A collection of six original fairy tales set in the world of the Grishaverse, Language of Thorns was published in 2017 with illustrations by Sara Kipin. Each story is rooted in the folklore of a different Grishaverse nation - Ravka, Kerch, Fjerda, Shu Han, and the Wandering Isle - and written in the cadence of traditional fairy tales, dark and morally complex in the manner of the Brothers Grimm rather than sanitised retellings.
The collection demonstrates Bardugo's range beyond the thriller plotting of the main series, showing her facility with compressed, fable-like narrative structures and a prose style more ornate than her novels. Individual stories received particular praise - Ayama and the Thorn Wood and The Too-Clever Fox were widely noted as standouts. The collection works both as a companion to the Grishaverse and as self-contained dark fantasy, accessible to readers unfamiliar with the main series while rewarding those who recognise the cultural and geographic contexts each tale inhabits.
