Princess of Thorns

by Stacey Jay

  I glance down to see a strip of partially tied linen trailing from my wrist but can’t seem to stop myself from trying to jerk away again. My mind can’t reconcile this waking with what I expected to find when I opened my eyes.

  Where are the chains and the bars? The damp walls and the beetles? Where is the gloomy dungeon light and the stink of fear and the sounds of people quietly weeping in their cells?

  “You must lie still.” The other ogress—a bald woman with six soul tattoos in a circle above her temple—doesn’t ask nicely. “We had to stitch the skin on your wrist. If you fight, it will tear and have to be redone,” she says, meeting my glare with cold eyes.

  “Where am I? Who are you?” I force myself to relax. I don’t know why they’re patching me up, but there’s no doubt I’ll be better off when they’re finished. “Why are you helping me?”

  “You are in one of the castle guest rooms,” the brown-haired ogress says, resuming her work, deftly wrapping the linen around my wrist. “I am Nippa and this is Herro. We are Queen Ekeeta’s personal nurses.”

  “Only the best for the lost princess,” the other woman, Herro, mumbles.

  “Why?” I ask, heart beating faster, frightened by this show of mercy. What does it mean? What does the ogre queen want?

  “The queen is too kind for her own good,” Herro says, but I keep my gaze on Nippa and I’m glad I do, otherwise I would have missed the sadness that tightens her expression before she smiles.

  Why is she sad? I don’t know, but I’m certain it doesn’t bode well.

  “She is as kind as a queen should be,” Nippa says, a note of censure in her tone. “If you’re finished, Herro, you may attend to your other duties. I can manage the princess alone now that she’s awake.”

  “Happy to leave you to her.” Herro jabs a pin into the bandage at my wrist before rising and departing the room in a rustle of skirts.

  “Never mind her,” Nippa whispers. “She’s unpleasant at times but an excellent nurse. Your stitches are as small and even as any I’ve seen.” She pins her linen in place and smiles. “Are you ready for something to eat?” She motions to a table near the window behind her, where a feast has been laid out. Meats, cheeses, fresh bread, and fruit vie for space on the blue tablecloth, while outside, two castle towers glow pinkish orange in the fading light.

  Sunset. “How long have I been asleep?” I ask. If it’s been more than a day, Niklaas won’t know what to do. We were supposed to free Jor the first night we spent in the castle!

  “Six hours, give or take,” Nippa says, making me sag back into the pillow with relief. “You took tea with herbs for the pain when we first laid you down. They calm the appetite, but I’m sure you’re hungry by now. Shall I help you to the table?”

  “No thank you, I can walk,” I say, though it still feels mad to be having a polite conversation with a creature that consumes human souls for nourishment. I toss off the covers, glancing down at my far-too-long nightgown as I slide to the floor. “Did you …”

  “We bathed and dressed you. We knew your wrists and cheek needed tending, but we wanted to be sure we didn’t miss any wounds beneath your clothes. We attended to your bites as well.” Nippa hovers close as I walk to the table, apparently determined to catch me if I swoon. “You slept like a babe the entire time, poor little thing.”

  Poor little thing? What in the Flaming Pit …

  I settle into the chair Nippa pulls out for me, eyes darting around the room. It’s magnificent, as big as five fairy cots put together with a bed the size of a small ship at the center and warm wood armoires stationed against the walls like fussing nannies. There is a writing desk pulled before the other window and blue silk curtains that hang from the high ceiling all the way to the floor. Between the two windows, a fire crackles in a white stone fireplace.

  It is cold enough for a fire. Does that mean …

  “Is my brother still alive?” I won’t be able to stomach a bite of food until I know, no matter how famished I am.

  Nippa hesitates, making my pulse race beneath my skin.

  “Is he?” I ask, voice breaking.

  “I’m not to speak of such things, Princess,” Nippa whispers, “but yes.”

  “Where is he? Is he in the dungeon or—”

  “Not another word,” Nippa says in a no-nonsense voice that assures me I won’t be getting any more information from her. “You must eat. Start with the broth. Your body will put it to use more quickly than the rest.” She plucks the porcelain top off a bowl decorated with pink flowers like the ones I saw in the garden and sets it before me.

