Heart of Thorns

by Bree Barton

  The duke raised his demon’s dwayle. Quin clinked flasks and glugged his dwayle, and Tristan and the other men followed suit. They grunted, nodding in approval, wiping their mouths on their sleeves.

  The wiry, ginger-haired guard quaffed another swig. “It’s better ’an the dross Spence cooks up for us.” He glowered at the third guard, a graying man whose hairy hand rested on his paunch.

  “You try cooking for four in the woods, Talbyt, you ol’ crab.”

  Mia had never tasted dwayle before, and she didn’t understand how anyone could like it. She took another sip. Like sucking down goose fat.

  Was Quin concocting some kind of plan? She kept trying to catch his eye, but he steadfastly refused to look at her.

  Mia’s head was a block of ice sweating into her brain. The thought of her sister walking down the aisle of the Royal Chapel, forced into marriage, trapped forever in that stone prison . . .

  She had to save her. The ropes chafed at Mia’s wrists as she tried to break free. She eyed the hounds, threads of drool dangling from their jowls, gums red and wet against their razor teeth. Even if by some miracle she could work magic on all four men at once, she couldn’t subdue two dogs.

  “How do you like it, Mia?” Quin was staring at her. “The dwayle?”

  “I hate it,” she said.

  “Good.” He nodded. “Because yours was different from the rest.”

  The wiry guard brought a hand to his throat.

  It happened fast: Tristan sprang to his feet, then pitched forward, nearly staggering into the fire. He shouted, but the words came out as spittle and yellow froth. He was trying to give a command to the dogs. They couldn’t understand it, but they were picking up on his distress, growling and pawing at the snow.

  Spence was on all fours, retching mustard-colored bile onto the ground. Talbyt clutched his stomach, his face bone white, while the fire-building guard frantically shoveled snow into his mouth. They were clawing at their chests, heaving the contents of their stomach into the earth.

  Quin was on his feet. Mia watched in bewilderment as he pulled a white slice of tree bark from his mouth and spat it out onto the ground.

  “Swyn,” he said. “Very absorbent. A natural antidote to poison.”

  Quin spun through the camp, grabbing their piles of clothes and shoving everything into the cook’s satchel. He sawed through the ropes around Mia’s wrists and took her by the hand.

  They turned, ready to run—and there were the dogs.

  Tristan’s hounds were ready to tear them apart. Their eyes rolled back into their skulls, leaving two white moons; their tails were taut, their teeth bared.

  “Mia,” Quin said, “can you enchant the dogs?”

  “I—don’t think—”

  “Can you try?”

  They had no other choice. She sank to her knees.

  She willed herself to think gentle, calming thoughts. A dog in and of itself was not a threat. They were loyal creatures, submissive to their masters, eager for a kind word or a greasy treat. She conjured Quin’s dogs, those gentle golden beasts, with their firelit fur and soft snouts, the way they always looked like they were smiling. A half-forgotten memory tapped at the corner of her mind.

  She had no idea what she was doing. How was she supposed to turn two attack dogs into docile puppies? Mia shut her eyes, her fingers quivering. She extended her hands.

  Something happened.

  She felt clean and buoyant, as if her insides had been scooped out and replaced with goose down. Her head was light, and her fingers, which had been trembling only a moment before, were now bloodless, ten lily pads floating on a cloud of hot steam.

  She felt something warm and wet. She was sure the dogs had sunk their teeth into her hands, blood spurting from the wounds.

  But when she opened her eyes, she saw the liquid was saliva, the something warm a tongue. The bigger dog was licking her palm. The smaller one wagged his tail.

  Mia watched, astonished, as the hounds plopped down on the snow. They whimpered and rolled onto their backs, offering up pink bellies to be rubbed.

  Five cold fingers wrapped around Mia’s ankle. Tristan lay prostrate on the ground, face contorted, a smeared mess of vomit and saliva, but somehow his grip was ironclad.

