Rae Carson: The Girl of Fire and Thorns

Desperate tears stream down my face as I launch at the nearest one. Together we plunge to the ground, and I’m crying and stabbing and stabbing until my arm is slick, until my shoulder burns from the impact of blade against bone.

Someone pulls me away. It’s Alejandro. I blink to clear stinging vision and see two painted men lying at our feet. He must have dispatched the other. I should speak to him, and my mouth opens, but something bright draws my gaze downward. Crimson. So much of it, all down my bodice, soaking my skirt. Metallic saliva tingles against my tongue, and suddenly, I’m shaking so hard I feel like my teeth will rattle from my jaw.

Alejandro pulls me close against his chest and strokes my back, muttering words I can’t take in. The battle is winding down, and soon enough, I will fret about my burned possessions, or Alejandro’s injured arm, or Aneaxi’s broken leg. But for now I can’t think beyond the warmth of Alejandro’s chest. He doesn’t love me yet, but in this place of death, in this precious moment of shared relief, he holds me.

We lose fifteen men to the Perditos. Others, like Alejandro and Aneaxi, are injured but will mend.

While Aneaxi sleeps, Lord Hector straightens her leg and splints it. I walk a few paces away to breathe different air and to wipe blood from my face with broad, waxy leaves. My dress is filthy and soaked, the blood already turning brown and thick, but most of my extra clothes burned with our carriage. My stomach grumbles—I can’t remember the last time I was this hungry—but I’d feel ridiculous asking for food while others tend to the wounded.

Lord Hector finds me later, sitting on a stump, staring at the foliage around me.

“Your Highness, we have a prisoner.”

I look up at him and notice that his mustache is matted and sticky. “Oh?” I’m not sure why he’d bother to inform me.

“King Alejandro said that you would decide how to deal with him.”

Me? My heart thuds.

Perhaps it is a test, meant to appraise the girl who will be queen. Or maybe Alejandro is busy with other matters. “The man is a murderer,” I say, for no other reason than to give myself a moment to think.

“You have but to say the word, and I will dispatch him myself.”

My throat constricts at the thought. It doesn’t feel right that I should have the power of life and death.

I’d rather no one else died today.

“Does he speak?”

“Yes.”

“Then I have some questions for him.”

Lord Hector helps me to my feet. There is a glow of respect in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. It warms me, but only for a moment. The cost of such respect has been too high.

The painted prisoner sits in a ring of swords. His hands are tied before him; his ankles are chained. He knows his situation is perilous. He glances around at his guards, white eyed, understanding that any one of them could stick a blade into his heart.

He sees me approach, and hope flickers in his eyes. Or cunning. There’s something obscene about the paint swirls all over his body. They are ghostly, nauseating. Up close, I see hollow bones woven into his long, clumpy hair.

“My lady,” he says. His voice is perfectly clear and crisp, incongruous coming from his savage mouth.

I almost correct his address, but I don’t care to reveal who I am. “I’ve been tasked with deciding your fate. Is there a reason, any reason at all, why I should spare you?” I can think of a very good reason, but I need to know if he’s amenable.

He is silent for a moment. Then: “I could help you.”

“How?”

“I know the jungle. I know her secrets.” His eyes are huge, like a cornered animal’s.

“Will you answer any question asked of you? Truthfully? Without reservation?” Lord Hector nods his approval of my question. He thinks I am being strategic, but I simply do not have the courage to watch someone else die.

“I will,” the Perdito says.

“Then I will spare you.”

“Thank you, my lady.” He leans forward, clutching the fabric of my waist, head down in veneration. It’s the customary genuflection of a newly sworn vassal, and I find that I hate it. It’s too intimate, too dangerous, even with the sword points now aimed at his neck.

Then he stiffens. His fingers have glanced across the Godstone beneath my bloody skirt. I know what he feels. A faceted surface, hard as diamonds but warm with life. He recoils.

“You!” he whispers. His eyes are wide and wet with frightened tears; his breath comes in gasps.

Someone lunges forward, a blur of gray hair and ruffled skirts. A gurgling sound, a body slapping the ground. Ximena! She backs away, and I see our prisoner lying flat on his back, my nurse’s hairpin protruding from beneath his jaw.

I stare at the pin—so tiny—at the blood pooling around it, slipping across his skin into the jungle soil.

“So sorry, my sky. I thought he was about to attack you.” She might have been telling me I was late for morning prayer.

I gaze unbelieving at my nurse, amazed at the speed with which she moved, wondering why recognizing the life in my navel would sentence a man to death.

THAT night, we sing a hymn of deliverance and light prayer candles for the dead. The candles are foolish. If the Perditos attack again, the tiny flames, floating like stars in thick jungle darkness, will make telling targets. But we light them anyway.

None of the fifteen were personally known to me, and as the king whispers each name, I cannot remember their faces. Still, everyone on this journey has been kind, and I mourn their loss because Alejandro does. While my husband speaks of them, I pray silently, thanking God for his life and for the lives of my ladies. The Godstone radiates gentle fingers of warmth throughout my body as it always does when my prayers are heartfelt. After a few moments, the strain in my back from dragging Aneaxi fades to a mild ache, and I feel deliciously sleepy.

As a little girl, my greatest fear was that the Godstone would stop living inside me, that it would grow cold and still like any ordinary jewel. I would know then that the moment to perform my service had gone, that I’d been too selfish or lazy or stupid to act. So I learned to welcome its tender responses to my prayers. They are signs that I am not a failure quite yet.

Alejandro finishes the ceremony with a muttered “Selah,” and everyone breaks off to prepare for tomorrow’s journey.

“Lucero-Elisa.” His voice is so soft I think I’ve imagined it, but his eyes, sparking in the candlelight, fix on me as he approaches. His wounded right arm is pinned tight against his stomach, wrapped in a gray sling.

“Alejandro.”

“I wanted to thank you, Elisa. Hector says you acted with remarkable courage throughout the attack.” I don’t remember courage. Just heat and fear. “And…” He avoids my gaze. “And you may have saved my life.”

Alodia would deflect the praise, weak as it is. She’d turn it into a flattering treatise on how his mighty prowess would have won through in the end, even without help.

But he froze with panic, and if not for my interference, he would surely have died. Feeling bold, I say, “Yes, I did. And you’re welcome.” Perhaps this was my great service, to save the life of a king. But the jewel still thrums its portent.

He grins at me now, a boyish grin that warms me as much as the Godstone ever does, and my disquiet slips away. I smile back, feeling shy.

“Do you miss home, Elisa?”

My mouth opens to say yes, I miss it terribly, but I realize it’s not true. “A little. I probably haven’t been away long enough.” It would be nice to feel safe again, to hug Papá, or even to study with Master Geraldo. But I don’t yearn for those things. Not yet.