The Girl of Fire and Thorns (33 page)
Read The Girl of Fire and Thorns Online
Authors: Rae Carson
I’m lying on my side, cheek pressed into my sheepskin rug, my eyes drifting shut. The amulet flares once where it lies, and winks out. I follow it into blessed darkness.
I
wake to sun streaming harsh against my eyelids.
“Elisa?” A head hovers above me. I blink rapidly, but my mind clings to sleep. “Elisa! You’re awake.”
“Rosario?”
“Ximena! She’s awake.”
Another head. My vision is clearer now. My body aches everywhere, like I was beaten with wooden swords. “Ximena?” I croak, almost choking on the dryness in my throat. “What happened?”
She places a cool hand to my forehead and chuckles. “Elisa, my sky, you destroyed the animagi.”
I gasp out a sob of relief, remembering. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
“That amulet of yours. It sent a wave, like light or heat, all through the city. Every mirror and window in Brisadulce shattered. Then the animagi just . . . grew old right before our eyes. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. They say the same thing happened to the two who remained on the battlefield.”
It’s overwhelming. The animagi are dead. Tears squeeze from the corners of my eyes. From habit, I put my fingertips to my Godstone and send a prayer of thanks. It responds with balmy warmth.
I gasp. “My Godstone. It lives.”
“Yes. I suppose God isn’t done with you yet.” I’m not sure I appreciate the amusement in her voice. The possibility that God has a further use for my stone could make me ill if I thought about it too much.
“Your amulet didn’t fare so well, I’m afraid,” she says. “When it fell away from your body, it blackened and shattered.”
“Invierne’s army?” I ask in a shaky voice.
Ximena strokes my hair. “Lord Hector and the general pursue them. He says the army was already falling apart, demoralized by your Malficio. Without the animagi, the Inviernos can’t sustain a fighting front.”
I swallow. “And the southern holdings?”
“Invierne is in retreat there too. Your strange wave reached all the way to the southern coast. But . . .” Her hand freezes. She takes a deep breath. “There’s something else.”
I sit straight up. I remember hearing screams, smelling burning flesh. “What? Is it Mara? Or Cosmé? Have you heard from her?”
Her brows slope with sorrow. “Mara and Cosmé are well enough. Mara rests while her burns heal.”
“Then—”
“Papá is sick,” Rosario says.
Alejandro
. I swing my legs around to the edge of the bed. Ximena grabs my robe from its bedpost and hands it to me.
“Sick?” I ask her quietly, heart pounding with dread. He saved my life, I remember now, the same way I saved his months ago. He killed an animagus with a dagger, and they burned him for it.
“Badly injured,” she whispers back. Everything in her expression speaks to the seriousness of his wounds.
“I’ll be back soon.”
My bones ache as I limp to the door connecting our suites. I pause to take calming breaths. My hesitant knock is answered quickly by Captain Lucio.
“Your Majesty.” He bows.
“How is he?”
He rubs at weary eyes with a fist. “The animagus burned him severely, and he was badly cut by your window. We stopped the bleeding, but he is weak now, and—”
I brush past him, remembering the way my window shattered. How many more of Brisadulce’s citizens were as unfortunately located when my shock wave hit? How many died?
Alejandro lies on his back. Linen swaddles half of his beautiful face, including his mouth. The rest of his body hides beneath his blankets, and I’m glad for it because I could not bear to see his wounds. His unbandaged eye crinkles when he sees me.
“Elisa.” His muffled whisper sounds so painful.
I bend over and kiss his forehead. “I’m so sorry, Alejandro.”
A rattling sigh slips through the linen. “Don’t be. This was my choice.”
I run my fingertips across his eyebrow, let them trail into his hairline where they tangle in his hair, the way I used to imagine doing. “What do you mean?”
He leans into my caress. “The animagus holding me was distracted.” He takes another ragged breath. “I didn’t have time to think about it.
You
were more important.”
I feel more fondness for him in this moment than ever before. “You are a hero,” I say with conviction. “Thank you.”
