Heart of Thorns

by Bree Barton

  “Good or not, it’s the choice I’m making.”

  “Where’s the logical girl I met in the woods? The one who needs a theory for everything? I’ve never known you to be so . . . instinctual.”

  “You’ve never really known me at all.”

  He stepped in front of her, blocking the path. “Can we at least talk about this? You’re not just putting your own life in jeopardy . . .”

  “Move.”

  “. . . you’re risking mine.”

  She felt the icy blade of his fear, but she shoved it aside. He wasn’t going to ruin this for her. She had not worked this hard and come this far to have the prince stand in her way.

  “I said, move.”

  She pushed him aside and walked on.

  The lake was a pebble in the pocket of a volqano, the water as still and silent as a blue plate. As Mia approached the shoreline, her skin tingled, a fibrous heat pulsing through her. Her theory was that it had something to do with the red island. The fojuen stone was spiking heat and sensation in her blood, summoning her forward in a silent incantation.

  “Can I see what’s in your pocket?” Quin called out from behind her. When she didn’t move, he added, “I know you saved the arrowhead you pulled out of my chest.”

  She kept underestimating the prince; he was shrewder than she gave him credit for. Grudgingly she extracted the sliver and handed it over.

  “Interesting.” He held the stone high, framing it against the volqanoes in the distance. Then he bent and scooped up a handful of red sand, letting it sieve through his fingers. “Considering I’ve never seen this volqanic rock in Glas Ddir, it would appear my would-be assassin is also from Fojo. The safe haven you promised might not actually be all that safe.”

  “There are hundreds of islands in the Salted Sea,” Mia shot back. “The chances that your assassin is from this island are exceedingly slim.”

  “So were the chances that I’d survive an arrow in the chest. Or that we’d survive the jump from the waterfall. Or that I’ve been in Refúj for hours and no one’s tried to kill me yet.” He tapped the arrowhead against his palm. “You and I seem to do well with exceedingly slim.”

  Quin ran a hand through his tousled golden curls. “I understand those are your friends back there, and they seem like lovely people. But how well do you know them? Did you know they had magic?”

  He had a point.

  “She said kings are just men with paper crowns,” he went on. “And in a funny way, I think she’s right. Maybe she’s right about the Dujia part, too.”

  Mia folded her arms over her chest, amused. “You don’t believe in gods, but now you believe in goddesses?”

  “All I’m saying is that I don’t blame them for mistrusting my family. My father treats magicians as less than human. But I’m not my father. I told you as long as we were headed in the opposite direction of my assassin, I wouldn’t complain. But if we are in fact moving toward my assassin . . .” He sighed. “I know you want to find who killed your mother. If my mother died, I’d want the same. But if I’m about to walk the plank, I’d at least like to know if you’re with me or against me.”

  “With you,” she said instinctively. She meant it.

  “Well, look at that,” said a sharp voice behind them. “If it isn’t the royals.”

  Mia whirled around to see a girl with her arms folded tightly across her chest. Her face was bold, her jaw angular, and though she was short, her body was compact and ready to spring. She looked oddly familiar. She was about Mia’s age, maybe a year or two older, and there was something similar about their faces, though this girl had darker skin, a tawny amber Mia had rarely seen in Glas Ddir. She wore her jet-black hair cut sharply at the chin, and her eyes were brown instead of gray—thinner than Mia’s, but just as thirsty.

  Mia noticed something else, too: the quiver of arrows strapped to her back.

  “Dom!” the girl called over her shoulder. “Your friend is here.”

  Domeniq du Zol heaved a small fishing boat onto the shore. He jogged up to them, brushed the sand off his trousers, and flashed his crooked smile.

  “Mia! You made it!” He wrapped her up in a bear hug, much like his mother. When he finally let her go, he held her at arm’s length. “Took you long enough. I would have expected a little better showing from my sparring partner.”

  Dom always knew how to push Mia’s buttons; he’d been there all of five seconds and already her competitive spirit was flaring.

  “How long have you been here?” she said.

  “Days! I gave you the boat—you’re welcome—but I couldn’t row it for you.” He tipped his head toward the prince and grinned. “Your Grace.”

