn apart. But just when I’m sure I can’t keep holding Niklaas’s hand without bursting into tears again, my head steps in and shuts the misery away, shoving it into the dark corner of my mind where the things I can’t bear to think about fight and claw and fester.

  It will escape to tear at me later, but for now, I refuse to think of it, refuse to think of anything but putting one foot in front of another until this night is over.

  I’ve made my decision. Now I will see it through.

  “Ready?” Niklaas asks.

  “Ready.” I force a smile as he pulls me out the door.

  Outside, a wagon half full of villagers—including Kat and Gettel, who share the seat beside the big-armed driver—is waiting. As we emerge, the chatter stops and a cheer goes up. The men and women smile as Niklaas helps me into the back of the wagon, wishing us a Merry Evensew, lifting their candles high in the air.

  I take a seat on a hay bale and Niklaas settles down beside me. We are handed candles in honor of those we have lost and light them from the flames of the candles of two little girls sitting across from us, symbolizing that we are all connected in the dance of life and death, and then we are off, trundling down the road to the festival of the dead, where Niklaas’s free will will die so that the rest of him may live.

  NIKLAAS

  She is beautiful, so flaming breathtaking I can’t believe I ever thought her merely pretty.

  It’s more than her hair or her dress or the shine in her eyes, it’s the way she smiles, the way our eyes meet across the feast table and words pass between us without anything being said, the careful way she takes my hand as I lead her onto the boards to dance, as if she senses the way things are shifting between us and she’s as frightened as I am that somehow we’ll drop this precious thing and it will shatter to pieces.

  She’s … magical. Like a dream you try to forget upon waking, something so perfect you have to push it from your head to keep from weeping into your pillow wishing it were real. But she is real, real and warm and in my arms, her breath rushing out as I lift her into the air and set her back down to the beat of the drum.

  My hands tighten at her waist and her palms come to rest on my chest, setting my heart to pounding even harder. All around us, men laugh and women squeal as the wild country dance ends with a frenzied fiddle solo that sends couples spinning arm in arm, but Aurora and I don’t spin. We stand, staring, lips parted, breath coming fast. The sun has set, but the light is still rosy, emphasizing the color in her cheeks and the copper in her hair, making her so damned lovely it’s painful, like someone’s slipped a knife of wanting between my ribs.

  “Walk with me.” I take her hand, leading her off the dancing boards and into the grass, heading for a grove of white-barked ghost gums at the edge of the field where evening is gathering, creating purple shadows beneath the trees.

  I expect her to ask me where we’re going, to say we shouldn’t roam away until the torches are lit, but she doesn’t. She follows me, her hand easy in mine. We walk in silence except for the music drifting across the field and the chirp and hum of summer insects that should have died long ago rising from the grass. I take their calls as a sign, an assurance that miracles can happen.

  We reach the trees and I turn to Aurora, bowing over her hand. “May I have this dance, my lady?”

  “My lady.” She laughs. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”

  “I haven’t forgotten a thing,” I say, pulling her into my arms.

  She stiffens and a wrinkle forms between her eyes. “Niklaas, I—”

  “Just dance with me, runt,” I say, refusing to let her pull away. “Whatever you’re fretting about can wait.”

  She sighs but doesn’t protest as I spin her under the limbs where silver leaves whisper in the breeze, singing along to the blissful lament of “The Last Waltz.” The waltz is a traditional Evensew song I’ve heard dozens of times, but I’ve never appreciated it the way I do now, when I am on the verge of a moment that will change my life.

  Every yearning note wrung from the fiddle’s strings vibrates inside me, making my blood rush and my breath ache in my lungs. I have seduced more girls than I can count on my hands and feet, and I’ve even imagined myself in love once before, but I’ve never cared whether a girl said yes or no as much as I do tonight. Knowing my life depends on Aurora’s answer is part of it, but not even close to all. She is already my dear friend, but by the end of the night she might also be the girl I’ll spend my life with, the girl I’ll make a family with. A family where people love and trust each other, where children are treasured, not cursed and thrown away, and no one has to pretend to be something they’re not.

  The thought is thrilling and … terrifying. Together we could be magical … or a disaster … or maybe a magical disaster, I’m not sure which. I only know I want the chance to find out if this is real love, the kind that lasts after the first rush is gone, the kind that makes a home a place to find refuge instead of a prison to escape.

  “What is this, Niklaas?” Aurora’s whisper is so soft I can barely hear her over the rustling of the trees.

