Heart of Thorns
Page 1
Dedication
For Carli Christina Cat,
the original BA
Map
Epigraph
One of the ancient maps of the world
is heart-shaped, carefully drawn
and once washed with bright colors,
though the colors have faded
as you might expect feelings to fade
from a fragile old heart, the brown map
of a life. But feeling is indelible,
and longing infinite, a starburst compass
pointing in all the directions
two lovers might go, a fresh breeze
swelling their sails, the future uncharted,
still far from the edge
where the sea pours into the stars.
Reproduced from Valentines by Ted Kooser by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 2008 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska.
Fidacteu zeu biqhotz limarya eu naj.
Trust your heart, even if it kills you.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Map
Epigraph
Prologue
Part One: Flesh
Chapter 1: Porcelain Bosom
Chapter 2: Instruments of War
Chapter 3: Bones and Dust
Chapter 4: Blank
Chapter 5: A Common Enemy
Chapter 6: Painfully Small
Chapter 7: Smoldering
Chapter 8: Blackmail
Chapter 9: Love Is a Lodestone
Chapter 10: Promise Me
Chapter 11: Gwyrach
Chapter 12: Times of Unimaginable Duress
Part Two: Bone
Chapter 13: How to Escape Successfully in Eight Simple Steps
Chapter 14: A Brief and Bloody End
Chapter 15: Silver Blade
Chapter 16: A Raven on the River
Chapter 17: Merely Girls
Chapter 18: Bait
Chapter 19: Too Lovely
Chapter 20: Awful Bloody Work
Chapter 21: Unknowable Parts
Chapter 22: Thawing
Chapter 23: A Piping Hot Mug of Butterfel
Chapter 24: Dangerously Warm
Chapter 25: Undergarments
Chapter 26: A Magical Honeymoon
Chapter 27: Because a King Can
Chapter 28: Broken
Chapter 29: Imperfect Cleavage
Chapter 30: Monster
Part Three: Breath
Chapter 31: Fire and Air
Chapter 32: Five Small Craters
Chapter 33: A Little Head Magic
Chapter 34: Forbidden
Chapter 35: Murderous Angels
Chapter 36: Meant for You
Chapter 37: Shimmering and Sliced
Chapter 38: Bare
Chapter 39: An Excellent Stew
Chapter 40: River Rats
Chapter 41: Wilder
Chapter 42: The Blood Beneath
Chapter 43: More Than You Will Ever Know
Chapter 44: Beautiful Vessels
Chapter 45: Choking
Chapter 46: Sister of Mine
Chapter 47: Hollows
Chapter 48: Everything You Thought You Knew
Chapter 49: Deserve It
Chapter 50: Home
Part Four: Blood
Chapter 51: The Threat of Violence, or the Promise
Chapter 52: The People You Love
Chapter 53: Moonlight
Chapter 54: Weeping Blood
Chapter 55: A Family of Maggots
Chapter 56: Diaphanous
Chapter 57: Heart for a Heart
Chapter 58: Grief and Shame and Magic
Chapter 59: Who You Are
Chapter 60: Nothing
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Bree Barton
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Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
ONCE UPON A TIME, in a castle carved of stone, a girl plotted murder.
Part One
Flesh
Chapter 1
Porcelain Bosom
ON THE EVE OF her wedding to the prince, Mia Rose ought to have been sitting at her cherrywood dresser, primping her auburn curls and lacing her whalebone corset. She should have been fussing with the train of her gown, a piece of oyster silk that unfurled behind her like a snow-kissed boulevard.
Mia was doing none of those things.
She paced her bridal chambers with a pouch of boar’s blood gripped between her fingers. For weeks she’d done meticulous research, filching various cuts of meat from the castle kitchens—duck, goose, venison—but the boar emerged victorious. The blood would dry like human blood: a dark crusted brown.
