A Wicked Thing

by Rhiannon Thomas

  Iris must have known Finnegan was plotting to take the throne. Why else would she have warned Aurora away from him? Either she did not believe Aurora was safe with Finnegan, or she did not trust Aurora to resist whatever charms he was convinced he had.

  She pricked her finger on her needle and gasped. The queen frowned at her. Aurora sucked the blood away, earning her a deeper frown.

  Finnegan had offered to whisk her away, as though she were sitting and waiting for him to save her. He thought she would hide in his kingdom, stage a war against her own people. That she would put herself in debt to an arrogant prince who might well be her enemy, just so she could escape.

  If she wanted to leave, she had another option. Tristan. A thrill ran through her at the thought. Vanishing into the inn, joking with Tristan, listening to Nettle sing, drinking mead and kissing him and never worrying about duty ever again.

  She stabbed her needle through the cloth.

  Tristan’s kiss lingered on her lips. If she closed her eyes, she could still see the lights spinning around them. She could still feel his hand in the hollow of her back, so close it had seemed he would never let go.

  In the end, it was all just a fantasy. But she would cling to it for as long as she could.

  Aurora practically ran to the Dancing Unicorn that night, dizzy with nerves about seeing Tristan again. The inn was quieter than she had expected, but Tristan was there, wiping down the bar. For once, he wasn’t smiling. He looked up almost as soon as she slipped in through the door, and he hurried over without a word to anyone. “Mouse,” he said. “You’re here.” He rested a hand on her upper arm, and then looked over his shoulder. “I need to talk to you.”

  “I want to talk to you too!” she said. “I finished the book last night. You have to tell me what happens to Belinda. Is there more, or—”

  “Now’s not the time, Mouse. Come on.”

  He set off across the room, weaving through the crowd. Aurora followed. “What’s wrong? Is this about last night?”

  “No, not that,” he said. “We just need to talk. But not here.”

  He grabbed a lamp from a table and led her through a door behind the bar into a messy storeroom, piled high with kegs and jars. Aurora could smell the alcohol in the air. The seemingly endless stock left little room to stand. He placed the lamp on the windowsill at the end of the room, casting glow and shadow across the floor. Then he turned to face her.

  “I have to tell you something,” he said. “But you can’t tell anyone what I’m about to say. Not anyone.”

  The lamplight bounced off the side of Tristan’s face. “All right,” Aurora said. “What is it?”

  “You have to promise,” he said. “If you tell anyone, it won’t be safe for any of us. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I promise. Tell me.”

  He let out a breath. “I’m part of a movement,” he said. “A group of people who aren’t happy with the way things are. We want to change things.”

  “A movement?” she said. “You mean you’re part of the rebels?” She glanced at the door. Her heart thudded against her ribs. Iris had warned her about rebels in the city. People who would be willing to tear her apart if they could. Aurora had never thought she meant Tristan.

  “Rebels makes us sound like the enemy,” he said. “We’re not like that.” He gripped her hand. “You’ve seen it, Mouse. You haven’t been here long, but even you’ve seen it. How hungry people are. How cruel the king is. How he’s shoved those who need help out to the edges of the city.”

  His hand seemed to burn against her skin. She swallowed. Her thoughts leapt too quickly for her to process them. “And you’re trying to help them?”

  “We’re trying,” he said. “I’m not sure if we’re succeeding. We’d been making progress, more people had been willing to listen to us, but then . . . well. Things changed. With the princess.”

  His grip on her hand was too tight. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I trust you,” he said. “Because I know you’ll understand. And if you support us . . . things have been looking bad, but with you on our side, we’ll have a chance. A real chance.”

  Aurora stepped back. Her lower back thudded against the doorknob. “You know who I am.”

  Tristan didn’t move. “Yes,” he said. “I know.”

  It wasn’t possible. Her thoughts blurred together, struggling to pluck out anything she had said, anything she had done, that could have revealed the truth to him. “How?” she said.

  “I’ve known since I met you,” he said. “It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

  She shook her head. “You didn’t say anything.”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  She kept shaking her head, trying to grab on to her thoughts. “So you’ve been lying to me? This whole time?”

  “I wasn’t lying,” he said. “If I’d said anything before, you wouldn’t have come back. And I had to find out why you were here. I had to find out what you were up to.”

  “So that’s why you’ve been spending time with me? Was all of this . . . was it just some game?”

  “No,” he said. “None of this is a game.” He moved closer. “I didn’t have to tell you the truth,” he said. “But I wanted to. Because . . . because you’re a good person. And because I care about you. And I know you’ll want to help.”

  “Help?” she said. She tried to step backward again, fighting for some space to breathe, but the doorknob dug into her spine.

  “I know you don’t like the king and queen.” His eyes gleamed. “I saw you, on that first day. You’re not the sort of person who wants to marry some stuffy prince just because a story told you to. You’re not going to want to stand there and act pretty and prop up every terrible thing they do.” His words gathered speed. She could not look away from his face. “And that’s all they’ll do with you, you know. Make you a pretty little figurehead, until they have no more use for you.”

  “I know that,” she said. “Of course I know that.”

