Heart of Thorns

by Bree Barton

  Mia heard Dom bolt through the forest, but Pilar hesitated, torn. Zaga was rooted to the spot.

  “Mother?” Pilar’s voice was tight with panic. “We have to—”

  The head guardsman charged toward her. Mia could feel the honeyed enthrall oozing off Pilar as the girl summoned every ounce of her magic, reaching her hands toward him.

  He struck her hard across the face. His glove opened a seam in her cheek, her cheekbone weeping blood.

  Mia saw what she hadn’t before: his glove encrusted with blue stones. She scanned the other guards and saw they all wore armor studded with uzoolion. Someone had told them about the protective properties of the stone.

  “Dirty little Gwyrach,” snarled the guard, and Mia heard the word as if for the first time. Gwyrach. It was harsh and biting, consonants carved from fear and hate. So different from the smooth, mellifluous vowels of Dujia.

  “Bind them all.” The head guardsman pointed to Mia. “But take her first.”

  She tried to catch Quin’s eye, but he was lost in anguish, crouched over his sister like a feral animal. The ropes bit into Mia’s wrists as the guards bound her arms together. They threw her over one of their horses as carelessly as a sack of grain, bruising her ribs.

  The thunder of hooves swallowed every sound.

  Chapter 55

  A Family of Maggots

  THE STENCH IN THE dungeon was foul, like putrefying flesh. Mia was surrounded on all sides by the carcasses of prisoners decomposing in the dark. How long until she joined them?

  She didn’t know how many hours had passed—maybe two, maybe twenty—since the guards thrust her into a stale, lightless cell. There was no way to pass the time; unsurprisingly, the dungeons did not come furnished with a library.

  She kept thinking of the journal. The last piece of her mother languished on a bed of needles on the forest floor. She clasped the little ruby wren to her chest. Four chambers in a wren’s heart, just like a human’s, but even four chambers were not enough for all the grief and love and losses of a life.

  In the dark, she saw Karri, the light seeping out of her eyes. If Mia hadn’t touched her, she might have lived. Before she laid her hands over her heart, the princess was still conscious, still fighting.

  Zaga had trusted Mia, and Mia had failed.

  It was the worst failure of her life.

  Where was Quin? Did he accompany Karri’s body back to the castle? Had he taken her home?

  When she thought of him kneeling by his sister in the forest, her heart cleaved in two. He’d been right to be afraid of her. She’d tried to save his sister and failed miserably. Mia was a killer, and that would never change.

  She had no appetite, but her throat was parched. She knew a jailer sat at the top of the stairs, even if she couldn’t see him.

  “Please,” she begged. “Can I have some water?”

  “If the queen wants you to have a drink, she’ll have a carton of horse piss delivered special.”

  She wished she hadn’t asked.

  She assumed Ronan was the one who’d had her imprisoned, but perhaps Rowena had taken a more active role in their absence. If the queen thought Mia was responsible for her son going missing, of course she would want her under lock and key. And if Queen Rowena knew Mia was the reason her daughter was dead, then it was a wonder she hadn’t asked for her head on a plate.

  “Please.” She clanged her shackles. “Just one sip of water. I’m dying of thirst.”

  The jailer laughed.

  Her breathing was ragged and irregular; she tried to remember her mother’s lesson. She pressed her back into the filthy wall and planted her feet on the ground, placing her left hand over her heart and her right over her belly. She tried to conjure the wind. But she couldn’t remember the sound.

  She didn’t deserve comfort. She deserved to be thrown in a dungeon, to rot in a dark room. The thought of Quin’s naked grief wrecked her. She hadn’t intended to kill his sister, but what did intention matter when the deed was done? Mia was a danger to herself and others. Had she really thought she could keep her own sister safe when her very touch was fatal?

  Quin would never forgive her. She couldn’t forgive herself. Lauriel had called her an angel; now she scoffed at the idea. She was a demon. Death with auburn curls.

