Thorn

by Intisar Khanani

  “Don’t do this,” I whisper. Pain leeches the color from my vision, but I can still see his face, see the way the breeze lifts a lock of his hair.

  “This is only the beginning,” he promises.

  “Wind,” I whisper, watching his hair.

  “What?” Corbé looks up, scanning the pasture, confusion touching his brow. I can hear a soft whistling that grows, building into a shrieking gale that rips over the stream, lifting water and rocks with it as it approaches. The geese erupt in a flurry of feathers, tumbling towards us, honking frantically.

  Corbé swears, dropping his grip on me and stumbling back, his eyes wide. I curl into a ball, folding my arms over my face. The wind passes over me so gently it merely fans my back, and then it slams into Corbé. I hear his scream and I press my hands to my ears, shaking.

  RUN. The word echoes in my mind, the force of it driving me to my knees and then, staggering, to my feet. I do not turn to see where Corbé is, whether he has fallen or run away. I take one step forward, and then another, and then I am running, stumbling over the rocks of the streambed and clambering over the low stone wall, and running and running.

  I do not know how long I run, or where. My eyes blur until I cannot see and I lose my balance, one foot tripping over the other, spilling me to the ground. I lay sprawled on the grass, gasping for breath, and it is a time before I realize that I am sobbing, that I cannot catch my breath because I am weeping. I see Corbé’s face above me, his features twisted by the blackness of his emotion, and there is Violet laid out on the floor, pale and unmoving, her face marred by dark bruises, and Falada hangs above me, a head only, fur dank and blackened by soot. I wrap my arms around myself and cry until my fear and guilt have spent themselves and I am left shivering on the ground, cold despite the warmth of the day.

  Finally, I sit up, pain shooting through my back and chest. I press my hands against my ribs. They leave red smudges on my tunic; when I look at them they are scraped raw, though I do not remember flaying them against the ground as Corbé pinned me down. I stagger to my feet, my legs weak beneath me, but at least I am standing. I have only to walk home, I think, seeing Oak and Ash and Rowan in my mind’s eye. They will never let Corbé touch me again.

  The wind whips past me and I follow it, turning my face to watch it turn, raising the dust of the plains into a swirling pillar. It is not my Wind, and as the dust it raises grows darker, funneling into the wind’s small vortex, I step back once, and then again. Out of the darkness at its center, steps the Lady.

  I stare at her, hearing the rasping of breath in my lungs, loud now that the wind has gone. Faintly, I hear something beating, and I wonder if it is my heart, the pulse of my fear. Not like this. It is almost a prayer. I am not ready.

  “I had not planned on coming now,” the Lady agrees, her voice the whisper of leaves in the fall. “But perhaps I will enjoy it more this way.” She smiles, an empty curl of her lips that sends me back two more steps.

  “Look there,” she says, tilting her head. “See who your Wind is, who comes to rescue you.”

  I turn, not wanting to look. Kestrin pounds towards us on a horse, the court clothes he wears at odds with the way he rides, a warrior into battle, tensed and ready, his hair caught up in a tight knot, his mouth a grim slash across his face. He swings down before his horse has stumbled to a stop, and I cannot read the expression in his eyes. The horse drops its head between its legs, foam dripping from its mouth, and I am sorry for it, sorry for the way it has run, for the pain of its flight, driven by a force it did not understand.

  Kestrin spares me only one quick glance, his eyes flicking over me, and then he turns to the Lady. “Release her.”

  “Come now, my prince, what has she to do with you? A mere goose girl…” The Lady laughs, a poisonous sound that leaves me lightheaded. “Why, who would even notice if she disappeared?” Her eyes turn to me; they are the empty sockets of a skull. She gestures once, lazily, and the chain jerks so tight around my throat I think my neck will snap. My knees give out with the force of it, and I fall, catching myself on my hands, the burn of my already raw palms barely registering. I raise a hand and claw at my throat, but I cannot reach the chain.

  “Stop!” I feel Kestrin beside me now, his hands touching my throat, trying to grasp the choker.