  Her bones jittered in their sockets. She heard a sharp, dry crack, and Tristan shrieked in pain. He let go of her ankle. She looked down and saw the impossible: his fingers bent backward, the bones fractured at the middle joints. His pale face had gone sallow.

  Mia kicked his broken hand away, locked her fingers into Quin’s, and ran.

  Chapter 29

  Imperfect Cleavage

  THE MOON WAS A white scar in the sky, gray clouds oozing from the puncture. A light snow dusted the swyn as Mia and Quin raced up the mountain. They were breathless, running without looking, worrying the same unspoken question: How soon would the magic wear off the hounds?

  Mia Morwynna Rose, Knower of All Things, Mistress of Theories, was a blank slate. She didn’t know what she’d done to the dogs or how she’d done it. What she did know was that Quin had most certainly saved their lives. He was a culinary genius—and a better assassin than she was.

  She could still hear Tristan’s fingers breaking. She’d felt the telltale twitch of magic in her fingers, the mirrored reflection of his body in her own. She had splintered his bones without meaning to. Had Quin seen her do it? She eyed him in her periphery. This probably wouldn’t allay his concerns about her ability to control her magic.

  Thin air whistled through her nostrils and into her aching lungs. She was grateful Quin had thought to grab their smocks and trousers—the snow was falling faster by the minute. But the clothes weren’t enough. She banged her hands together to keep warm.

  “How did you know Tristan would say yes to a last drink?”

  “I didn’t. I just hoped. He’s always been fond of dwayle.”

  “‘Because a king can.’ Brilliant.”

  He looked thoughtful. “My cousin has always been vain. I knew if I could play on his vanity, we might survive.”

  “And you said you were never any good at war games.”

  “No. I told you my sister was better. I’ve always had a knack for the pretending arts.” His smile was sad. “Vanity looks like strength, but is almost always weakness.”

  “And you exploited it beautifully. You’re a tremendous actor. Pure genius.”

  “Passably genius.”

  “What did you put in the brew?”

  “Remember our chokecherry tea?”

  She nodded.

  “The berries aren’t poisonous. But the pits are.” He shook the snow out of his curls. “Chokecherry brew, with a dash of extra choke.”

  Mia was impressed. “You saved the pits?”

  “You can’t take enough precautions. Not in this fugitive life we’re living.”

  There was no sound but the snow crisping underfoot, the muted hush as it fell around them. Their pace had slackened. They were beginning to feel safe—more dangerous, Mia thought, than when they felt hunted.

  “Is it odd that I believe him?” Quin said. “I don’t think Tristan was behind the assassination—at least not the mastermind. He’s just taking advantage of it. My cousin can be violent, but he doesn’t have the acuity to execute a complex plan. He’s the sort of person who waits for destiny to arrange itself pleasingly on his plate before reaching for the knife.”

  “He must have been working with someone.” She didn’t have to say, Probably your father or my father. They were both thinking it.

  “Is it a horrible way to die? The chokecherry?”

  “Oh, they won’t die. They’ll be wretchedly sick for a few days. Their stomachs will be properly ravaged. But they shouldn’t die.” His brow furrowed. “I don’t think. I tried not to put in enough to . . .”

  He trailed off. “It’s hard to get the quantities right. It’s like all cooking: trial and error. A dash of knowledge and a pinch of intuition.” He paused.
“Not that killing is like cooking.”

  “But cooking is often killing, isn’t it? Before we eat the meat, we must slaughter it.”

  “Cooking is an act of love. To cook is to care for someone. It isn’t . . .”

  He stumbled forward.

  “Quin?”

  His cheeks were too pink. He tripped again, then hooked his arm around a tree branch. Woozy, he sank into the snow, clutching his left shoulder.

  The arrow. She had once again forgotten. How many times would she forget? She was reckless, asinine, an absolute travesty of a—

  “Help me,” he said, and then collapsed.

  Mia fell to her knees and ripped open his shirt.

  The wound was festering. Tristan had made it angry; now it oozed with white and yellow pus. Quin’s whole shoulder was inflamed and distended. When she touched the swollen skin, he moaned.