  I pick it up and drink the broth straight from the bowl, not bothering with the soup spoon lined up beside the rest of the utensils. I don’t have time for sipping from a spoon. I have to get rid of this nurse and out of this room, and the fastest way to accomplish both seems to be to honor Nippa’s requests.

  I finish the broth and reach for the bread, tearing off hunks that I stuff into my mouth and chew as quickly as I can. I follow the bread with slices of cold chicken and cheese and a glass of mixed juices so sweet it makes my tongue curl, but I refuse to touch the cake. I will eat to revive my body, but I won’t waste a moment enjoying myself, not when every second is precious and both Jor and Niklaas depending on me.

  Niklaas bribed a fisherman in Nume—using our horses as payment for a boat to be moored near the wall walks after dark tonight, promising the man another fistful of gold when we take possession of the craft—but the boat will do us no good if I can’t find Jor. I assumed I would end up in the dungeon within shouting distance of my brother, and it would only be a matter of sorting out how to get us both out of our cells, but now …

  “If you’re finished, I can help you dress,” Nippa says.

  “I can dress myself,” I say, pushing my chair back.

  “Of course.” Nippa nods. “Your clothes are being washed, but we’ve found something in your size. It’s laid out on the dressing bench.”

  I keep one eye on my nurse as I circle around the bed, still wary no matter how kind she seems, but when I see what the ogres have found for me to wear, I find it hard to focus on anything else. Instead of the gown I was expecting, there on the pale blue cushions of the dressing bench lie a black linen shirt, black cloak, and black riding pants that actually look small enough to fit me. They must be a boy’s pants, and the boots settled on the carpet must be boy’s boots as well.

  “What is this?” I ask, brow furrowing as I rub the coarse fabric of the shirt between my fingers.

  “They are clothes for a night flight,” comes a voice from behind me, a voice as airy as a reed flute that casts a net of barbed wire around my heart.

  The queen. The queen.

  I drop the shirt, desperately wishing I had my staff in hand as I turn to face the woman who took everything I love away, who killed my mother and stole my brother, who cursed my life and haunts my nightmares and looms so large and terrible in my mind that I know I will always fear and hate her, always, even if by some miracle I am lucky enough to walk out of this castle and live to a doddering old age.

  My hands shake and my mouth fills with a taste as sour as nutshells as my eyes alight on the cool white column that is the ogre queen. Ekeeta is only eight hands away, close enough to smell her perfume, an exotic scent like poppy and sea foam with a top note of grilled meat that makes my stomach churn.

  She is as beautiful as ever, tall and thin, but with generous curves visible beneath her white gown with the silver trim. Her wig is more elaborate than the one I remember from when I was little—intricate braids coil around her head, creating a crown from which curls cascade down her back in a tumble of gold—but her face is the same. Her skin as smooth, her cheekbones as high and delicate, her eyes as …

  Her eyes …

  “Forgive us.” She falls to her knees, sending the tears pooled in her eyes spilling down her cheeks.

  Nippa rushes to her side: I back away, more startled by her tears than if she�
�d hurled a knife at my chest.

  “We do not deserve forgiveness,” she continues, breath hitching. “But still, we ask for it, if only to prove we see how wrong we have been. We have been deceived. Our brother convinced us the souls we consumed would be delivered into paradise, but there is no excuse for the evils we have committed. We should have questioned our brother years ago. We should have sought the truth before so many died in vain.”

  I shake my head, hands trembling at my sides, itching for a weapon.

  A weapon. The knife on the table! If I move quickly …

  I turn and run, holding up my long gown as I dash to the table to fetch the knife and turn back to Ekeeta, the sharp point aimed at her heart.

  But even with half a room and the bed still between us, I know I won’t be able to make use of the weapon. Already, my arm wavers, my muscles threatening to turn to stone if I attempt to kill a defenseless woman kneeling on the ground before me.

