Heart of Thorns

by Bree Barton

  “Can you do something?” Jun whimpered. “Can you help her?”

  “I’ll try,” Mia said.

  Healing an arrow wound was a world apart from healing a chronic condition. She’d never tried to mend someone’s lungs, to coax the air through them, calming the inflamed tissue and smoothing the breath.

  Remember the wind . . . Let the memory pool in your fingertips. Your lungs will soften, and your breathing will slow.

  Tears pricked her eyes. Her mother had given her exactly the lesson she needed at exactly the right time. As if she’d known.

  Mia slid one hand over Nanu’s heart and the other over her belly. She closed her eyes and conjured up the wind in Ilwysion, the steady, rhythmic whisper of the trees.

  She did something else, too. Instead of shoving the feelings away, she let love wash over her—love for the mountains, love for her childhood among tall trees, love for her mother. She summoned the crisp fall day her mother wrapped a toddling Angelyne to her chest with a thick wool shawl and asked five-year-old Mia if she wanted to climb a mountain. They had climbed together, step-by-step, until they stood on the peak, looking down at the leaves in all their autumnal glory, a billowing canopy of rusts and golds and siennas. “Let’s take off our gloves,” her mother had said, and when Mia hesitated, she’d said, “You’re safe here, little bird.”

  Mia could still remember how it felt to stand on the summit holding her mother’s bare hand: the fizzy hum that rushed up her arm and swept down her spine, comforting and warm, like sitting by a crackling fire with a cup of cocoa.

  Had that been magic? Was her mother giving her a small, secret gift?

  “Mia,” Quin whispered. “You’ve done it.”

  She opened her eyes.

  Beneath her, Nanu’s breathing was even, her chest rising and falling with no strain. The old woman stared up at her and blinked. Quin took her arm and helped her up until she was sitting on the softly caked earth. Nanu’s hand was steady as she collected her long silver coils into a bundle at the nape of her neck.

  “Nanu!” Junay threw herself into her grandmother’s arms, nearly knocking her down again. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, no trace of the proud, impudent girl from the day before. “You’re all right. You’re all right!”

  As Nanu hugged her granddaughter, a smile spread across her weathered brown face, crinkling the soft skin around her eyes.

  “Yes, Junie. I’m all right.”

  Over the quivering crown of Junay’s curls, Nanu fixed Mia with a calm, knowing look, her eyes as clear as Mia had seen them.

  She didn’t say veraktu.

  She said, “Sister.”

  Quin had made them a magnificent feast. The table was lined with all kinds of Glasddiran delicacies, modified to accommodate the available ingredients: thin-sliced potatoes with cheese curds, corn fritters and goose gravy, buttermilk pudding, cinnamon bread dumplings dusted with nutmeg, and warm drinking chocolate dotted with shmarda cubes.

  But the food was all but forgotten once Lauriel and Sach’a returned from the merqad and Junay told them what had happened.

  Lauriel kissed Mia on the forehead and both cheeks. “Angel,” she said. “Today you are my angel.” Sach’a rolled her chair to her grandmother’s side, stroking and squeezing her hand, as if she needed reassurance that Nanu was still there.

  Mia was numb but grateful. Breath magic, Lauriel had told her. “Not an easy kind of magic to do, darling. I think you have your mother’s gift for healing.” Mia felt contentment swirling through her. Her mother felt so close.

  A memory stirred. Dom had told her his father died when the Gwyrach froze the air in his lungs.

  “When you lost your husband . . .” Mia trailed off. She didn’t want to bring up any painful memories.

  But Lauriel smiled. “It’s good to talk about him. It helps keep him alive. It was your father’s men who killed him—he was trying to protect us from the Hunters. We knew our days in Glas Ddir were numbered, that we had to flee before we were exposed. The Hunters lied and said the Gwyrach had turned his breath to ice, and I told Dom to lie, too. Anything to keep the girls safe. And then your mother died days later . . . two unconscionable losses, one right after the other.”

  She pressed her hands to her chest. “They stabbed him in the heart. They didn’t even let us keep his body; they took it to the Kaer.”

  A cough from the kitchen made Mia turn around.