  Could she heal infected blood? She didn’t know how far her powers extended. She had mended Quin’s arrow wound, goaded the tissue along its natural path of repair and recovery, but that was a single site of aggravated trauma. She had knit skin back together, not repaired an entire system of flagging organs. Quin’s body was rallying against him. His brain. His heart.

  “I’m going to lay you down,” she said. He was still unconscious, but maybe he would be comforted by the sound of her voice. She eased him onto his back and hastily arranged a pile of soft needles under his head.

  She tore open the satchel. In their hasty retreat, Quin had thrown a handful of things into the bag, but the sheath knife wasn’t among them. Gone was the smooth, sleek blade; instead they’d inherited the cook’s corroded chopping knife. It might as well have been a rusted tent spike, not to mention crusted with animalcule from years of carving up raw meat. If Quin’s blood weren’t infected already, it surely would be.

  She pushed the thought from her mind. She had two tasks:

  Extract the fragment of the arrow.

  Heal the infection.

  Quin had saved her life; now she would save his.

  His face shone beneath a patina of sickly sweat. He slipped in and out of consciousness, mumbling the same song: “Under the plums, if it’s meant to be. You’ll come to me, under the snow plum tree.”

  “Shh. Save your strength.”

  Mia took a breath, resurrecting the Wound Man plate in her mind. She felt a wash of sudden calm—after all, she’d done this before. This time she’d do it better. She braced her hand against his sternum and eased the rusty knife into the wound.

  His body jerked, an instinctual reaction. She kept digging. The blunt chopper made precise movements impossible, so when the incision was big enough, she slipped a finger beneath the skin. His flesh was warm and spongy, and she felt the stone immediately, tiny and ice cold.

  As she extracted the last shiver of arrowhead, Quin’s body shuddered and went still.

  Mia pressed both hands to the wound. She could feel it—his blood clotting, slowing, thickening. She felt her own blood thicken in response. Her body tingled, her fingers losing sensation. Fatigue drew a shroud over her eyes.

  This time it was harder. She could feel the animalcules screaming through his veins. She was furious that his blood was battling hers—that his body would kill itself in an absurd plot to save itself. Were human beings really so flawed? So defective?

  Mia bit her lip so hard she tasted copper. Back in the tunnels, she wanted for the prince not to die. This time, she wanted him to live.

  His heart raged in an explosive frenzy, and hers raged, too, contraction for contraction, expansion for expansion. She heard her father: Magic relies on a cruel, unruly heart. She didn’t care. Quin’s body hummed a song that she recognized. The tremendous hurt he’d suffered at the hands of his family. His fury over being trapped in a life he didn’t want. A deep, perplexing shame.

  How was she feeling Quin’s feelings? She was so tired. She was the heaviest mountain. She was weightless, a skip of air.

  And then it was over. Her hands slid off his chest, skidding into the pillow of swyn needles. She collapsed on top of him, spent, his body smooth beneath her, his chest warm. Her curls were strewn over his face, and she worried she was crushing him, but she didn’t want to leave. Not until she felt him breathing.

  He inhaled sharply, and she wanted to shout for joy. His hands moved over her arms, smooth and steady, sending little vibrations up her spine. His chest and stomach were taut as he pressed himself into her hips, and a shiver trembled through her, starting in the pit of her belly and flowing outward in rippled waves, like silk unspooling.

  His lips were soft against her neck.

  “The lady wins,” he murmured.

  Mia was woozy. Was it possible to fall when you were already lying down? Quin shifted beneath her, and she felt the hard cut of his hip bones, then his strong hands at her waist. His body heat spread through her. She had him pinioned to the earth, but from the way he ran his fingertips up her skin, singeing her flesh, she didn’t think he minded.

  But she was wrong about that, too, because suddenly she was being pushed aside. She realized what he was doing and scrambled off him, embarrassed. He lifted himself to a seat and pressed his long back into a tree. She crouched on her heels.

  “I’m sorry,” he said weakly. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful. It’s just . . .”

  “You don’t want me to accidentally kill you.”

