A kingdom of gilded thor.., p.1
A Kingdom of Gilded Thorns, page 1
Copyright
A Kingdom of Gilded Thorns
Copyright © 2024 by D.T. Benson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Coming Soon
About the Author
1
I’m probably going to die tonight.
At the very least, I’ll be kidnapped.
I take a steadying breath and hold a snowflake stencil over a tall cup of cappuccino. My hand trembles as I shake a can of cocoa powder over it. The final customer of the night, a portly man with a bushy mustache, notices my agitation. “It’s winter solstice night,” he says conversationally.
I nod as I slide his coffee across the counter to him. The snowflake pattern came out okay despite my shaking hands.
“Why are you still out?” he asks. “My daughter hasn’t set foot outside our house at all today.”
Yeah. Girls with caring families don’t leave their homes on the winter solstice. They stay indoors and stay safe, protected by those who love them. Girls like me? We work. If I don’t work, I don’t eat. Period. Plus, there’s the whole hoping to get kidnapped thing.
“I’ll be heading home soon,” I tell the man as he pays up.
It’s a lie. I’ll be heading to the slums where I’ll try to lure the evil beasts that stalk the streets of Lorthien each year on winter solstice night.
“Stay safe,” are the customer’s parting words.
As soon as he’s out of the coffee shop, Shearne flips the sign on the door to ‘closed’. Darkness presses against the windows. It’s only four p.m. but it’s already pitch black out there. If there’s a weather god, he’s an artist who chooses only grays and blacks for his canvas this time of year. Iron skies during the day are followed by long nights of deepest obsidian.
Shearne wordlessly begins to lift chairs onto tables in preparation for the cleaners to sweep and mop the floors. She isn’t speaking to me.
A gust of wind rattles the windows and a draft whispers through the shop. I inhale a deep breath of coffee-scented air. It’s tinged with the competing smells of cinnamon, vanilla, brown sugar, and a myriad of others.
“You should have left an hour ago,” comes a gruff voice behind me as I start wiping down the counter.
I glance over my shoulder to see Grigor, Shearne’s father and the owner of the shop, emerging from the kitchen. “Go,” he orders. “Now!”
I force a smile, then step away from the counter, removing my apron. Every winter solstice night, ten girls aged eighteen to twenty go missing from Lorthien, the capital of Prysha, captured by our faerie enemies from Eraeon. Everyone is understandably horrified that I’m not at home right now, cowering in fear.
I make my way to the tiny staff room beside the kitchen. Before I can grasp the handle, the door swings open and Jaxson barrels out. He’s six and a half feet of pure muscle and gleaming golden skin. His eyes are twin pools of darkest midnight that swallow me whole as he collides with me.
I’m so tongue-tied, I can’t even let out a yelp as I go flying backward at the impact. I freeze when he grabs me by the shoulders to steady me.
I should say thank you, but I hesitate a moment too long, and by the time I find my tongue, he’s already entering the changing room across the hallway.
There’s a snort of laughter behind me and I spin around. It’s Shearne. I glance at the door to the changing room. Jaxson has left it ajar. Through the small gap, I can see him digging around for his bag. He moves with a leisurely, restrained grace that reminds me of big cats in the wild. Predators.
We still call him ‘the new guy,’ even though he’s been working here for three months now. I guess he still seems new because we know hardly anything about him. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve even heard him speak. Funnily, he always seems to be watching me. I would be flattered if not for the fact that I don’t have the kind of looks that would turn the head of a hunk like Jaxson.
Shearne thinks he likes me, but Shearne is sweet like that. Experience has taught me that guys like Jaxson never like girls like me. They tend to go for girls like Shearne—tall, willowy, classically beautiful.
“I finally found out where he’s from,” she whispers, tugging me into the staff room and shutting the door.
The sight of her conspiratorial smile melts some of the tension in my heart. I hate that she hasn’t been speaking to me.
“Sorry to break it to you,” she says, “but he’s from out of town.”
“Tell me he’s at least Pryshan.”
Shearne shakes her head. “He’s Wyeish.”
I shrug. The Wyeish tribe in the west is known to be a quiet, peaceful people. “At least he isn’t Alamein.” The Alameins up in the northernmost part of the country are fierce and brutish.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s from a different tribe, so you have to be careful.”
My sister, Kali, always rolled her eyes at such sentiments. A rush of pain flashes through me at the thought of her. She hated tribalism, although it’s rife throughout the United Kingdom of Rithelia. Especially among the older folk. They insist that we choose who to love based on how much like us they are. Same tribe, same city, preferably same neighborhood, too. Same, apparently, means it’ll work out.
“I’ve told you about my aunt who married an Alamein dude,” Shearne says, releasing her long, blonde hair from the tight bun her parents make us wear for shifts.
