Briar saw guns. Ammunition. Maps. Knives, hammers, mysterious liquids—probably sedatives. Anyone else in this situation would probably panic. But Briar’s muscles relaxed, her smile catlike under her barely tight gag. To their credit, they’d at least bound her hands in iron. A twinge of challenge echoed through her.

She’d been in this exact situation a dozen times.

It was a standard part of training in her family.

Teach’s voice resounded in her head, reminding her how to manipulate captors

“Scared eyes”

“Cower from them”

“Let them think you’re giving them what they want”

“Let them know you’ve surrendered”

Everything in Briar’s natural being bucked at the thought of being helpless.

But she was where she wanted to be. And those moves were how she stayed there.

She tried to memorize the room she was in quickly, before anyone saw she was awake.

Seeing all the rebels plans laid out, with her tied up 10 feet away with not so much as a blindfold almost made her snort with laughter.

Briar’s father would be so pleased by their idiocy.

“Let them never see you truly weak, my little thorn, let them see only what you wish them to.”

Her father’s last words to her before the rebels ‘kidnapped’ her.

Footsteps caught her attention just in time for her to slump back down.

Briar heard a group of rebels, laughing about how they finally got the upper hand on the king and his stupid daughter.

Briar wanted to scoff. These bumbling idiots could never best her, let alone her father. Especially with her mother and siblings. Fools, all of them.

A booming voice echoed high above the rest. Surely this was their leader. He spoke in a triumphant voice, as if they had actually accomplished anything. He addressed them as although they were celebrating a win, they had work to continue.

She rolled her eyes internally.

Briar heard him call for a nurse, and she almost cursed before she pretended to rouse on her own.

Curious eyes stared at her from everywhere. She couldn’t talk, but she could see. There were hundreds. Maybe thousands.

Where did they get all these people? Only around 300 people where unaccounted for, according to the newest census.

“scared eyes”

She willed the same fear she felt when she watched her father fall to the ground, a dagger mere inches from anything precious. She willed the disgust that overtook her body when she murdered someone for the first time as she closed in on herself.

Scared. Afraid. Delicate. Helpless.

Alone.

But really, she smirked. Briar had been born for this, trained for this. She had lived for this. And these fools just let her right in the door.

This is why the only two rebellions their precious kingdom had failed in their history.

All because roses always hid thorns.