  Quin was lingering uncomfortably behind the table, apart from the others. He hovered over the food, trying to cover the dishes with iron lids to keep them hot, but steam leaked out anyway. It broke Mia’s heart how hard he was trying. But she couldn’t shake the feeling he didn’t belong here. This was not his world.

  “I shouldn’t have left,” Sach’a said to her mother. “I told you, Mamãe. It’s too dangerous to leave Jun alone with her. If Nanu has another attack . . .”

  “But it won’t be dangerous,” Junay insisted, “once I bloom.”

  Her mother sighed. “Yes, Jun. But we don’t know when that will be. And until then . . .”

  “I don’t understand why she bloomed before I did.” Junay turned on her sister. “You don’t feel anything. You just sit in that chair, all prim and proper, passing judgment on everyone else.”

  Sach’a spoke very slowly. “You have no idea what I am feeling.”

  “I know you hardly even have emotions. What could have possibly triggered your magic? You don’t even—”

  “How dare you.” Sach’a slammed her fist on the table so hard the room went silent. “You think it doesn’t hurt me to see the way you run and skip and play? How I sit in this chair while you take everything for granted? You are selfish and reckless—you don’t care about anyone but yourself. If you haven’t bloomed, it’s because you don’t deserve the gift. You don’t deserve anything. Someday you may be a Dujia, but you are no sister of mine.”

  The words were trembling cold.

  Tears shimmered in Junay’s brown eyes. Even Lauriel seemed surprised by the outburst. Sach’a was normally so mature and composed. But perhaps the composure was carefully constructed. Mia felt as if she’d seen the crack in the veneer.

  “Mia?” Quin lilted her name into a question. “Would you care to accompany me to the Blue Phoenix?”

  She stared at the untouched plates of food. “What about breakfast?”

  “I’m not feeling particularly hungry at the moment.”

  She wasn’t, either. She squinted out the window. A screen of volqanic ash clung to the air, diffusing the harsh morning light. The clouds were divided into rosy furrows, long rows of blushing pink crops, as if the sun had tilled the sky.

  “Isn’t it a little early for the Phoenix?” she said.

  “It’s never too early for a drink.”

  Chapter 47

  Hollows

  AS THEY WALKED TO the Blue Phoenix, Mia found herself thinking of Angelyne. They’d had their fair share of sisterly squabbles, but they always ended the same way: with apologies and small gifts. Mia would bring Angie pleasant-smelling salves and striped hair ribbons from the market, and Angie brought her maps and knives. They each knew what the other liked. When the fight subsided, neither of them truly wanted to hurt the other.

  But the way Junay harangued her sister, or how coolly Sach’a had sliced into Jun? Mia had never taken a bite out of Angelyne, not like that. What was it Zaga said? Learn to harness it, and rage can prove a clean and silent blade.

  Something about that made Mia uncomfortable.

  “Are you all right?” Quin asked.

  “I was just thinking about my sister.”

  “Ah, yes. I suppose it’s true what they say: girls will be girls.”

  She glared at him. “I hope you don’t truly believe something so asinine.”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “Point taken. I’m beginning to think no one girl is like any other.”

  When he spoke again, his voice was tinged with sadness. “I wonder if my
sister is even looking for me anymore, or if my father has poisoned her against me.”

  “You speak as if your father hates you.”

  “What gave you the impression he didn’t? He can hardly bear to look at me. He finds me repulsive.” His voice wavered, but only for a moment. “Considering his fetish for severed hands, I find him repulsive, too.”

  The fragment of a memory dashed through her mind: the night she hid in the drawing room, Quin had accused his father of punishing him for some unspoken crime. I have been far more munificent, the king had said, than you deserve.

  “Why does your father hate you, Quin?”

  Was it her imagination, or did his jaw tighten?

  “No particular reason,” he said. “You’ve met my father. That’s just who he is.”

  She heard liquid dripping, then rushing, then slowing to a drip again. Her ears were fine-tuned to the sound of lying, but this wasn’t quite the surge of pressure she’d heard before; it was more nuanced. Not quite a lie, perhaps, but not quite a truth, either.

