Heart of Thorns

by Bree Barton

  “I’m wilder, too.”

  “I know,” he said. “I like it.”

  The heat moved into her mouth so suddenly she was at risk of garbling her words.

  “I think Tristan is still alive. Dom found two bodies in the Twisted Forest. Two of the guards.”

  Quin’s hand stiffened. “They’re dead? He’s certain?”

  “It’s not the dead ones I’m worried about. If Tristan is trekking through the forest, crawling back to the Kaer . . .”

  “Then it’s only a matter of time before he reaches your sister.”

  Mia’s impulses were at war. A full day had passed, which put the duke one day closer to the castle and Angelyne. What was she still doing in Fojo?

  “I’ll go with you, ” Quin said, “if you want to go back.”

  “You can’t go back,” said a dulcet voice behind them.

  Mia turned to see Lauriel, a nubby pink shawl drawn over her shoulders. She was cradling something in her hands. “You shouldn’t leave Refúj. At least not until you’ve read this.”

  Mia’s heart leapt.

  Lauriel was holding her mother’s journal.

  Chapter 42

  The Blood Beneath

  IT TOOK EVERYTHING IN Mia not to pounce on the book.

  “Quin, darling.” Lauriel smiled at the prince. “Dom and Pilar were asking for you in the tavern. Perhaps you could join them for a drink?”

  He looked at Mia. “Go,” she said. “I know where to find you.”

  Quin tipped his head toward Lauriel and disappeared into the night, taking his warmth with him.

  Lauriel sat heavily on the bank of sand. Mia reached for the journal, but a smiling Lauriel tucked it beneath her arm.

  “You don’t get it right away,” she said. “You have to talk to me first.”

  “About what?”

  “About everything, darling. Everything you’re thinking and feeling.”

  Mia exhaled. It was going to be a long night.

  “How did you find the journal?”

  “Dom brought it back from the Twisted Forest. He knew I’d given it to your mother, so he returned it to me.”

  “You gave it to her?”

  “Yes. So that no matter how much she had to lie from day to day, there was one place she could speak true. She wanted so much to tell you about magic, Mia. Your mother believed magic was the body’s response to a broken heart.”

  Mia thought of her own magic, blooming when she found herself on the cusp of a marriage she didn’t want.

  “How much do you know about magic?” Lauriel asked.

  “A little.” Mia conjured up Pilar’s words in the merqad. “To be honest, not very much.”

  “For centuries,” Lauriel began, “men have found ever-new ways of oppressing women. Our bodies have been receptacles, both container and contained; our wombs soft and pliant for the children we were meant to bear our husbands, whether we wanted to or not. We have been restricted, silenced, and confined. This has been called many things—‘protection,’ ‘progress,’ even ‘love.’”

  She tucked a stray curl behind Mia’s ear.

  “We Dujia have concealed our magic since the beginning of time, passed it down as a secret from one generation to the next, ever since the Four Great Goddesses were born in the heart of a volqano. The four sisters blessed us with the gift of touch, a gift that lives in our flesh, blood, breath, and bones.”

  Mia thought for a moment. “If Sach’a has magic, why can’t she use her magic to heal her legs? Or why can’t you?”

  Lauriel smiled. “Not everything can be healed, darling. And not everything needs to be.”

  “Do all women have magic?”

  “Not all. Many, but not all. Some have magic but fight against it. They are ashamed of who they are. They think Dujia are dirty creatures, a stain upon the earth, and that the world is better run by the men who have sworn to keep us safe.”

  “Veraktu,” Mia said.

  “Yes. In Fojuen it means ‘to silence the truth.’” Lauriel sighed. “You were always a truth-seeker, even as a child. Your mother hated lying to you. But she knew telling you the truth would put you at grave risk. Especially with your father.”

  “I thought he was a hero. That he was abolishing magic so science and reason would win.” Mia thought of his never-ending drills and lessons and rebukes, the rewards he meted out for knowing the right answer. He had urged her to privilege her mind above all things, certainly over the insensible yearnings of the heart.