  Her hands were stained brown with Karri’s blood. She couldn’t see it, but every time she raked her fingertips over her skin, she felt the dried grains. She drew her fingernail down the lines in her palms, tracing a bloodied map of If Onlys.

  If only she’d leapt in front of Karri to shield her from the arrow.

  If only Zaga hadn’t forced her to feel instead of think.

  If only she had never journeyed to Refúj.

  If only Pilar hadn’t shot the prince.

  If only her mother were still alive.

  If only Mia didn’t have magic.

  “You. Thirsty rat.” The jailer clanked his stick against the iron bars of her cell. She hadn’t heard him trundle down the stairs. “Got a gift for you.”

  She braced herself for a carton of horse piss. Instead he handed her a bundle wrapped in white crinkled paper.

  “Looks like you got yourself a friend in high places. Don’t eat too fast—I won’t be moppin’ up your sick if you spew bile all over your cell.”

  He had the decency to wedge a small torch into the wall, leaving Mia with a dribble of light to eat by. She tore open the paper. A hunk of bread tumbled onto her lap, followed by a flask of clear liquid that nearly slipped through her fingers and shattered on the hard stone floor. She caught it just in time. She uncorked the flask and sniffed, only to find the liquid odorless. Poisons were odorless.

  She tipped back the flask and drained it dry.

  It was only water. And what did it matter if someone were trying to poison her? She was doomed to die in this cell one way or another. She ripped off stale hunks of bread and devoured those, too, hungrier than she thought.

  Only after she had consumed the bread and water did she realize the crinkled paper was not blank.

  Mia’s eyes strained against the dim torchlight. She gasped.

  She was holding a page from her mother’s journal.

  That was impossible. The book was back in the forest, buried under a mound of pinecones.

  Unless someone had retrieved it. Someone who wanted her to read her mother’s words.

  She stared, disbelieving, at the sangflur ink. It was a page Mia had never seen. Her mother’s handwriting was different from the other entries—her neat, flowery script had sloped into sharp, jagged lines, as if the words had been written many years later, or far more quickly.

  Sometimes I think Griffin doesn’t believe the things he teaches. That he knows they are lies, but he doesn’t know how to undo the damage he has done, so he says nothing. That he continues to kill Dujia because he is too cowardly to admit he was wrong.

  Your father knows more than he pretends to. I hear him lying to me, his blood thrashing in my ears. I feel the enthrall weakening, whether by some force he is exerting or by my own failure, I do not know. The way he looks at me . . .

  If something happens to me, at least you and Angelyne will have each other. This is a great comfort.

  But if it comes to this—if there is no other way—then I know what I must do. I have been experimenting, probing the same dark magic I once chastised the woman I loved for using. She was right, and I was wrong. Desperate times call for desperate magic.

  I know, when and if the time comes, I will be ready. I will break the Second Law.

  My clever daughter, my red raven, my eldest child.

  We fought today. I know you didn’t mean the things you said. I see both your tender heart and the way you try to silence it, shore it up with logic, with rules. We mothers know our children better than they think.

  You are angry. So angry. I have failed you in this, as in so many things; I have not taught you how to be angry, how to care for yourself in your rage. As Dujia we ar
e taught rage is dangerous—that we must snuff it out. But I disagree. I think rage is most dangerous when it is snuffed out; this is when it grows.

  How could a Dujia not feel anger? Ours is a life of shadow and pain, suffering and loss. I believe anger is only frightening when it gets hidden away. Feeling anger is natural, good. But we must channel it toward good, not evil.

  My wish for you, little one, is simple: bring your rage into the light, and love will heal it.

  Mia, something has happened. I was wrong. About everything.

  Your father knows. He says he’s been trying to protect me. He says I am in danger, but not from whom I thought. If it is as I fear . . . if the king suspects . . . then these pages may be the last you ever read.

  There is a song you and Angie used to sing. “Under the plums, if it’s meant to be. You’ll come to me, under the snow plum tree.” Fly, my red raven. Fly fast and free.

