Princess of Thorns Read Online Free PDF Page B

to where Alama is tied—already saddled, bagged, and ready—a few horses down.
    She snorts and tosses her white head as I approach, glaring at me with accusing brown eyes that seem to demand to know what I was thinking when I saddled her and walked away.
    “Poor girl,” I coo, smoothing a hand down her throat as I untie her. “Saddled and left to stew.”
    I had the sense to saddle my own horse before allowing the charm to lead me to where Jor was being held captive. Unfortunately, I was too drunk to have the forethought to saddle a second horse for my newly liberated companion.
    Truth be told, I’m still half in my cups. We stopped shooting barley brown less than two hours ago. I didn’t drink as much as the other men, but I made a good show of it. Now I wish I’d dumped my cup’s contents on the ground. I’ve got the beginnings of a rager headache, a sour stomach, and a parched throat I know I’ll have no chance to ease for hours. We can’t risk stopping to refill my skins until we’ve put distance between us and the mercenary camp.
    “Hurry up, big man. We haven’t got all morning!” Jor shouts as he rides past, urging his horse into a canter with a squeeze of his legs.
    I see he’s ignored my advice to fetch a saddle, and curse the boy, then curse him a second time as he turns his horse east and gallops off down the main road, racing away beneath oak trees tangling fingers above the dusty lane.
    “We’re not taking the main road, you fool!” I shout after him, but he’s already too far away to hear.
    “Blasted twit,” I mumble as I swing up onto Alama’s back and urge her after the latest burr in my britches.
    As we gain speed out of the camp, she lets out a harsh whinny that I take as an agreement with my assessment. She’s a clever horse, after all, and knows a pain in the arse when she sees one.
    In the Castle at Mercar 
The Ogre Queen
    We do not relish torture, but we are not above it.
    We cannot be above it, when so much is at stake.
    We lift our arm, signaling for our soldier to turn the wheel another revolution, tightening the ropes pulling at Prince Jor’s arms and legs. The boy cries out, squeezing his eyes shut as his already pale skin blanches a sickly white. His pain aroused our pity in the beginning.
    Now we loathe him for drawing out his suffering. And our own.
    “You have the power,” we whisper, leaning close to his sweating face. “Reveal your fairy blessings and the pain will stop.”
    The boy doesn’t answer, but his eyes open, his gaze fixing on the ceiling with silent determination. It has been three days and nights and still he refuses to reveal the nature of his fairy blessings, knowledge our brother must possess in order to conduct the ritual to fulfill the prophecy.
    We have tended to the interrogation personally, certain we could break the boy, but the child has proved exceptionally strong. Exceptionally enraging. Our patience is at an end, our desperation too great to allow any room for mercy in our heart.
    “Again.” We snap our fingers and our man turns the wheel. This time the boy’s wail lasts several moments, becoming a howl more fitting a beast than a prince blessed with fairy magic. It is a satisfying sound—one we hope carries to our brother’s divining room a floor below the dungeon—but it is not enough. Not nearly enough.
    “Tell us,” we hiss into the prince’s ear. “Or your suffering will never end. You will not be allowed to take your own life. We will not allow you the mercy of death.”
    Jor presses his lips together, muffling the whimpers escaping from the back of his throat, still refusing to speak, as if he knows his silence is more infuriating than words of defiance could ever be.
    We are the queen. We are the vessel of the prophecy. We have been trusted with so much and will fall so far—so very far—and we will not be ignored by a boy barely old enough to grow whiskers!
    “Tell us!” we shout, bringing our fist down on the board