Princess of Thorns (17 page)

“But I would suggest we leave soon.” Crimsin bounces back to her feet. “It will be easier to get out of the city unnoticed in the dark. I’ll send Hund ahead with a message for the counselors to expect us.”

“I can’t leave tonight.” I silently curse Niklaas for drinking himself into uselessness. “My companion really is drunk. I doubt I could keep him
awake
for longer than a few minutes, let alone mounted on his horse.”

“Then we leave without him. You can write him a note saying goodbye.” She crosses to the bedside table, pulling parchment and a stick of charcoal from the pocket of her cloak as she goes. “I’ll rip my paper, and you can have half. It’s better if my message is brief. Easier to fit inside the hole in Hund’s collar.”

“I can’t,” I say, though for a moment I’m tempted.

How much easier would it be to leave without saying goodbye? Without having to see Niklaas’s face once he learns I’ve deceived him?

But we’ve made a deal, and Janin raised me never to give my word lightly. A broken promise breaks something inside of you, leaving less of you than there was before. Besides, I have a feeling Niklaas would hunt me down if I left without honoring my half of the bargain. He is insanely determined to meet my “sister.”

“Don’t tell me the Kanvasola prince can’t read,” Crimsin says, her attention focused on scratching out her message. “I’ve heard he’s a pretty, lazy thing, but really …”

“He can read,” I say. “But I made a promise. If I leave without him, I won’t be able to honor it.”

“But we’re women,” Crimsin says with a conspiratorial grin. “According to men, we have no honor. We can’t really be expected to keep
all
our promises.”

“I can’t do that,” I say, uncomfortable with her suggestion. “I honor my promises, and I hope you will honor yours. Can I trust you, Crimsin?”

Crimsin stands, the smile vanishing from her face. “Of course you can, Princess. I would never break a promise to a woman, especially you. And I respect that you have an honorable heart, but it really is best if we leave tonight. Who knows if the passage into the mountains will still be unguarded come tomorrow?”

She crosses back to her dog and crouches to slip her rolled note into his collar. “The queen hunts for you and your brother, and there are others who hunt for the Kanvasol prince. It’s dangerous for you to remain his traveling companion.”

“Who’s hunting Niklaas?”

“His father, of course,” Crimsin says. “The prince is about to turn eighteen, and that isn’t allowed in Kanvasola.”

“What do you mean? How do you forbid someone from having a birthday?”

I haven’t spent much time studying Kanvasol law—Janin assured me my hours were better spent studying the Herth customs—but surely not even a king who believes he’s eaten enough infant whales to become immortal can be
that
mad.

“Eighteen is the age it is legal for a son to inherit the Kanvasol throne.” Crimsin fetches the pitcher on the washbasin and sloshes water into the bowl meant for washing up before putting it on the floor for the dog. “And so, not one of King Eldorio’s sons has ever lived past his eighteenth birthday.”

“You mean …”

She nods and mimes shoving a knife into her own gut. Mine twists in response.

So that is the beast lurking in wait for Niklaas. Suddenly his fear of an early death, and his refusal to speak of what happened to his brothers, makes terrible sense.

“That is …” I shake my head, at a loss for words.

“Wicked?” Crimsin supplies.

“Unbelievably wicked,” I say, my heart breaking for Niklaas. What must it be like to grow up knowing your father intends to kill you before you become a man? To see your brothers slain, one by one, while every year you grow closer to sharing their fate?

“How does the king get away with it?” Loathing rises inside me, making me certain I could come to hate Niklaas’s father as much as I hate Ekeeta. “Surely his advisers and his people don’t—”

“His advisers are snakes, and his people are afraid, like we in Norvere are afraid,” she says, stroking Hund’s head as he laps water from the bowl. “But from what I hear, the king is careful not to make what he’s done too obvious. His sons’ bodies are never discovered, but everyone knows when a prince’s bed is found empty on the morning of his eighteenth year that it will never be slept in again.”