She had purloined one of her sister’s gowns so she could shred it alongside her wedding dress, leaving them both behind in bloodied ribbons. The plan was simple. She would stage the scene in the tunnels beneath the castle, with only one logical conclusion to be drawn: Mia, the prince’s intended bride, had been brutally attacked, abducted, and most likely killed, along with her younger sister, Angelyne. The poor little Rose girls, taken before their time.
While the king’s guards scoured the castle grounds for the vile murderer, Mia would lead Angie to freedom.
It was admittedly not her finest plan. The problem was, it was her only plan. And there was one additional, fairly significant hitch:
She hadn’t told her sister.
“Mi? Are you nearly ready?”
Angelyne swept into Mia’s chambers, her satin slippers gliding over the floor. “I came to see if you needed . . .” She stopped short. “Why are you wearing a rope?”
Mia had fed a thick rope through her trouser loops for their descent into the castle’s subterranean bowels. She opened her mouth to explain, but no words came out. The beginning of a headache was scratching at her temples.
Angie frowned. “You do know the final feast is about to begin.”
“I am aware.”
“And you are gownless and gloveless.”
“True.”
“And your hair looks like a poodle died on your head.”
“I’ve always enjoyed the company of poodles.”
“Is that blood?” Angelyne snatched the leather pouch out of Mia’s hands, sniffed, and grimaced. “I don’t care what you were about to do; I’ll tell you what you’re doing now.” She gestured toward the cherry dresser, nudging a stack of books and a stubby wax candle aside. “Sit. I’m going to pin your hair.”
Mia flumped into the chair, irritated. The headache was clawing at her skull. Why was she unable to tell her sister about the plan? It wasn’t as if the stakes weren’t treacherously high: one month ago, their father, Griffin, had promised the king a bride for his son. At seventeen, Mia was the obvious choice. But fifteen-year-old Angie was a close second.
Mia had tried desperately to dissuade her father. Girls in the river kingdom were rarely given a say in the men they married, yet Mia had naively assumed she would be different. Under her father’s tutelage, she had trained as a Huntress for the past three years. Surely he wouldn’t pawn her off to the highest bidder. But no matter how much she pleaded, he never wavered.
He had condemned her to a lifelong prison sentence, annihilating all chance of love or happiness. Her own father, who knew better than anyone the power of love. Fortunately Mia had no intention of wedding and bedding Prince Quin. She had work to do. A sister to save . . . and a murderous Gwyrach to find.
“Angie? I need to—”
“Sit still? You’re absolutely right.” Angelyne rummaged through her basket
of hairpins and alarmingly sharp objects. It was Mia’s fault she was in the castle at all. When the queen had tried to furnish Mia with a lady-in-waiting to help with gowns, gems, and skin greases, the whole idea made her nervous (what was the lady waiting for?). So she had requested that Angie stay in Kaer Killian, the royal castle, during the engagement.
Most days she regretted it. The drafty castle had only exacerbated her sister’s many mysterious illnesses. The Kaer was an ancient citadel, carved from a mountain of ice and frozen rock. It was miserably cold. Not to mention Angie had been attracting the attention of the young duke, which was troubling. Ange was lithe and slender, with a pale heart-shaped face, rose-petal lips, and wavy hair the color of summer strawberries ripening on the vine.
“Mia Rose,” Angie muttered, “Princess of Chaos, Destroyer of Nice Things.”
Ange let out a short, sharp cough before swiftly regaining her composure. She yanked a bone comb through Mia’s tangles hard enough to make her gasp.
“Angelyne Rose, Mistress of Pain, Wielder of Torture Tools.” Mia massaged her temples. “My head was killing me before you started this torment. I don’t know why I’m suddenly getting these atrocious headaches.”
Angie paused. “Where does it hurt, exactly?”
“Here.” She pointed to the back of her skull. “The occiput. And here.” She dug her fingertips into the bridge of her nose. “The sphenoid bone. It’s like my whole cerebrum is on fire.”