  “Does it not amuse you? You descend from a line that takes pleasure in such things. Surely you enjoy seeing a princess at your feet?”

  Black dots dance before my vision. I feel myself slipping, hands no longer able to support me, but Kestrin is there, lowering me. At least I will not die alone.

  “Alyrra,” Kestrin cries, his hands at my throat, but he cannot touch the spell there.

  “You haven’t much time if you want to help her.”

  “Damn you,” he whispers. “What do you want?”

  “You.”

  Darkness closes in, dragging me down. Dimly, I hear the prince say, “Very well.”

  Chapter 30

  The horse grazes some distance away. I sit up painfully, my bruised back driving the other minor aches and pains from my mind. I breathe through my mouth, waiting for the pain to ebb. The plains have taken on the rosy hue of early evening, the grass waving gently beneath a light breeze. A bee buzzes past on its way back to its hive, pausing a moment to investigate me. Soon, the plains will turn gray, then be lost to darkness. I cannot remember if there will be a moon tonight to light my path to the city.

  It takes me a long time to stand, for my legs will not answer to me as they should. They are soft, and when I finally manage to rise my knees knock against each other. I wonder if I have become an old woman, lying unconscious through the passing of the years, but my hands when I look at them are the same young, work-roughened hands of the goose girl I am, the palms black with dead blood.

  I make my way slowly towards the horse. He turns his head as I near him, mildly curious.

  “Harefoot,” I whisper, recognizing the gelding. My throat is raw, and the single word fires pain through it, making my eyes water. He must recognize me as well, for he waits patiently as I struggle into the saddle, letting out an exaggerated sigh as I finally get my seat. Violet had always loved his mix of sweet temper and attitude.

  Harefoot willingly starts off for the city, and we reach the gates without mishap. We pass under them silently; I do not raise my eyes to Falada, cannot imagine speaking to him now, when I have finally and truly betrayed Kestrin.

  “That’s her!” a man’s voice cries.

  “Halt!” Harefoot’s ears flick towards the voices, but he keeps walking. Four soldiers surround us, their swords drawn. Harefoot snorts, moving to step around the man before him.

  “Stop your horse,” the soldier orders, reaching up to catch the bridle.

  “Easy,” I croak, as Harefoot swings his head up, his ears laid back. He snaps his teeth at the man, making him jump back, and then leaps into gallop, nearly throwing me. The soldiers shout, racing after us.

  “Stop!” I gasp, but Harefoot is having none of it. With the bit between his teeth, he carries me to what he has always known as safety. The stable door stands closed and for a terrified moment I think we will crash into it; then he pivots and kicks through the door. I slide into his neck, clutching at the pommel, then nearly fall off as he turns again and charges into the stable.

  “Stop,” I plead, and he, having arrived, stops. I slide off of him, grateful when hands close around my elbows to support me.

  “What’s happened, Thorn?” Joa’s face comes into focus. I shake my head, watching as Harefoot spins and bugles a challenge to the soldiers as they sprint through the broken doorway. They stumble to a halt. Around us, the other horses neigh and snort, and from one stall comes an answering bugle, the horse within kicking at his walls.

  “Hold her,” Joa orders, and another set of hands catch me. Joa stalks towards the soldiers. “Exactly what do you think you’re doing chasing down my hostlers, spooking my horses and causing damage to my stables?”


  “That girl’s wanted by the king,” the lead soldiers growls. “And she’s the one that broke your door, or didn’t you notice?”

  “If the king wanted her, he would have sent for her through the stables, where she works. He wouldn’t have sent four brutes to waylay her after she finds Lord Filadon’s gelding that had run away, and manages to bring the creature back. Manages, you asses, despite the fact that you have clearly convinced it that you’re going to attack.” I blink. He’s lying, I think muzzily. Harefoot didn’t run away; I did.

  The soldiers start towards us again and Harefoot snorts a warning. One of the hostlers approaches him warily, reaching out to grasp the loose reins as he murmurs soothing words. Harefoot’s ears slowly come back up.