I imagine Niklaas, his throat cut in his sleep and his body dumped into some Kanvasol sea, and shiver. Silently I vow not to let him out of my sight until I can be sure he is safe from the monster who sired him.

“That’s all the more reason for him to stay with me,” I say. “I won’t leave him behind. We’ll have to wait until morning.”

Crimsin sighs and her dark eyes flash with irritation. “Please, think this through. The ogres won’t follow us into the hills, but King Eldorio’s men have no fear of the Feeding Trees. If they find out the prince has left Goreman in our company, they will follow us and punish my people for sheltering their fugitive.”

“But your camp is well hidden, isn’t it?”

“It is, but—”

“And none of the other guides would lead King Eldorio’s men to your location.”

“There are no other guides in Goreman. They left two days ago, when the ogres arrived. I’m the only one who’d rather risk a run-in with ogres than crawl back into the wretched mountains to hide,” she says with no small amount of pride.

She’s either brave or stupid, or a combination of both, which is probably the most dangerous, but unfortunately she’s also my last chance at securing a guide.

“Then we won’t have to worry about the king’s men being led to your settlement,” I say, “and surely you have defenses in place to protect your people if by some miracle Eldorio’s men find it on their own.”

Crimsin wrinkles her nose. “Yes, but the counselors won’t protect a Kanvasol prince. They’ll hand him over if it will send the king’s men away.”

“But he’s an innocent. How could they—”

“We were all innocent once, but the ogre queen stole our innocence. The counselors won’t weaken our position when we’re so close to overthrowing her. They will kill the prince themselves first.” She crosses her arms and shoots me a hard look. “We are loyal to you and your brother, Princess. That boy means nothing to us.”

“He means something to me.” I meet her hard look with one of my own.

She lifts one perfectly arched brow. “Well now … it’s like that, is it? I suppose you’ll be making us a batch of royal babies before too long, then?”

I roll my eyes as if the idea is absurd and hope my performance is enough to convince her. “He’s a friend and an ally, nothing more.”

“Right.” Crimsin’s lips curve. “That’s why you were mooning about outside his door.”

“I’m worried about him. That’s all.”

“Of course.” Crimsin nods in an exaggerated fashion.

“Truly, we’re just friends,” I say, though I’m starting to sound absurdly defensive. “He doesn’t even know I’m a girl.”

Crimsin wryly lifts a brow. “So he doesn’t know you’ve got a tender spot for him.”

I roll my eyes again but know better than to keep arguing. Anything I say will only make things worse. “Tender spot or no tender spot, I’m not leaving without him.” I pull off my boots and stretch out on the bed, hoping she’ll understand that’s the end of it. “You’re welcome to stay here tonight if you’d like.”

“You want to sleep?” she asks. “It’s not even ten o’clock.”

“We might as well. That way we’ll be ready to leave early in the morning.”

Crimsin sighs and runs a hand through her hair. “Very well, but I’m going down to the tavern. We won’t be leaving early. We’ll be lucky to get the prince up and about by noon. I put enough Vale Flower seeds in his last beer to put a stallion to sleep for a week.”

I bolt into a seated position. “You
drugged
him?”

Crimsin shrugs. “I paid the innkeeper’s wife to drug him. I knew it would be easier if he was asleep when we left.” She snorts again. “He’s a massive thing, isn’t he? But not as handsome as the stories would have a girl believe. I was expecting a god with lightning shooting from his fingertips the way the whores talked about him.”

I drop my legs to the floor, hands shaking as I squirm my feet into my boots.

“Decided to come for a drink?” Crimsin asks.

“I’m going to check on Niklaas,” I say, barely concealing my anger. I need this girl, but right now I want to ball up my fist and punch her in her lying, drugging mouth.

“He’s fine.” She waves a breezy hand in the air. “He’ll sleep like the dead but—”

“Unless the seeds make him sick,” I say, a harsh note creeping into my voice. “If he gets sick while he’s unconscious, he could choke to death.”

