Reckless (Mirrorworld 1)

They were still talking, all her useless, medaled generals, while her ancestors stared down at her from the golden, silk-draped walls. Right next to the door was a portrait of her father, gaunt and upright, like a stork, continuously at war with his royal brother from Lotharaine, just as she had been fighting his son, Crookback, for years. Next to him was her grandfather, who like the Goyl King, had once had an affair with a Fairy. His yearning for her had finally driven him to drown himself in the royal lily pond. He'd had himself portrayed on a Unicorn, for which his favorite horse was the model, with a narwhal horn attached to its head. It looked ludicrous, and the Empress had always preferred the painting next to his. That one showed her great-grandfather with his elder brother, who had been disinherited because he had taken his alchemical experiments too seriously. Her father had always been outraged by that painting because the painter had caught his great-uncle's blind eyes so realistically. As a child, she would push a chair under the picture, climbing up to get a closer look at the scars around those empty eyes. He'd supposedly been blinded by an experiment in which he had tried to turn his own heart into gold, and yet of all her ancestors, he was the only one who was smiling — which had always made her think that his experiment must have been successful and that he indeed had a golden heart beating in his chest.

Men. All of them. Crazy or sane, but always men. For centuries only men had ascended to the throne of Austry — and that had changed only because her father had sired four daughters but not a single son.

She, too, had no son, just a daughter. But she had never intended to turn her into a bargaining chip, as her father had done with her younger sisters. One for King Crookback, in his gloomy castle in Lotharaine; one for her cousin Albion, the obsessive huntsman; and the youngest bartered away to some eastern potentate who had already buried two wives.

No. She had wanted to put her daughter on the throne, to see her portrait on that wall, framed in gold, between all those men. Amalie of Austry, daughter of Therese, who had once dreamed of being called The Great. But there was no other way, or they would both drown in that bloody water — she, her daughter, her people, her throne, this city, and the whole country, together with those idiots who were still holding forth about why they hadn't been able to win the war for her. Therese's father would have had them all executed. But then what? The next lot wouldn't be any better, and their blood would not bring back all the soldiers she had lost, the provinces that now belonged to the Goyl, nor her dignity, which in the past six months had been choked in the mud of four battlefields.

"Enough!"

One word, and the room where her great-grandfather used to sign death warrants fell silent. Power. Intoxicating. Like a fine wine.

How they bowed their vain heads. Look at them, Therese. Wouldn't it be nice to have them all chopped off after all?

The Empress adjusted the tiara of elven glass that her great-grandmother had worn before her, and waved one of the Dwarfs to her desk. Hers were the only Dwarfs in this land who still wore beards. Servants, bodyguards, confidants. Generations of service to her family, and still in the same livery they had worn for over two hundred years. Lace collars over black velvet, and then those ridiculously wide breeches. Tasteless and completely unfashionable, but you couldn't argue with Dwarfs about tradition any more than you could argue with priests about religion.

"Write," she ordered.

The Dwarf climbed onto her chair. He had to kneel on the pale golden cushion. Auberon. Her favorite and the smartest of them all. The hand that now reached for the quill was as small as a child's, but these hands would break iron chains as easily as her cook's hands cracked an egg.

"We, Therese of Austry—" Her ancestors stared down at her disapprovingly. What did they know of Kings brought forth from the bowels of the earth, and a Fairy who turned human skin to stone to make it like the skin of her lover? "—herewith offer to Kami’en, King of the Goyl, our daughter Amalie's hand in marriage, to bring an end to the war and to bring peace to our two great nations."

How the silence erupted. As if her words had shattered the glass house in which they had all been sitting. But it wasn't she, it was the Goyl, who had struck the blow, and now she had to give him her daughter.

The Empress turned her back on them, silencing their angered voices. Only the rustle of her dress followed her as she stepped toward the high doors, which seemed to have been built not for humans but for the Giants, who, thanks to her great-grandfather's efforts, had been driven to extinction sixty years ago. Power. Like wine when you have it. Like poison when you lose it. Therese already felt it eating away at her.

Defeated.

14

Thorn Castle

"But he just won't wake up!" The voice sounded worried. And familiar. Fox.

"Don't worry. He's just sleeping." That voice he recognized well. Clara.

Wake up, Jacob. Fingers stroked his searing shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw the silver moon drifting into a cloud, as if trying to hide from its red twin. It shone down into a dark castle courtyard. High windows reflected the stars, though there was no light behind any of them. No lanterns shone above the doors or under the overgrown archways. No servant scuttled across the yard, which was thickly covered with wet leaves, as if it hadn't been raked in years.

"Finally! I thought you'd never wake up."

Jacob groaned as Fox nudged her nose into his shoulder.

"Fox! Be careful!"

Clara helped him sit up. She had put a fresh dressing on his shoulder, but it hurt more than ever. The bandits, the Goyl... the pain brought it all back, but Jacob couldn't remember when he had lost consciousness.

Clara stood up. "That wound doesn't look good. I wish I had some pills from the hospital."

"It'll be fine," Jacob said. Fox anxiously nudged her head under his arm. "Where are we?" he asked her.

"At the only hiding place I could find. This is deserted — by the living, anyway." Fox dug aside the layers of leaves with her paw, revealing a shoe.

Jacob looked around. In many places the leaves lay suspiciously deep, as if covering outstretched bodies.

Where were they?

Jacob sought support from a wall to pull himself to his feet, and immediately drew back his hands, cursing. The stones were covered in thorny vines. They were everywhere, as if the entire castle had grown a hide of thorns.

"Roses," he muttered, picking one of the rose hips that grew from the twisted branches. "I've been searching for this castle for years. Sleeping Beauty's bed. The Empress would pay a fortune for it."