Thornwood by Leah Cypess (read after .txt) 📕

Edwin! He’s alone in this castle. He must be scared out of his mind.”

“He’s probably asleep,” Varian said reassuringly.

Rosalin coughed. “That wouldn’t stop him from being scared.”

“If he wakes up,” Varian said, “he’ll come looking for us. And if he’s asleep, he’s probably safer than we are.”

“Varian’s right, Briony,” Rosalin said. “We can’t go chasing after him right now.”

“You came chasing after me,” I pointed out.

“That was different,” Rosalin said. “He’s not important.”

“There’s a whole castle full of people at stake,” Varian added. “We can’t waste time going after just one person.”

“Oh, really?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I believe the whole reason we’re in this castle is because I was trying to save just one person.”

In the silence that followed, a vine ripped through the tapestry behind us with a slow tearing sound. The vine stretched toward Rosalin, and she stepped away with barely a glance at it, her eyes glued to mine.

“Don’t be stubborn,” she said.

“Does that line ever work on actually stubborn people?” I turned away from them, my hands clenched at my sides. “I’m going to find him. I’ll come to the ballroom after I do.”

I was concentrating hard on not crying, so I didn’t hear their footsteps until I started up the stairs. By then Rosalin was already beside me, and Varian was only a step behind her.

“Well?” Rosalin said when I stopped and stared at her. “If you’re going to insist on doing this, let’s at least do it quickly.”

I bit my lip so I wouldn’t…smile at her? Snap at her? I wasn’t sure which I wanted to do, but either seemed inappropriate. I looked straight ahead.

Together, the three of us strode up the stairs.

The west wing was the fanciest section of the palace, which was why most of the guest rooms were there. Lush blue rugs covered the hallway floors, and twisted iron chandeliers hung from the ceiling. One of the chandeliers had thorn branches wrapped grotesquely around it; they had forced their way through a crack in the ceiling, and now large, wicked thorns jutted in every direction. We all took care not to walk directly under it.

The door to the second guest room was shut. Rosalin raised a fist as if to knock, then hesitated and looked at me.

“I don’t hear anything,” she said. “Do you think he’s…” She bit her lip. “Still asleep?”

“The fairy said she would keep him alive,” I said, answering the question she had really been asking. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

Except of course, I wasn’t sure. Which was why we were all standing there staring at the door instead of pushing it open.

“We don’t have time to waste,” Varian said. Though he made no move to open the door, either.

Rosalin leaned forward, her shorn hair swinging across her cheek. “Wait. I do hear something.”

“You’re imagining it,” I said. But a second later, I heard it, too: a low-pitched, melodic sound. It didn’t sound like Edwin. It sounded like…

“With flawless skin and lustrous hair, a beauty quite beyond compare…”

“Are you kidding me?” I said, and pushed the door open.

The minstrel broke off mid-verse, lowering his lute. The terror on his face turned swiftly to relief when he saw me, and then to elation when he saw who was behind me.

“Princess Rosalin! Prince Varian!” He swept into a bow, hastily righting his lute after it swung up and hit the side of his forehead. “I have been searching for you!”

“Really?” Rosalin said. She swept her gaze around the room, from the canopied bed to the delicate wooden furniture. “In here?”

I ignored them. On the bed, resting against a pillow with a pitiful expression on his face, lay Edwin.

His face was clean and smooth, with no hint of the bruises that had been covering it when I’d seen him last. His clothes were immaculate, and nicer than the ones he had been wearing—his silk doublet looked like it belonged to a nobleman—and there was no blood on them anywhere.

My first impulse was to rush to him, but if I did, I wasn’t sure whether I would hug him or punch him. Since either would be embarrassing—in different ways—I played it safe by staying where I was.

“Why are you just lying there?” I demanded. “How long have you been awake?”

Edwin wiped one hand across his forehead, his fingers tangling in his hair—which, at the moment, actually looked worse than mine, tufts sticking out at improbable angles. “I was hoping you could tell me. Last thing I remember, we were in the Thornwood, and the branches were growing over me and pulling me down….” He shuddered, and I stopped feeling gleeful about his hair. “Next thing I knew, I woke up in this bed, and the minstrel was asking me for opinions about this song he’s composing.”

“I have been waiting for him to wake ever since I discovered him,” the minstrel announced. “I was hoping he could give me details, to make the song more authentic. The chorus is going to be about how Prince Varian fought his way through the thorns and vanquished the Thornwood forever.”

Edwin looked pointedly up. I followed his gaze and saw that, in the corner of the ceiling right above him, a gnarled branch had squeezed through a crack and was spreading slowly, its thorns sticking into the ceiling and causing more cracks to spiderweb along the white paint.

“He has been most unhelpful,” the minstrel sighed. He turned to Varian. “Nevertheless, I’ve perfected a transcendent stanza about how you saved your lady love from the thorns after she foolishly ventured out into them. If you want to hear it—”

“NO,” we all said in unison.

“That’s not even what happened,” I added. “It wasn’t Varian who saved us. It was my sister’s fairy godmother.”

The minstrel frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I was there!”

His brow furrowed. “Why were you there?”

I turned away. “Edwin, come on. We have to go to a ball.”

Edwin transferred his gaze from the thorn branch