Thornspell by Helen Lowe

back in the herb garden—but bound to the elder tree by long cables of thorn. There was a band of them, black and barbed, woven tightly around her mouth, and Sigismund could see blood on her lips. She turned her head and met his eyes, or would have, except that there were thorns sprouting out of hers.
    Sigismund stepped back and the blind head moved from side to side as though in warning or denial, and a hoarse, protesting sound came out of her gagged mouth. He took another step away and her arms came up as if to hold him there, but in the dream her hands were gone and what she held out to him were severed, bleeding stumps.

The Boar Hunt
    S igismund told Balisan about the dream in the dark predawn, when he was making his final preparations for the hunting trip and eating a breakfast of cold meat wrapped in bread. Balisan was standing with the toe of one booted foot resting on the fender, one arm on the mantelshelf, and the rose and copper light from the fire gave his face an almost demonic cast. His eyes gleamed bronze as he looked at Sigismund.
    “And yet you felt no sense of another power, seeking to draw you out?” he asked.
    Sigismund shook his head. “I couldn’t detect anything. It was probably just a nightmare, except that it seemed so real. I wondered if it could be a warning of some kind?”
    “About the girl?” Balisan asked. “Or the hunt?” He picked up a book from the mantelshelf and handed it to Sigismund. “It is a treatise on boar hunting. Master Griff found it in the palace library and thought it might be useful.”
    Sigismund stuffed the book into a saddlebag without looking at it. “It seems unlikely that the girl and the hunt could be connected in any way.” He buckled the bag closed, frowning. “It was probably just a dream…and I was worried about what Flor had done and what might happen to the girl because of it.”
    A log in the grate collapsed and Balisan nudged it back into the blaze with his toe. “Flor Langrafon takes the prerogatives of nobility seriously,” he murmured.
    Sigismund nodded. “Too seriously, but he’s a good friend and generous to a fault in other matters.” To those of his own order, he added silently, but it seemed disloyal to say so aloud. “He paid all Ban Valensar’s gaming debts recently, which were considerable—but Ban’s grandfather, the old Count, had sworn that he would not bail him out if he incurred such debts again. Apparently he feels that he has plenty of other grandsons and can afford to disinherit one.”
    “Uncomfortable for Ban,” observed Balisan. “And now, of course, he is in Flor’s debt.”
    “It’s not like that.” Sigismund picked up his second saddlebag. “The money was a gift. Flor was very clear about that; there’s no expectation of repayment.” He cast a quick look at Balisan, who was studying the play of the flames with absorbed interest. “So you don’t think I should give up this hunt? You see no reason why I shouldn’t go?”
    Balisan looked up, the flicker of the fire in his eyes. “Because of the dream? No. In any case we agreed in coming here that it was time for you to live in the world, and that includes going on hunts. So go, Prince Sigismund.”
    Sigismund went, and the eastern horizon was already a pale slash as he stepped out into a courtyard milling with men, horses, and dogs. There would be huntsmen with a local pack at Thorn, but every hunter present had his own favorite dogs at heel, and grooms with spare horses for the chase. There was a company of guards as well, their horses drawn up in two neat rows. One of them, sitting just behind the captain, carried a pennant with a red and gold dragon on it—the symbol of the royal House.
    Sigismund spotted Wat and Wenceslas by the gate with his own spare horses and went over for a quick word before a horn sounded, calling the company to order. Then Flor beckoned him to the head of the column and they clattered out through the palace gates as rose