Heart of Thorns Read online

  Dedication

  For Carli Christina Cat,

  the original BA

  Map

  Epigraph

  One of the ancient maps of the world

  is heart-shaped, carefully drawn

  and once washed with bright colors,

  though the colors have faded

  as you might expect feelings to fade

  from a fragile old heart, the brown map

  of a life. But feeling is indelible,

  and longing infinite, a starburst compass

  pointing in all the directions

  two lovers might go, a fresh breeze

  swelling their sails, the future uncharted,

  still far from the edge

  where the sea pours into the stars.

  Reproduced from Valentines by Ted Kooser by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 2008 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska.

  Fidacteu zeu biqhotz limarya eu naj.

  Trust your heart, even if it kills you.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One: Flesh

  Chapter 1: Porcelain Bosom

  Chapter 2: Instruments of War

  Chapter 3: Bones and Dust

  Chapter 4: Blank

  Chapter 5: A Common Enemy

  Chapter 6: Painfully Small

  Chapter 7: Smoldering

  Chapter 8: Blackmail

  Chapter 9: Love Is a Lodestone

  Chapter 10: Promise Me

  Chapter 11: Gwyrach

  Chapter 12: Times of Unimaginable Duress

  Part Two: Bone

  Chapter 13: How to Escape Successfully in Eight Simple Steps

  Chapter 14: A Brief and Bloody End

  Chapter 15: Silver Blade

  Chapter 16: A Raven on the River

  Chapter 17: Merely Girls

  Chapter 18: Bait

  Chapter 19: Too Lovely

  Chapter 20: Awful Bloody Work

  Chapter 21: Unknowable Parts

  Chapter 22: Thawing

  Chapter 23: A Piping Hot Mug of Butterfel

  Chapter 24: Dangerously Warm

  Chapter 25: Undergarments

  Chapter 26: A Magical Honeymoon

  Chapter 27: Because a King Can

  Chapter 28: Broken

  Chapter 29: Imperfect Cleavage

  Chapter 30: Monster

  Part Three: Breath

  Chapter 31: Fire and Air

  Chapter 32: Five Small Craters

  Chapter 33: A Little Head Magic

  Chapter 34: Forbidden

  Chapter 35: Murderous Angels

  Chapter 36: Meant for You

  Chapter 37: Shimmering and Sliced

  Chapter 38: Bare

  Chapter 39: An Excellent Stew

  Chapter 40: River Rats

  Chapter 41: Wilder

  Chapter 42: The Blood Beneath

  Chapter 43: More Than You Will Ever Know

  Chapter 44: Beautiful Vessels

  Chapter 45: Choking

  Chapter 46: Sister of Mine

  Chapter 47: Hollows

  Chapter 48: Everything You Thought You Knew

  Chapter 49: Deserve It

  Chapter 50: Home

  Part Four: Blood

  Chapter 51: The Threat of Violence, or the Promise

  Chapter 52: The People You Love

  Chapter 53: Moonlight

  Chapter 54: Weeping Blood

  Chapter 55: A Family of Maggots

  Chapter 56: Diaphanous

  Chapter 57: Heart for a Heart

  Chapter 58: Grief and Shame and Magic

  Chapter 59: Who You Are

  Chapter 60: Nothing

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Bree Barton

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  ONCE UPON A TIME, in a castle carved of stone, a girl plotted murder.

  Part One

  Flesh

  Chapter 1

  Porcelain Bosom

  ON THE EVE OF her wedding to the prince, Mia Rose ought to have been sitting at her cherrywood dresser, primping her auburn curls and lacing her whalebone corset. She should have been fussing with the train of her gown, a piece of oyster silk that unfurled behind her like a snow-kissed boulevard.

  Mia was doing none of those things.

  She paced her bridal chambers with a pouch of boar’s blood gripped between her fingers. For weeks she’d done meticulous research, filching various cuts of meat from the castle kitchens—duck, goose, venison—but the boar emerged victorious. The blood would dry like human blood: a dark crusted brown.