  The girl was eyeing them. “Mia Rose, the girl who hunts Dujia. The girl who is a Dujia.” Casually she pulled an arrow out of her quiver and used the tip of the arrowhead to clean the dirt from under her fingernails. “Seems like a conflict of interest to me.”

  Dom groaned. “You are awful at meeting new people.” He turned to Quin and Mia. “This is Pilar. She doesn’t do well with failure, which is why she’s not keen on seeing the two of you.”

  “I prefer to air my own foul laundry, thanks,” Pilar snapped.

  Mia stared at the arrow in the girl’s hand. The arrowhead was bright red. Fojuen. Her stomach squeezed to the size of a chokecherry. Quin followed her eyes.

  “It was you,” he said slowly. “You shot me at the wedding.”

  Pilar didn’t answer. She kicked at a rock and sent it splashing into the lake. Mia felt a cacophony of feelings and temperatures, visceral sensations so powerful she took a step back.

  “That arrow was never meant for you, all right?” Pilar turned to Mia. “I was aiming for you.”

  Chapter 37

  Shimmering and Sliced

  MIA BLINKED IN ASTONISHMENT.

  “Why in four hells would you want to kill me?”

  Pilar slipped the arrow back into its quiver with an exaggerated sigh. “Do you really have to ask, Rose?”

  “I’m asking, aren’t I?”

  “We couldn’t let you marry the prince. You hated magicians. You wanted to purge dirty, dirty magic from the kingdom at all costs.”

  Pilar stooped down to pick up a smooth pebble and sent it skittering across the surface of the lake. It cut an elegant line of cones.

  “You were going to be queen someday. We had it on good authority that you, Griffin Rose’s daughter, would empower the Circle of the Hunt to expand their campaign of hate. Thanks to your sorry excuse for a king, the Dujia still in Glas Ddir are constantly in danger. The last thing we need is a vengeful queen sitting on the river throne.”

  Mia turned to Dom. “Did you know about this?”

  “I told them not to do it. I didn’t think you deserved to die.”

  “Just like Tuk and Lyman didn’t deserve to die?”

  Her words hit their mark; Dom grew quiet. He lowered his eyes.

  “They weren’t bad men,” he said. “They weren’t good men, but they weren’t bad.”

  “And yet you killed them.”

  “They knew who you were! I was trying to protect you.”

  “After your little friend here had already tried to kill me?” Mia fought to keep her voice calm. For years Dom had been playing both sides, pretending to be a Hunter while his true loyalty was to the Dujia. “I’ve known you my entire life!”

  “Let’s go back a moment,” Quin said, “to where you”—he pointed at Pilar—“were trying to shoot her”—then at Mia—“and shot me instead.”

  Pilar groaned. “Not my fault! You did a funny little dance move and twirled her around. You got in the way. I wouldn’t have missed otherwise. I’m a very good shot.”

  “Clearly you are not!” Quin pointed furiously at the scar above his heart. “I nearly died. Twice.”

  “Well then. Aren’t you lucky wifey had magic?”

  Dom looked at Mia, then Pilar, then Quin. He ran a hand over the back of his head, rubbing his
close-cropped hair.

  “This is tense.”

  Mia turned to Pilar. “What do you mean, you ‘had it on good authority’? Whose authority?”

  She shrugged. “We had a spy in the castle. There were details—things you said about all Gwyrach being wicked demons, how evil and depraved we were. They said you twirled through the Hall of Hands, laughing and cursing all Gwyrach to the same gruesome fate.”

  “Who said that?” Mia’s face was hot. “Your spy was wrong. I felt nothing but horror in the Hall of Hands. And I only wanted revenge on the Gwyrach who killed my mother. Heart for a heart, life—”

  “I know the Hunters’ Creed. But you wanted to empower the Circle to kill more of us. Can you deny it?” She cupped a handful of air and lifted it high, miming a toast. “‘To the Hunters! The true heroes of this feast! When I’m princess I’ll give them coins and weapons and anything they need so they can kill every Gwyrach they find!’ And so on.”

  Mia felt a crush of shame. She had said those words. The final feast in the Grand Gallery came rushing back, one moment in particular: the maid knocking into her shoulder, the corresponding dizziness and heat.