“Human words, please. Not all of us speak anatomy.”
“Even my mandible is throbbing.” Mia massaged her jaw.
“You mean you have a toothache.”
“Teeth. All of them.”
“How can all your teeth ache at once?” Her sister smothered another cough. “Here. I have just the thing.”
Angie fished a dented tin of peppermint salve out of her basket. When she tried to twist off the lid, she fumbled. They both stared at her gloved hands. The lamb slinkskin was a soft, pale pink.
“It’s all right,” Mia said. “You can take them off. I won’t tell Father.”
Slowly, carefully, Angie pinched the lambskin at her pinkie, then her ring finger, then her pointer. She inched the glove off her hand and laid it neatly on the dresser. Her complexion was smooth and peachy, so different from Mia’s ivory skin and copper freckles.
“Just think,” Ange said quietly. “After tomorrow, you’ll never have to wear them again.”
How easy it was to forget.
With the exception of the royal family, all girls were required to wear gloves as a precautionary measure. Any woman might be Gwyrach; hence every woman was a threat. The Gwyrach were women who, through the simple act of touch, could manipulate flesh, bone, breath, and blood.
Not women, Mia reminded herself. Demons. They were half god, half human—the wrath and power of a god mixed with the petty jealousies and grudges of human beings. The Gwyrach could fracture bones and freeze breath. They could starve limbs of oxygen, enthrall a heart with false desire, and make blood boil and skin crawl. They could even stop a heart. How effortless, this act of murder: a palm pressed to a chest, and a life snuffed out forever. Mia had seen proof.
A Gwyrach had destroyed their lives—and Mia was going to find her. Heart for a heart, life for a life. But first, she and Angelyne had to escape.
In the mirror, she saw a shadow flicker over her sister’s face. Then it was gone. Angie rubbed the peppermint salve into Mia’s jaw and quickly slid the glove back over her hand. Her wrists were so thin they made Mia’s chest ache. Birdlike. There was a reason their mother had called Angie her little swan.
Before she knew what was happening, her sister was lifting Mia’s linen tunic up over her head and fitting the whalebone corset around her rib cage.
“Four hells, Angie!”
“What? You look like a princess!” She stared admiringly at Mia’s reflection. “Will there be candlelight in the prince’s chambers? Because it does wonders for your bone structure. Your clavicle throws the most beautiful shadows. . . .”
“I doubt it’s my clavicle he’ll be looking at,” Mia said darkly. Between the whalebone corset pushing up and the gown’s neckline plunging down, she had never seen so much of her own flesh.
“You have Mother’s figure.” Angie sighed. “What I wouldn’t give to have a porcelain swell of breast.”
Mia caught her sister’s eye in the polished glass, and despite everything—or maybe because of it—they both burst into laughter. It was always like this: they could be bickering one moment and shrieking in unabashed delight the next.
“You’ve been reading your dreadful novels again, I see.”
“You have so little faith in fate. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to fall in love! To be swept up in something bigger than yourself—to find a handsome partner in the dance of destiny.”
“Like Mother and Father.”
Angie touched the moonstone pendant at her throat. It had belonged to their mother. “Yes,” she said, her voice feathery soft. “Like that.”
They were wasting precious time. It was now or never. “I need you to listen, Ange. What I’m about to tell you is important.”
“Oh?” Her sister seized a long hairpin and plunged it into the smoldering candle, then took a strand of Mia’s dark-red hair and coiled it around the warm, waxy pin. When she let go, it snaked into a perfect corkscrew. In the torchlight Mia couldn’t help but think her curls gleamed the color of wet blood.
“Angelyne.” Her voice was deadly quiet. “We are getting out of here. You and I. I have everything arranged, so you don’t have to do anything but trust me.”
Angie set the pin slowly on the dresser. Her blue eyes flashed in the mirror.
