Ror grumbles something foul beneath his breath that makes me grin, and a weight lifts from my shoulders.
It isn’t healthy for two men to talk soft to each other for too long. Better to leave the feelings to women and fairies and others who have the time for them. A man’s energy is better spent getting his work done, and at the moment my work is to get Ror across Norvere as quickly as possible, leaving me ample time to woo his lovely sister.
CHAPTER FIVE
AURORA
My insufferable guide and I reach the ridge above the forest proper—where the trees are thinner and the unusually warm autumn sun hotter on our bare heads—by midmorning and continue east.
We ride hard through the middle of the day, stopping only to water the horses and take a quick meal in the shade, sharing dried meat and crackers from Niklaas’s pack, accompanied by hard, sour apples I gathered as we traveled.
Mercifully the ridge road is narrower and less trafficked than the road below. We see signs that someone has camped off the trail a few days’ past but meet not a soul the entire day. The scarcity of travelers isn’t surprising. The Boughtswords rule these woods, a state of being Niklaas says is encouraged by both Ekeeta and his father. The woods serve as a buffer between two kingdoms that have never entirely trusted each other, though they have been allies since before my grandfather’s time.
“You’ve met Ekeeta, then?” Niklaas asks.
“When we were little, my father would take Aurora and me to court on festival days. Ekeeta would give us toys and sweets, but I remember being afraid of her. Even then. Why my grandfather chose an ogre for his third wife is something that was never explained to my satisfaction.” I shift my weight forward on Button’s back, doing my best not to wince in pain.
I don’t want Niklaas to know how raw I’m feeling after so many hours of riding without a saddle. The fact that my britches were damp for the first several hours of the ride hasn’t helped matters, but I would be feeling a lot less chafed if I’d taken the time to saddle Button before fleeing the mercenary camp.
“Well, Ekeeta is a beautiful woman,” Niklaas says, pressing on, though the sun is sinking into the trees behind us, painting the forest in dreamy pink light. “All long legs and creamy skin and tits as pert as a girl’s a tenth her age.”
I wrinkle my nose at his crass description as I shift my weight again, still unable to find a comfortable position. “Maybe. But she has disturbing fingers.”
“Disturbing fingers?” he asks with a laugh.
“Long and spindly like spider legs. Not to mention that she’s a monster who feeds on mortal souls. She may look human, but she isn’t.”
Niklaas chuckles again. “At least the ogres stopped eating our flesh. That’s something, right?” He reins Alama in, giving Button and me the chance to pull even with them on the trail. “And a beautiful woman is a beautiful woman, disturbing fingers, questionable eating habits, or no.”
I blink up at him. “You aren’t serious.”
“Why not?” He grins as he leans forward to stroke Alama’s long white throat. “Men are fools when it comes to a pretty face.”
“I’m sure there were prettier faces in the capital at the time,” I say. “Prettier and human. Grandfather could have had his pick of any woman in Mercar.”
“Ah, but he didn’t want any woman. He wanted one particular woman.” He glances over at me, that increasingly familiar “big brother about to impart wisdom to the youngster” look in his eyes, the one that makes it practically impossible to resist rolling mine. “Women fall in love a dozen times before their fifteenth birthday, but when a man falls, he falls heart, body, and soul, and no woman but the one who has captured his imagination will do.”
“Is that right?” I lift a brow in his direction.
“It is,” he says. “The poor bastard becomes obsessed. Every bit of sense he possesses flees his head to set up camp in his britches, and there’s no reasoning with him until the spell is broken.”
“Or until his imagination is captured by someone else,” I add.
“Exactly.” Niklaas laughs; I squeeze the reins tighter. He may find man’s fickle nature amusing, but I don’t. Mother was Father’s second wife, but she may not have been his last. Father was gone more often the year before he was murdered. I remember the servants whispering, wondering why he packed silk in his saddlebags if he wasn’t going to court a woman.