“You have,” I reply, releasing my hair, too. It’s thick, black, and never responds to any of my attempts to style it.
“He’s such a nightmare,” Shearne says, massaging her scalp with her fingers. “Their divorce is final now. The Alamein courts gave him everything: the house, the kids, and even the damned dog. They’re so backward up there.”
“Well, Jaxson and I aren’t going to get married, okay? I don’t even have the guts to talk to him, and he’s never going to talk to me. So don’t worry, there are no custody battles or other disputes on the horizon.”
The door bursts open and Maple, the cook, bustles in. Her clothes are spattered with a colorful array of sauce stains despite the apron she’d worn. “Are you ladies all prepared for tonight?” she asks, ambling to the window and looking out, no doubt checking if her husband has arrived to pick her up. “Got your alarms and weapons?”
“Well, I’m prepared,” Shearne says. “I can’t speak for Riva.”
Maple turns and frowns at me. “How are you getting home? Why are you even still here? Grigor released all the girls at two!”
I force a smile. “I’ll be fine.”
Her brow furrows with concern. “My husband and I can give you a ride—”
“A friend is coming for me,” I lie.
I feel the heat of Shearne’s disapproving gaze and keep my eyes averted from her as I approach the lockers lining the wall. I punch in my code then open the door to my locker and take out my purse.
“Can you believe it’s been nineteen years of those evil beasts snatching our girls?” Maple asks. “Nineteen years and we still have no solution.”
“It’s not for want of trying,” Shearne replies.
I slam shut my locker door and they both jump. That’s when I realize how hard I slammed it. Maple’s gaze flicks to the white-knuckled grip I have on my purse. I quickly relax my hands.
“Oh, Riva,” Maple cries. “I’m so sorry. Tonight must be harder for you than most.”
I can’t respond. Last year, my twin sister, Kali, was snatched. I woke up this morning with the heavy, haunting thought that today is the first anniversary of her disappearance. It’s been twelve miserable months of replaying our final argument in my head. Twelve months of agonizing pain, of hating myself, of wishing I’d done things differently.
I spent far too much time wishing I was alone. Wishing I had nobody to take care of but me. Kali was an added responsibility that I sometimes longed to be free of. Well, I got my wish in the worst kind of way. Tears sting my eyes and I bite them back.
“One would think that, with all our technological advancements, we would at least have caught some of them,” Maple growls. “Or found their realm and brought them to justice! This has to stop. Our girls cannot continue to live in fear of them.”
I move to a corner of the room, out of view of the window, and being to change out of my uniform. Shearne immediately stands at the door to keep anyone from coming in.
“We thought the discovery of solathium would mark the end of faerie oppression,” Maple mutters, her eyes taking on a faraway look. She was ten years old during the Emancipation War fifty years ago when humans drove
“Oh, how we rejoiced when we mined and refined solathium, and found that it was capable of deflecting faerie magic, and even piercing their foul bodies,” Maple says. “But they have found a way to continue to torment us. The fiends!”
I throw on my T-shirt, jeans, and jacket. As I stuff my uniform into my locker, a pair of headlights beam in through the window.
“My ride is here,” Maple announces. “Be safe tonight, girls.”
Shearne responds. I can’t.
Once Maple is gone, silence settles over the room. Finally, I make myself meet Shearne’s gaze.
“So you’re really going to do this?” she asks.
“Yes.” I’ve spent a year carefully preparing for tonight, and I plan to succeed.
Shearne scowls. “You’re crazy.”
Anger flares in my heart. I don’t understand why she doesn’t get it. Kali is all the family I have left. I have to go after her.
“I know you’re hurting, Riva, and I totally understand—”
“No you don’t,” I say through clenched teeth. “You have no idea how much our last conversation haunts me. I think about it every day. That petty argument…”
A lump rises in my throat, choking me and cutting off my words. Kali and I both said things we didn’t mean. And over what? Money. I hate yous were exchanged. And when she said she was leaving and going to find her own place, I said, ‘Fine! I never want to see you again.’ What possessed me to say that?
I’ve had nightmares about that fight almost every night since her disappearance. They always end with me following her out of the little one-room apartment we shared, and seeing a bear-like beast lurking in the shadows across the road. Instead of quickly returning to the safety of our building, I drag Kali to the beast and open its jaws until they’re as wide as a tunnel. Then I push her inside.
“Twenty-five girls disappeared the night she vanished,” Shearne reminds me. “You know full well that it isn’t only evil faeries who unleash themselves on the winter solstice, but wicked humans too. You have no guarantees that Kali was one of the ten taken by the faeries.”
She’s right. Criminal wretches also prey on girls on the winter solstice so that nobody knows who was taken by faeries and who was abducted by a human. They know that if they can keep the body of their victim hidden, they’ll get away with it.