  “That’s how I know you. You’re the clumsy scullery maid.”

  Mia saw the feast with new eyes. She assumed the dreadful royals were what had overwhelmed her senses, but Pilar had brushed up against her—Pilar who was preparing to kill her the next day. The heat Mia felt was a kindling of rage and murderous intent, magnified by the red ruby wren tucked close to her heart.

  She drew herself up. It wasn’t difficult to look down on Pilar; Mia was half a head taller.

  “Since it seems you haven’t done us any favors,” Mia said, “by first trying unsuccessfully to kill me, then almost successfully killing the prince, I’d say you owe us a debt.”

  Pilar shook her head. “Typical. The princess leaves her castle, travels to a foreign land, and decides we humble slaves owe her a debt.”

  She exchanged knowing looks with Dom, who laughed. Annoyance flared in Mia’s chest. The two of them were clearly in on some joke she didn’t get.

  “I want to see Zaga,” she said.

  “All right then,” Dom said. “I’ll take any excuse to do a little rowing. Pil?” He clapped Pilar on the back. “Let’s take her to Zaga.”

  “She’s not ready for Zaga.”

  “I bet Zaga will be the judge of that.”

  The ride to the island was smooth, the lake a flawless blue sheet until Pilar and Dom sank their oars into its invisible seams. The fishing boat held all four of them, albeit uncomfortably. Mia had told Quin he didn’t need to come—that this was something she needed to do on her own—but he had insisted. Even if he was no longer dodging an assassin, she had a hunch he wasn’t keen on being left behind with a coven of Dujia who might punish him for his father’s sins.

  “Swans,” Quin said, pointing to a whole herd of them, gliding in formation on the surface of the lake. “They look different from the ones back home.”

  It was true: the swans’ white feathers were accented in hues of strawberry and tangerine. They were somehow even more elegant than the swans in Glas Ddir, with long necks, crystalline blue eyes, and bills the pink of fresh-bloomed roses.

  Mia closed her eyes and let the memory wash over her: the day their mother took her and Angelyne to a pond in Ilwysion to feed the ducks and swans. They had brought a loaf of brown bread and pinched off crumbs, throwing them to the hungry birds. Angie was only four, and she had wandered a little too close, hand outstretched with a piece of soft crust sitting on her palm. The swan had pecked her, hard, and she immediately burst into tears.

  The bite left a mark, though only a small one. What Mia remembered most was the look of betrayal on her sister’s face. Angie had trusted the swan implicitly, as if a creature that beautiful could never do her harm.

  “Are those the same swans you eat?” It was Quin asking. Naturally.

  “Some of them, yes,” Dom said. “Refúj is rich in natural resources, but we’re limited to what we can grow, hunt, or make. You’re a fan of swan meat?”

  “I had some in the merqad. I’ve never tasted meat that tender.”

  “Come with me to the merqad next time, Your Grace. I know which vendor has the best cut of meat, tenderized and flavored to perfection.”

  “You act as if you’ve lived here forever, du Zol,” Pilar muttered. “Keep in mind you are newly arrived yourself.”

  That effectively ended all conversation, so they rode the rest of the way in silence. Mia didn’t mind. As the boat lurched forward on every oar stroke, excitement hummed through her. She was going to meet Zaga, the woman who knew everything, including who killed her mother. She was moving toward answers at last.

  “Last stop, the Biqhotz,” Dom said, as if there had been any other stops. “Here’s your Fojuen lesson for the day, free of charge: biqhotz means ‘heart.’”

  She knew that already, of course, but the name fit. The rock formations were more intricate than they appeared from the shores of Refúj, with red caverns and lava tubes, a gleaming network of subclavian arteries and brachiocephalic veins extending from the arch of the aorta.

  Mia’s head was pounding. She pressed the heel of her hand into her brow.

  Pil laid the oar across her knees. “The headaches are fierce at first, but you’ll adjust.”

