Veil of Thorns

by Gwen Mitchell

  Come with me and I will keep you warm, a rich, rumbling male voice said in her head.

  A bubble of warmth much like a Ward’s shield enveloped Bri like a heavy blanket fresh from the dryer. Her muscles unlocked enough that she could finally take a full breath. “You can t-talk t-telepathically and you wait until n-now?”

  She rolled to her front and pushed up to her knees, and pain ricocheted through her lower extremities. She was glad she was a little numb, because she wasn’t sure she could stand, much less walk.

  The bear lowered himself in front of her and carefully sidled closer. Climb on my back. I will carry you, he said, ignoring her question.

  Bri hesitated. She would freeze without his warmth, and she couldn’t walk. If he would help her stay alive, the bear was more friend than foe. For the moment, at least. She climbed aboard and straddled his broad back, taking a fistful of thick fur in each hand as he rose to his feet and lumbered into the woods.

  Though she was exhausted, curiosity sharpened Bri’s senses as they wove through the thickening trees. She glanced over her shoulder at the towering pines. They swallowed up the last patch of blue sky, and she tried not to think of Lucas. She’d made a huge mistake.

  He will come for you.

  He had to make it. She couldn’t do this on her own.

  A green ward shimmered through the air as the bear carried her into the shadows of the forest. They crossed a shimmering green ward, and the symphony of wild sounds, which had been so disturbingly absent before, assaulted Bri’s ears. Trunks creaked and branches rustled. Birds called. Icicles tinkled like faint bells. She closed her eyes and let the sounds wash over her, and something eased. Just a little. When she opened her eyes, she studied the forest through her Second Sight.

  Her surroundings lit up like the night sky. Fairy lights in every color of the rainbow burst from the forest floor and hung from branches like bouquets of Christmas bulbs. That oil-stain sparkly residue wove over every twig. Eyes glowed at her from dark hollows, and little stooped figures shifted in the shadows.

  Bri squeaked and coughed, tightly gripping the bear’s fur.

  The wee folk are harmless. As long as you are with me.

  She frowned. Did that mean they would harm her if she were alone? Another hurdle. But surely Lucas had faced fairies and goblins before? They probably feared him.

  She shouldn’t even be worrying about him. She should be figuring out her next move. She rested her head on the bear’s back.

  Step one: inventory.

  She was not going to die of hypothermia yet. But now that the cold had worn off, her legs were throbbing, and a sharp bolt of pain shot all the way up her right shin whenever she tried to move it. She might have broken something. She’d been too focused on not drowning to keep herself from bouncing off the boulders like a pinball. Her arms were okay, and her head and torso, so it could be worse.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  You know the answer, he said silently, with a huff of misted breath.

  She sighed. “You’re taking me to her.”

  Yes.

  “Who are you? I mean… do you have name?” Was he Kinde? According to Ryder, Hedvika’s Familiar was an owlkin. Was he just an enchanted bear?

  Do you not know how to speak silently?

  “No,” Bri said, grumping right back at him. How would she know how to do that? It’s not like anyone had taught her a goddamn thing.

  You are an Oracle, yes?

  “I am, but—”

  So you can. Think loudly towards me.

  “Why is it so important?”

  It is.

  Bri stiffened at the bark in his tone. She did not want to find out if there was a bite to back that up. But his instructions couldn’t be any less helpful. She wished she had spent more time learning from Lucas. He was a patient teacher and explained the workings of magic in a way that she could understand. But, if he had any telepathic abilities, he probably would have already used them on her already.

  She stared at the back of the bear’s shaggy white head and thought why is it important why is it important why is it important?

  Because the woods have eyes and ears, he replied.

  You can hear me!

  …yes.

  What is your name?

  Emil.

  Why don’t you want the woods to hear us?

  You do not want to feel the forest’s wrath.

  Won’t speaking in secret make her angry?

  She expects it. It is the only way I speak.

  Bri frowned at the sadness lacing those words.

  Are you… How to ask this delicately? Are you looking for a friend, Emil?

