Etian couldn’t get anything coherent out of his younger sister, so he took her to his apartments a for servants to her up. He couldn’t guess how long Kelena had been trapped in that trunk. She’d been lying in her own waste, and vomit had dried on her shift. When light touched her skin, she flinched as if struck. He hadn’t seen her in at least a month, and like a self-tered dulrd, hadn’t ohought to search her out until it occurred to him that her mother may have killed her.

  Cold hatred burned in his gut, swathed in guilt and disgust. A firstborn prince was a y the kingdom never looked away from. A sedborn prince was always under scrutiny, born and grafted to stave off his own treachery. But a thirdborn child of either gender? She hadn’t even been missed. How many outside the pace walls remembered that Keleed? How many inside?

  Urgency born of fury and injustice drove him to move without thinking.

  Ruis and Gander met him as he stormed out of his chambers.

  “Pit house?” Ruis prompted, fused.

  Etian had fotten. “Not tonight. I must speak to the king immediately.”

  He stopped suddenly, hearing the simmering rage in his own voice. He had to think rationally. Emotioo run rampant made mistakes.

  Defense first.

  “Stand guard over my rooms. You’re proteg Princess Kelena. I want her kept away from the mad queen until I return.”

  “What if Her Majesty orders us to stand aside?”

  “Tell her I said to kill her if she tries to enter, and if she persists, do it.”

  The Thorns didn’t look sorry at the prospect of spilling the mad queen’s blood. But then, since her ation, Jadarah had frivolously thrown away the lives of more of their brethren than any battle or assassination attempt had taken. Ruis and Gander’s grafting was to the king and anyone in his direct bloodli didend to insane spouses.

  The mad queen’s most retly sughtered batch of Thorns had yet to be repced, and she had no blood magic beyond what she used to unicate with the strong gods. She had no prote. Surely she wouldn’t attempt to fight her way in.

  Then again, the moves of a lunatic could hardly be predicted. Etiahat well enough by now. He should probably prepare himself to answer for her death.

  The strong gods don’t give away luck that good, Izakiel had told him ohey had been children, standing together watg the new queen carry out a gory ceremony on a high pce, aian had just whispered, I wish she’d fall off and die.

  Ten years ter, Izakiel had been disied a away, Kelena was a ghost in her own life, and the pathetic sedborn prince who ought to have done something was afraid to shove the sword through Jadarah’s rancid heart himself.

  His brother had been half right that day. The strong gods didn’t give away luck that good. Not to anybody except the mad queen.

  ***

  Etian expected to find Jadarah waiting with the king, spinning insane lies about the blind prince—maybe even one ugly truth about him—but when he arrived, Hazerial was alone in his antechamber. The king sat by the fire with his feet on a warming pan, his shadow flickering high onto his wingback chair. He seemed to Etian to be staring into the fmes, but with his lenses lost and potentially broken iower’s hidden passage, the room was a blur of light and shadow.

  “Son.”

  Etian faltered half a step from the circle of firelight. Hazerial had never called him son before. Was that the opening strike?

  “Father,” he parried as if the epithets were no more than their and stepped up beside a horsehair chair opposite the king. “Your wife has kept Kelena locked in a trunk for days, and more likely weeks. The princess could have died, and none of us would have known until she was found.”

  No surprise at that thrust. Either Hazerial already knew or didn’t care. Or was he waiting for Etian to fight the match as he’d set the rules?

  “Should the royal daughter be treated like a on prisoner of war?” he demahumping a fist on the back of the chair. “Worse than one!”

  “And what would you have me do?” Informal singur pronouns rather than the royal we. What was Hazerial pying at?

  “Does your question assume that beheading or banishing the queen is off limits?”

  Even without lenses, he caught the king’s warning gre. Izakiel might have gotten away with that level of lip, but Etian wouldn’t, Son be burnt.

  He tried anle of attack. “Take Kelena from the queen a her up like the princesses were under previous kings. Marry her off to the man you tracted for her and send her away. Whatever is required to stop this.”

  “Be seated, Etianiel.” The kiured to the chair and made no move to speak again until the prince was in it. “You have been chosen by the strong gods to take the throne one day. Josean-blessed. Some say the sed ing of the warrior strong god.”

  Hazerial adjusted his robes over the warming pan. “I ied a kingdom at war, as did my father and his father. The Kingdom of Night has been at war sihe days of Khi himself. We ot exist in peace while the Het walk the Earth with our birthright.

  “To end this war and right the a wrong has been my aim since before I came to the throne—since Ahixandro and I were truly brothers, with one purpose and one end in mind. Bit by bit over the years, Eketra herself has revealed to me what is required. The death of the old monarchy was the first step, and so Ahix and I carried out our coup over Ikario. The purging of all bsphemous heresies was , of which my brother was the mrettable loss.

