Heart of Thorns

by Bree Barton

  “Refúj.”

  “But shouldn’t we . . .”

  The woman muttered something in a language Mia didn’t understand. She gestured to the right. “The merqad! Go, go.”

  She seemed eager to get rid of them. Mia and Quin, bewildered, plodded off in the direction she had pointed.

  Strange-looking trees flanked the path, a genus Mia didn’t recognize. Unlike the graceful swyn, these were shorter, gnarled, and dappled with gray spots, like the hands of an old witch.

  Mia heard the low hum of voices ahead. They’d seen movement on the lakeshore as they descended, a diorama of commotion and wheeling dots of color. Now she spotted a yellow tent flap rippling in the breeze.

  “My Fojuen is abysmal,” Quin said, “but I take it merqad means ‘market’?”

  Mia nodded. As the footpath opened onto a small sandy circle ringed with food stalls, she expected to see something akin to the dull river markets she was used to—and she found nothing of the sort.

  The merqad was an explosion of scents and colors. Roasted meat, sweet wine, tangy fruit juices, bitter teas, and freshly baked bread spiced the air. Rows of orange and yellow tents leaned into one another, stalls cobbled together out of tarps and timber, as girls in bright leggings, trousers, and long flowing skirts spun down the avenues. A girl of twelve or thirteen sped by in a three-wheeled wicker chair, racing a group of her friends. She laughed as she shot past them, her brown forehead shining from exertion as she twisted the hand crank, her dark umber skin luminous with sweat and happiness.

  A brood of fat chickens burst out of a tent, clucking as they scampered across Mia’s feet. She jumped back, startled, and knocked into a trio of older girls who had gathered a few feet away. They giggled and whispered something to each other. Were they looking at Quin?

  He was looking at them, too. Mia felt a twinge of jealousy.

  “Come on.” She grabbed his arm, sticky-warm heat radiating off his skin. That was one emotion she knew she had correlated correctly: desire was hot.

  “Look at that.” Quin licked his lips. “Is that not the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”

  The prince was staring at a gigantic bird leg roasting on a spit.

  Mia was experiencing her own kind of hunger. She was still tired from healing the prince, bone weary from her run up the mountain, and faint from her leap into the waterfall—or at least, she should have been these things. But ever since she’d drawn herself out of the Salted Sea, a warm bliss had cocooned her. She couldn’t explain it. For once, she didn’t want to.

  Mia the Scientist slapped Mia the Gwyrach on the cheek. Warm bliss was treacherous. So was not being able to explain a bodily sensation. And wasn’t it all a little too good to be true? Her mother’s map led them to exactly the right Fojuen island, where a red balloon led them to safe haven, otherwise known as Refúj. If she still had any good sense, she’d say they were being lured into a trap.

  But it didn’t feel like a trap. That was the thing. This didn’t make her skin crawl the way she’d felt as they wandered into Tristan’s lair in the forest.

  It felt like coming home.

  “Quin?” She’d lost him. “Quin!”

  She spotted him a ways down the avenue, moving slowly toward the turkey leg. A circle of women knitting yarn in dazzling colors clucked as he walked past. The prince was definitely attracting attention, and Mia wasn’t sure how concerned she should be. Was he safe here? Was she?

  “Quin!” she hissed, but he either didn’t hear or pretended not to. At every stall he passed, girls stopped and stared. Mia had a revelation.

  She’d yet to see a single man.

  Was that possible? In the river markets she’d been to with her mother, Glasddiran women were always escorted by a man. “To keep the good women of the river kingdom safe,” claimed King Ronan.

  But the merqad in Refúj was only girls and women, and everyone seemed perfectly safe. Mia’s instincts were warring with her reason, blood pooling in her toes, leading her to something, or someone, she was sure of it.

  “Veraktu.”

  She felt a sharp tug and spun around. A stooped older woman had Mia’s shirt balled up in her bare fist. Her puffy silver twists were gathered into a knot, her skin a rich, weathered sepia, creased like a piece of parchment paper lovingly folded and unfolded over many years. Her face told a story.

  The old woman was agitated. “T’eu veraktu,” she said.

  T’eu meant “you are” in Fojuen, but Mia didn’t recognize the other word. She’d always excelled at language studies; she hated not knowing the answer.