“I just have a gut feeling that she was one of the ten,” I tell Shearne.
The police investigated Kali’s disappearance, just as they investigated all the others. In the months following last winter’s solstice, a few bodies were discovered and a handful of human men were charged with kidnapping and murder. Kali’s body wasn’t one of them. The investigation into her disappearance led nowhere. So I believe she’s alive, a faerie captive, and I’m going to rescue her. I’m going to bait the vicious monsters into capturing me too.
“Assuming that Kali was taken by the faeries,” Shearne says, “that doesn’t mean she’s alive. Nobody knows what they do with the girls they take.”
Some rumors say they sacrifice the girls to Oriya, their god. Others say they enslave them. The fact that only girls are ever taken could make my mind run wild, but I choose not to go there.
“If they take them to kill them, Kali could be dead and all you’ll succeed in doing is dying too,” Shearne says. “I’ve already said it a million times, but I’ll say it again: You need to let her go. When she was alive, you were always so focused on her even at your own expense, working all hours just so she could buy the latest clothes and shoes. And you’re still focused on her in death—”
“She isn’t dead!”
“She might be.”
I shake my head, unable to accept that. “I can’t explain it, but I know she’s alive.”
Kali and I used to always say to each other, No matter what we lose, you have me and I have you.
I refuse to accept that I’ve lost her.
Shearne sighs. “You’ve always had too big a heart, Riva. When are you going to just live for you?”
I glance at my watch. The first disappearances are usually reported around six p.m., and they continue until midnight. I need to get moving.
I’m shocked to see tears well up in Shearne’s eyes. “I wanted to get you a parting gift,” she says, her voice wobbly. “A slice of that red velvet cake you love from the bakery next door, but they closed early.”
Betty’s Bakery makes the best red velvet cake in all of Lorthien, but I rarely indulge. I just can’t justify spending on such luxuries when I have bills to pay. I was also paying for Kali’s fashion degree, until her disappearance, and I’m still in debt for that.
“It’s the thought that counts,” I tell Shearne, beaming. Then I dig into my purse and take out the monitor for the tracking device I bought as part of my preparations for tonight. I offer it to Shearne. “Please?”
She exhales as she accepts it.
“You’ll give it to the police if I get taken?” I ask.
She nods. “Not that I in any way support what you’re doing.” She slips the small monitor into her pocket then pulls me into a hug. “I would say be safe, but that’s not what you want. So…get caught. But I hope they don’t just kill the girls they take. Or maybe I do, because if they keep you alive for some sinister purpose, that could be worse than death.”
I clamp down on the rising tide of fear that swells in my heart. I know that allowing myself to be captured by the faeries will mean either death or a living nightmare. I’ve made peace with that.
I don’t bother telling Shearne to be safe. Shearne lives above the shop with her parents so she’s already home and will stay indoors until tomorrow. I stare at her, knowing it could be the last time I ever see her.
Shearne is my only friend. I kept to myself throughout high school and made no friends. I had Kali and was content with that. Kali had friends, and many boyfriends—fools enchanted by her beauty, and too smitten to see that she only wanted them for their money and gifts. Or maybe they knew, but still considered her worth their time.
I met Shearne five years ago, when I begged her father for a job here. I was only fourteen, but I’d seen Shearne working here and had figured he wasn’t opposed to hiring younger teens. Shearne was eavesdropping and felt sorry for me when I told Grigor that my sister and I were orphans in foster care. She marched over and said I was hired. Grigor grinned and agreed. Shearne and I have been friends ever since, although she never liked Kali.
“I suppose if anyone can survive the faeries, it’s you,” she says, following as I head toward the door. “I’ve never known anybody as determined as you. Once you put your mind to something, you’re formidable. And you’re such a survivor.”
She has said that before. I hope she’s right. I open the door with a trembling hand, my heart hot and heavy in my chest. I’ll miss these nondescript white walls, and cracked gray floor tiles. I’ll miss Grigor griping about Shearne and me doing more gossiping than working. I’ll miss ogling the young executives who stop by for coffee each morning on their way to their high-flying jobs in the business park around the block.
Shearne’s hand closes my arm as I’m about to step out of the room, jolting me from my thoughts. “What?” I ask.
Her lips twitch with amusement. “You are clearly preoccupied if you haven’t noticed that.” She nods toward the door to the changing room across the hallway. It’s still ajar, and the narrow opening provides a splendid view of Jaxson changing out of his work uniform.
The tremor that flashes through me this time is for a whole different reason.
“Why didn’t he shut the door?” I whisper as he shucks off his shirt, revealing acres of golden skin and rippling abs.
“I don’t know, but boy am I glad he didn’t,” Shearne replies with a wicked grin.
