The Girl of Fire and Thorns

She rushes through the atrium, her bun in disarray. “What is it? Are you all right?”

“Ximena, what am I in danger from? Why am I safer here than in Orovalle?”

She leans into the archway, her shoulders slumped. I see conflict on her face—the furrowed brow, lips pressed into a thin line. Her Vía-Reforma beliefs make it difficult to discuss the Godstone with me. But she wants to. I know she does.

I say, softly, “Don’t you think I would be safer if I knew what I was facing?”

Her features settle into resignation, and she takes a deep breath. “There were . . . incidents. Most recently, your taster. She died. Poisoned.”

“My taster? When?”

“A few months before you married the king.”

“I had a taster?”

She says nothing.

My heart thumps wildly. Someone tried to kill me. “Because I am a princess? Or because I am the bearer?”

“There was nothing to be gained by the death of the second princess. Unless someone wanted to leave the ascendancy open. But there were no attempts on your sister’s life.”

“I had a taster.” Someone risked her life every day for me. Died for me. Someone I never knew. “No wonder you were always so incensed when Aneaxi and I sneaked down to the kitchens.”

“Yes. Surely you noticed how she always fetched the food and served you herself? That’s because, during those late-night forays, Aneaxi had to taste instead.”

I can’t breathe for the sudden weight on my chest. Ximena hurries to the bedside, wraps me in her arms. “I’m so sorry, my sky. We all wanted to keep this from you, give you as normal an upbringing as possible. You are safer here, where few follow God’s path and most never learn the name of the bearer.”

“Why? Why would bearing the Godstone make someone want to kill me?”

Her hands rub up and down my upper arms. “Oh, lots of reasons. Because you are a political symbol, even to those who don’t believe in God’s power. Because religious zealotry makes some people do strange things.”

She should know.

“And, to be perfectly frank, because your flawless stone, ripped from your dead body, would fetch an astonishing price on the black market.”

I gasp, as stunned by her bluntness as I am the crude idea that the Godstone could be an ordinary object of commerce.

“Oh, my sky, I never wanted to frighten you this way, but you see now why you must be cautious, yes? Please tell me you understand.”

I choke out the words. “I understand.”

It is a long time before I’m ready to snuff the candles and close my eyes.

I’m not sure what awakens me. Ximena left the door to the balcony open at my request, and the light breeze flutters the curtains. But the whipping sound is gentle, nothing I don’t usually sleep through. It is mostly dark, for there is no moon. I see the barest outlines of my dressing table and bedposts in the coppery glow that seeps into my chamber from a city that never quite sleeps.

I smell cinnamon, sharp and sweet. It’s strong enough that my nose tickles. I sense a human presence in the dimness, and I think it’s Ximena until a rough cloth covers my mouth. I try to jerk my head to the side, but the cloth is heavy and grips my face. This is what Ximena warned me of, what everyone feared. I need to scream, to alert my nurse.

“Unnng!” I manage through my nose. The effort expends all the air in my lungs, and my heartbeat fills the empty space. Tears trickle from the corners of my eyes, and I’m dizzy with the need to breathe. I suck air right through the cloth in spite of the hand holding it there. I feel a moment of victory, knowing the attempt at suffocation will fail. Maybe if I kick my bedposts, or twist around . . . but the cinnamon scent becomes tiny prickles in my throat, in my chest. My head whirls; I’m sinking farther and farther into my mattress. Something closes around me, something darker than mere dimness and hotter than desert summer. The copper glow from my balcony winks out.

I’m rocking from side to side, gently. My arms are pinned tight, swaddled like a child’s. Or maybe I’m in a coffin. My eyelids flutter, but they are stuck together and crusty. I can’t force them open. After a moment, I don’t even try, because I sense that the glare would be too harsh. I always imagined the afterworld would be a bright place, but without the desert heat. Without the taste in my mouth of meat gone sour.

I hear conversation. Easy, comfortable, mundane. Something about stopping to rest, about our water supply, a joke about camels that I don’t understand though everyone laughs. One of the voices is feminine and familiar. I can’t place it, but muddled recognition clamps my teeth tightly together.

“The princess will awaken soon,” someone says.

“We are too far away for it to matter,” responds the familiar voice.

I try to squirm or cry out or kick something, but my body won’t obey. Desperation swells my lungs, hot and thick. You can’t take me away, I sob, somewhere deep inside the unresponsive carcass that is my body. You can’t! Alejandro is finally going to marry me.

Someone mutters something about an oasis, and the voices break into laughter again. It has a giddy ring to it, a ring of triumph.

PART II

Chapter 13

I don’t know how much time has passed. My awareness is strange, full of heat and shimmering, and I cannot tell whether I’m awake or dreaming. Perhaps I float along in the bizarre vividness that divides the two.

Darkness slides over me like a curtain, blessedly cool against my eyelids. All at once, the gentle rocking motion stops. I hear murmurings. Gradually they crystallize into voices: a woman, two men. “We’ll need to feed her soon. No, I don’t know when she last ate. Yes, you’re right, water first.” My stomach aches with emptiness, but any thought of food sends curls of nausea through my stomach and dry phlegm to the back of my throat.

A hand caresses my cheek, large and warm. Gentle.

“Are you hungry, Princess?” A young, male voice. Very close. He holds the syllables back in his throat, then springs off of them in the lilt of the desert people.

I strain to open my eyes, but something seals them shut.

“Ah, poor thing. Let me . . .” Cool, dripping cloth smoothes across my eyelids. I realize I’m desperately thirsty. My eyes flutter open.

I gasp, for his face is only a handspan above mine. I notice his eyes first, huge and glimmering brown like polished breadnuts. They are framed by more hair than I’ve ever seen on a boy. It parts in the middle and hangs in black waves well past his shoulders. Soft stubble can’t hide his youthfulness. It’s a pleasant face.

The face of my captor, I remind myself. “What do you want?” My tongue is thick in my mouth, like a dry pillow, and the words sound muffled and round.

“We want you, Princess.” He stands and steps out of my vision, revealing a ceiling of strange fabric held in place by wooden posts. It’s dense like wool, but variegated and rough as unfinished parchment.

He returns with a wooden cup. He reaches under my shoulders and lifts me easily with one broad hand. With the other, he puts the edge of the cup to my lips.

“Drink. If this settles well, we’ll try some food.” The water is warm and bitter, but I slurp it eagerly. The cup empties too quickly, and he lowers me back. “Now we wait a bit.” He settles back, like a stray dog on his haunches, and looks me over with interest.

“Who are you?” I ask, and my voice works better this time, though it wavers with fear. I hope Ximena is all right. I hope Alejandro is searching for me.

My captor smiles shyly, and his teeth are shocking white against dark desert skin. “I’m Humberto,” he says. “Traveling escort, by profession.”

I try to shift onto my side to see him better, but my body is stiff and my hips won’t obey. “Humberto. Why can’t I move?”

“Oh, that’s the duerma leaf. You breathed in a good lot of it. It will go away in a day or two.”

A day or two? “How long have I— That is, how long since you kidnapped me?” I’m gratified to see him wince.

His smile disappears. “Awhile, Princess. Long enough.”

“The king will find me.”

“He will look,” he says solemnly, then changes the subject. “You have nice eyes. Very pretty.”

I close those eyes tight. Even so, tears squeeze from the outside corners and dribble down my cheeks.

“Oh, Princess, I’m so sorry. I hope I didn’t say anything . . . And you’ll be treated well, I swear!”

I open my eyes. The concern in his face is plain, even through tear-blurred vision. “What do you want? Why did you take me?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “We’ll talk about that later. Hungry yet?”

“A little.”

“Wonderful!” He launches to his feet. “I’ll be back.”

I’m left alone to stare at the strange ceiling, finally understanding that I’m in a tent. Thick blankets swaddle me, pinning my arms to my sides. By the smell, I guess they’re made of goat hair. My exposed face and neck are chilly, the drying tears on my cheeks icy.

Muffled voices trickle in from outside. Three at least. My enemy must be powerful, or at least very clever, to sneak into the royal wing of Alejandro’s palace and then escape with an enormous bundle of a person.