  “Nanu!” The girl who had won the race wheeled up to them, maneuvering her low, triangular wicker chair with a mechanical hand crank. The victory sweat had furled her fine black curls into a puffed halo at her hairline; she reached up to smooth the edges. The girl’s large brown eyes regarded the old woman with both love and frustration.

  “You slipped away from me again, Nanu. Are you causing trouble?”

  She began prying the woman’s fingers from Mia’s shirt. “I’m sorry. This happens sometimes—my grandmother gets agitated. I promise she doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  The girl peered up at Mia for the first time. A smile broke over her face.

  “Mia Rose!”

  She couldn’t believe it. This was Sach’a, Dom’s baby sister. Mia hadn’t seen the twins since they were nine years old, not since their mother packed them up and fled the river kingdom overnight.

  Mia was astonished by how much the girl had grown in three years. She was virtually unrecognizable. Sach’a carried herself with the poise and gravitas of a young woman.

  “Mamãe is going to be so happy to see you . . .”

  Nanu wheezed and mumbled incoherent words. Sach’a sighed. “Forgive me, Mia. This will only take a minute.” She pulled her grandmother’s face down close to hers and cupped her hands around the old woman’s skull, digging her thumbs into the cavities of her brow bone.

  The air around them rippled. Mia felt two pocks of pressure behind her own brow; an echo of the girls’ thumbprints on her ethmoid, the bone bridging nose and cranium.

  When Mia found her breath, she gaped at Nanu. The woman was serene, her mouth still, a faint smile on her lips. She uncrooked her back and patted her granddaughter affectionately on the head.

  Sach’a nodded, pleased. “Sorry about that,” she said to Mia. “She just gets confused. But once I calm the nerves in her brain, she’s the sweetest thing in the world.”

  Mia’s world was spinning. “How did you do that?”

  “That? It’s just a little head magic. Unblooding for the brain. Mamãe says no Dujia my age can do it.” She sat a little taller in her chair. “But I can.”

  Since when did Sach’a have magic?

  “Mia!” Quin reappeared holding two roasted bird legs. He held one out to her. “Hungry?”

  “How did you get those?”

  “I bartered.”

  “With what? Don’t say gold buttons.”

  From the look on his face, the answer was definitely gold buttons.

  Sach’a looked up at Quin, then Mia, then back at Quin. She dipped her head respectfully. “Your Grace.”

  Even disheveled and half frostbitten after a week in the woods, bereft of his gold buttons and regal pout, Quin looked every bit a prince.

  “Are we safe here, Sach’a?” Mia asked.

  “You are,” she said to Mia. She sized up Quin, started to say something, then stopped. “It’s just, you’re the first Glasddiran man I’ve seen in three years, Your Grace. We’re not exactly . . .”

  She fiddled with the crank on her chair, then sighed. “Why don’t you both come with me? I’ll take you to Mamãe.”

  Chapter 34

  Forbidden

  WITH HER GRANDMOTHER SHUFFLING alongside them, Sach’a led them through the merqad, where Mia saw all the things she’d missed.

  She saw a fair-skinned woman in a crisp, unstained apron, wheat-colo
red hair swept into a loose bun. The woman drew a bird from a wooden crate and placed it on a butcher block. Instead of wringing its neck, she laid her pale, unfreckled hands over its heart. Without a sound or a single flap of its wings, the bird stilled.

  She saw a little girl with thin beaded braids crying over a skinned knee, the blood oozing dark from the fresh wound, until a stout woman with mellow gold skin and a kind face placed a hand on the girl’s kneecap and her sobs turned to hiccups. When the woman wiped off the old blood, the girl didn’t even wince. Her knee was healed, copper skin glowing warm and unbroken, as if kissed by a forgiving sun.

  Was everyone here a Gwyrach?

  Mia oscillated wildly between euphoria and shock. Years of lies—Gwyrach never use their powers to heal, Gwyrach are demons who enjoy causing suffering and pain—were toppled in an instant. The merqad was flooded with light and laughter and music. In the distance, Mia heard the airy strand of a viol blending with a girl’s silvery voice. Everyone seemed happy and joyous, with the exception of the woman who had killed the bird. Her face was solemn and respectful.