  The irony stung. Science was about exploring new terrain, pushing boundaries, and above all else, asking questions. But in the river kingdom, questions could get you killed.

  “Did your mother ever tell you about Queen Bronwynis?”

  “She said she and Father were there for her coronation.”

  “That’s all she told you? Bronwynis was the real hero. She was a symbol of the times, a shimmering beacon for the rest of us. In all four kingdoms, women were shedding their gowns and stepping into positions of power. Ship captains, merchants . . . even politicians.”

  “Like you selling copper pots.”

  Lauriel laughed her deep belly laugh, tight black curls bouncing mirthfully over her shoulders. “Yes, darling. I suppose my copper pots were a small part of the revolution. Your mother liked to say that progress is one little bird, pecking at a kernel. One bird will bring another, and another after that, until there’s a whole flock. A flock of birds can be dangerous. Ask any farmer.”

  Lauriel reclined on the sand. “Bronwynis broke all the rules. Under her reign, five women sat on the Council of the Kaer, and only three men. She even offered a seat to a peasant woman. She said, ‘If we do not invite the peasants to sit at the table, how will we learn what they eat?’”

  Mia thought of Princess Karri. This sounded like something she might say.

  “The Dujia didn’t kill Bronwynis, did they?”

  Lauriel shook her head. “Of course they didn’t. She was murdered by King Ronan in her sleep.”

  “Her own brother.” She felt a starburst of anger. “If not for Ronan’s policies, we could have learned how to use our magic for good. Instead we all go around with fear in our hearts and gloves on our hands.”

  Lauriel howled with laughter. “That is the biggest lie of all! Gloves cannot dampen our magic. They can briefly weaken our powers of touch, perhaps. But they cannot disarm it. Do you really think the Four Great Goddesses would be thwarted by a scrap of cloth?”

  Now Mia understood why she’d been able to enthrall Quin in the castle library.

  Lauriel spoke to the sky. “Ronan is an evil man, I will not deny it. He has ensured that suspicion trumps curiosity and hate trumps love. But those are simply new melodies to an ancient song.”

  Mia drew her knees to her chest. The history of magic was so different from the one she’d been spoon-fed by her father. Mia had accepted that Gwyrach were evil, men were strong, and women were weak—she wasn’t, of course, but she was the exception to the rule, the courageous warrior girl who would bring her mother’s killer to justice, then beat back magic and free all the poor damsels in Glas Ddir. She had internalized the idea that women needed to be protected.

  She had done something else, too. She had confused women who were nurturing—those who privileged gentleness and compassion—for those who were weak.

  She had called her mother weak the day she died.

  “Why do Dujia turn against each other, Lauriel?”

  “Why do humans turn against each other? Dujia are human, after all. Divine but also human. This is why hatred is the most dangerous of poisons: it turns us against the other, yes, but in the end, it turns us against ourselves.”

  Her voice softened. “Refúj is a sacred place where our sisters can seek refuge. We are not on any map. The balloon is the only way in or out, and no one from Glas Ddir has ever found it. But I will not lie to you. Our limited resources are a constant strain. In Luumia the Dujia do not live in exile. In the
snow kingdom they are treated as queens.”

  “Then why don’t you go to Luumia?”

  “I was waiting for you, darling. Before she died, she told me you would come here. She left you her journal to make sure of it.”

  The journal. Mia had nearly forgotten. She saw it now, tucked loosely under the dimpled flesh of Lauriel’s arm. How much longer until she could read it?

  “Your mother talked often of going to Luumia. She had a troubled past here on this island.” Lauriel’s brown eyes had a faraway glimmer. “The Luumi have flourished where we have not, in part because they do not have to expend all their energy fighting their oppressors. They have made many advancements in alchemy and mechanics. The Luumi are interested in the ways magic and science interweave. So they study magic extensively—the effects, the advantages, the risks. They have learned how to bewitch metals and breathe life into stones. They have even found a way to still the heart inside a bird and bring it back to life.”