Mama knew something was wrong, and it ate away at her, turning the last of her love for Father to hate. It was during one of his absences that she told me the true story of how she and Father met, of how he woke her from her long sleep and led her to believe she was his only wife, lying to her for years, until it was too late for her to escape him.
Human men can’t be trusted, not even fathers.
“I was under a woman’s spell once,” Niklaas says as he turns Alama into the woods to the left of the road. I follow, hoping the change of course means we’re near our camp for the night. “A girl’s spell, anyway. It wasn’t too awful. While it lasted.”
“What broke it?” I ask, feeling no need to subdue my curiosity. Niklaas has done his share of nosing into my business. It seems only right to return the favor.
“My father married her.” Niklaas snaps a branch off one of the trees and uses it to bat at the low hanging leaves. “She’s been my stepmother for a year.”
“Oh,” I say, unsure how to respond. “That must have been … difficult.”
He shrugs. “Regiene didn’t love me; she loved being with a boy with ties to the crown,” he says, not a trace of hurt in his tone. “As soon as she had a crown of her own, her true colors began bleeding all over the castle. She’s been a terror to the other ladies, including my little sister, and I could never love a girl who treated my Haanah poorly.”
I stare hard at his broad back, wondering if he’s being sincere, the way he seemed to be when he promised not to treat me like a child. “That’s … good of you.”
“I’m a good, good man. You should tell your sister as much.” He glances over his shoulder with a wiggle of his eyebrows. “And tell her I’m more than ready to fall under her spell. It’s been too long since I’ve been stupid over a beautiful girl, and I mean to fall dumbly in love with my future wife.”
I barely resist the urge to gag. I’m sick of listening to him go on and on about his future with my “sister,” and we’ve only been traveling a day. By the time we reach Goreman, I’ll be ready to cut his tongue out to spare myself the torture.
As if I’d ever marry a boy so arrogant he believes every girl he meets is tripping over her own feet in her eagerness to leap into his bed. Even if it were safe to lose my heart, Niklaas wouldn’t get within spitting distance of snatching it away.
But it isn’t safe. …
Thyne. It still hurts to think his name, though it’s been over a year since it became clear that my fairy gifts have a dark side, a wicked side as black as an ogre’s belly. Over a year that I’ve known I will never kiss a boy again, at least not a boy I love. It’s too dangerous.
I didn’t even love Thyne in that way. He was like a big brother to me, a best friend who taught me to fight and climb trees and sneak the last of the cocoa cakes from the kitchen while Janin was busy. He carved my first staff when I was nine and gave me my current weapon—blessed ironwood coveted by every boy on our island—for my sixteenth birthday.
That was when I kissed him. At first, a peck on the cheek, but then a brush of my lips against his, a brush that turned into something more, something … nice, but too strange to be a proper kiss. I expected us both to pull away and laugh, putting the possibility of something more than friendship behind us forever, but when the kiss ended Thyne wasn’t Thyne anymore.
He was a lamp with the wick blown out, waiting for me to light him.
Janin told me long ago that my mother had blessed me with a heart no man I loved would dare defy, but none of us could have imagined the damage the blessing would inflict. I’m sur
e Mama didn’t intend for my kiss to steal away the free will of the boys I love—especially not a boy I loved as a brother—but she said herself that fairy blessings have a way of becoming curses. …
My curse means that I will never know romantic love. Not all human men are wicked, and there are so many kind, handsome Fey boys I daydreamed about when I was younger, but I will never know what it is like to love one of them. I will never know what passion feels like. I will always be alone.
Sometimes it seems a small price to pay for my fairy gifts. Sometimes it makes my body ache with a loneliness so profound I fear my soul will forever be bruised. I am a prisoner in a cell of my mother’s good intentions and I will never, ever escape
“Are you all right?” Niklaas asks, startling me from my thoughts.
I glance up to find him studying me. “I’m fine,” I snap.
“Don’t bite me a third eye,” he says, holding up a hand in a gesture of surrender. “Just trying to be ‘good’ is all. You look a little pale.”