  Quin seemed eager to change the subject. “I don’t imagine my cousin was lying, at least not about everyone thinking and hoping I’m dead. My father would be thrilled to get rid of me. Tristan was the son he always wanted.”

  Dread curled into Mia’s stomach. How could she keep forgetting? Tristan was one day closer to the castle, which meant one day closer to Angelyne.

  She had to get out of Refúj.

  “I have to go, Quin. I can’t let Tristan make it back to the Kaer.”

  “We’ll go together. But how comfortable do you feel using magic as a weapon? Because if we’re going up against my father and a legion of trained guards, it would be reassuring to know we had more than our four fists.”

  She knew he was right. If only the book would reveal more. So far a single magic lesson from her mother had proven far more useful than Zaga’s meandering sessions on nothing.

  “Let’s have a drink first, at least,” Quin said. “Before we go charging into a battle we are unlikely to win. Then we can make a plan.”

  She assessed him. A week ago, she would never have thought it possible that the prince would be her ally, her friend. But was that all he was? He seems to be in love with you. Was it true? Did love mean standing by someone even when they were making what probably amounted to a terrible decision?

  The sadness gripped her again. Her father had seemed to be in love with her mother. Her mother seemed to be in love with him. If love only came attached to seeming, safe to say it wasn’t love.

  Besides. The prince had lied to her before, and judging by the clever way he’d shifted the conversation only moments before, he was still lying. Mia felt the familiar walls rise inside her.

  They’d made it to the Blue Phoenix. Mia heard music plucked on a cacophony of sheep-gut strings, jovial laughter pouring out onto the sandy avenues of the merqad.

  “Hear that?” Quin smiled. “That’s the sound of people enjoying themselves.”

  She hesitated. She saw Dom and Pilar in the tavern—they had clearly been sidetracked on their way to breakfast, not that breakfast happened anyway. They were carousing and having a fine time, but something about their happiness made Mia lonely.

  “Actually,” she said. “I think I’ll sit out here for a little while.”

  He appraised her. “You’re not going to run off to Glas Ddir without me, are you?”

  “I just want to collect my thoughts. It’s been a strange morning.”

  He nodded. “Is there anything I can do?”

  It struck her that the only time people asked “Is there anything I can do?” was when there was nothing anyone could do.

  “I know where to find you.” She wanted—needed—him to leave. She didn’t want to trust him, not if he was only going to lie to her. Sometimes when she looked at Quin, she could feel her reason cracking, her heart swelling between her ribs. She didn’t want to feel anything. It wasn’t safe to feel anything: not gratitude, not vulnerability, and certainly not love.

  But if she didn’t feel anything, how could she read her mother’s words inscribed in sangflur ink?

  Once Quin ducked inside the tavern, she searched for a secluded spot in the merqad. Merchants were setting out their wares for the day, food and cloth and trinkets, and as the avenues began to buzz with activity, she hid herself away in an abandoned stall. There she pulled out her mother’s journal from where it had been hiding in her jacket and cracked it open.

  Clearly Mia had not been able to quell all her emotions, and she was grateful for it. Dark ink stretched across the page.

  Duj katt. Griffin knows. I feel it in my blood, the clatter of his heart. In the way he looks at me.

  Or does he? It is not always easy to distinguish the feelings of love from the feelings of anger. They are both forms of passion, though we tend to qualify love as good, a lofty pursuit we should all aspire to, and anger as bad, a twisted malformation of the heart.

  Sometimes, when I am with your father, I have trouble reading the sensations of his body. The heightened pulse, the ripples of warmth when he touches me, our hearts twining in a symphony of sound—these could be the symptoms of love, but they could just as easily be the symptoms of rage.

  Does he know I’ve betrayed him? Or does he love me?

  I wonder: Is it possible for a human heart to hold both?

  The truth is, I do not know which I deserve. I have crept inside your father’s heart and made it mine. I have enchanted him and styled this enchantment as love. I have done it for the good of Dujia everywhere, but that does not make it right.

  I feel his heart beat most strongly when he rocks you to sleep, or teaches you to climb a tree, or feeds your intellect with books acquired on his travels. Is it possible the murmurings of his heart are not rage at all, but love for you, his little girl?