  “It’s called dancing,” I say, so anxious that the palm I’ve placed at her waist begins to sweat. “I think we’re pretty good at it.” I draw her c
loser, gaining confidence when she doesn’t pull away.

  “Niklaas …” Her hand squeezes mine. “I have to tell you something.”

  “What?” My stomach pitches. What if I’m wrong? What if she doesn’t feel what I’m feeling? What if I’ve tricked myself into believing she cares in order to soothe my pride, to make it all right to accept her offer of marriage and save my own skin?

  “I …” She looks up, the torment in her eyes making me forget where to step.

  We stop dancing at the same moment, but neither one of us pulls away.

  “What’s wrong? Just tell me.” I firm up my expression, making sure she can’t see how deep it will cut if she says something to hurt me.

  I’ve been covering hurt with a smile my entire life. I can do it for another eight days. After that, it won’t matter. I’m sure a swan knows nothing about what it’s like to long for a proud father, or a mother who’d lived, or a future without any dark certainties in it and a life without the ending written in stone.

  “What?” Impatience colors my tone. “Why do you look so miserable? Please tell me, because I don’t understand it, especially when I’m breaking my back to be charming.”

  She frowns. “I didn’t realize it was so torturous for you to be charming.”

  “Only with you, Princess.”

  Anger flickers in her eyes, but that’s just fine. I’ll take anger. Any emotion is preferable to her pity.

  “Why? Because I’m like a sister to you?” she asks, dropping my hand.

  “No!” I throw up my arms in frustration. “I’ve been trying to—”

  “Trying to forget how nauseating it is to put your hands on me?” Her eyes glitter as she reaches out, slowly fisting her hand in my shirt. “Is that it?”

  “I didn’t say that.” I glance down, eyeing her clenched fist. My head tells me to prepare to be taken to the ground, but my gut tells me something else. It tells me Aurora wants me as much as I want her, and the only reason we fight is because the energy simmering between us needs a place to go. It tells me to take a risk, to quit being a coward and show her how wrong she is.

  “You didn’t say it,” she says. “But I’m not a—”

  Her words end in a sharp intake of breath as I wrap my arm around her waist. A moment later, my fingers are in her hair, sending pins flying as I fist my hand, making sure she can’t pull away and flip me onto my back.

  “Stop telling me what I’m feeling,” I say, leaning in to whisper the words into the hollow beneath her ear.

  This close, she smells like lilac soap and the flowers in her hair, with an undercurrent of something sweeter, like melted sugar, and she feels … She feels like a piece of the Land Beyond, like she was made to fit against me, to fill every empty place, to match my strength with her own, tempered by a softness that makes my head spin. I flex the arm around her waist until every inch of her is pressed tight to every inch of me, until I can feel her stomach trembling against mine and her breath in my lungs and there can be no doubt that I’m far from repulsed by her.

  She shivers and her arms wrap around my neck.“Niklaas,” she whispers. “I …”

  “Don’t talk.” I press a kiss to her throat, feeling her pulse racing beneath my lips, its rhythm confirming that her blood is rushing as fast as mine.

  “Niklaas wait, I—”

  I slip my hand from her hair, trapping her jaw between my fingers as I fit my mouth to hers, cutting her off with a kiss. She moans, a panicked sound that surprises me as it vibrates across my skin, but when I part my mouth, she parts hers, too, her lips gliding over mine with a ragged sigh. She doesn’t pull away, and after a moment I regain the courage to angle my head, brushing soft against softer, breath held, then rushing out, warming the whisper of space between her mouth and mine.

  A whisper is too much.

  I never imagined it would be like this, never thought a kiss could make my body feel as electric as the air before a thunderstorm, make my chest ache and my heart pound and my soul feel too giddy for my body to contain it.

  “Are you okay?” she asks, her lips teasing against mine.

  “I’m better than okay,” I whisper, sliding my hands down to grip her hips. “I’m perfect. You’re perfect.”

  And then I kiss her again, soft becoming hard, breath coming faster, until all our hesitation vanishes. She buries her fingers in my hair and I lift her into the air, drawing her up my body until her feet dangle and our lips are even with each other and the kiss grows deeper, until her breath is my breath and her taste fills my mouth and there is nothing but her, nothing but how much I want her.

  How much I want to please her, to do … whatever … it takes …

  Whatever … anything …

  Anything at all …

  My head spins sickly. I pull in a breath between kisses, but it doesn’t help. The ground is tilting beneath my feet, the wind whipping in from all sides, battering my body until I can’t tell which way is up. My heart lurches and my arms tremble, sending Aurora sliding to the ground as I grow too weak to hold her.