His eye closes, the lines of his face relax. I’m ready to tiptoe away when he says, “Elisa, we’ve become friends, haven’t we?”
I’m not sure, but I’d like us to be, so I say, “Of course. Just like you said we would. On our wedding night.”
“Good.” He sighs. Then: “Ariña’s dead, isn’t she?”
“I’m not sure, Alejandro. I think so.”
“I loved her.” Sorrow creases his brow, then he seems to melt into himself. I feel a strange distance when he says, “Take care of Rosario.”
“Take care of him yourself.”
“Promise me. He loves you.”
I should shower him with encouraging denial. I should say something to give him hope. Or I could be honest. “I promise.”
“Elisa? I would have loved you too, given a little more time.”
During Alejandro’s final lucid moments, he summons me, Father Nicandro, and General Luz-Manuel to his bedside. With shaking hands, he signs an edict declaring me his heir and Queen Regnant of Joya d’Arena until such time as his son comes of age. “When I’m gone,” he explains in a voice so soft I have to bend to hear, “no one can dispute your right to rule. Even though you weren’t born here.”
I would have raised Rosario to the throne, even without his help. I know that about myself now. Still, I’m touched by the gesture. I have to blink and swallow a bit before saying, “Thank you, my friend. Rosario will grow up knowing his father acted nobly till the very end.”
My words seem to soothe him. The next morning, he slips into a coma and does not awaken from it.
Lord Hector pursues Invierne’s huge but dispirited army well into the jagged arms of the Sierra Sangre before returning home. He reports to me in my new office—a sumptuous chamber of lush rugs and gleaming bookcases that I’m not yet comfortable in—and lays a letter of resignation on my desk.
I look up at him, confused. “What is this?”
“Your Majesty, I am the king’s personal guard and man-at-arms. My king is dead. Therefore, I am unemployed. This letter just makes it official.”
My heart hammers in my throat. I can’t bear the thought of losing Hector. Sometime, when I wasn’t paying attention, I grew unbearably fond of him.
I search his face, but his handsome features are cast in iron and unreadable. “You are so eager to retire, then?” I ask hesitatingly. “You really want to leave?”
His mouth opens. Closes. He shifts on his feet.
“Unless you’re determined to escape me, I’d like you to consider staying. I . . . well, you have to forgive me . . .” My cheeks feel hot, and my hands are sweating. “I just assumed you would be Queen’s Guard.”
I wait an eternity for his answer.
Then his face relaxes, and his mustache twitches with the influence of a soft smile. “I would be honored, Your Majesty.”
I exhale in relief. “Oh, thank God.”
Three months after the death of Alejandro, on the day Brisadulce throws off its mourning rags, I crown Cosmé Queen of Basajuan, the new country extending from the desert’s eastern edge to the foothills of the Sierra Sangre. Jacián is there, and Father Alentín. Even Conde Eduardo from the southern holdings makes the journey to welcome the new queen.
Only Papá and Alodia decline my invitation, though they send letters of congratulations.
In the same ceremony, I honor Prince Rosario with the Queen’s Star for acts of bravery and heroism in circumstances of extreme danger. He stands so straight, and his little lip trembles as I pin the medal to his sash.
There are many deserving of the same honor. Hundreds, perhaps. But he is the perfect representative for the children of my Malficio—an orphan like them, and equally brave. He also represents hope for us, hope of a strong future and a strong king. When I step away and present him to the court, the applause is thunderous.
The dining room is too small to hold all our guests, so the kitchen staff brings food to the audience hall. I’m pleasantly ill from spiced, blackened chicken, creamy potato soup, and orange-peel scones when Cosmé glides up to me wearing her new crown. She leans forward and kisses my cheek. “Thank you, my friend,” she says. “I am glad to have been proven wrong about you.” She shifts uncomfortably; such declarations do not come easily to her. She hurries away before I can respond and disappears behind a wall of celebrants.