  “Destroying the pirates could be argued aension of that purge, but they bring about another element as well—the sce of Thorns. You are one of the final pieces, the ed warrior, the younger who took the pce of the elder for the first time since Khi ruled. You will lead our armies to victory the night my life’s work reaches its culmination.”

  Etian shifted in his seat. This ta seemed like a sweeping diversion from Kelena. If it was, how should he proceed? Direct charge or attempt a fnking maneuver?

  As if he could seian’s impatiehe kiuro the girl iion.

  “The st piece, however, is your younger sister,” Hazerial said. “Do you know that she was born in the high pces at the exaent when all favors were turned away? The priests and her mother have tested and verified it over and ain. N god blesses her, Etianiel, not one! Every soul born into the Kingdom of Night is blessed by one of them—all except for Kelena. They turheir faces away from her, and they still do. Kelena is the Cursed of the Strong Gods.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Wheime es, the Cursed will bear the fruit of a thousand hells, unleashing them upo. And in that moment I will crush the Children of Day under my heel aore the natural order, and the younger race will serve the elder, as it was always meant to be.”

  Right away, Etian saw myriad problems with the king’s pns. He chose the most gring first.

  “It hardly seems strategiarry off the bearer of a thousand hellfruits to some lord on the far borders of the kingdom. In that sario, it seems more likely she’ll bear his fruits.”

  “Don’t be stupid! Which strong god induces birth?”

  “Aha.” Kelena couldn’t give birth to anything, because Teikru, along with the rest of the strong gods, hated her. “If that’s true, then how will she bear the fruits of a thousand hells?”

  “She has been seeded by the mad queen.” That must be a smirk Hazerial was giving him. “Oh yes, I know what you and Izak and half the nation call Jadarah. It’s well-deserved. Only a madwoman could whore with the deepest hells and still retain enough lucidity to y the necessary groundwork in the child of her blood. On the night of reing, all of the strong gods will turn their loathing upon the Cursed at once, and the seed will burst forth ahrough the Children of Day like a sword through rotte.”

  Hazerial leaned forward. He was almost certainly lookiian in the eye. Etian did his best to focus on the dark holes in the king’s blurred face.

  “Now I ask you, Etianiel: Which s you most? The fate of aire nation or the brief and passing disfort of a child?”

  Etian scowled.

  “It shouldn’t be a hard question for the sed ing of Josean,” Hazerial said. “You save one or you save a thousand thousands. Which do you choose?”

  “It must be a false choice,” Etian said stubbornly. “There has to be a way to save both. And even if there isn’t, surely she doesn’t require treatment like this to—”

  “And how would you treat her, Etianiel? Would you pamper and protect, spoil her with every luxury until the day she’s ripped apart from the i? She’s hated by her own gods. She’s barely human.”

  Etian jumped to his feet. “She shook like a human when I pulled her out of that box! She cried like one!”

  “I expect tiresome dramatics from your brother, not you. Divorce your emotions from the se and you know as well as I do that this is the only way.” Hazerial settled ba his chair. “Return Kelena to her mother immediately. Jadarah is waiting in the princess’s quarters.”

  “Suppose I don’t? Suppose I sneak her out of the city and she disappears forever? No one will miss her. Most people don’t even remember that there is a princess of House Khi.”

  A hot spike impaled itself iian’s skull. His knees buckled, and he crumpled face-first onto the floor. Blood trickled from his crushed nose. His limbs y limp and useless, half of them twisted beh him. He could feel them, but he couldn’t trol them. Even his worthless eyes wouldn’t move. They did nothing but stare stupidly straight ahead at the fgstohey could only see clearly from this close, not even blinking when a roach skittered past, its papery wings brushing his eyeshes.

  Fury and shame raged to be so thhly routed, pletely uo fight back. For all his training, for all his efforts aions, he could no more resist the Blood of the Strong Gods than a haystack could a tornado.

  Hazerial’s slipper wedged beh Etian’s shoulder and flipped him onto his back. There was a wet ch beh his head. The roach. Its wings spasmed, body writhing. Its guts oozed into his hair.

  “Jadarah is getting at least one of you. Either she will have the princess hand-delivered by a prince who obeys wheold, or she will have the princess and a defiant little rag boy to py with.”

  The king k o Etian and y a hand on his cheek. “Ultimate victory is near. Will you be there to see it, Etianiel? Will you be part of it? Or will you be the prince who mysteriously became a drooling idiot, o be seen outside the pace again?”

  Hazerial’s warm, dry touch was worse than the roach’s death throes. If Etian could have ged away from the king’s hand, he would have. But instead, he just y there. Powerless.

  “You are not Izak.”

  Hazerial let the statement hang in the air while the full amplitude of the truth sank in. Izak would have defied the king. Izak couldn’t be trolled by magic or fear.

  But Etian could. That was why he’d been chosen. Because he was weak.