  A friend? …yes.

  And would you also be a friend to me?

  I belong to the White Wood.

  To Hedvika, he meant. So, he could not be trusted, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a source of information. Lucas would be proud of her for thinking like that.

  Her stomach fluttered at the thought of him but she shoved it ruthlessly aside. Worrying would not help her survive. They had known they would be captured eventually. They had assumed Hedvika would make them go through an obstacle course to get close to her lair, but apparently Bri was getting the red-carpet treatment. Their hostess was so anxious to make her acquaintance that she’d sent an emissary for a pick-up.

  As long as Lucas got himself captured in short order, their plan would be right back on track. Still ahead of schedule, even.

  Listen to her, being the optimist.

  As if in answer, a thunderhead of doubt rumbled in. What if Hedvika didn’t capture Lucas, but killed him outright? Bri would be her prisoner, and Kean would be stuck in the grey place forever.

  Don’t think about that.

  What?

  She frowned at Emil, wondering how to make sure she didn’t broadcast all her thoughts loud and clear from now on.

  My other friend. I left him behind. Will he be…treated as well as I have been? Not counting the almost drowning part.

  That is up to the wood. If he does not threaten, he will not be killed.

  Right. Lucas wore danger like cologne, so that was definitely a problem. And she’d learned enough about magical beings to understand that “will not be killed” left a lot of room for interpretation.

  She was reminded of Ryder’s warning. Hedvika didn’t just own the wood, she was the wood. If it was her will that Lucas live, he would live. Bri could be dead now—she was only alive because Hedvika willed it. She hadn’t fully absorbed what Ryder had been telling her until now.

  Here, they were physically powerless. Magically outgunned. Even Lucas’s strength and immortality had already proved no match for her magical booby-traps.

  This was now a game in which their survival depended on wits alone. And perhaps a little bit of luck? Was that too much to ask?

  So, as the giant white bear carried her through the darkening forest, Bri began to formulate a plan. She would hopefully reach the enchantress before Lucas got himself drowned or torn apart by goblins. Once she met Hedvika, she would do everything in her power to ensure Lucas was returned to her unharmed.

  She’d nearly married a thoroughbred politician—she could flatter and bluff with the best of them.

  Emil?

  Yes?

  When was your last visitor?

  No visitors.

  Okay then. When did the last person cross into this forest?

  Many years.

  And what happened to them?

  They are part of the wood now.

  Bri made a face. That did not sound good taken literally or figuratively. Will she make me a part of the wood too?

  Not if you obey the rules.

  What are the rules?

  You will see. Rest now. Hours to the palace still.

  When she opened her mouth to ask another question, Bri yawned. Drowsiness had already been pulling at her since the adrenaline from her plummet over the falls and her wonder at the forest ha
d faded. Emil’s bubble of warmth and slow, rocking gait finally did her in. Her last thought as she let sleep overtake her was, a palace…that doesn’t sound so bad.

  She woke what must have been several hours later. The forest had darkened. It was near dusk, and a knife of worry poked at her heart. Hours that Lucas would have had to pursue her. How much of a lead did she have? How far had the river carried her? Where was he, and what was he facing?

  The snow had given way to a carpet of thorny black vines, woven thick and knee-deep over the forest floor. They coiled and slithered over each other, hissing like snakes. The vines pulled back from Emil’s path as he forged ahead and wove closed behind him, erasing any evidence of their passage.

  The trees were ancient and seemed dead, like giant slivered bones jutting from the ground. There were no more birches or oaks to add warmth, no ferns to add life, no young springy saplings. Only the giant, pitted grey bark of the great pines, glistening with silver frost.

  The White Wood.

  The black thorns climbed the bases of the bone trees and spanned densely between them, nearly four feet high now. Perhaps they had choked out all other living things, but these trees were simply too old and stubborn to topple over.

  Are we close? She asked Emil in her head.

  Close.