  “That, among other things.”

  His face was a stormlit sky, streaked with indecipherable emotions, like a book written in a language she couldn’t read.

  “What do you mean, other things?”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  She nodded.

  “What happened to your mother?”

  “She . . . she was killed by a Gwyrach.”

  “And did you find this Gwyrach?”

  “Not yet. But I will.”

  Instinctually she touched her chest, but the ruby wren wasn’t there. Mia was stricken. The journal and the key were back at their camp, sitting by the abandoned stew. She ached to retrace her steps and go back for it, but that would take hours, and who knew when the dogs would snap out of their enchantment? The last fragment of her mother was lost to her forever.

  How would Mia know where to go? The fire kingdom was an archipelago of hundreds of islands. Without the map, she was truly lost.

  “How do you know your father didn’t do it?” Quin said.

  “I told you, my father is not a killer. He’s a Hunter. He only hunts—”

  “Gwyrach. Yes, I know.” He looked at her pointedly. “Isn’t it obvious, Mia? Your mother was a Gwyrach, just like you.”

  “I won’t believe that. I can’t believe it. My mother was good. She was the kindest, warmest, gentlest woman I knew. She would never—”

  “Use magic to heal someone?” He gestured toward his shoulder. “The way you’ve used yours to heal me twice? How truly atrocious, you saving my life.”

  Mia shook her head sharply, unable to accept it. Her father had woven a dark web of lies, but her mother was no better, with her veiled secrets. Was Wynna a Gwyrach? Even if she were, Griffin had not killed her with a sword or arrow. Mia had seen and held her mother’s lifeless body: no blood, no bruises, no broken bones.

  She shuddered, remembering the dry pop of Tristan’s fingers.

  “Mia.” Quin touched her chin lightly with his fingertips. She felt a rush of cold, but his face was free of hatred. “All I’m saying is that I don’t think you’re as wicked as you think.”

  He smiled faintly. “And I’m in a unique position to say so, as someone you’ve ensorcelled.”

  Ensorcelled. Who used words like that outside of books? A smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

  But the smile faded as quickly as it had come. A dog howled in the distance. Two dogs.

  Quin rose unsteadily. Mia stood, too . . . and would have fallen flat on her face if he hadn’t caught her by the arm.

  “I’m exhausted from he
aling you. I don’t think I have any magic left.”

  “We need a weapon.”

  She sank to her knees and scrabbled through the snow until she found the tip of the arrowhead she’d dug out of Quin’s chest. The shard was still plenty sharp; when she pinched it between thumb and forefinger, it pricked the skin and drew blood. But it was too small. She threw it onto the snow, where it arched crimson like a wren’s wing.

  Something about the color caught her eye.

  She picked up the stone again, more carefully this time, and wiped it across her trousers. The blood swabbed off, but the stone was still red. Vitreous, brittle tenacity, imperfect cleavage. A luster like glass. She recognized it instantly.

  Fojuen.

  A stone that did not exist in Glas Ddir.

  A stone manufactured by the volqanoes of Fojo Karação.

  The same stone her mother used to lock her little book of secrets.

  If Wynna’s killer hailed from Fojo, was it mere coincidence that Quin’s assassin was Fojuen, too?

  She dropped the arrowhead into her pocket. The “safe haven” they were careening toward looked more and more like a den of murderers.

  “The dogs, Mia.” Quin was very pale. “They’re here.”

  Chapter 30

  Monster

  MIA SPRINTED UP THE mountain with Quin beside her, batting away the overgrown foliage. She ran until her heart was bursting, until her calf muscles were raging flames and her breath rasped through her lungs. They charged up the mountain as if their very lives depended on it.

  She heard Quin panting. How much longer could they run? She didn’t know if minutes or hours had passed, but suddenly they weren’t climbing the peak anymore; they were coming down it. The rocks were uneven as they sloped and spilled onto a footpath. To Mia’s surprise, the stones were worn, scuffed by centuries of feet and hooves—proof that even after Ronan sealed the borders, there were still ways to escape.