Brambles: A Thorn Short Story by Intisar Khanani

Author:Intisar Khanani [Khanani, Intisar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Young Adult

In the ballads our old troubadour sings, the heroes who vanquish the pillaging hordes or the ravening night beasts are raised high; they are toasted in the king’s hall and fawned upon by all, and remembered for their courage and strength. But my mother, looking at me as I stand before her that afternoon, says only, “You stupid little fool.”

“She would have let that girl be killed,” I say earnestly, as if I could make my mother see the injustice, the ugliness of Valka’s intention. “And she had the brooch all along!”

“And you betrayed her!”

That silences me. Even if it was Valka who betrayed the girl, knowing she was innocent, picking her out because she was the easiest target of all the servants there. And did it out of spite, to get back at Emmanika for yesterday’s altercation.

“Do you know,” my mother goes on in a low voice, “how hard I have worked to keep the throne for your brother? Almost, we were exiled! We nearly lost it all—and you would have grown up a nothing in a foreign court, and then even less, if we could not prove our usefulness. I have kept you both here, kept your power and title for you, and this is what you do? Do you know what it has taken to make an ally of Daerilin—do you understand that it is his support that kept our throne? And now you have destroyed his daughter, publicly revealed her as a liar and a thief! All for some nameless servant.”

I stare at the ground. I am sorry, sorry for what my mother has gone through in order to hold onto the throne. But is that all that matters to her? Holding onto power, regardless of everything else? Isn’t the point of ruling to also take care of those below you—as Emmanika tried to tell Valka? Although she’d also counseled Valka not to make a scene—and that is precisely what I did.

“Know this,” my mother says softly. “You have chosen your future. I must keep the throne for your brother, and if that means you fall for your stupidity, then fall. There is no one here who will catch you.”

Her words cut through me. I dip my head, but I cannot keep the tears from leaking out of my eyes. “Mother,” I say, my voice breaking. “Please. Valka would have—”

“Get out.”

I manage to choke back my sobs just long enough to close the door behind me.

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