Kingdom of Tricksters and Fools (Kissed by Thorns #1)

Chapter One

“Jaclan? Jaclan!”

The eight-year-old stopped spinning wildly on the browning grass and frowned at me. Seemed I interrupted vital business.

“What?”

“The clouds grow heavy. Bring in the sheets, please. Get Gisela to help you.”

“I don’t need help. I can do it myself.” Jaclan ran headfirst through the quilt, swinging and swiping his arms at the fabric, and ended up blinking and confused on the other side.

I hid a smile as I bounced the baby. Jac had been on this independent streak since he started school.

No doubt his instructors were filling his head with stern words of how he would soon be the man of the household—tasked with using his magic to protect his mother and sisters, then one day his wife and daughters.

Jac tried again to tackle the quilt and ended up flat on the grass.

His instructors clearly hadn’t known him long enough. It’d be a while yet before this dreamy, clumsy boy untied from the apron strings, and what was wrong with that? A child should be a child. Not a protector. Not a provider.

My eyes drifted over his head to the sign once again plastered on our door. They narrowed.

And not a pawn.

“Ahh,” Savia cooed.

Shaking myself, I settled my squirmy sister in the sling and knelt down in the vegetable patch.

It was doing well despite the sorry state of the rest of our small scratch of land.

Meliora and I had been forced to ration our water through the dry season, sharing it with the patch.

It paid off in enough green beans, radishes, carrots, and squash to make a vegetable soup that would actually fill our bellies that night.

I worked in a steady rhythm of weeding, digging, cleaning, and singing to the baby. My croons carried on the wind, covering the sounds coming through the window overhead.

Fat, stinging pellets of rain struck my back, signaling its final warning to go inside. I rose on aching knees with my basket of goods. Turning around, I found the sheets exactly where I put them and no Jac in sight.

Sighing, I dropped the basket and quickly took them down myself—running inside as the heavens opened. I paused only to rip that cursed sign from my front door. It’d be back again in a few days’ time, then that parchment would meet the same fate.

Jaclan sat at the table with my second-youngest sister and his twin, Gisela.

“—is the rune for water.” He stuck his tongue out, concentrating hard as he drew directly on our worn, splintered table. “See?”

Nodding, Gisela scrunched up her sweet, cherubic face, swiping her unruly golden curls out of the way as she copied him. A wave of such sadness hit me, I would’ve sworn it summoned the crack of thunder that struck that moment.

“Haeowen, look!” Gisela waved at me, bouncing in her seat.

Haeowen as in honored sister. The young weren’t allowed to address those older than them by their given names.

Not even within families. I didn’t care in the slightest and told her so, but even as a babe there was a seriousness about Gisela—the perfect balance to her wild twin.

She followed the rules. Did things in the right order. Asked permission before taking a step. She sought law, order, and structure in our world of chaos, as if following the rules would one day bring rewards.

Eight years old was too young to shatter her dreams.

“Did I do it right? Is it good?”

A smile tugged on my lips. “That is the best water rune I’ve ever seen. You’re a natural, Gisela.”

My sweet sister beamed so wide, I saw all of her missing teeth. The smile was a dagger through my heart.

“I can’t wait until I go to school with Jac. He says they’re learning mind riding next week. I’ve gotten better. Look!” Gisela spun around, hand up and face scrunched. Not a second passed before a lump of fur and whiskers crawled out from under our threadbare couch.

I laughed as it bounded up to me. “So that was the mewling noise I heard last night. You and Jac said it was Savia.”

The kitten looked at me through too-intelligent eyes. Behind them, was Gisela. Or at least her mind and thoughts pushed into a smaller, weaker being. It was said her namesake, Gisela Raekin of legend, could meld her mind with her familiar and companion, a dragon.

I suspected that was why our Gisela was so taken with mind riding magic.

She’d been practicing with the mice and other critters that have long shared our home, since she was practically in swaddling.

Successfully melding her mind with an animal the size of a kitten was a grand accomplishment for a child her age.

An accomplishment that would name her a prodigy to be praised in the same name as Gisela Raekin.

But the legend she admired was from a time when dragons still existed.

And freedom.

“Haeowen,” Meliora called. “The water’s boiled.”

I patted Gisela’s head on the way to the kitchen. “You keep practicing, faywen.” Sweet one. “You’re going to leave your instructors speechless.”

