Heart of Thorns (Heart of Thorns #1)

There were a million things she wanted to say, and none of them sayable. He’d trusted her, and they’d survived. She’d trusted herself, and they’d survived. It flew in the face of everything she knew in her head, but confirmed the quiet whisper of her heart. For once, she had listened.

“Thank you, Mia,” he said softly. “For saving my life.”

His voice echoed off the red walls. He traced her jawbone with the tip of his thumb, leaving a trail of heat so smoky it reduced her chin to cinder.

He took a step toward her, and her stomach clenched.

Behind him was a hot air balloon.

The balloon was gigantic, winged and painted red.

They approached cautiously, unsure if they’d discovered a treasure or a trap. The balloon was tethered to a rock; it bumped gently in the breeze as they ran their hands over the bronze bucket, scalloped and grooved, a narrow wooden bench snugged inside.

Overhead a giant tube was welded to the metal with a simple crank on one end and wads of dry kindling stuffed inside the other. A strip of coarse rock was nailed beneath it, and swinging from a rope was the biggest sulfyr stick Mia had ever seen.

The sun, now a sphere balanced happily on the horizon, warmed the balloon like a red coal.

“Have you seen one of these before?” Quin asked.

“Only in books.”

She knew the basic mechanics: capture hot air in an envelope and the balloon would float higher than the cold air around it. This was the law of buoyancy. The rider need only fire up the burner to reheat the air and float higher; to descend, lay off the burner and let the air cool to make the balloon sink back to Earth.

Mia climbed into the bronze bucket, testing the primitive metal rudder—the only way to steer the balloon once it was airborne—and saw the words engraved on the red wing:

If you have found your way thus far,

You don’t have far to travel.

Ride fire and air to Refúj, where

All your troubles will unravel.

Unravel in a good way or a bad way? It was one of those words she didn’t trust; a word that meant one thing but could also mean the opposite.

Her mind was busy turning over Refúj. The word meant “sanctuary” in Fojuen. Safe haven.

The path to safe haven will reveal itself to she who seeks it.

So her mother’s cryptic message had not been cryptic after all. She was leading her daughter to Safe Haven, an actual geographical place. Refúj. Refuge with a capital R.

Mia felt a flush of triumph. Even without her mother’s book, she had found her way. Perhaps she had always known the way—she simply had to listen.

Quin stood poised with one hand on the bucket of the balloon. She could feel the conflicting currents rolling off him, cold and piping hot.

“I can’t promise you’ll be safe,” she said. The sliver of the fojuen arrowhead burned hot in the pocket of her trousers.

“I’m not safe anywhere,” he said, and clambered into the bucket by her side.

Mia scraped the giant sulfyr stick against the rock, and it spat and sparkled. When she kissed the kindling with the fiery end, the torches roared to life. Instead of the greenish light of the sulfyr stick, they burned a bright golden red, the color of molten lava.

Mia’s hands were steady as she reached for the rudder.

“Do you think . . . ,” Quin began.

She knew what he was going to say. Did she think someone had left this balloon here for them? That they were expected in Refúj?

She did.

Because they were.





Chapter 32


Five Small Craters


AS THE HOT AIR balloon lifted them into the sky, Mia saw her mother.

She saw the tumble of her hair in the red slopes and hills; the curve of her hips as the Salted Sea curled into the sunrise. This place held the very shape of Wynna, and Mia saw her mother’s spirit in the vibrant bath of colors—the sanguine rock, the cerulean ocean.

She hoisted them higher, the hiss and gurgle of fire puffing hot air into the balloon. She felt the same tilt in her blood. A gentle tug—or was it a nudge?—and an almost magnetic force pushing her gently toward something, or pulling her in.

It was a jerky ride, not for the weak of stomach. But Mia wasn’t queasy; she crooked her fingers over the metal rudder and breathed it all in. She felt warm and sad and alive. She thought of her mother coming to Fojo Kara??o as a girl, her heart rising to meet the beauty of this place, the fire kingdom that had called so deeply to her soul. It even smelled like her, a little sweet and a little wild, like fresh-cut flowers and wood smoke. Mia had to remind herself her mother wasn’t waiting for her in Refúj. Her mother wasn’t waiting for her anywhere.

She cranked the torch and the balloon sipped a mouthful of air. The sun had turned a simmering orange as it hung suspended above the ocean, and Mia felt birdlike, a winged creature suspended between worlds.

“We’re always crossing a boundary, aren’t we?” said Quin. “The laghdú, the boat, the balloon. We’re always in some liminal state, moving toward something or away from something else.”

She supposed he was right. The balloon rose above a ridge, and they both gasped.

There was a perfect blue jewel of a lake scooped out of the rock. The reflection was stunningly clear, a flawless replica of the sky. The water glistened in the morning sun, and in its center: a tiny red island set in the bezel of blue. Red ringed with blue ringed with red.

“I’ve never seen water that blue.” Quin coughed. “The air smells like smoke.” He ran his hand along the edge of the bronze bucket. His fingertips came back smudged gray. “Is that ash?”

Mia stared hard at the crater of the lake. When she took a closer look at the dazzling red peaks around them, she saw they weren’t peaks at all; the tops were dipped like spoons. In the distance, black smoke coiled from one such ladle.

“It is ash,” she said. “And the reason you’ve never seen a lake that blue is that you’ve never seen one that deep. It’s called a qaldera in Fojuen. ‘Boiling pot.’”

“Does that mean what I think it means?”

“We’re in the crater of a volqano.”

Mia had only read about volqanoes, never seen them in real life. Excitement whiffled through her. She was exploring the four kingdoms at last, fulfilling her childhood dreams. She was free.

She felt a sharp stab of guilt. She wasn’t here to explore; she was here to find the Gwyrach who had killed her mother.

“When I was little,” Quin began, “there was a scholar who came to the Kaer.”

He rolled the ash between his fingers into a small kernel. “He taught us about the four ancient gods—four brothers—who warred with one another. How they each sulked off to their own corner of the world, hence the four kingdoms. But the Glasddiran god loved his brothers most, so he wept the hardest. That’s why the river kingdom has so many rivers.”

“Every child knows this story. It’s our creation myth.”

“My father made a big show of believing the myths—‘restoring the kingdom to its former glory,’ all that—but he never liked the part about the god of the river kingdom. He said a real god wouldn’t weep.”

Quin roughed up his curls. “The thing is, Glas Ddir never seemed like some epic place where gods wept and warred. It was a cold, wet kingdom, and Glasddirans weren’t descended from greatness—they were sad, hungry people my father abused. But this . . .” He gestured at the striking scenery around them. “This place looks like it was made by the gods. ‘The river god wept water, but the fire god breathed fire.’”

“I thought you didn’t believe in gods.”

He shrugged. “The myths seemed unreasonable, but I secretly hoped they were true. Don’t we all want to believe in something bigger than ourselves?”

Mia wasn’t sure. Her magic was bigger than herself, and she didn’t like it. If something grew too big you could no longer control it.

But wasn’t magic the reason Quin was alive? Wasn’t it why they had both survived?

No, she concluded. They survived because she’d listened to her instinct and intuition, not her magic.

What if they were one and the same?

Quin smiled. “According to legend, you’re descended from a god. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about how much untapped power you have inside of you.”

“Power is useless unless you know how to control it.”

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