  Damn my mother’s curse! Damn fairy magic and all the misery it has brought to my family since the day Mother was blessed in her cradle!

  “What do you want?” I sob, gripping the knife so tightly my hand begins to sweat, gritting my teeth as I fight to be stronger than the magic, to take the vengeance that is rightly mine. “Where is Jor? Where is my brother?”

  Fresh tears as fat as winterberries drop from her eyes. “He is safe. He has suffered, but he will live,” she says, wringing another sob from my throat, a sound of pain and relief and mourning mixed together. “We swear he will live. And we swear to aid you both in escaping to freedom tonight.”

  “What?” I nearly shout the word, so confused it feels as if I’ve awoken in a world where my dreams and nightmares have married and given birth to hideous children. “What is this? What are you playing at?”

  “Quiet.” Nippa’s whisper is harsh, but with fear, not anger. “These are the human guest quarters and few of our kind come here, but you must not attract attention. If you are discovered, Princess, we will be unable to save your life, or your brother’s.”

  I swallow, my gaze flicking from Nippa’s kind face to Ekeeta’s tearful one, unable to find anything false in their eyes.

  “Explain yourself.” I drop the knife to the table where it lands with a dull thud.

  “Our brother, Illestros, is five hundred years our elder. He was a powerful priest long before we were born,” Ekeeta says, making no move to rise from her place on the floor. “He has channeled more prophecies than any priest since the time before humans roamed the land. His most important prophecy concerns the rise of the living darkness and an age of ogre rule in which humanity will feed the First One’s hunger for—”

  “A hundred years,” I finish, impatient with this story. “I know the prophecy.”

  Ekeeta nods. “But none of that matters now.”

  My throat muscles clench. “My mother is dead,” I force out, “and my brother and I have lived in exile, only able to see each other for a few weeks each year, because of that prophecy. Jor was taken captive and our fairy friends killed and I have spent the past three weeks … I have risked my life and my friend’s life …”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting for control. What if this is real? What if, for some unfathomable reason, Ekeeta truly means me no harm? Then all of this has been for nothing. Niklaas’s mind and will and last chance at a human life have been stolen away for nothing. Nothing!

  “You must listen,” Ekeeta says. “There isn’t much time. We will be missed if we stay away too long. We regret these things, but we cannot make reparations now. It is more important that we prevent the worst of our brother’s plans from coming to pass.”

  I open my eyes. “You mean the prophecy?”

  “The prophecy is not a true prophecy,” she says, rising to her feet. “He has lied before, but we didn’t want to believe … But now there is no doubt that this divination did not come from our goddess. We know not what Illestros hopes to accomplish with the rise of darkness, but it is not to open the gates to paradise.”

  I cross my arms at my chest. “Of course it isn’t,” I say, not bothering to hide my disdain. “He wants the Fey dead and humans so weak they can’t fight back. He wants to rule Mataquin and is willing to drive our world to the brink of death to do it.”

  Ekeeta flinches. “We wish we had seen things so clearly. Our only comfort now is that it isn’t too late to set things right.”

  “Set things right,” I echo, acid in my tone. How can she expect me to believe she wants to set things right? She, who assassinated my father, drove my mother to take her own life, and who has made Norvere a place of fear and desperation ever since. “Why this sudden change? After all this time?”

  A beatific smile lights Ekeeta’s face. “We were in the garden late last night, with our creatures. We were lost and afraid and we begged for wisdom, no matter what the cost, and then … we felt the goddess moving within us. Her presence guided us to the truth, to peace so wide there is no way for doubt to swim across it.”

  “You’ve found peace.” I don’t know whether to scream or cry. In the end I laugh, a strained sound that makes Nippa eye me strangely. “How lovely for you.”

  “We know we are the last soul in the world who deserves salvation,” Ekeeta whispers, bowing her head. “But that is the glory of the goddess. Even the most wretched can be made pure if they trust in her guidance.”

  “And what does the goddess guide you to do?” I ask, glaring at her with undisguised hatred. I hate her still. I might even hate her more.