  Mia cocked her head. “If you mean the ruby wren, those birds still their own hearts. That’s how they hibernate.”

  “I don’t know what kind of bird, darling. Your mother was the one who loved birds.” She stretched, lifted herself to an easy seat, and nodded at the cobalt moon. “In Fojo, we have a saying. Lloira vuqateu: ‘Come to the moon.’ The moon can mend a broken body and heal a broken mind. The lloira stone draws its power from the moon’s pull on the Earth. This is why it is a healing stone.”

  “Is that why my mother wore the moonstone?”

  “Yes. She was a gifted healer without it, but the lloira stored up her gifts and made her stronger. I’ve never told you this, you or anyone, but I saw your mother the day she died.”

  Mia sat up straighter. Lauriel looked down at her hands.

  “I was in a dark place after losing my husband. I knew I should stay alive for my daughters, but I didn’t want to. I came to see your mother, begged her to heal my mind, to take away the darkness. And she did. I would have given up if not for her.” She wiped the wetness from her eyes. “By that night, she was gone.”

  Sorrow fell like a mantle over Mia’s shoulders.

  “That’s just like her, to save your life on the day she lost hers.”

  Mia thought of her sister. Angie had worn the moonstone for the past three years never knowing it had magic. But she had only grown sicker since the day she clasped the pendant around her neck. Whatever healing powers the lloira stone once stored up for their mother, those powers had died the moment she did.

  “The Hunters were right about one thing,” Lauriel said. “Our sisters bloom in moments of intense emotions, flashes of fear and anger and love. The same emotions that coax out the ink of the sangflur blossom.”

  She laid the journal gently on Mia’s knees. “Sangflur is the ink your mother used. Visible only to a fellow Dujia.”

  Mia’s pulse quickened. She drew her thumb down the initials scored into the soft leather. W. M.

  “I have subjected you to my prattling long enough.” Lauriel brushed an auburn curl from Mia’s cheek, the way her mother used to do. “You look so much like your mother, darling. You have waited so long to meet her, and now it is time.”

  Lauriel heaved herself to her feet and headed back toward the cottage, leaving her comforting warmth behind on the lakeside. But Mia no longer felt alone. She opened the book and watched the ink pour onto the pages. Somehow she knew it would. She didn’t need fear or anger to read it now. She had love.

  Mia. My Mia.

  If you are reading this, then you know.

  The pages singed her hands like ashes, like fire.

  This book and its map and its inscription were not arbitrary or random. They had always been meant for her.

  Her eyes strained in the dim starlight. Every word hurt, yet every stroke of ink drew her in further. All her life she had inhabited a glass house of lies, and those lies were about to shatter. The book was the wound, but it was also the salve.

  She would peel back the secrets to see the blood beneath.

  She would meet her mother.

  Breathless, Mia began to read.

  Chapter 43

  More Than You Will Ever Know

  Mia. My Mia.

  If you are reading this, then you know.

  You are not yet born; I feel you writhe inside me. You kick and swim and kick. But I know you are my daughter, not my son. Don’t ask me how I know. I am a Dujia; I know things.

  The ink culled from the sangflur blossoms is special: it reveals itself only to Dujia, and in its own due time. The words will appear as you learn to channel the magic from your heart. When you are old enough, I will give this book to you, and when you are ready, you will know who I am.

  The words I write here, the secrets I reveal, are my last bastion of truth amidst a life of fabrication. This book is the final fragment of my true self.

  I am married to a man I do not love. That man is your father.

  It is not so simple as you might believe.

  Love is a twisty thing, serpentine, quicksilver in the palm of your hand. It is fluid in the heart of a volqano: hot one minute, cold the next.

  I do not love my husband, and I have wronged him in ways too numerous to count. But I love the women I am bound to, my family of choice, my sisters. To them I am Wynna Merth, daughter of the Four Great Goddesses, Dujia.

  I am not, nor will I ever be, a Rose.

  Let me tell you a story.