  “Then this is your chance to change things. To fight them.”

  She couldn’t think. The room was too small, and Tristan was too close. “Fight them how?”

  “Just tell us what’s going on in the castle, maybe speak to some people who might be sympathetic—”

  “But why?” she said. “What do you intend to do?”

  “Ultimately?” he said. “We want to overthrow the king.”

  “Overthrow him? You mean, rid him of his crown, arrest him, lock him up?”

  Tristan did not answer.

  Cold rushed through her. She slipped to the side, trying to catch some air, but there was no space in the room, nothing but barrels and the smell of alcohol and him. “You want me to help you murder the king?”

  “No,” Tristan said. “It’s not murder if he deserves it.”

  “Yes,” she said. “It is.”

  “It’s justice,” Tristan said. “He’s done so many terrible things, been responsible for so many deaths. He’s the murderer. And killing him . . . killing him would be saving lives.”

  Aurora shook her head. It was too hard to breathe. “Sometimes kings have to make tough decisions,” she said. “Sometimes criminals and soldiers die. That doesn’t mean you can kill him.”

  “You have no idea what he’s like, do you?”

  “I know he’s unpleasant,” she said. “I know he’s cruel. But—”

  “He became king through murder. Did you know that? He convinced a guard to shoot the old king through the window with a crossbow, and then burned the guard on the castle steps for the crime.” His voice was steady. He did not look away from her, not for a moment. Every word pierced her. “And then he killed all his enemies. All the troublemakers. Anyone who might claim the throne. He said that the reason we didn’t have magic anymore was that a few people were hoarding it for themselves, making us suffer and starve. If we burned them, he said, their magic would be released back into the world. Th
e princess would wake up. And within a year, anyone who might oppose him had been accused and burned, until everyone was either so convinced or so afraid that they could never stop him.”

  Aurora forced herself to look him in the eyes. A lump had gathered in her throat. “And then I woke up,” she said. “So people think he was right after all.”

  “Yes,” Tristan said. “That’s why we need your support. If you speak out against him, more people will join us. And then he won’t be able to stop us.”

  Nausea burned the back of her throat. “I can’t,” she said. “It’s awful what he did, but—I can’t. I can’t help you murder him.”

  “It isn’t murder,” Tristan said. He gritted his teeth in frustration. Every muscle in his body was tense. His deep-buried anger was so clear, he practically burned with it.

  “He did something to you,” Aurora said. “Didn’t he?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “It matters,” Aurora said. “I’m right, aren’t I?” My parents are dead, he had said. It was too awful to consider. But if what she suspected was true . . .

  “I doubt there’s anyone he hasn’t hurt personally by now,” he said. “But yes. Yes.”

  Aurora reached out, her hand resting on his wrist. “What happened?”

  “He killed my parents.” Tristan’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “About five years ago. There was a bad winter; none of the crops grew. None except the ones my father owned. People in my village accused him of using magic and tore him apart. Literally tore him apart to get the magic out of him. And when my mother took me to the capital to ask for compensation, do you know what the king did? He executed her too, for working with him. And then he made me a servant in the castle, out of the kindness of his heart, so that I couldn’t go wind up any more trouble.” He pulled his wrist away. “And you’re telling me he’s fit to rule? I shouldn’t want to get rid of him?”

  “No,” she said softly. “I would want him dead too, if he did that to me. But . . .” Everything in the room felt too close. “Killing him wouldn’t make it right.”

  “It’d be a start.”

  She looked at the lamp on the windowsill. Lights burned across her eyes. “What will you do then?” she said. “Are you going to put Rodric on the throne? Or me?”

  “We can’t,” he said. “If we do this, everything will have to change. People think you returned because of all the things he’s done. If you become queen and save us, that’s just proving him right. They’ll remember him as a hero.”

  “So you want me to help you destroy myself.”

  “It wouldn’t be like that. You wouldn’t be a princess anymore, but you’d be so much more. More than their stupid little symbol. You could have a place here. You could have a life.”

  “I don’t need you to give me a life. I can make my own.” She closed her eyes, trying to shove back the anger rising inside her. She had to stay calm. “And what happens if you succeed?” she said slowly. “Who takes the throne then?”

  “We have to kill him first,” he said. “Then we’ll work out the rest.”

  Her eyes snapped open. Disbelief burned inside her. “You don’t have a plan? What if someone worse takes the king’s place?”

  “Anyone would be better than him.”

  “You can’t believe that,” she said. “You’d have to be stupid to believe that there couldn’t be anything worse. There’s always something worse.” She stepped back, shifting toward the door, straining to increase the space between them. “I can’t help you, Tristan,” she said. “I can’t be a part of this.”

  He clenched his fists. “So you’re going to be selfish? Protect your own comfortable existence instead of helping?”

  “That is not what I’m doing,” she said. “But you haven’t said a single word about the people. I thought you wanted to make things better.”

  “Getting rid of the king will make things better,” he said. “You’ve got to get to the cause of the problems. Otherwise it won’t make any difference at all.”

  “It’s suicide, Tristan. For you and for the kingdom. You have to see that.”