  How dare she? How dare she come to her enlightenment now, when my mother is dead, my brother scarred, my dear friend and first love both robbed of their senses, and myself cursed to a lifetime of regret? How dare she talk to me of peace, when I know it will forever be beyond my reach?

  “The goddess does not wish for death or pain or for one people to destroy another,” she says. “Human, ogre, Fey—we are all one in her eyes, and paradise will come to each of us, in its time, in its own way. The only genuinely holy quest is to nurture peace in our own hearts, and do our best to love each other.”

  She lifts her arms, as if offering an embrace. I instinctively cringe away. Her words about love and unity are all well and good, if she means them, but they are still coming from the mouth of a monster.

  Which reminds me …

  “Your new peace will make mealtime difficult,” I sneer, enjoying the way her skin pales at mention of her voracious appetite.

  She presses her lips together and breathes sharply through her nose. “We shall no longer feed upon the souls of man, and will ensure our brothers and sisters make the same promise.” Nippa comes to stand at her elbow in a silent show of solidarity. “Ogres can be sustained by simpler foods. We may perish sooner, but better a hundred years of life lived in love than a thousand in fear and greed.”

  I shake my head numbly. She means it. I can tell. She’s going to stop killing, and she’s convinced at least one other ogre to do the same. So …

  “Then you’ll let us go?” I ask, finally daring to hope our escape may be far simpler than I’ve dreamed. “My brother and … and me?” I almost let Niklaas’s name slip but stop myself. I can’t let her know Niklaas is my ally. If I do, and this turns out to be an elaborate trick, I will have ruined our last chance at escape.

  “We can’t let you go, our brother would never allow it,” Ekeeta says, “But we can help you escape. We will send Nippa to you as soon as darkness falls. We will fetch Prince Jor and meet you at the docks. You will have our fastest ship and two of our trusted guards to sail it. Thank the goddess, it was our personal guard who found you in the fountain this morning. They will keep our secrets and aid you well.”

  “We won’t need the guards.” The fewer ogres involved, the better. I’m sure Ekeeta’s brother isn’t the only ogre who will loathe the idea of giving up living for centuries and ruling the world. “Jor and I can sail a small ship together.”

  Ekeeta long fingers tangle in fro
nt of her. “Hopefully he will be able to sail. We sent healers, but some of his wounds … We’re afraid some of them are deep.”

  I clench my jaw. “I can manage on my own. He’s alive. That’s all that matters.”

  It isn’t all that matters, and she can be damned sure I’ll have my vengeance if she’s broken my little brother, but for now his life is enough. I can wait to plot my revenge—and devise a plan to reclaim my kingdom—until Jor, Niklaas, and I are safe on Malai.

  “But I want Niklaas of Kanvasola on board when we set sail,” I say, realizing how I might save Niklaas without giving our connection away. “He betrayed me and doesn’t deserve his freedom. Tie him up and leave him below deck. The Fey and I will dispense the punishment we see fit.”

  “The prince will be punished soon enough,” Ekeeta says. “His eighteenth birthday draws near and there is nothing we can do to lift the burden of his curse.”

  “Then I will have to dispense justice quickly.” I meet her tearful glance with a cruel one, imagining it is she who will be my prisoner. “Have him stowed beneath the deck of the ship. No one betrays me without paying for it.”

  Ekeeta nods. “It saddens us to see cruelty in another when we are so recently free of it, but … we owe you that much.”

  “You owe me everything,” I spit, so angry I begin to shiver with it. “My throne, my family, my heart. You owe me more than you can ever repay. And if I’m cruel it is because of you.”

  Ekeeta watches me, eyes shining with a mix of tenderness and sorrow that makes me wish I could strike her, if only to slap that stupid expression from her face.

  Her lips part, but she wisely decides against speaking to me again and turns to Nippa. “Stay with her. If I’m needed, send Herro. I’ll come straightaway.”

  Nippa curtsies, bowing her head so far to her chest she develops an extra chin. “Yes, my queen. Blessed be, my lady.”

  “Blessed be, my friend.” Ekeeta touches a light hand to Nippa’s shoulder and leaves without a backward glance.