I take a breath and force my face into the expressionless mask I’ve perfected in the past year. It has become my armor, a way to survive living side by side with the boy I destroyed and the people who love him. People too gracious to hate me the way I deserve to be hated, too honorable to banish the human girl who was never really one of them, too polite to watch when Thyne leaves the supper table to follow me to my cot, awaiting the chance to do my slightest bidding, to weep outside my window when I refuse to let him share my bed.
“I’m bone-weary.” I swallow past the tightness in my jaw. “The Vale Flowers kept my head too clouded for rest. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in at least three days.”
“Then it’s a good thing we’re here.”
We pass out of the last of the close-growing pin oaks onto a bald hilltop inhabited by the reclining corpses of ancient, hollowed-out trees. The petrified forest is smaller than I had imagined but lovely and peaceful, with a stunning view of the softly rolling grassland below. The golden grass beneath our overlook shimmers like a thousand mini-torches set fire by the sunset, while beyond the outlines of great blue mountains brood in the graying distance.
“Are those the Feeding Hills?” I ask.
“They are.” Niklaas swings off Alama with a soft groan that makes me feel better about how damaged our ride has left me. He ties her to a dead tree’s gnarled limb, leaving enough lead for her to graze on the short grass.
“They’re bigger than I thought they’d be.” I bite my lip to stifle the moan that tries to escape as I slide off Button’s back.
“Meaner, too,” Niklaas says, removing Alama’s bridle and reaching for the belt of her saddle. “There’ll be wicked snowstorms and avalanches up there come winter. It’s good we’re making the journey now. Though in a normal year we’d still be risking snow on the higher trails.” He sets Alama’s saddle atop the tree with a grunt and motions for me to bring Button closer. “Hopefully the fair weather will hold.”
“It will,” I say, limping as I hand Button over to Niklaas, who ties the horse next to Alama with an extra length of rope.
Button dips his head and begins to lip contentedly at the grass. At least he doesn’t seem sore from our ride, but I hadn’t expected him to be. One of the few advantages of being a runt is knowing you won’t give your horse an aching back at the end of the day.
“How can you be sure?” Niklaas asks. “The fairies tell you?”
“We’re in the long summer of the ogre prophecy. We should have warm weather until Nonstyne. Or until the rise of the living darkness,” I add in a sour tone. “Whichever comes first.”
“What is the living darkness?” he asks, fetching his waterskin from his saddlebag. “I’ve heard of it, but I always thought it was more ogre madness.”
I lean against the fallen tree and pull my overshorts lower on my hips, hoping to grant my tender parts a little relief. “No one knows, not even the Fey.”
“But the prophecy says a briar-born child will usher in the Final Age.”
I nod, accepting the skin he passes over. “Yes, but we don’t know how. Aurora and I would never aid the ogres willingly, but it might be our blood they need for a ritual or … something. It isn’t clear. Hopefully, we won’t ever find out.”
“Assuming Ekeeta doesn’t get her hands on you or your sister.”
I nod again.
“She doesn’t have Aurora now, does she?” Niklaas asks, making me choke on my gulp of water.
“Of course not.” I cough, cursing myself for letting my guard down. He’s too close to the truth. “Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know.” Niklaas watches me with deceptive calm, but I can feel his gaze boring into me the way it did when I was half out of my mind on Vale Flowers and certain he could see through my skin. He eyes aren’t merely beautiful; they’re as crafty as a thief’s. I’ll have to be careful if I want to keep my secrets.
“I’ve been wondering why a prince in your position would need an army,” he says, “aside from getting your sister’s kingdom back, which we both know you’re in no position to do without ships to secure the coast and an army five times the size of the one you may or may not secure in the Feeding Hills. You’re not a fool, so you must have a compelling reason. Getting your sister away from Ekeeta would be a good one.”
“Ekeeta doesn’t have my sister, but she has someone … dear to me. A Fey friend who was captured while carrying a message to Aurora,” I lie, grateful that Ekeeta has kept her capture of Jor quiet for whatever reason.