  The shadows grew longer, the air colder. Crows watched silently from the lowest branches as they passed. There was no more twittering of living creatures. The vines climbed higher and higher as they went on, until they dangled from the branches above Bri’s head as if growing from the sky.

  Emil’s breath was a constant cloud of mist before them. The thorns would slowly open up their path, pulling back like a curtain, and close behind them. Completely surrounded by the hissing vines, a yawning pit of panic wanted to open up in Bri’s stomach and suck her inside out, but she closed her eyes tucked her face into Emil’s thick coat.

  You can do this.

  She had to. For Kean. Failure was not an option. Panic was not an option. Save him or die trying. It had been an easy decision to make in concept. Now, staring down the barrel, knowing it meant Lucas would die too, her confidence wavered. The vines slithered all around her, a few catching in her hair and nicking her exposed flesh. Bri battled with her instinct to cry out and struggle.

  The hissing slid away, and the dark curtain pulled back, revealing an ice field sparkling in the violet haze of twilight. The sky was clear and studded with a few early stars.

  At the opposite end of a wide clearing, the mouth of a giant cave stretched open, fifty feet high. Twenty-foot icicles dangled from the upper lip like fangs. The cave was carved into the side of a hundred-foot high ridge that curved inward around the ice field in a crescent, a mirror of the larger mountain range surrounding them. The ridge was covered in the same shimmering frost as everything else, a monochrome landscape of whites, greys, and blues. Faint ribbons of green and pink auroras wavered in the sky above the cave like the banners of a castle.

  Despite everything, Bri was stuck in a moment of puny-mortal awe. It was breathtaking—unlike anything she’d ever seen or imagined. So surreal, she wondered if this was another dream.

  Emil stepped from the dark earth beneath the vines and onto the frost. The crust of ice flakes broke apart and floated up in a flurry. Bri was transfixed as it drifted upward in a familiar halting way. As Emil set out across the field, more and more of the frost flakes spiraled up. Eventually, one came close enough to land on Bri’s arm.

  She gaped as a butterfly made of frost lighted on her skin and turned sideways in a half circle, batting its lacy, snowflake-thin wings, before taking off again. The air was full of them—a blizzard of snowflake butterflies dancing in the dark. Tiny lights flickered to life in the air along their path, like captured stars floating in shimmering transparent bubbles, or lightbulbs dangling from the sky by invisible strings.

  She hadn’t expected anything so…enchanting.

  Maybe you should have.

  Ryder had spoken of Hedvika’s talents and power, her vanity and self-obsession. The boredom of immortality. It was Bri’s own fault that she hadn’t considered that those traits could culminate into such artistry.

  She wasn’t prepared for the sheer awe and respect that filled her. Art she understood—the need to create and the partial insanity that was a necessary ingredient of true genius.

  Shapes soon emerged from the monochrome landscape—gnarled and twisted trees covered in the same glittering silver ice as the ground. Some of the trunks appeared to have carvings in them. Faces and fingers were the most discernible at first.

  Bri’s hands began to shake when she saw legs, full busts like on the prows of ships, mouths gaping in terror and agony. Hands clawing the air.

  They were uncannily beautiful. And dreadful. Disturbing, but mesmerizing.

  The field was full of them, in all directions, all the way to the edge of the forest.

  The twisted trees gave way to fully petrified statues of people, cold and silent as ice sculptures. But they weren’t sculptures—Bri could feel it. They were real. People turned to black marble by magic. Her heart gave a painful throb of exhilaration.

  Just like Kean.

  Just as Ryder had said.

  Hope lit a fire in her stomach, and she sat up straighter on Emil’s back. Here was the proof that she’d come to the right place! And proof that—so far—Ryder had been telling the truth. She had been hoping for some visions or at least glimpses of the future that would confirm she was on the right path—this was almost better. For the first time since she’d left the Arcanum, she felt a glimmer of faith in this desperate plan.

  She yanked her fingers through her hair, combing out the worst of the snarls. There was nothing she could do about her lame and bedraggled state, but she could hold her head high, like a worthy guest of the ruler of this enchanting, terrifying realm.