Meliora looked up from the pot when I rounded the corner. She didn’t let her voice carry. “You shouldn’t tell her those things,” she said, taking the basket from me. “It’ll just make her hate you when she learns the truth.”

“Did my lies make you hate me?”

She didn’t answer.

She didn’t have to. My sixteen-year-old sister was called stoic, and other unkind things, for the blank, unsmiling expression she carried through our village, but her thoughts always shone like fireflies in the night to me.

She did not hate me for letting her believe in a fantasy... most days.

Today was not that day.

“She keeps asking to go to school with Jac.” Meliora gave her back as she set about washing and chopping the vegetables.

“We don’t have two years’ worth of lies to keep her from realizing there’s a bigger reason to why she can’t go.

It’ll only take one word from one of Jac’s new friends to shatter her illusions. They’ve started following him home.”

“Because Jac tells them all sorts of fanciful tales of the pet dragon we keep in the barn, and that one of the faeriken visits him at night and tells him the secrets of the wild kingdom.”

“Yes,” she said flatly. “He’s almost as experienced a liar as you. His study of you rivals any accomplishment he could achieve at school.”

I winced. Yes, Meliora wasn’t too pleased with me that evening.

“I sense I’m not all that’s set your teeth on edge.” The line of her shoulders hardened. “After all, you’re quite used to the stories I tell the children. What’s added to your ire today?”

She didn’t speak for so long, I assumed she wouldn’t answer. I turned to put Savia down for her nap.

“The royal wedding approaches.”

The whisper tickled my ear, stopping me in my tracks. “Yes. So?”

“A procession from the wild kingdom arrives in a week’s time. They say the king of Wind and Wild is bringing a hundred men with him. Wonder what it says that despite his upcoming marriage to Princess Emiana, he won’t set foot on our soil without a small army.”

“Why are we speaking of this, Meliora? The likes of us aren’t invited to the wedding. We won’t even be among the crowd of people lined along the main road, watching the procession arrive.”

Her shoulders hunched. The chop-chop-chop slowed as her blade settled on the wood, and stayed.

“They’ve been having trouble finding war wives willing to service King Alisdair’s people. Kirwan offered me.”

Clang! Clang!

I spun, knocking over our drying tin cups and bowls. Savia jerked awake—screaming.

“No! He can’t— You won’t!”

Meliora hunched over, resuming her chopping. Her refusal to look at me proved one thing at that moment.

She was crying.

It was no wonder she was furious with me that day. When she was small, I encouraged her every wish and dream. I filled her head with stories of all the wonderful things she could be.

I certainly never told her that she’d be denied education, work, status, and opportunity. That we’d struggle for food, medicine, and money... until one day a loathsome man offered her up against her will in service of the one thing our kingdom still valued of women—our bodies.

“He can’t do this. Once you take official work, it’s branded your profession for life. A nobleman could take you from us. You could be called to war. And none of that comes close to what the faeriken men would do to you. They’re little more than beasts.”

“I offered s-such arguments,” she rasped. “They fell on deaf ears. The palace has raised the reward to one hundred and fifty kiruna. Kirwan means to have a cut.”

“No.” I spoke with a finality that silenced Savia’s wails. “This will not happen. I lied about many things, Meli, I know. But I did not lie about this. I promised you’d never be forced into that life. Your body will always be your own.”

“He’s coming for me tonight,” she cried. “No doubt he thinks I’ll run and ruin his plans. He told me to be ready by the break of moon’s light.”

“You will leave this to me.” I touched her shoulder. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Haeowen—”

“Look at me.” I tipped her chin. Mossy pools rimmed with starlight drowned in a salty, spilling sea.

Only sixteen years old, and the lovelier of the two of us by far.

Meliora claimed everything from our beautiful mother.

The lush, flowing dark locks; shining two-colored eyes; full, dusky lips, and a glow in her cheeks that gave the appearance of health, happiness, and radiance even when nothing could be further from the truth.

It was because her frustration so clashed with the perfect little petal people wanted her to be that they mocked the dull reflection in her eyes.

But my sister was not cold and emotionless. Her feelings—her fear—dangled from her sleeves for all to see. I was just the only one who bothered to look. “I will take care of this, faywen. I promise.”

She searched my face, and I knew she found no lies. “Okay,” she croaked.