“I know what you’ve been plotting, Mi. I’ve seen you with your maps, packing your secret satchels. I know you’re running away. And I’m not coming.”
Mia was stunned. “I—I’m not leaving you behind.”
“Maybe I want to be left behind. Have you considered that? Maybe this life you’re so determined to hate—living in a castle, married to a prince—isn’t such a bad life.”
“To be trapped forever in this frozen tomb?” She reached up and pressed a palm to her sister’s forehead. “Are you febrile? The fever is stealing your sense.”
Angie shrugged her off. “I’m the one who’s being sensible! You treat me like a victim. Poor sick little Angie, always in need of someone to save her. But I don’t need saving. Go. Flee the castle. Run off to have your adventures.”
“My adventures? You speak as if I’m going on holiday. You know I have to find her, Angie. If Father won’t, I will. Heart for a heart, life for a life.”
“Yes, well. You Hunters all think you’re exacting justice when really you’re just adding weight to one side of the scale. More bodies. More loss.”
The conversation was twisting too quickly for Mia to grab hold of. “Why would you choose a loveless marriage? What about the ‘dance of destiny’? Think of the way Mother looked at Father . . .”
“I try not to think of her,” Angie snapped. “Though you seem intent on reminding me.”
“Is that really what you want? To be bound by sacred vow to a boy who doesn’t love you? All so you can twirl around the castle in a pretty gown?”
“You don’t get to tell me what I want!”
All the blood drained from Angelyne’s face. She staggered forward, clutching the bedpost, her slim body racked by coughs. Instantly Mia was by her side.
“The dizzy spells again?”
“They come out of nowhere. Everything is fine and then the world goes white.”
“Maybe you should lie down.”
“Maybe I should.” Mia helped ease her onto the canopy bed, plumping the vermilion silk pillows under her head. She watched her sister’s chest rise and fall, a delicate paper lantern. Guilt roiled in her belly.
Mia didn’t feel so well herself. An inexplicable heat poured over her, as scorching as if she’d leaned over a f
ire, orange flames licking her freckled flesh. She felt the sweat gathering damply beneath her arms, pooling in the scoop of her lower back. Reason number six hundred and twelve she wouldn’t make a very good princess: princesses did not have sweat stains blooming on their fine silken gowns.
Angie’s smile was sad. “Look at me. Not even strong enough to have a proper fight. I really am a heroine from one of my novels.” She reached for Mia’s hand, her skin sweltering. “Go, Mi. If you want to run, run. I’ll only slow you down.”
Mia’s heart plummeted. Her sister couldn’t go more than five minutes without succumbing to one of her unexplained ailments—fevers, coughing fits, dizzy spells, monstrous headaches. Sometimes Ange stumbled forward, her feet gone suddenly limp, her toes numb. Mia had searched all her books on physiology, exhausted every tome on maladies and infections. She always came up short.
To escape, they would need to slip stealthily through an endless maze of tunnels, flee the castle, make it through the village undetected, commandeer a boat, and sail the Natha River east to Fojo Karação. Fojo was where her mother had first fallen in love—and where she had made enemies. The journey would take days. Weeks.
Angie would never make it. In her heart of hearts, Mia had always known.
The truth seeped into her with sickening certitude.
She would never find the murderous Gwyrach.
She would never leave the castle.
She would marry the prince.
Mia tried valiantly to mask her despair. If she couldn’t save her sister, at least she could make her smile.
“You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid. Even if you’d rather have a handsome boy to admire the swell of your porcelain bosom.”
She heard footsteps in the castle corridor. Two harsh knocks echoed through her chambers.
“Lady Mia?” It was the prince, his voice icy. “I’ve some news.”
Chapter 2
Instruments of War
PRINCE QUIN STOOD AT the threshold, arms crossed. He bore a striking resemblance to her favorite human-anatomy sketch: his body long and lean, his face perfectly symmetrical. Not that she’d noticed.