I pluck my key from my vest pocket and throw it across the room. It lands near Hund’s paws, summoning a growl from the creature that I answer with a glare. Let the beast come for me. It would feel good to fight something other than my own rising panic.

“I’ll stay with him tonight,” I say, transferring my attention to Crimsin when the dog lowers his head, evidently deciding he doesn’t want to bite a chunk out of me after all. “You can sleep here. I’ll fetch you when Niklaas is fit to travel.”

“Princess, please.” Crimsin hurries across the room, laying her hand on the door before I can open it. “I wasn’t thinking. I never meant to put your friend in danger. I’ll keep watch over him. You stay. You’re fresh from a long journey and need your rest.”

I freeze, hairs on my arms prickling. “How do you know I’m fresh from a journey?” I turn, fingers tightening on my staff. “I could have been at this inn for days.”

Crimsin’s eyes dart to the left before sliding back to my face. I know she’s going to lie before she opens her mouth.

“I don’t
know,
” she says, her gaze carefully blank. “I only assumed. Have you been here for days?”

I look up at her, but not too far up. She is, as Niklaas would say, a “wee thing” like me, a hand shorter than the average woman, soft and feminine-looking and so beautiful I’m certain she’s accustomed to people thinking she’s equally harmless, but I won’t make that mistake. This girl isn’t harmless. She’s unpredictable and dangerous and not someone I’m inclined to trust. I will be sleeping with my weapon in my fist for as long as Crimsin is a part of our company.

“I want to believe you’re not a liar,” I say. “But I don’t.”

She looks up with a startled expression before dropping her eyes back to the floor. “That’s … honest of you.”

“I am honest when I can be and kind as long as I am allowed to be. Niklaas and I need you to guide us into the mountains, but if you betray us. …” I pause, waiting for her to look up before I reach for the door again. “Sleep well.”

“And you, Princess,” she murmurs, her sober tone leaving no doubt she understands that if she betrays me things won’t go well for her. “Tell the prince I’m sorry when he wakes up.”

I slip out the door and down the hall, hurrying to Niklaas’s door, my pulse leaping with worry, but I know he’s alive before I let myself into his room.

Even from outside in the hall, I can hear him snoring.

I close the door behind me and lock up before padding over to where Niklaas lies sprawled as I left him. I watch him snuffle, unreasonably happy to be facing a night filled with his dreadful racket, before helping myself to his rosemary and mint ash, shedding my boots, and placing my staff within easy reach of the bed. Then, with a muffled groan, I roll Niklaas onto his side and lie down beside him.

His snores remain long and deep throughout the entire process. He really is dead to the world. I should have realized this was more than a case of having a few too many. I should have trusted him to know better than to drink too much.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, wedging my back more firmly against his to keep him from rolling over in his sleep. “I should have listened to you.”

Niklaas doesn’t say a word, of course, but the heat of his body is soothing all the same. After only a few moments, sleep creeps into my limbs, relaxing my shoulders, and I know I will pass a better night here than I would have in my own room. I’ve become accustomed to Niklaas. Even in sleep, he comforts me, making me feel calmer and safer than I do when I’m alone.

“I will keep you safe, too,” I say, my whisper becoming a yawn. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

I won’t. I will protect Niklaas the way he’s protected me, but in order to do so I must keep him by my side. I can’t risk telling him the truth. He must go on believing I’m a prince leading him to his princess for as long as it takes to make sure he is beyond his father’s reach.

A quiet voice inside me whispers that I should feel terrible about continuing to lie to him, but the rest of me is relieved to have an excuse not to confess. I’m not ready to lose my friend. I need him too much, and he needs me.

I close my eyes and drift, prepared for the fears that come to torment me in my sleep, but tonight I don’t dream of the crumbling castle or my brother’s screams. I dream of a picnic in the meadow behind Mother’s old house, of a blanket beneath the trees and honeysuckle thick in the air. I wear my white fairy dress with the silk flowers at the neck, and Niklaas is asleep with his head in my lap, while our friends play wickets in the meadow beyond.