  She had purloined one of her sister’s gowns so she could shred it alongside her wedding dress, leaving them both behind in bloodied ribbons. The plan was simple. She would stage the scene in the tunnels beneath the castle, with only one logical conclusion to be drawn: Mia, the prince’s intended bride, had been brutally attacked, abducted, and most likely killed, along with her younger sister, Angelyne. The poor little Rose girls, taken before their time.

  While the king’s guards scoured the castle grounds for the vile murderer, Mia would lead Angie to freedom.

  It was admittedly not her finest plan. The problem was, it was her only plan. And there was one additional, fairly significant hitch:

  She hadn’t told her sister.

  “Mi? Are you nearly ready?”

  Angelyne swept into Mia’s chambers, her satin slippers gliding over the floor. “I came to see if you needed . . .” She stopped short. “Why are you wearing a rope?”

  Mia had fed a thick rope through her trouser loops for their descent into the castle’s subterranean bowels. She opened her mouth to explain, but no words came out. The beginning of a headache was scratching at her temples.

  Angie frowned. “You do know the final feast is about to begin.”

  “I am aware.”

  “And you are gownless and gloveless.”

  “True.”

  “And your hair looks like a poodle died on your head.”

  “I’ve always enjoyed the company of poodles.”

  “Is that blood?” Angelyne snatched the leather pouch out of Mia’s hands, sniffed, and grimaced. “I don’t care what you were about to do; I’ll tell you what you’re doing now.” She gestured toward the cherry dresser, nudging a stack of books and a stubby wax candle aside. “Sit. I’m going to pin your hair.”

  Mia flumped into the chair, irritated. The headache was clawing at her skull. Why was she unable to tell her sister about the plan? It wasn’t as if the stakes weren’t treacherously high: one month ago, their father, Griffin, had promised the king a bride for his son. At seventeen, Mia was the obvious choice. But fifteen-year-old Angie was a close second.

  Mia had tried desperately to dissuade her father. Girls in the river kingdom were rarely given a say in the men they married, yet Mia had naively assumed she would be different. Under her father’s tutelage, she had trained as a Huntress for the past three years. Surely he wouldn’t pawn her off to the highest bidder. But no matter how much she pleaded, he never wavered.

  He had condemned her to a lifelong prison sentence, annihilating all chance of love or happiness. Her own father, who knew better than anyone the power of love. Fortunately Mia had no intention of wedding and bedding Prince Quin. She had work to do. A sister to save . . . and a murderous Gwyrach to find.

  “Angie? I need to—”

  “Sit still? You’re absolutely right.” Angelyne rummaged through her basket
of hairpins and alarmingly sharp objects. It was Mia’s fault she was in the castle at all. When the queen had tried to furnish Mia with a lady-in-waiting to help with gowns, gems, and skin greases, the whole idea made her nervous (what was the lady waiting for?). So she had requested that Angie stay in Kaer Killian, the royal castle, during the engagement.

  Most days she regretted it. The drafty castle had only exacerbated her sister’s many mysterious illnesses. The Kaer was an ancient citadel, carved from a mountain of ice and frozen rock. It was miserably cold. Not to mention Angie had been attracting the attention of the young duke, which was troubling. Ange was lithe and slender, with a pale heart-shaped face, rose-petal lips, and wavy hair the color of summer strawberries ripening on the vine.

  “Mia Rose,” Angie muttered, “Princess of Chaos, Destroyer of Nice Things.”

  Ange let out a short, sharp cough before swiftly regaining her composure. She yanked a bone comb through Mia’s tangles hard enough to make her gasp.

  “Angelyne Rose, Mistress of Pain, Wielder of Torture Tools.” Mia massaged her temples. “My head was killing me before you started this torment. I don’t know why I’m suddenly getting these atrocious headaches.”

  Angie paused. “Where does it hurt, exactly?”

  “Here.” She pointed to the back of her skull. “The occiput. And here.” She dug her fingertips into the bridge of her nose. “The sphenoid bone. It’s like my whole cerebrum is on fire.”