  “Niklaas?” she asks, panic in her voice. “Niklaas? What’s wrong?”

  I try to tell her that I’m okay, but my lips won’t move, and when I reach for her I stumble and fall. I land in the grass, sticks jabbing into my knees, but I barely feel them. I am outside my body and inside it at the same time, torn apart like a fruit from its peel, my mind and heart and soul screaming though my mouth refuses to utter a word.

  I am terrified and ripped and bleeding and broken and then suddenly the suffering parts of myself are gone, tossed away into the far beyond and I am as peaceful as a shell filled with the echo of the sea. I am a vessel, calm and empty, waiting to be filled.

  I think that I should be afraid, but I’m not and so the thought vanishes, swept away with the rest of my unnecessary thoughts and feelings. I can’t seem to feel anything aside from the overwhelming need to be with Aurora, to serve her in whatever way I am able. To show her that I …

  I … Who am I? I wonder, the notion of self confounding in a way it has never been before. I’ve always been so sure of who I am, but now … I am here with her. She is here with me. That’s all that matters. That’s all that will ever matter. The thought soothes me, banishing some of the dizziness, making it easier to breathe.

  “I’m sorry.” Aurora falls to the ground and wraps her arms around me, hugging me tight. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

  “Of course,” I say, voice still weak, though the world has stopped spinning. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  “Yes, there is,” she says, her eyes filling with tears. “I’ve done a terrible thing.”

  “No, you haven’t.” I take her hand in mine, wanting nothing more than to comfort her, to make her happy. It’s all that seems important, the only thing worth living for.

  “Yes, I have,” she says, then adds in a choked voice, “Don’t argue with me.”

  “All right,” I agree, tucking a lock of hair back into the arrangement on her head.

  “And don’t touch me.”

  I drop my hands to my lap with a smile. It feels good to do as she asks, so good I can scarcely remember why I ever wanted to quarrel with her.

  She shakes her head, her throat working as she fights to swallow. “It’s true, then. I was hoping, but I … I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, love.”

  My grin is so wide it feels like it will break my jaw. “I love you, too, Aurora.”

  “I know,” she says, sadness in her voice that I can’t understand. I can’t understand it, but it makes me sad, too, and when she begins to cry it feels as if the world has been plunged into darkness. I want nothing more than to comfort her, but she told me not to touch her and so I sit and watch, tears rolling silently from my eyes until she finally stops crying and swipes the damp from her face.

  “Come now, don’t you cry.” She brushes the tears from my face with a trembling finger before standing and reaching a hand down to me. “We’ll ask the vi
llage priest to marry us as soon as the lamps are lit. At least something good will come of this.”

  I hesitate until she sighs and shakes her head. “You can touch me. I’m sorry, I’d … forgotten.”

  “It’s all right.” My sadness vanishes as she leads me across the field. I follow her through the tall grass, utterly at peace. No misery can touch me so long as my love’s hand is in mine and she is happy with me and I am doing as she wishes.

  We hurry past the dancers to where Gettel and Kat are playing juggle sticks with some of the village children. Aurora squeezes my hand as we approach the healer, sending a wave of contentment surging through my body, rushing through the empty space left behind after the other parts of me were cut away, filling me with joy.

  I smile as Aurora explains that we want to be married and asks the healer to bear witness to our joining, but Gettel isn’t looking at Aurora. She’s looking at me, staring with a horrified expression that would trouble me if I cared what anyone but Aurora thought of me. But I don’t, and so I smile. I smile until she sends the children away and begins to shout at Aurora, demanding to know what’s she’s done, demanding she release me from whatever enchantment she’s worked upon me.

  I move forward, ready to defend my love, but she stops me with a hand on my arm and a softly whispered, “No, Niklaas, don’t interfere,” and I step back.

  I listen as Aurora explains a fairy curse she’s under and what it has done to me, but none of it makes sense until she swears that she did what she did so that we could be married, so she could save me from my own curse. Mention of our marriage makes me grin again. I can’t wait to be her husband, to be by her side, forever and always.

  “You can’t marry him now,” Gettel says, anger and sadness thick in her voice.

  “Yes, I can,” Aurora says. “I must! If I don’t, he only has eight days left.”

  “You don’t understand, child.” Gettel wipes at her eyes, sweeping away tears. “A true marriage can only occur when two souls freely choose to bind themselves together. Niklaas isn’t free. He’s incapable of making his own choices.”