It is the most beautiful dream. I fight to hold on to it, to stay asleep even as the birds begin to sing and sunlight warms the bed. I fight until I hear Niklaas moan and the day begins with a hellish smell and the splatter of sickness.

Despite my aching head and foul-tempered stomach, I manage to pack my things and drag my wretched body out of the inn by ten o’clock. Ror, our new guide, and I reach the gates at Goreman’s northern edge an hour later.

Two ogres with soul tattoos etched onto their gleaming bald heads guard the gate, but Crimsin—in her second skin of a dress, minus the red cloak that would give her away as an exile—distracts them while Ror, the horses, and I slip out of the city along with a group of lumber wagons bound for the lower forests.

Ogre men are as susceptible to feminine charms as their human counterparts, and Crimsin certainly isn’t lacking in “charms.” If she hadn’t drugged me into the worst bout of sickness I’ve experienced since the night Usio and I ate bad oysters off the coast of northern Kanvasola, I’m sure I’d have a hard time keeping my eyes off her bosom.

At the moment, however, I’m having a hard time resisting the urge to wring her pretty white neck.

As Ror and I guide the horses into the trees beyond the city, another wave of sickness grips my midsection. I force it down with only the softest moan, but Ror seems to have especially keen ears this morning.

“Try to make it a little farther,” Ror says, fussing over me like he’s done all morning. “Let’s get up the mountain. Then we’ll stop and you can have more water while we wait for Crimsin to catch up.”

“I don’t want more water,” I say, forcing the words out through a clenched jaw.

“You need to keep drinking,” he says. “If you don’t, you’ll never work the poison through. I could find some wild mint to calm your stomach if you think—”

“Quit fussing. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’ve been—”

“Leave me be, Ror,” I warn, voice rough from all the retching I’ve done since sunup.

Blasted poison, blasted girl
. If Crimsin weren’t the last guide in Goreman, I swear to the gods I would have kicked her out of the inn with a boot in her shapely backside.

“I will not leave you be.” Ror pulls at Button’s reins, stopping the horse in the shade of two young Feeding Trees. “If you’re not able to keep water down, we shouldn’t have left the inn. It’s not safe to be—”

“I’ll drink the raging water! But only if you’ll shut your flap for ten minutes at a time!” I snatch the waterskin from my saddle and tear off the cap, chugging as much as my miserable stomach can hold before plugging it with a glare in Ror’s direction. “I don’t know what’s worse. The sickness or your damned mother-henning.”

Ror’s eyes tighten in an expression so wounded I immediately feel even worse.

I sigh, running a trembling hand across my mouth, hating how weak I feel. “I’m sorry. I’m not myself. Thank you … for fussing, and for not leaving me behind.”

“Of course I wouldn’t leave you,” Ror says, guiding Button closer. “I told you this morning, Niklaas. I want to help you. I want to keep you safe.”

I grimace as my guts clench. My stomach quivers beneath my ribs, debating whether or not to send the water back the way it came. I hate feeling ill, but I hate Ror knowing the truth—even if it’s only a shadow of the truth—even more.

Apparently, people on this side of Norvere believe my father murders his sons, and that he’s sent assassins to Goreman to seek me out before my eighteenth birthday. That’s the story Crimsin told Ror, anyway, and the reason the guide gave for feeling it necessary to drug me and leave me to sleep off the poison while she led Ror to the exiles.

Perhaps the story is true. Perhaps my father does intend to kill me for the crime of attempting to change my fate. I don’t know how he would have learned of my quest or my new hope—Haanah is the only one who knows I found the witch who cursed our family, and she would never say a word—but he has his spies, as Ekeeta has hers. They may not be numerous, but they are clever and loyal and desperate to please their king, lest they end up dead like the men who have failed King Eldorio before them.

“I consider you a friend,” Ror says, hurt still clear in his tone. “I would never leave a friend in danger. Deal or no deal.”

“I consider you a friend, too.” I lay a hand on his back. “And I
am
sorry. You’re like a brother to me, runt, I told you that last night.”