  “Human words, please. Not all of us speak anatomy.”

  “Even my mandible is throbbing.” Mia massaged her jaw.

  “You mean you have a toothache.”

  “Teeth. All of them.”

  “How can all your teeth ache at once?” Her sister smothered another cough. “Here. I have just the thing.”

  Angie fished a dented tin of peppermint salve out of her basket. When she tried to twist off the lid, she fumbled. They both stared at her gloved hands. The lamb slinkskin was a soft, pale pink.

  “It’s all right,” Mia said. “You can take them off. I won’t tell Father.”

  Slowly, carefully, Angie pinched the lambskin at her pinkie, then her ring finger, then her pointer. She inched the glove off her hand and laid it neatly on the dresser. Her complexion was smooth and peachy, so different from Mia’s ivory skin and copper freckles.

  “Just think,” Ange said quietly. “After tomorrow, you’ll never have to wear them again.”

  How easy it was to forget.

  With the exception of the royal family, all girls were required to wear gloves as a precautionary measure. Any woman might be Gwyrach; hence every woman was a threat. The Gwyrach were women who, through the simple act of touch, could manipulate flesh, bone, breath, and blood.

  Not women, Mia reminded herself. Demons. They were half god, half human—the wrath and power of a god mixed with the petty jealousies and grudges of human beings. The Gwyrach could fracture bones and freeze breath. They could starve limbs of oxygen, enthrall a heart with false desire, and make blood boil and skin crawl. They could even stop a heart. How effortless, this act of murder: a palm pressed to a chest, and a life snuffed out forever. Mia had seen proof.

  A Gwyrach had destroyed their lives—and Mia was going to find her. Heart for a heart, life for a life. But first, she and Angelyne had to escape.

  In the mirror, she saw a shadow flicker over her sister’s face. Then it was gone. Angie rubbed the peppermint salve into Mia’s jaw and quickly slid the glove back over her hand. Her wrists were so thin they made Mia’s chest ache. Birdlike. There was a reason their mother had called Angie her little swan.

  Before she knew what was happening, her sister was lifting Mia’s linen tunic up over her head and fitting the whalebone corset around her rib cage.

  “Four hells, Angie!”

  “What? You look like a princess!” She stared admiringly at Mia’s reflection. “Will there be candlelight in the prince’s chambers? Because it does wonders for your bone structure. Your clavicle throws the most beautiful shadows. . . .”

  “I doubt it’s my clavicle he’ll be looking at,” Mia said darkly. Between the whalebone corset pushing up and the gown’s neckline plunging down, she had never seen so much of her own flesh.

  “You have Mother’s figure.” Angie sighed. “What I wouldn’t give to have a porcelain swell of breast.”

  Mia caught her sister’s eye in the polished glass, and despite everything—or maybe because of it—they both burst into laughter. It was always like this: they could be bickering one moment and shrieking in unabashed delight the next.

  “You’ve been reading your dreadful novels again, I see.”

  “You have so little faith in fate. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to fall in love! To be swept up in something bigger than yourself—to find a handsome partner in the dance of destiny.”

  “Like Mother and Father.”

  Angie touched the moonstone pendant at her throat. It had belonged to their mother. “Yes,” she said, her voice feathery soft. “Like that.”

  They were wasting precious time. It was now or never. “I need you to listen, Ange. What I’m about to tell you is important.”

  “Oh?” Her sister seized a long hairpin and plunged it into the smoldering candle, then took a strand of Mia’s dark-red hair and coiled it around the warm, waxy pin. When she let go, it snaked into a perfect corkscrew. In the torchlight Mia couldn’t help but think her curls gleamed the color of wet blood.

  “Angelyne.” Her voice was deadly quiet. “We are getting out of here. You and I. I have everything arranged, so you don’t have to do anything but trust me.”

  Angie set the pin slowly on the dresser. Her blue eyes flashed in the mirror.