  “I thought you would listen to me,” he said. “I thought if I told you the truth—”

  “I am listening to you,” she said. “But you can’t seriously mean this.” The Tristan she knew was not a murderer. But, she was realizing, she did not really know Tristan at all.

  “Of course I mean this,” he said. “He killed my parents, Aurora.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she said. “Not now.”

  “Why not?” he said. “You’re not Mouse, are you? The girl I thought I knew would care. Or would you prefer if I bowed and called you Your Majesty?”

  She stared at him, taking in the fury on his face. “I guess you were wrong about me,” she said. “I’m only a silly princess after all.”

  She tugged the door open, but he spoke again before she could move. “You’re making a mistake. I won’t be able to protect you.”

  She laughed. It wasn’t funny, not really, but the idea that this was his parting message, half warning, half threat, that in the end it all came down to keeping her safe for others to manipulate . . . it was too painful to be serious. “I survived a hundred-year curse, Tristan,” she said. “I don’t need you to protect me.”

  She slipped through the door and let it click shut behind her. He did not follow her.

  Outside, rain drizzled, forming a light mist along the alley. Aurora lingered in the doorway, her head buzzing. A customer bumped into her as he entered the inn, and she jerked aside.

  Nettle, the singer, leaned against the wall. The slight overhang of the roof protected her from the rain. She looked willowy and angular, her long black hair falling over her eyes, her knees and elbows jutting out in points. She glanced across at Aurora. “Are you all right?” she said. Her voice was as smoky as when she sang, but it sounded slightly unnatural and as angular as her body, as though the words were sharp in her mouth.

  “Oh,” Aurora said. “Yes. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”

  Nettle stood up straighter. “No,” she said. “You did not disturb me. You look like you have had a shock.” Nettle was watching her with barely a flicker of an expression on her face, as though merely commenting on the weather.

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “Tristan told you that he knows?”

  Aurora stared, too startled to pretend she did not understand what the singer meant.

  “You are surprised that I know too? Do not worry. I doubt any one else has noticed.”

  “Tristan noticed,” she said. “Right away, he noticed.”

  Nettle tilted her head to the side. Tristan had described the singer as prickly, but that wasn’t quite the word for the way she tossed her head, carefully pronouncing each word. She was aloof, but sincere, watching Aurora like she was a curiosity that had stumbled into her path and needed to be decoded. “I believe he found you hard to miss,” she said. “The girl destroying all his hopes.”

  “I am not destroying his hopes,” Aurora said. “I don’t even know what I’m doing.”

  “Neither does he,” Nettle said. “At least you are able to admit it.” She sat. Her long dress darkened as it fell in a puddle, and her legs would be brown with mud by the time she stood, but Nettle either did not notice or did not care. She stared straight ahead, the picture of calm. “Will you sit with me? It is too cold and quiet out here to be alone, but I do not want to return inside just yet.”

  Aurora hesitated. But the singer was right. She did not want to be alone.

  She sank down beside Nettle. The rainwater soaked into her skirts.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I don’t know,” Aurora said. “I just . . .” She stared at the wall across the alley, watching the way the rain trickled down the stones. She tightened her grip on her knees, pulling them under her chin. “Tristan said some things that . . . I don’t know.”

  “He has a lot of bitterness in
him,” Nettle said. “He tries to hide it with jokes, but he is always angry. It is a dangerous way to be.”

  The sound of conversation from the inn hummed behind them, and the rain patted out a rhythm on her bare arms. “He’s not who I thought he was.”

  Nettle continued to watch her. “You have known him—how long?”

  The nights all blurred together, a mess of smiles and fear and mead warming her lips. “Four days, maybe.”

  “So. You meet a boy, and you imagine he is everything you want to find. Comforting. But now the real boy is fighting back.”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “He was keeping secrets from me. All the time, he was thinking . . .”

  “But you were keeping secrets from him too, were you not?”

  “It’s different,” Aurora said. “My secrets . . . I needed to stay quiet. It was the only way to keep me safe.”

  “Maybe he felt the same way.”

  “No,” she said. “He made it quite clear that safety isn’t the issue here, his or mine.”

  “Tristan is a fool,” Nettle said. “He does not know what he means. He is so full of his own plans and ideas that he cannot see anything else.”

  Aurora rested her head against the wall, letting it scrape her scalp. The rain pattered out a rhythm by their feet. She needed to talk about something else, to shift the attention away from herself. “Is Nettle your real name?” she asked.

  Nettle looked at her. A single strand of black hair brushed across her nose. “That is what I have told people to call me,” she said. “Does that not make it my real name?”

  “I’m sorry,” Aurora said. “I did not mean to offend you.”

  “It takes more than that to offend me. But you must know that names do not mean everything.” She shifted, pulling her right knee toward her chin. “It is not the name my mother gave me, nor a translation of it, although some people once told me otherwise. Boys like your Tristan, and yet not like Tristan at all. When I had only just begun traveling outside my kingdom, when I did not speak your language so well, they named me. Nettle. Like the flower that was my name before. They said it suited me. It was not until later that I found out what it meant. They thought me a weed. Something unwelcome, to be torn out.”