  A ruler who had a whole garden of petrified people spread out like a Welcome, If You Dare mat.

  A ruler who was lonely, and bored, and creative, and anxious to meet her.

  Game face on.

  Bri took a last, longing look at the night sky as the mouth of the cave swallowed them. She sent a prayer to whatever stars were listening that Lucas would hear her somehow.

  I’m here. I’m safe. I’m waiting for you. Surrender—don’t fight. Please, don’t fight.

  The cavern narrowed only slightly as they walked deeper into the funnel of ice. The walls glittered with white hoarfrost, and more deadly icicles dangled from the ceiling, chinking faintly with every one of Emil’s heavy footfalls.

  His huffing echoed in the silence of the tunnel.

  The bubbles of light grew fainter, and soon they were in the dark, except for the bright light looming ahead.

  A wash of awareness threatened to knock Bri off Emil’s back, as the last part of her vision-slash-nightmare clicked into place. She shivered, remembering this exact sensation of being carried down a dark tunnel toward a bright light. The sense of mingled dread and anticipation. It all made sense now. Knowing her own power had foretold this, and that even their mishaps had led her to the same outcome, bolstered her confidence a little more.

  They emerged into a large, domed cavern, the floor smooth, solid ice. Several other hallways met in the circular chamber. At the center before them was an obsidian fountain full of water that appeared frozen, yet it was solid black. From the middle of the fountain grew a giant, twisting tree, its trunk furred with glimmering frost and leaves made of pure light. Thousands upon thousands of those tiny twinkling stars clung to the diamond-crusted branches. Some of the lights detached from the tree and floated off, suspended in their transparent bubbles.

  Wait here, Emil’s voice broke into her reverie.

  Bri nodded and slid off his left side, trying to brace most of her weight on her good leg before he lumbered off. She staggered to the edge of the fountain, carved of pure obsidian, and sat down on edge. Despite her distance from the protection of Emil’s
shields, she wasn’t that cold. The room itself was temperate, even though it was encased by and decorated with ice. Bri looked up at the domed ceiling, studded with icicles that could drop and impale her at any moment.

  She could breathe underwater. Ice could stay solid in a sixty-degree room. Snowflakes could move like butterflies.

  So, basically, the laws of physics no longer apply.

  She rubbed her bare arms, shivering—though she wasn’t freezing, it was still chilly.

  Perched on the fountain’s ledge to her left was another statue, carved of solid black stone. This was of a girl gazing into the placid water of the fountain, tense fingers gripping the edge of the bench. An expression of sadness and longing was permanently etched onto her face. A single diamond tear had frozen on her glass-smooth cheek.

  Again, Bri was struck by the aching beauty. The kind that punches straight through to the heart and entraps you, while at the same time you wish you could look away.

  “Welcome to my winter court, sister.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  An ivory queen was watching Bri through dark, slanted cat eyes. Her long lashes were white and adorned with glittering diamonds. Her unnaturally pale skin—covered in a lace pattern of frost in some places—still had a healthy pearlescent hue to it, soft shell pinks and cool metallics. She had a small, upturned nose, and a pert mouth. Her thin, white lips were painted to look even smaller, as was the style a few centuries ago. She had no eyebrows to speak of, though they could have been white like the coil of hair looped around her head in a crown of elaborate curls.

  More diamonds clustered in her curls, frosted her ears, throat, and the deep V of her exposed chest. Between her small breasts rested a giant hunk of diamond by a silver chain. As Bri watched, a shadow moved through the diamond, writhing like smoke.

  Hedvika’s arms were bare, but the rest of her was covered by a blanket of frost butterflies shaped into a form-fitting gown, complete with a mermaid skirt and train that dragged several feet behind her.

  Bri snapped her mouth closed and shook herself, remembering she’d been addressed by someone who considered herself royalty. She slid from the bench as gracefully as she could and knelt on the reflective black ice, bowing her head. “Forgive me, your majesty. I was… momentarily caught off guard by your beauty.”