  “I know what you’ve been plotting, Mi. I’ve seen you with your maps, packing your secret satchels. I know you’re running away. And I’m not coming.”

  Mia was stunned. “I—I’m not leaving you behind.”

  “Maybe I want to be left behind. Have you considered that? Maybe this life you’re so determined to hate—living in a castle, married to a prince—isn’t such a bad life.”

  “To be trapped forever in this frozen tomb?” She reached up and pressed a palm to her sister’s forehead. “Are you febrile? The fever is stealing your sense.”

  Angie shrugged her off. “I’m the one who’s being sensible! You treat me like a victim. Poor sick little Angie, always in need of someone to save her. But I don’t need saving. Go. Flee the castle. Run off to have your adventures.”

  “My adventures? You speak as if I’m going on holiday. You know I have to find her, Angie. If Father won’t, I will. Heart for a heart, life for a life.”

  “Yes, well. You Hunters all think you’re exacting justice when really you’re just adding weight to one side of the scale. More bodies. More loss.”

  The conversation was twisting too quickly for Mia to grab hold of. “Why would you choose a loveless marriage? What about the ‘dance of destiny’? Think of the way Mother looked at Father . . .”

  “I try not to think of her,” Angie snapped. “Though you seem intent on reminding me.”

  “Is that really what you want? To be bound by sacred vow to a boy who doesn’t love you? All so you can twirl around the castle in a pretty gown?”

  “You don’t get to tell me what I want!”

  All the blood drained from Angelyne’s face. She staggered forward, clutching the bedpost, her slim body racked by coughs. Instantly Mia was by her side.

  “The dizzy spells again?”

  “They come out of nowhere. Everything is fine and then the world goes white.”

  “Maybe you should lie down.”

  “Maybe I should.” Mia helped ease her onto the canopy bed, plumping the vermilion silk pillows under her head. She watched her sister’s chest rise and fall, a delicate paper lantern. Guilt roiled in her belly.

  Mia didn’t feel so well herself. An inexplicable heat poured over her, as scorching as if she’d leaned over a f
ire, orange flames licking her freckled flesh. She felt the sweat gathering damply beneath her arms, pooling in the scoop of her lower back. Reason number six hundred and twelve she wouldn’t make a very good princess: princesses did not have sweat stains blooming on their fine silken gowns.

  Angie’s smile was sad. “Look at me. Not even strong enough to have a proper fight. I really am a heroine from one of my novels.” She reached for Mia’s hand, her skin sweltering. “Go, Mi. If you want to run, run. I’ll only slow you down.”

  Mia’s heart plummeted. Her sister couldn’t go more than five minutes without succumbing to one of her unexplained ailments—fevers, coughing fits, dizzy spells, monstrous headaches. Sometimes Ange stumbled forward, her feet gone suddenly limp, her toes numb. Mia had searched all her books on physiology, exhausted every tome on maladies and infections. She always came up short.

  To escape, they would need to slip stealthily through an endless maze of tunnels, flee the castle, make it through the village undetected, commandeer a boat, and sail the Natha River east to Fojo Karação. Fojo was where her mother had first fallen in love—and where she had made enemies. The journey would take days. Weeks.

  Angie would never make it. In her heart of hearts, Mia had always known.

  The truth seeped into her with sickening certitude.

  She would never find the murderous Gwyrach.

  She would never leave the castle.

  She would marry the prince.

  Mia tried valiantly to mask her despair. If she couldn’t save her sister, at least she could make her smile.

  “You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid. Even if you’d rather have a handsome boy to admire the swell of your porcelain bosom.”

  She heard footsteps in the castle corridor. Two harsh knocks echoed through her chambers.

  “Lady Mia?” It was the prince, his voice icy. “I’ve some news.”

  Chapter 2

  Instruments of War

  PRINCE QUIN STOOD AT the threshold, arms crossed. He bore a striking resemblance to her favorite human-anatomy sketch: his body long and lean, his face perfectly symmetrical. Not that she’d noticed.