Ximena’s arm sneaks around my waist. Together we survey the smiling, milling crowd.
“You see, my sky?” Ximena whispers. “God was right to choose you.”
I grin. “Yes, he was right to choose me. He had a plan all along, just like Aneaxi said.”
She gives me a squeeze. “I knew someday you would realize your worth. Your worthiness.”
I shake my head. “Oh, Ximena, he was right to choose me, but not because of my worth.” I gaze happily at my friends as they swirl through the hall, feasting and chatting. “You, Cosmé, Hector, even little Rosario, were already willing to be heroes.”
And Humberto
, says a little voice in my head. “You didn’t need to be chosen. But I would have done nothing, become nothing, were it not for this thing inside me. So you see, God picked me because I was
un
worthy.”
“But you rose to the choosing. You gave hope to your people. Solved a divine puzzle that was centuries in the making. Defeated our enemies.”
Understanding hits like a rock in my gut, and I gasp just a little. I know God selected me because I needed a push, but Ximena is right, too—I rose to the choosing. I didn’t need faith in God so much as I needed faith in myself.
“Yes,
I
did all that, didn’t I?” I breathe wonderingly. I loved and lost and survived. Me, not the stone in my navel. I place trembling fingertips to the Godstone.
It pulses with purpose.
God is not done with me yet, and I may be in more danger than ever, now that the whole world knows I bear his stone. But in this moment, I choose to revel in our victory, in the warmth of having made a place for myself, surrounded by friends. For the first time in a long time, I am not afraid.
A novel, especially a first novel, is an enormous undertaking of faith and frustration, of learning and hope, of despair and triumph. And I could not have navigated the craziness if not for the following fabulous folks.
Thank you to:
My amazing editor, Martha Mihalick, for both falling in love with the story and being relentless about making it better. (Are you
sure
we don’t have time for another revision round?)
The Greenwillow team, for their warmth, their enthusiasm, for my beautiful book jacket, and for so many little things.
My super-agent, Holly Root, for getting my work on a fundamental level, for endless patience and humor, and for taking care of all the details.
My friends at the Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror; including but not limited to Jenni Smith-Gaynor (yes, you were first), Ian, Heidi, Deb, Marsha, Amber, Aaron, Brad, Jo, and Heather.
Elizabeth Bear, for taking a newbie under her wing and giving some formative advice for no other reason than to pay it forward. I promise to continue the tradition.
Amanda Downum, Leah Bobet, Vernieda Vergara, and Chance Morrison, who read early drafts and gave much needed encouragement.
Jodi Meadows, Jaime Lee Moyer, and Jill Myles, early-draft victims whose friendship has meant the world to me.
Sarah Prineas, for responding helpfully to a panicked e-mail, for understanding my need for ruthless practicality, and for being an honest and thoughtful reader and friend.
Holly McDowell, for friendship and advice, but mostly for wonderful times.
Rebekah Piedad, my sister and best friend, for being the perfect cheerleader.
And, most importantly, my husband, C. C. Finlay, the best man I know, for editing genius that makes my writing better, for dreaming right along with me and never complaining when the dishes aren’t done. I like you a lot. Let’s get married.
RAE CARSON
dabbled in many things, from teaching to corporate sales to customer service to architecture, before becoming a full-time writer. This is her first novel. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband and two stepsons.
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This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
The Girl of Fire and Thorns
Copyright © 2011 by Rae Carson
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carson, Rae.
The girl of fire and thorns / by Rae Carson.
p. cm.
“Greenwillow Books.”
Summary: A fearful sixteen-year-old princess discovers her heroic destiny after being married off to the king of a neighboring country in turmoil and pursued by enemies seething with dark magic.
ISBN 978-0-06-202648-4 (trade bdg.)
[1. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction. 2. Prophecies—Fiction. 3. Magic—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C21677Gi 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010042021
EPub Edition © AUGUST 2011 ISBN: 9780062093325
11 12 13 14 15 LP/RRDB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition