Heart of Thorns (Heart of Thorns #1)
Bree Barton
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. . . .”