  Was Pilar being nice to her? Before Mia could cobble together a response, Dom stripped off his shirt and leapt into the shallow water, the muscles in his back ropy as he hefted the boat onshore. Flanked on all sides by volqanic rock, his reddish-brown skin glowed like a summer sunset, a pleasing contrast to the hard ridges of his scapulae. There was no denying Dom was handsome, with his broad shoulders, lopsided smile, and the ever-present flicker of mischief in his deep-brown eyes. If Quin were water, mysterious and changeable, Dom was fire and heat and explosive energy. Seeing him in the heart of a volqano felt exactly right.

  Quin took off his shirt and jumped out to assist Domeniq. Mia couldn’t help but think the prince looked like a blade of yellow grass against the rutted brown cliff of Dom’s torso.

  “Why don’t I go in first?” said Pilar. “You can keep our guests occupied, Dom. Maybe give them the grand tour?”

  Dom looked stricken. “I only just got here! You said so yourself.”

  “You’ll be fine. It’s ashes and dead people, what’s so hard about that?”

  She ducked behind a pillar of red rock and vanished.

  “So that’s it then. She’s gone and here we are. Ashes and dead people.” Dom rubbed the back of his head. “Easy, right?”

  With that he began to show them around.

  There was an early settlement of some sort—at least, there had been, before an ancient volqano had her way with it. Dom walked Mia and Quin through rows of crumbling rocks, held together with a crude mix of clay and calcined lime, primitive walls that partitioned the space into squares.

  “These were the houses, I guess. Our ancestors lived here. Ancestresses, my mother would say.”

  “The bones of civilization.” Quin’s face was awash in awe. “I love history.”

  Dom raised an eyebrow. “Why, Your Grace?”

  “I was just saying to Mia how back home I never felt like the myths could be real. But I’m getting chills just standing here. The origin myths begin to make sense.” He flourished his hand and recited in a deep voice, “‘The fire god was the angriest.’”

  “‘He breathed fire,’” Dom and Quin said together.

  The prince smiled. “You know, not many people know this, but I played the fire god in a modest production at the Kaer. I played all four gods, actually. It was a masterpiece of theater, directed, written, performed, and attended by me, me, me, and me.”

  That made Dom laugh. “My mother would tell you they were never gods at all. There were only ever the Four Great Goddesses: four angel sisters who broke each other’s hearts. Watching the way my sisters behave toward one another, I believe it.
”

  “Just when I thought I had a firm grasp on demonology,” Quin said, “turns out I should have been brushing up on my angelology all along.”

  Mia was thrilled Quin and Domeniq were getting along so famously, but at the moment she had more pressing concerns. Her body was raging with the heat, her thoughts a fraying thread that might snap at any moment.

  “I thought I was going to meet Zaga,” she said.

  “Patience never was your strong suit, was it, Mia?” Sensing he’d found a more willing audience in the prince, Dom led him down a corridor, with Mia following reluctantly behind.

  The hallway opened into a gigantic room with vaulted ceilings and magnificent archways, all carved from glittering vermilion.

  Then she saw them: the strange shapes lying twisted on the floor. Human shapes.

  “Those are our forebears,” Dom said. “Buried in ash and perfectly preserved.”

  This wasn’t a sanctuary. It was a crypt.

  Mia knelt beside one corpse. It was a girl—she could tell from the soft curve of her young breasts, the lines of her dress frilled at the ankles. She was tucked into the fetal position, her arms shielding her head.

  Quin crouched beside her. “I don’t understand how they’re preserved so well.”

  “I read about this,” Mia said quietly. “In the last pyroclastic surge from a volqano, fine ash rains down and encases people’s bodies. The shell is porous, so as their bodies start to decay, the soft tissues leach through. But by then the ash is already hard as rock, so not only are their skeletons still inside, their shape is permanently preserved. They’re captured in their final postures—exactly the way they were when they died.”

  She shuddered. How awful, to be trapped forever in this moment of death.

  Dom said, “If you’d rather see something else, Your Grace . . .”

  “You don’t have to call me that, you know. ‘Your Grace.’”

  Mia’s head raged with heat and pressure. She felt as if the volqano had resurrected its fiery ash and brimstone inside her skull.

  “Could we maybe not stay in this room of preserved dead people?”

  “We’re standing in the cradle of civilization,” Quin said, “and you want to leave?”