  “We’ve orders to arrest the girl,” the soldier repeats, his voice harsh. “She’s wanted on charges of witchcraft.”

  I choke and cough so hard that, had it not been for the hostler holding me, I surely would have lost my balance.

  “Witchcraft?” Joa echoes, equally shocked.

  “I’d believe it if I were you. Didn’t you just see her riding that horse like a demon?”

  “Aye,” says a second soldier. “And she speaks to that horse’s head hanging in the gates, and the thing answers her.” I shake my head, staring at them.

  “The hell it does. She’s a damn good hostler is what she is,” Joa says.

  “That girl’s a goose girl; we see her bringing in the geese every night.”

  “She’s been training as a hostler,” Joa says slowly, as if speaking to idiots. “She starts in the stables in the morning.”

  “If she hasn’t been burned alive for the witch she is,” the second soldier agrees amiably.

  “I’m no witch,” I say, my voice so hoarse it barely reaches my own ears.

  “Look here, Master Hostler,” the first soldier says. “We’ve orders to arrest the girl and take her to the palace. You can go up there and argue it if you like. But if you keep her here, we’ll be picking you up with her in the morning.”

  Joa holds his silence.

  “I wouldn’t want to be the one acting against the king’s orders.”

  “Alright,” Joa turns and walks back to me. “I’m coming with you,” he says, taking my arm. I lean on him as we walk up to the soldiers. I don’t think I could run if I tried.

  “No tricks,” the first guard says tersely. I shake my head, but he is already turning to lead the way out, the rest of his quad falling in around us.

  Joa waits until my legs begin to take more of my weight before he speaks, his voice low. “Corbé came back hours early today, without the flock and gibbering all sorts of nonsense. I took half the hostlers out with me, including Ash and Oak, and we found the geese spread across three pastures, feathers everywhere.

  “I expect Ash and Oak would have killed Corbé if I’d let them. As it is, they’re still out on the plains looking for you, along with a good number of my hostlers. This is the second time you’ve disappeared on the plains; last time a rider from the Hunt found you and brought you back. We weren’t sure what we’d find this time.”

  I glance up at him; the moonlight softens the planes of his face, his eyes kind and veiled with concern. I look back to the road, to the straight back of the soldier in front of us, remembering the day Laurel asked me what had happened in the pasture. I will tell him, I think. But not where these soldiers can hear.

  Joa does not speak again, and we reach the palace in silence. We follow the soldiers through a maze of hallways to a guardroom. We wait with the quad while their leader fetches a man carrying a ring of keys and a lantern.

  “We’ll lock her up for the night. She’ll stand trial in the morning,” the soldier tells Joa. The dungeon is dark and dank, sunk below the weight of the palace. The lantern lights up the cells as we pass them. There are people in them.

  Many come up to the bars of their cells and hurl insults at us, their words echoing down the hall obscenely; others cry out as we pass, reaching through the bars towards me with dirty fingers, eyes glistening in the lantern light; some few remain silent, couched in darkness, unmoving. Everywhere there is the stench of death: rising from the bodies of the prisoners, collecting in corners, seeping out of the very stones themselves. It is as if I do not look upon people but upon animate corpses. This is a place that leeches the life from a body long before the execution arrives.

  The soldiers unlock an empty cell and Joa guides me in, lowering me to the floor.

  “Joa,” I whisper, and he kneels beside me to see my face. “Today in the pasture, Corbé attacked me.” Joa stiffens. “He hit me with his staff and knocked me down. He wasn’t afraid of being caught, or being punished. He said—that he had been promised safety. That he could do what he wished. But I got away from him.”

  “Did he?” Joa asks, his voice steel-edged. “And who is his protection?”

  “The princess.” I stare at the darkness through the bars.

  “We haven’t got all night,” one of the soldiers calls to Joa. “Get out so we can lock her up.”

  “I’ll seek an audience with the king for you,” Joa says. “He’ll see justice done.” I nod, knowing what justice is in this land. He stands up, touches my shoulder once, and then he is gone.