“You remember that?” Ror asks.

“I do, though I admit everything after climbing the stairs is a blur. I have a vague recollection of lifting you over my head … but I’m hoping that was a dream.”

Ror grins. “No. Not a dream. But I—”

“Aren’t you two delightful?” Crimsin’s voice drifts through the trees, making my shoulder muscles bunch and my head ache. I pull my hand from Ror’s back to rub the tops of my eyes. “Is there anything sweeter than two boys in love?”

“We’re friends,” Ror snaps, shooting Crimsin a look I don’t understand. I get the feeling something uncomfortable happened between the pair of them last night, though Ror insists they only spoke briefly before he came to watch over me in my sleep.

“Forgive me,
prince,
I was only teasing.” Crimsin’s lips push into a pretty pout.

She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in years, but I don’t feel the slightest pull toward her, and not simply because she drugged me. There’s something false about Crimsin, something secretive in the way of water with sharp rocks lurking beneath the surface that makes me wish we’d been able to hire anyone else but this girl.

“Now, what do your royal highnesses think?” Crimsin stops between the horses and tilts her head up, providing a scandalous view down the front of her dress. “Should I ride with Ror or with you, Niklaas?” she asks, hand coming to rest on my knee.

“You’ll ride with me,” Ror says, anger simmering in his words. “My horse is larger, and Niklaas still doesn’t feel well.”

“Maybe I could help him feel better.” Crimsin leans into my leg, pressing her body against my thigh. For a split second, I consider retching down onto her soft, shining hair, but decide the pain of being sick again isn’t worth the petty revenge.

“Ror seems better able to tolerate you,” I say, nudging Alama forward with my heels, pretending not to notice when Crimsin has to scramble out of the way to avoid being stepped on.

“Charming,” Crimsin says as Ror swings her onto the saddle behind him. “No wonder you were without a woman to warm your bed last night, Prince Niklaas.”

I turn to tell the girl to keep her mouth shut unless she has something guide-worthy to say, when I see them—six sea-foam-colored Kanvasol horses surging through the gates of the city below, each one mounted by a knight wearing the blue coat of arms of my father’s innermost circle. They’re still a field away, but there’s no doubt the men have spotted us amidst the trees. They draw their swords as they spur their mounts forward, flashing steel promising a swift death to the last human prince of Kanvasola.

It seems Crimsin was right, and I a fool for setting foot outside the inn while too weak to defend myself.

“Go, ride ahead with Niklaas!” Ror slides to the ground, giving Button a swat on the behind. The horse leaps forward, making Crimsin squeal and clutch at the reins.

“No!” Crimsin pulls the horse to a stop, the playful lilt vanishing from her voice. “You can’t fight them alone. They’ll kill you, and I—”

“There’s no time!” Ror slaps the horse again, harder, sending Button dashing off through the woods.

Ror turns to me. “Follow her. I’ll find you later. You’re not fit to fight.”

“No, I won’t—”

“Go!” Ror shouts. “You’ll only distract me if you stay. I can take them. Go! Run!”

I reach for my sword—I don’t care what he says, I’m not leaving Ror alone against six armed men—but before I can draw my weapon, Ror whacks Alama on the rump and she bolts with a squeal, leaping after Button.

I haul at the reins, but by the time I regain control and turn Alama around, Ror has already knocked three of the men from their horses and is using his staff to leverage his body into the air to avoid being trampled by the animals pressing in behind. I dig my heels into Alama’s sides and barrel down the mountain, heart racing as a sword swings within inches of Ror’s head, close enough to make his warrior’s knot bob as he kneels to swipe his staff in a wide arc, tripping a fourth horse and sending the man atop it sailing from his saddle.

My swift pulse clears my head, and by the time I meet the last mounted man, my arm is strong. Our blades collide with a dull clang, a sound made familiar by days spent training with Father’s men. It makes me wonder if this knight was one of my teachers, or one of the boys who trained beside me. His armor conceals his face, but there’s a chance I know him, that the blood I’ll spill is the blood of a former friend.