My enemy. I remember the words of Homer’s Afflatus about the enemy’s gates. About the realm of sorcery.

I hear the flap of heavy fabric followed by shuffling footsteps, and Humberto hovers over me again. He puts the cup of meaty broth to my lips, and I sniff it suspiciously.

“It’s not poisoned,” he says. “If we wanted to poison you, we could have done so when we dosed you with duerma leaf.”

“Taste it for me.”

He shrugs and tips the cup against his mouth. I watch closely to make sure he ingests a good bit.

When he returns the cup to my lips, I sip eagerly. It’s delicious and hot, with an unfamiliar, gamey meat spiced with garlic and green onions. He pulls the cup away to let me swallow and catch my breath.

“Thank you. What is it?”

“My sister makes the best jerboa soup in Joya.”

“Jerboa?”

“Little sand rat.” He makes a tight fist. “About so big.”

I recoil into my blankets. “I’m sipping rat soup?”

He laughs. “Well, jerboas are very different creatures, really. Cleaner, for one. A lot more appealing too, with nice tawny fur and tufted tails.”

I am not reassured.

“Ready for more?”

Though he said I would be well treated, I am certain of nothing and cannot know when next I’ll eat. I force myself to slurp the rest.

When I finish, Humberto stretches. “Try to sleep, Princess. We leave in the morning.” Leave and go where? But he is gone, the torch with him, before I can ask my question, leaving me alone in the frigid dark.

I have never felt so frightened and powerless. Closing my eyes again is a relief. In spite of everything, I drift into natural sleep.

I’m awakened by an intense need to relieve myself. Golden light and pleasant warmth creep into my tent, but the pressure in my lower abdomen is ferocious. I flex my toes and bend my knees to test them. They’re heavy and weak, but they do respond. Quietly, I wriggle my arms from their stiff swaddling.

A light wind batters the tent walls, but I hear no voices, no movement outside. Nothing ties me down. Perhaps they didn’t expect the duerma leaf to wear off so soon. Just maybe, I can escape.

I twist away from the goat-hair blankets and clamber to my feet, then I freeze for a moment, listening. Nothing. I tiptoe across canvaslike material to the tent flap and put my hand to the light-edged crack. I hesitate, realizing I’m still clad in my nightgown and bed slippers. But I cannot afford time for modesty. My heart patters as I peel aside the fabric.

Light blinds me. I turn my face to the side and wait for my vision to adjust. It does, slowly, as a hot breeze ruffles hair that has escaped Ximena’s clip. I step outside, into fine sand that warms my feet even through my slippers.

Another step, and I know, definitively, that there will be no escape. I hug myself, sickened by hopelessness and feeling very tiny. The swooping dunes of Joya’s desert are everywhere, in every direction, burnished red in the shadowed side, bright like molten gold in the sunrise, to the very edge of the world. The breeze stirs little eddies along the top sides, and I see how fluid this place is, how unpredictable and dangerous. The sun is at my back, already merciless. I stand on a rise such that my shadow stretches into the distance, curling and plunging across the scalloped sand.

“Going somewhere, Highness?”

I jump at her mocking voice. It’s the familiar one I couldn’t place while fighting my duerma-leaf coma. I close my eyes and take a deep, controlling breath before turning to face her.

“Hello, Cosmé.”

She stands straight, arms crossed, short hair curling and loose in the desert breeze. Her black eyes and delicate features are the same, but she seems different without the maid’s apron and cap. Or maybe it’s because her stoicism has been replaced by open hostility.

“It’s so nice to see you,” I lie. “I hope you’re well.”

“I see the duerma leaf is wearing off quickly.”

“What did you do to Ximena? Did you kill her to steal me away?”

She shifts in the sand, a tiny crack in her callous bearing, perhaps. “Your nurse is fine. I put a pinch of duerma leaf in her tea so she would sleep soundly; that is all.”

The relief is overpowering, but I will not cry in front of Cosmé. The only weapon I have right now is unpredictability, so I shower her with polite respect. “Thank you. And thank you for the soup last night.”