  Self-loathing choked him. It swelled and swelled until he felt like a burning, ied pustule about to burst.

  Then Hazerial offered him a way out.

  “You’re Josean-blessed, Etianiel. You are reason. You are determination. Giving in to the weepy antics of a child is beh you. We are at war, and a true warrior has the stomach to do what must be done.”

  ***

  “Got everything sorted?” Gander asked.

  Etian nodded. “Did the queen e?”

  “Came a in a huff wheold her your orders.” Ruis looked down the hall as if he expected Jadarah to leap out at any moment. “I’d watch my back for a while, if I were you.”

  “It’s taken care of,” he said. “You’re dismissed.”

  The Thorns looked at each other, then at him.

  “Uh, so…” Ruis scuffed a boot on the fgstones. “You want us to wait and apany you to the pit house? robably catch the st few fights.”

  “Not today. If you’re not on duty, you’re wele to go.”

  Another look.

  “As you say, Yhness.”

  Kelena had been washed and dressed in clothing. A tray of picked over bread and fruit sat on a serviext to his bed, and she was curled up, sleeping as if she were dead. She didn’t wake until he had carried her half the tower staircase.

  Seds passed before she reized where she was.

  “It was another dream, wasn’t it?” she said in a choked whisper. “I k. I’m still in there. I’m still in there!” Her voice rose to a scream.

  The g and thrashing began then, but Etian had been learning to fight through beatings while his sister was still in the womb. He ighe stinging of the scratches and dull pain of her weak blows and carried her the rest of the way to her chambers.

  The doors were open to the inner room. If anything, time aion had made the stink from the chest worse. It filled the air like a soup of excrement.

  Jadarah stood by the window looking out on the bailey. At the sound of his boots, she spun around. There were faint discolorations over her eyes that might have been his lenses ht have been his imagination.

  “Ooh, the blind prince brought me a present!”

  Shove her out the tower window. Take Kelena to Lord cio ahem to disappear. Run. Or tell Kelena to run while you stay and fight and die—it doesn’t matter.

  Maybe if Kelena had begged him. Maybe if she’d fought just a little longer.

  But the princess wasn’t even trying to get away anymore. She was trembling, g, sniveling like an infant.

  Imagihe luxury . The indulgence of p out all the awful truths, having them run out of your eyes instead of filling you up and rotting you from the i.

  Jadarah’s stench washed over him. The world sharpened as she slid his lenses bato pce. The gss was smudged with greasy fingerprints. The earpieces were warm with her body heat and likely crawled with iions.

  “In here.” The mad queen draped herself over the open lid of the chest. Her eyes were nearly swallowed up by her pupils. She licked her lips. “Put her in here.”

  Etian had to ko set Kelena inside. With Jadarah hanging over the chest like that, it looked as if he were kneeling to the mad queen, presenting an .

  Kelena didn’t resist, didn’t g to him as he let her go. Her pale face had turned gray beh the tears.

  “I was never out,” she said in a tiny voice.

  Her whimpering made Etian want to scream.

  Imagihe luxury of screaming.

  He stood up, and Kelena sank into the chest.

  The heavy lid dropped. The hasp fell into pce, bounced oayed. Jadarah held up a thin bodice dagger covered in fking gore.

  “Stick it in,” she panted.

  Etian took the bde from her and slid it into the staple where the wooden doll’s arm had been, trapping the lid closed.

  Jadarah moaned. When she hung herself around him like she’d hung herself over the chest, her stench barely bothered him anymore. It was nothing. Just a smell. There were more disgusting things in the world. He was one of them.

  ***

  The rumers were no less ined to believe in their sayings about frozen ground, frozen marriage when they saw their future queen step out of her carriage and into the courtyard of Castle Sangmere on her wedding day. From her snowy white skin to her cold blue eyes to her pale yellow hair, Pasiona of House Skalia looked as if she had been formed from the same glittering spring ice that shimmered across Siu Rial.

  The priood waiting to lead his betrothed into the throne room.

  The royal groomsmen who fahemselves friendly with the prihought he looked er and more polished than usual. The Royal Thorns knew he was. Etian hardly fenced anymore without immediately scrubbing down afterward. In fact, if the serving girls with which the Thorns spent their off-duty time were to be believed, the prince had begun having baths brought up daily, and was having the wash water in his chamber ged almost every hour.

  After seeing Pasiona, however, his new obsession with liness and perfeade sense. How would it have looked for a man of the average dirt and grime—even a royal oo touch a creature as pure and cold as spring ice?

  To Etian, his hand on hers looked like a slurry of dung spttered across a field of perfect white flowers.

  Pasion didn’t miss his hesitation. She assessed him with those deceptively heavy-lidded eyes.

  “You’ve ged,” she said.

  Darios of Thivera fshed through Etian’s mind.

  “If you carry on, I ,” he said.

  She slipped her hand into his arm. “Let’s carry on, then.”