  The more women Mia saw, the more she felt she somehow knew them, as if an invisible thread bound them all together. She saw mothers, daughters, sisters, lovers, and friends, as vibrant as they were different—young and old, fat and skinny, beautiful and ugly, and a hundred variations in between.

  But what struck her most were their hands.

  Growing up in Glas Ddir, she had only ever seen three pairs of hands without gloves: her mother’s, her sister’s, and her own. Here in Refúj, every woman’s hands were bare. Mia saw a profusion of freckles, moles, birthmarks, and scars set against backdrops of warm russet brown, milky white, pale bronze, and glimmering ebony. She saw long, curling fingernails and nails trimmed short; palms thatched with lines and creases; light ink etched on dark skin, dark ink etched on light skin. She saw women with their fingers laced together or their arms linked, and in one corner stall, two girls stood with their bodies pressed close, raking hungry hands through each other’s sleek raven tresses as they kissed.

  And it wasn’t just the hands. Women sported silky straight locks, coarse black plaits, blond ringlets, and shaved heads—an abundance of hair coiffed, curled, and shorn. Everyone was draped in a dizzying array of fabrics, cuts and styles Mia had never seen in Glas Ddir, and as she pushed through throngs of girls, her ears drank in the sweet cacophony of languages.

  “I dreamed of a place like this,” she said, remembering. During the wedding, Mia had stood in the Royal Chapel and seen these colors, heard these sounds, inhabited this place. She’d just never expected it to be filled with Gwyrach.

  “I couldn’t have dreamed up a place like this in a million years,” Quin said. “And I have an active imagination.”

  Mia knew what he meant. She had never imagined so many rich cultures melding together in one place. For the first time she understood the true cost of King Ronan’s policies: he had drained the river kingdom of the energy and life that once flowed through it, like a body drained of blood.

  “When your father closed the borders,” she said, “he didn’t just erase these places from our maps. He erased them from our minds.”

  The sound of singing grew louder. At the end of the avenue, they passed a flapping flag with a midnight-blue bird rising from red flames. Phénix Blu, it said. “The Blue Phoenix.” Behind the flag stood a hearty three-walled tavern where women sat in chairs and reclined in the scarlet sand. The patrons sang heartily around a roaring fire, holding pints and squat glasses of a drink Mia couldn’t identify, an amber liquid speckled red. They all seemed to know the song by heart, even as the words slurred together. Intermingled with the women were three men and a couple of boys; the first males Mia had seen in Refúj. She found it jarring.

  She almost laughed. How was it the presence of men jarred her, but not the Gwyrach? Amazing how quickly she had adjusted. Alarming too. And yet, if she stayed grounded in her body, she felt no alarm. Only curiosity—and a quiet giddiness building slowly in her sternum.

  “But I don’t understand,” Mia asked Sach’a. “Do all these women have magic?”

  “Most of them, yes. The ones who don’t have magic came here with someone who did.”

  “What about the men?”

  Sach’a laughed. “Men are not prohibited in Refúj. But they must come here with their Dujia mothers or sisters or wives. They must be deemed safe.”

  “Dujia is what you call Gwyrach?”

  “Shh!” Sach’a lowered her voice. “You can’t say that word. We’re not demons. Not here.”

  Mia made a mental note. “But what does that mean for Quin? He’s not strictly my husband, and . . .” She turned and blinked at the empty space beside her. She’d lost him again.

  “Quin?”

  She pivoted and saw him peering into the Blue Phoenix, transfixed, holding a forgotten bird leg in each hand. When he saw her, he straightened.

  “Sorry,” he said, rushing to catch up. For a boy surrounded by a village of Gwyrach, he was remarkably unruffled. Before she could ask what he’d been so mesmerized by in the tavern, he said to Sach’a, “This meat is delicious. I think it’s the best I’ve ever had.”

  She smiled with pleasure. “It ought to be. When you kill an animal with violence, the fear toughens and spoils the flesh. A terrified beast will always produce inferior meat. A creature killed with magic dies a peaceable death. It never feels fear.”

  Mia had trouble parsing her words. Magic as an act of mercy? Yet another lie debunked: her books had failed to mention a Gwyrach could use magic as a way to make death less painful.