  I had come to Fojo Karação to study medicine, but I learned so much more than that. The sensations in my body, the splitting headaches, my strange and powerful gift for healing—this was my magic. What I found in Fojo was a community of women who fed and nurtured me, who showed me my magic was a gift.

  I also found a girl.

  She was everything—funny, mischievous, cocky, sweet. She had magic, much stronger than mine, and I felt dizzy in her presence. My blood hummed when she walked into a room.

  I’m not enthralling you, she said. But I can teach you about desire.

  And so it began. I learned how to unlock a world of sensory pleasures—to turn flesh to cinder, tease blood into a frenzy. My body was a tuning fork, and she was the song.

  She taught me other things, too, darker things. She showed me how to enthrall a man, how to make him delirious with wanting. She taught me how to wield power like a blade.

  We practiced on your father.

  Even this was not enough for her. She was insatiable, drawn to dangerous extremes. The Second Law had always needled her. So she turned her magic on herself, began stilling the blood in her own veins, quieting her heart. The more she explored this dark strand of magic, the more I begged her to stop—and the harder she practiced.

  We quarreled over that. At the end, we quarreled over everything.

  I was angry. I went too far. I did an awful thing, an unforgivable thing. The people we love are always the ones we hurt the most.

  She said there was only one way I could atone for what I’d done. Only one way to prove myself to my sisters and fully commit to the cause.

  So here I sit. Married to a man I do not love. Doing my penance, my retribution a kind of daily death. Day in and day out, I enthrall your father, leader of the Circle of the Hunt. I am a vessel for his deepest secrets, secrets I spill and pour into the night. Secrets that save Dujia lives.

  When we first met, he was a student, bright and curious about the world. Yet even then, the royal family was courting him, preparing him for what he would someday be. He was hungry for the praise, the rewards, the validation. Your father has always taken great pride in being the best at everything he does.

  I sleep beside a killer. I pretend to love a monster, and worse: I make him love me. Who is the monster now?

  Lauriel writes me letters, telling me about the girl I loved: that she has grown old overnight, hardened with bitterness, and now has a baby. A little girl. I couldn’t believe it. Last I checked, a baby requires a coupling with a boy, and unlike me, she neve
r had any interest in boys. Lauriel says the father is long gone.

  Soon I too will have a daughter, and we will be bound together by this thread, even as the other threads have severed. Life can be so strange.

  I swore I would always live from my heart. And what have I done? Turned my heart against another human being, stripped him of his power. I’ve robbed him of his own heart and sealed mine in a tomb.

  I want so many things for you, little bird. I want ferocity and love and space to breathe. I want a world where women are free to live and study, explore and be.

  I want you to never have to pretend to love a man you hate.

  Every day I make a choice to lie. There is no lonelier place in this world than in the heart of a liar.

  I am afraid, Mia. What if I can’t love you the way you deserve? Can true love be born out of a lie?

  What is true love?

  I used to know the answer, or at least I thought I did. Love was a feeling. Love was an action. Love was a partnership, a fiery union of body, mind, and soul.

  Now I think I was a misguided child. Is there such a thing as “true love”? Love is nothing but a patchwork of fiery sensations, an explosion of light and heat, a bursting. Love is a volqano. A volqano is beautiful, but it kills.

  Griffin cuts down lives with an unrelenting scythe, while I try desperately to glean them. He lies to my face, and I hear him lying, the vile rush of blood beneath his skin.

  Men have always been threatened by the power of women. But the king has taken this to new heights. He aims to keep Dujia vulnerable and frightened, and your father is leading the charge.

  At night, while he lies beside me with the blood of my innocent sisters ground into his palms, I dream of revolution. What if we women joined forces and rose up against our rapists, our deniers, our abusers? What if we toppled the old world?

  There is a saying in Fojuen: Fidacteu zeu biqhotz limarya eu naj. “Trust your heart, even if it kills you.” If I am saving my sisters so that they may one day rise up, it is worth it. To save one life, one single Dujia, I will die a thousand deaths.