  And if I have one final truth to impart

  Fidacteu zeu biqhotz limarya eu naj

  promise you will always trust your heart

  even if you have to stop

  That was where the words ended. Beneath them, her mother had drawn a hasty sketch of a snow plum tree.

  The world was spinning around her, taffied shapes and grotesque shadows creeping across the dungeon walls, her memory shifting with them.

  Her father knew. He hadn’t turned against her mother—he’d been trying to protect her. But from whom? The king? The other Hunters?

  Who else was there that night?

  Mia had all the puzzle pieces, but she couldn’t make them fit.

  Even if you have to stop . . . what?

  A new thought shuddered through her. Her mother had said she was ready to break the Second Law. Magic shall never be used by a Dujia to consciously inflict pain, suffering, or death on herself.

  Had Wynna chosen to hurt herself? She wouldn’t need knife or arrow, not when she could use magic to stop her own heart.

  Had she taken her own life?

  Mia bolted up off the ground. Someone was talking to the jailer upstairs in soft, syrupy tones. Then silence, followed by footsteps, light and quick.

  A torch was bobbing in the darkness. If Mia squinted, she could just make out the white cap of one of the kitchen servants. Then a scullery maid stepped into the light, chin-length black hair pinned up under her frilly cap.

  “Pilar?”

  She looked exactly like she had the night of the final feast, clumsy hands and dark flashing eyes. With two notable differences: the slash of dried blood on her cheek and the heavy ring of metal keys swinging from her hand.

  “How did you get out?”

  “I have my ways. Not all the guards were wearing uzool.”

  “You enthralled the jailer!”

  “Naturally.” Pilar wedged the torch into a rift in the wall, rifling through the keys until she found the one she wanted. She sniffed the air. “What died in here?”

  “I think you mean who . . .”

  “Well it’s not going to be you. Not today.”

  The shackles dropped from Mia’s wrists with a pleasing iron clunk. Instinctively she rubbed her wrists.

  “Where are the others? Are they safe?”

  “Don’t worry about us. You’re here to save your sister. So save her.”

  “And Quin’s sister?”

  They were both silent. Then Pilar said, “Truth be told, I’m not a very good shot.”

  Mia saw the crack in her bravado.

  “You were just doing what your mother said.”

  “So were you. We both failed.”

  Pilar sighed. “You tried, Rose. That’s the important thing. It’s not your fault you don’t know about magic. You didn’t grow up with it like I did. I couldn’t escape it, even if I wanted to.” She darkened. “Sometimes I want to.”

  “I tried to heal her. I really tried.”

  “I know. You tried to quiet her heart, but you didn’t know your own power, so you silenced it instead. When you stop a heart, you think of stillness. An empty room.”

  Pilar shifted her weight. “The kitchens are buzzing with activity. They say the queen is hosting a wedding feast.”

  A wedding feast. The words were a white-hot poker searing her flesh. Tristan was back at Kaer Killian, fresh from his rape attempt. Quin was home, too. While Mia didn’t know which boy would be the groom, she knew exactly who would be the bride.

  “Go get your sister,” Pilar said. “We’ll worry about the rest.”

  Mia had misjudged her. Pil’s heart was true.

  She held the torch high as they walked toward the stone stairs. In the winking light, Mia saw a strange shape in the corner of the dungeon. Her heart beat faster. Someone huddled under a thin blanket in the farthest cell.

  “Wait.”

  Winter whipped across her neck, turning her blood to sludge. She saw a wisp of fair hair peeking out from under the blanket. The shape was much too still.

  “Come on, Rose. Let’s go.”

  “I need to see who’s under there.”

  “They’re not moving.”

  “I need to see.”

  “Fine. Then see.” She thrust the torch into Mia’s hands. “Find your sister and meet us in the quarry.” With that she vanished up the stairs.

  Mia inched forward. She couldn’t hear heartbeats or any blood moving but her own. The stench was overpowering.

  “Angie?” Her voice hardly broke the air.