I have to tell Niklaas something if I want him to stop picking before he rips the scab off the truth. If he really wants to be introduced to the princess of Norvere as badly as he says, then telling him Ekeeta has “my sister” would gain his support for raising an army—but it could create other problems.
What if he went charging off to rescue the fair maiden himself, only to find a boy in the dungeon? I doubt he would save my brother out of the goodness of his heart, not after I’d tricked him, and it’s far more likely that Niklaas would end up dead for his troubles. As irritating as he can be, I don’t want to be responsible for his death.
“A friend,” Niklaas repeats, clearly unsatisfied with my answer. “A friend you’re willing to risk your life and your sister’s kingdom for? Aurora will need all the help she can get if she hopes to stage a successful overthrow in the future. If you’re dead, she’ll have lost her only family and the ability to marry you off to some nice princess and strengthen her alliance with the countries of Herth.”
“I know what my sister and I have to lose.” I cap the waterskin and hand it over but keep my eyes on Button’s shivering side, running my fingers down his dusty coat as he grazes, wishing I had a brush to curry him with. “I know what’s worth fighting for.”
“Aren’t you a little young to—”
“Don’t say it,” I warn, close to losing my patience with his condescending attitude. “If you start preaching about my youth again, I’ll have to beat some sense into you, no matter how sore I am.”
“Sore, eh?” He hums low in his throat. “I know what’ll make you feel better. Me too. I’m as sore as a newlywed’s nethers,” he says, thankfully letting the matter drop. “Feel like I’ve been beaten between the legs with a rolling pin. Which, sadly enough, actually happened to my sorry self upon one occasion.”
“Really?” I fall in behind him as he takes off into the trees, down a gentle hill.
“Really.” He sighs. “One morning, not long ago, a baker off the coast of Eno City got up to set his loaves cooking and caught me asleep by the fire with his daughter.”
“Whose loaves you’d set cooking the night before,” I say, tsking beneath my breath.
Niklaas laughs as he spins around, treating me to a rakish grin I’m sure the baker’s daughter is still dreaming about to this day.
“Maybe you aren’t so young after all.” He’s still chuckling when he turns to leap atop a large stone and climb u
p the side of an even larger boulder blocking the path.
I scramble after him, determined to hold on to the light moment. Niklaas isn’t all bad, and I can’t deny that I’m anticipating whatever this is that will make us feel better.
The anticipation lasts until I reach the top of the boulder and see Niklaas already down the other side, bounding across two flat rocks toward a pool of steaming water, stripping his shirt off as he goes. By the time he reaches the edge of the smoking spring, he’s shucked his boots and loosened the tie on his riding pants.
I realize what he intends to do, but before I can turn my back, his pants slide off his hips, and Niklaas, eleventh son of the immortal king, is as naked as the day he was born.
I freeze—jaw dropping, blood draining from my face—unable to tear my eyes away, though I know I should. But, warrior’s clothes be damned, I’m a seventeen-year-old girl, and what seventeen-year-old girl could look away from a sight like that?
Niklaas may have the face of a golden god, but he has the body of a devil, a creature sent from the Pit to tempt a girl to abandon everything she holds dear for one night, skin to skin, with a creature designed for pleasure. The sort of pleasure that, since the day I kissed Thyne, I’ve known I must forever do without.
But now, as I watch Niklaas ease into the water, I wonder …
What if I didn’t love the boy—not even friendly love, the way I loved Thyne? What if he didn’t love me? Would my kiss still steal away his mind? Or would he retain his head so long as our bodies were the only part of our selves involved?
What would it be like to join Niklaas in the water? To show him who I really am and feel his hands on my bare skin, his lips at my throat? The thought is enough to make my pulse speed, until I remember who I’m lusting after and come to my senses with a shiver of disgust.
Even if it were safe, there’s no way I’d give Niklaas the satisfaction of knowing that the girl he’s determined to make his wife before he’s even met her finds him even a lick interesting in that way.