The Prisoner’s Throne (The Stolen Heir Duology #2)

by Holly Black

It’s easy to make someone look foolish if you’re willing to play the fool.

And in the shiver of the boughs, Oak hears laughter.

The Ghost tilts his head as he regards Wren. “Are you certain about accepting the young prince’s proposal? He can be something of a fool.” Her lips twitch. Randalin draws in a shocked breath. Oak gives the Ghost a speaking look. “The question is whether she will have me be her fool.” Wren smiles. “I’m certain.”

“Why does anyone want anyone else?” Tiernan answers. “We do not love because people deserve it—nor would I want to be loved because I was the most deserving of some list of candidates. I want to be loved for my worst self as well as my best. I want to be forgiven my flaws.”

“Dinner? Oh no, my darling. It’s a feast.”

“I love you,” Oak says, because he needs to say it simply, so she can’t find a way to see a lie in it. He’s smiling because she came through the woods in a rush, looking for him. Because he feels ridiculously happy. “Come have a picnic with me.”

After all, how can anyone love him when no one really knows him?

“I don’t want it,” Wren says. “But I won’t give it to you, either.”

“So be it, brother,” his sister says, sitting back in her chair. “The choice will be yours.”

Dead. Impossibly dead.

She warned him not to trust her, and then she betrayed him.

My sister. Bex. I’m not the one who needs saving. Maybe Oak has this all wrong. Maybe she’s not his enemy. Maybe she’s been given an impossible choice.

Wren loves her mortal family. She loves them so much she slept in the dirt near their house just to be close. Loves them so much that there might be nothing she wouldn’t do to save her mother or father or sister. No one she wouldn’t sacrifice, including herself.

Dark clouds dissipate, blowing away on her breath until they are no more. The pale moon shines down on Elfhame again. The wind is still. The waves crash no more against the shores.

And her black heart, dense with raw power.

Once upon a time, there was a woman who was so beautiful that none could resist her. When she spoke, it seemed that the hearts of those who listened beat for her alone.

“Come back,” he says again, tears burning the back of his throat. “You want and you want and you want, remember? Well, wake up and take what you want.” He presses his mouth against her forehead.

Cardan is lying on the bed, bandaged and sulking, in a magnificent dressing gown. “I hate being unwell,” he says. “You’re not sick,” Jude tells him. “You are recovering from being stabbed—or rather, throwing yourself on a knife.” “You would have done the same for me,” he says airily. “I would not,” Jude snaps. “Liar,” Cardan says fondly.

“Then I’ll have to marry you, Prince Oak of the Greenbriar line,” Wren says, with a sharp-toothed smile. “Just to make you suffer.”