  Mia was deadly cold, her fear a manacle of ice around her throat. She could think of nothing more horrible than finding her sister under this blanket, rotting in the dungeons of Kaer Killian. But she had to know.

  She gripped a corner of the blanket and ripped it back.

  Two bodies decomposed on the dungeon floor, the smaller one trapped in a mass of honeyed blond hair. A family of maggots feasted on the eye sockets of a thin, dead face.

  But it wasn’t Angelyne. It was Queen Rowena.

  Beside her lay King Ronan.

  Chapter 56

  Diaphanous

  MIA GROPED HER WAY out of the dungeons, past the enthralled jailer and back into the light. She was nauseous, disoriented; she stumbled out into the castle corridors where she collided with a wall of polished stone. All she could see were maggots crawling through the space where Rowena’s violet eyes had been. She stared at the black onyx and tried to focus. Even her reflection unmoored her.

  A gaggle of whispering servant girls spun past. They didn’t treat her presence as anything out of the ordinary. One even curtsied. What in four hells was going on? The king and queen rotted on the dungeon floor, and no one seemed to notice.

  She leaned against the wall and gulped down air that didn’t smell like decaying flesh. King Ronan had tortured and murdered thousands of innocent women. His fate did not seem unwarranted. But Queen Rowena had not committed these atrocious acts, though she had looked the other way, pretending not to notice. Did that mean she deserved to die, too?

  Mia closed her eyes, trying to will away the image, but the maggots crawled through her mind. Karri was there, too, the look of betrayal in her eyes as she bled out on the ground. Quin’s whole family: gone. He was alone in the world.

  If she let that in, the truth of it, it would destroy her. She couldn’t afford to be destroyed.

  Mia rushed toward the part of the castle where her family had stayed. There were no guards outside the door to Angelyne’s chambers; no one stopped her as she charged inside.

  The room was empty. It smelled of lilacs and clean soap, and she saw necklaces and bracelets looped over knots of wood on the far wall, shimmering with stones; on the ivory dresser, hairpins, ribbons, and combs were neatly displayed. She could have kissed them for joy. Angie had been here, in these very chambers. There were no signs of distress.

  “Little rose.”

  She whirled around to find her father standing in the doorway.

  “Father!”

  She had expected to feel a firestorm
of emotions when she saw him again: grief, confusion, rage. But all her feelings boiled down to one. Relief.

  Mia ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. He was thinner than she remembered, his face drawn and his shoulders slumped, but oh so alive.

  “Father,” she said, her face buried in his jacket, tears pricking her eyes. “I know everything. I know you didn’t want to give me away to the royal family . . . and I know why you had to. I know about Mother and how you tried to help her . . .”

  He smiled faintly, but his eyes were no longer gray. They were black, glassy and distant.

  “Your mind is dazzling, little rose.”

  But he said it without conviction, as if reading from a script. Mia frowned. Her father’s black eyes made it seem as if he were staring right through her. Foreboding slunk down her spine.

  “Where’s Angelyne?”

  He was silent. Mia’s heart, so ecstatic a moment before, tripped on its own rhythm.

  “Where is Angie, Father? Is she all right?”

  Silence. The hairs on her arm began to rise.

  “Yes,” he said. His voice was a hollow bone with all the marrow sucked out.

  He was lying.

  Mia felt a clutch of terror. “Take me to her.”

  Her father turned and walked out of her chambers, his arms held stiffly at his sides. Mia’s heart smashed through her ribs. She had a horrible sense of misgiving. Something wasn’t right.

  They hurried down the glittering black corridors, past the watching chamber and the gardens, and through the Hall of Hands. She winced when the hands twirled as they walked beneath them, morbid thoughts spinning through her mind. If the king had suspected Mia’s mother was a Gwyrach, were her hands in the Hall? Had he collected them as trophies, sawed through the tendons and arteries and bones in her wrist?

  The same wrist I touched, Mia thought, when I killed her.

  She begged her knees to carry her forward, but her body felt broken, empty, a husk without a soul.