The thought should make me hesitate, but it doesn’t. I have to get to Ror, I have to save his life before he dies trying to save mine.

I see a weakness in my opponent’s defense and seize upon it, sliding my sword into the unarmored place beneath his armpit, sending a rush of red spilling onto his blue surcoat. He drops his weapon; I lift my foot from the stirrup and kick him in the chest, sending him sliding off his horse with a strangled cry. I hesitate long enough to make sure he won’t be getting up to fight before urging Alama farther down the hill to where Ror is, miraculously, finishing off his final opponent.

Three men lie unconscious on the ground while Ror bats at the last man, knocking his armor from his head before finding the same vulnerable place I found with my sword and shoving his staff inside hard enough to make the knight cry out as he drops his sword. After that, it’s only a matter of seconds before Ror sends the man crumpling to the ground with a sharp rap of his staff upside the unfortunate bastard’s skull.

He watches the man fall and spins my way, only relaxing a fraction when he sees I’m not the enemy.

“Are you all right? Where’s the other one?” He races up the hill so swiftly Alama dances nervously to the side. “There were six. I took four and you took the fifth, but—”

He’s interrupted by a scream, a terrified cry that makes me feel something besides contempt for Crimsin for the first time since we were introduced over a chamber pot filled with my vomit.

I reach a hand down and pull Ror into the saddle behind me. Alama moves quickly up the mountain, not seeming to suffer from the addition of Ror’s weight, but by the time we reach Crimsin, I fear we’re too late. The sixth man has her on her back, a blade pressed to her throat.

I move to dismount before Alama comes to a stop, but Ror is even faster. He leaps from the saddle, landing with a hop that sends him into a front roll and back to his feet without breaking speed. He knocks Crimsin’s attacker to the ground before the man can turn to see who’s behind him, and a few blows later my father’s final assassin falls to the dirt with a miserable groan.

Only when the man is unconscious does Ror drop his staff and reach for Crimsin. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m all right.” Her words end in a sob as she clutches Ror tight. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Ror says, smoothing the girl’s hair from her face.

“No, I do. I couldn’t get to my axe and he …” She swipes at the tears on her cheeks with a fist. “You risked your life for me.”

Ror takes her hands in his. “You’re one of my people. It’s my duty to defend you.”

The girl blinks. “You really believe that?”

“What’s the point of having a ruler if he or she doesn’t protect the people?” Ror asks. “I know that’s not the way it’s been since Ekeeta took control, but—”

“That’s not the way it was before, either.”

“What do you mean?” Ror asks, a wary note in his tone.

Crimsin bites her lip, hesitating a moment before she whispers, “I had an older sister. Fifteen years older. Gernin was … perfect.” She swipes at her damp cheeks again. “Beautiful and kind and always helping people. We thought she’d take over as the healer for our village one day, but then, the king came … and took my sister away.”

“The king?” Ror gives a small shake of his head.

“Your father.” Crimsin watches Ror, a cautious expression on her face. “He tried to win her at first, giving her silks and promising gold for her family if she would become his third wife, but it’s not the way of our people to have more than one wife and Gernin didn’t love him. She told him no.” Crimsin’s eyes shine, but when she speaks again her voice is flat, emotionless. “His men came to our house that night and stole her away. I never saw her alive again.”

“You’re … That’s the truth?” Ror squeezes Crimsin’s hands. “You swear it?”

“I swear it on my eternal soul,” Crimsin says with enough conviction that even
I
believe her. “The king took Gernin, and a few months later … she was dead.”

Ror is quiet for a moment before he says, “I’m sorry.”

Crimsin’s lips part. “You believe me?”

“I do. My mother suspected …” Ror lets Crimsin’s hands slip through his fingers. “Mother didn’t know my father was already married until after I was born. Father kept her hidden in the woods for years. She still loved him after she found out the truth, but she hated him, too. I know she longed for another life.”

Crimsin curses softly. “I didn’t know.”