  Mia.

  I must warn you against enthrallment. A Dujia is not immune to the pull of magic. Griffin makes victims out of all of us, but he has been my victim, too—and now I have fallen victim to my own crimes.

  I have fallen in love with your father. I love him for how well he loves you.

  Mia swiped at the heat behind her eyes. So her mother had loved her father after all, in a twisted sort of way. She was ashamed how fervently she wanted to believe her parents had loved each other—or found a way to love each other, carved a path through the deception and the lies. Why did she want this? Love only led to pain. The people you love are the ones who hurt you most.

  The remaining pages in the book were blank; Mia snapped it shut and tucked it back into her jacket. She had promised Quin she would join him, and she would be true to her word. She forced one foot in front of the other until she was standing outside the Blue Phoenix. Hoots and cheers erupted from inside.

  She was in no way prepared for what she saw.

  Five boys stood atop the bar. Despite the early hour, they were in varying degrees of inebriation, holding assorted bottles and tankards and, by all appearances, dancing—or making a valiant go of it, anyway—to a chorus of whistles from the girls below. Not a single boy was wearing a shirt. All the shirts in Refúj had apparently taken refuge someplace else.

  Domeniq was one of the five, his rugged brown torso chiseled into eight discrete sections.

  She gulped. Make that ten.

  If what he’d said were true, this was a decent percentage of the male population of the island (not counting the grandfathers). But then she realized boy number five wasn’t actually a resident of Refúj.

  He was Quin, Son of Clan Killian. Maker of Breakfasts, Discarder of Shirts.

  The well-defined planes of Quin’s stomach glistened with sweat as he tipped back a flask, chugged the murky liquid inside, and wiped his mouth on his arm.

  “I just drank a sqorpion!” he yelled. “And glass!” The crowd cheered.

  Mia was astonished. How long had she been lost in her mother’s book? Surely not long enough for Quin to get this intoxicated. Her eyes combe
d his smooth golden body, which until now she had seen only in snips and slivers, peeking through his shirt or masked by sulfyric bubbles. He was more perfect than any of her anatomy plates, flawless symmetry and long, lean lines.

  She hardly recognized him. How was this the same boy with whom she had fled the Kaer? To say Quin’s transformation was complete would be an understatement: the curmudgeonly ice prince was now charming a pack of lusty Dujia, slugging back glass-and-sqorpion liquor, and dancing on a bar. He wasn’t a very good dancer, but she was impressed by the effort.

  She was also furious.

  They’d been in Refúj one day, which as it turned out was plenty of time to have her whole life smashed to powder. Her mother had magic. Her parents had never been in love, or if they had, it was twisted, built on lies and secrets. Everything Mia had ever learned or studied about the Gwyrach had been a lie—and she still hadn’t found her mother’s murderer.

  Couldn’t Quin see how much she was hurting? Why didn’t he care?

  You didn’t let him, said a nagging little voice. You shut him out. You wanted him to leave you alone, so he did.

  One of the girls shouted something, and Domeniq threw back his head and laughed. He whispered something into the prince’s ear. Quin blushed.

  The boys were easy with one another. Comfortable. Like friends, but with a touch of something more. Mia could feel it: the crackling energy in the air. How had she failed to notice? She thought of the heat when she was standing between them in the Biqhotz, or the way Quin had looked longingly into the pub—the first place they had seen men in Refúj.

  Suddenly she was encased in a loneliness so deep it surprised her. Was she really that naive? Had Quin ever been interested in her at all? Perhaps he was interested in boys, just like Dom. Which was fine. Of course it was fine. But she had begun to open her heart to someone, only to have him open his heart to another. Once again, she had proven she knew nothing, absolutely nothing about the human heart.

  The heart as a bodily organ, she understood perfectly. Chordae tendineae, atrioventricular valves, papillary muscles: check, check, check. What she couldn’t grasp were the mechanics of desire, of love. What was it made of? Did it coagulate in the bloodstream? Get pumped through the arteries? Love, passion, desire—they all seemed readily available to other people but continued to evade her. Just when she thought she’d grabbed hold of them, they wriggled away, swam just out of reach.