  “Here. You should eat.” Quin tried again to give her the second roasted leg, and this time she accepted. She took a small bite and had to agree; the meat was succulent and sweet.

  “I didn’t know turkey could taste this good.”

  “Actually,” Sach’a said, “it’s swan.”

  Mia choked. All she could see was her sister’s angelic face as their mother braided her strawberry hair. Angie, my little swan.

  “You know, I’m not actually that hungry,” she said. Quin happily swooped in to take the bird.

  And then, for the first time since arriving in Refúj, Mia saw something that scared her.

  A girl was throwing a tantrum. She was no older than four, with flaxen pigtails, porcelain rose skin, and cherry-pout lips. She stood behind a stall stacked high with iced loaves and teacakes, tugging at her mother’s skirts and screaming so loudly flecks of spit flew from her mouth. The woman shouted something in a language Mia didn’t understand. Then she snatched her daughter up by the wrist. Instantly the girl went quiet.

  Uneasy, Mia turned to Sach’a. “What did that woman just do?”

  “What woman? I didn’t see.”

  “She took that little girl’s wrist and . . .” Mia stopped. “I don’t know. She got very quiet.”

  “Probably just unblooded her,” Sach’a said breezily. “It’s not strictly forbidden—it doesn’t quite break any of the Three Laws, though you could make a case for it. My mother does it to my sister sometimes. It’s the only way to calm her down when she goes feral.”

  “You said that word earlier: unblood. What does it mean?”

  “Exactly what you think.” She wheeled her chair a little faster. “Mamãe will explain everything far better than I can, I promise.”

  Despite the buttery sunshine on her arms and shoulders, Mia shivered. She shot a glance at Quin and felt a chill growing beneath her skin. Despite his apparent nonchalance, maybe he was afraid. He was, after all, gifted in the art of pretending.

  She dropped a short distance behind Sach’a and said to Quin, “Everything all right?”

  “The swan is excellent. Very toothsome.”

  “Are you frightened?”

  He shrugged. “No.”

  She heard a strange sound, almost like a whoosh of water. She’d heard that sound before. Quin’s blood was pressing against his arterial walls
with greater force. This time she could intuit what it meant.

  “You’re lying,” she said.

  He reddened. “I’m not.”

  “You are.” She heard the slosh again. “I can hear you.”

  “That’s impressive,” Sach’a said over her shoulder. “It takes most Dujia years to be able to hear a lie. I can’t do it myself. I wish I could.”

  Pride flashed in Mia’s chest. She could do advanced magic. She had talent. But no sooner had she thought it than she felt a tremor of shame. Being in this strange, beautiful place—it was eroding her logic. She forced herself to remember what the mother had done to her little girl. A Gwyrach could silence and subdue another human being. That kind of power was not something to be proud of.

  “Here we are,” Sach’a said. “Home at last.”

  She had led them to a row of cottages dotting the edge of the lake. Mia could see the red island in the middle of the water, humpbacked like a living creature, pulsing with energy. She felt drawn to it in a way she couldn’t explain. But it felt forbidden, too, a ripe red apple lacquered with poison.

  “That one’s us.” Sach’a nodded toward a cottage the exact color of the lake, as if the water had sloshed over the sides of the crater and slathered the walls blue.

  And there, in the doorway, stood Lauriel du Zol. Her mother’s best friend.

  Lauriel had always had a tremendous presence, large in both voice and stature, a boundless fount of energy as big as her glorious crown of black corkscrew curls that danced every time she laughed. It hurt Mia to see her. The du Zols had been a fixture of her childhood in Ilwysion, their cozy kitchen and warm, easy jokes. Seeing Lauriel brought back a happier time, before everything went wrong. Just days after Mia’s mother had vanished from her life, Lauriel had vanished, too.

  “Mia. Darling one.” Mia felt comforted by the way Lauriel said her name, the soft-mouthed M and honeyed vowels. The big woman bundled her into a crushing hug and kissed first one cheek, then the other.

  “Bhenvenj. You are most welcome here. Vuqa. Come, come.” When she finally released her, Mia saw her eyes were shining. Lauriel wiped a tear off her glistening brown cheek. “Your mother would be so happy. She used to dream you would come to Fojo Karação someday and see the world she had fallen in love with. I only wish she could be here to see it.”