  ***

  An unfamiliar soldier unlocks the door late the following morning. I heave myself up clumsily, half-numb from the cold of the stones. In the hall, the soldier’s quad flanks me, escorting me up to a hearing room. It is a simple enough room: a table with three chairs stands at the end, two rows of benches face them with an aisle up the middle, and in the space between benches and table, to the right, a large fireplace fills the wall.

  I walk to the center of the room and gingerly curtsy to the judges seated at the table. With a jolt, I recognize Lord Filadon, seated on the right. He watches me somberly, no hint of friendship, or even recognition, in his eyes. Beside him sits a man in a deep purple robe, embroidered with gold. He is of middle age, with a pot-belly and thick, hammy hands that rest on the table. The man on the left, a captain of some sort, frowns as he studies me. He is of slighter build, with heavy brows, a well-trimmed mustache and an arrogant mouth. By his hand sits a ceramic pitcher and cup. I have to force myself not to look at it.

  “Goose girl Thorn,” the captain says.

  “Yes sir.”

  “You have been charged with witchcraft ungoverned by the Council of Mages,” he gestures to the man beside him, a wizard it would seem.

  “I would hear the charges, sir, if I may.”

  He nods. “You have been charged with the ability to converse with dead animals and bewitch unbroken horses, and the power to call the wind to act as your servant. How do you plead?”

  I swallow hard. “I am innocent, sir.”

  “There are witnesses,” the captain says mildly. He sits back, resting his elbows on his armrests, as if he has finished with this business already, but his eyes are reasoning eyes.

  “May I hear them?”

  “We heard them earlier today.”

  I lick my lips, tasting blood where they have cracked; I have not had anything to eat or drink since I left the goose pasture. “May I hear what the witnesses told you?”

  He ticks them off on his fingers. “First, both a soldier and your fellow goose boy have heard the head of a horse hung at the West Road Gate answer you when you address it.”

  Poppycock. Corbé was never around when Falada spoke.

  “Second, you had tamed and ridden that same horse, that would not answer to any man.”

  “Who is the witness there?” I ask, unable to help myself.

  “The goose boy, though I expect that any of the hostlers in the king’s stables would answer for it.”

  “And the third charge?” I ask, properly outraged by now. Never mind that I had ridden Falada—Corbé certainly hadn’t seen me.

  “That you called the wind to attack the goose boy and scatter the flocks.”

  “Witne
ssed also by the goose boy?”

  “Yes. Do you charge him with lying?” he asks, and I know from the very quietness of his question that this will damn me in his eyes. I dare not tell them what Corbé had done to bring the Wind against him.

  I tamp down on my anger and answer as mildly as I can. “No sir. I am sure he reported what he understood as truth.”

  “Was his understanding flawed?”

  “It must be,” I say, smiling wanly, “for I am innocent.”

  “What is your proof?”

  I spread my hands before me. “The white horse could be saddled by our hostler from home. The trouble was that he was trained to answer to a single hostler and a single rider. Deprived of that, he had to be won over. I spent weeks with him before he began to forget his training; he allowed me to ride him but once or twice. Master Joa himself told me of horses trained this way from the South.”

  “A neat explanation,” the wizard says, speaking for the first time. “Now explain how a dead horse speaks to you.”

  I shake my head. “Perhaps the sound was that of the wind whistling through the gates, sir. Or my own voice—I spoke to the head as a man might speak to the portrait of his dead father. How could it answer?”

  “It answered,” the captain says sharply.

  “What did it say?”

  The men regard me silently. I wonder if they understand that they have become witnesses to my identity. That Falada’s words, if accepted, should lead them to another truth.

  Filadon taps the table with his fingers. “Explain your command of the wind and we may accept these other explanations.” The other two men stiffen but do not respond. So, he holds rank over them even here.

  “I do not command the wind, my lord.”

  The young captain smiles. “The evidence stands against you. A great wind came through your goose pasture, scattering the flock, flaying the skin of your fellow goose boy, and stripping the leaves from the trees. You yourself escaped unharmed. It is damning evidence.” He glances down the table to Filadon, and from his words I know that only truth will win me free.