The fourth-year bracket was both louder and less watched than all of the other brackets bined. Boisterous spectators jostled and shouted advice to the batants, eae hoping to stand out from the croarticurly smart and skilled to Her Majesty. The queen only enced the attention by sending sultry gnces, lig her lips, and trailing her hands suggestively over her bodice. Less than half of the popution of Thornfield saw or cared who won the senior bracket. It was Fuller, and he almost fot it himself when, along with the pliments of the king and grandmaster, Jadarah gave him a gratutory kiss with her whole body pressed against his.
Izak s the wonder and shock warring on the champion’s face. “He’s realizing he’ll have to burn those clothes; that stench will never e out. Lucky for Fuller he’ll get a new uniform once he’s grafted.”
Nine was too busy to reply. She had fallen into a scrap with a passel of first-years around her age, who seemed to think that was the ideal way to get noticed.
If Twenty-six heard Izak’s remark, then he didn’t show it. The pirate hadn’t said anything sihe king and queen arrived three days before. He just stared.
Not at the queen, as everyone else was doing.
Izak followed his friend’s dark gre to its target and found that the king was staring back at the pirate with a cold smile twisting his lips.
“Brace yourself,” Izak warwenty-six. “It’s never good when he’s happy.”
***
The prince hadn’t made any effort to speak to Hazerial during the first three nights of the royal visit, and Hazerial hadn’t made any efforts to speak to him.
On the day of the fourth-year championship match, after a te supper, while Jadarah was ostensibly being shown around the grounds by her choice Thorn didates, Hazerial finally sent for his eldest son.
“Your Majesty.” The nuisance swept an ironically servile bow.
“Sober, are you?” Hazerial didn’t look up from a unique he enning at the writing desk. “We expected such a dedicated lush to find a way around Thornfield’s proscription by now.”
“A few of the boys have mao ferment a weak liquor in their rooms, but it’s not to my taste.” Rather than wait for an invitation to be seated, Izak invited himself to the settle by the fire, ily, and no doubt iionally, giving the king his back.
Hazerial scowled. “You will stand in the presence of royalty.”
“Sounds as if you have me fused with another former prinan.” Izak stretched his boots toward the hearth and ced his hands behind his head. “To what do I owe the nominal pleasure of this summons?”
“You’re quartered with the pirate,” Hazerial said.
“Hm? Oh. Yes. And another little d. From the low streets in Siu al. Almost impossible to uand, but he jabbers so much that I mao catch a bit here and there.”
“Fet the low street trash. Tell us what you have learned about the pirate.”
“Well, he snores dreadfully. Thinks all our food is un because it’s raised on dirt. Turns brown in the sun, sort of like those pntains from the Coffee Isnds.”
As always when unig with his firstborn, the impulse to rip the i wretch apart surged. Unfortunately, death and bodily harm had never meant anything to Izak. The rare times Hazerial had attempted to push him into yielding, Izak had pushed back, daring the king to make good on his threats.
Hazerial gred at the back of Izak’s head. “What are the pirate’s weaknesses?”
“The usual.” Izak shrugged. “Bdes, burning, bludgeoning… Drowning by act is unlikely, sidering he swims like a fish, but I imagine if you held his head uer long enough, you would achieve the desired effect. He had a bad bout with fever a month or two ago. Healer Prime tells me that’s on with fners.”
Hazerial exhaled slowly. He was going to have to draw a on to get anything useful out of this bsted discussion.
“Kelena is betrothed to the new Lord of the ternds.”
Izak gave a sharp ugh.
“Is it time already to dangle Kelena over my head and see if I’ll jump?” He sat up and twisted to face Hazerial, one arm over the back of the settle. “What is it you want to hear? That the pirate has day terrors about you? Who doesn’t? That he’s got a taste for beautiful women with soft skin and a pretty smile? Find a man at Thornfield who doesn’t. Well, find three or four, anyway.”
“How often do the two of you speak of killing me?”
Izak rolled his eyes. “Oh, all the time. We ’t wait to finish lectures each day so we spire against the King of Night. We’re both gleefully suicidal over it.”
“You’ll find I don’t have much tolerance for foolish dramatics these days.”
The prince feigned sympathy. “Jadarah’s beginning to wear on you, is she?”
The quill snapped in Hazerial’s fist.
“The Lord of the ternds wants to end Kelena’s training immediately and take her away from her mother,” the king said, gently setting the ruined quill aside. “I make that happen, or I her to the queen for the rest of her life. My decision depeirely upon what you tell me today.”
A rare look of ption crossed Izak’s features.
“How is Etian these days? Etianiel, rather.”
“He wed the daughter of Lord Zi month.”
Izak affected a shiver at the mention of his former betrothed. “Her Iess, Pentia or Paletie or something. My sympathies to the groom. Any word of an heir?”
Was he ptiaking the throhe ck of an aowledged heir would make a takeover simpler for Izak. Eketra remained unonly silent on the subject; perhaps Izak wasn’t fishing for opportu all, but something else.
“,” Hazerial said to see what Izak would do with the truth. “We expeews within the year.”
“I wouldn’t. Pyeta? Whatever her name is, she’s notoriously frigid. I’ve heard it from a dozen lord’s sons and bastards. Of course, she could grit her frozeh and do her duty for the kingdom. But then you’ll have t Etian away from the feng ring and the pit houses long enough to finish the job. Good luck with it, is my point.”
“Demeaning my appoi for the future queen of the nation. Very mature.”
A seated bow. “I live only to serve.”
“I am informed that Kelena has been particurly distressed of te. Do you find that amusing as well?”
“If I’d been birthed by a madwoman, I would be distressed, too. The lucky babes are the ohe queen sacrifices to the strong gods.” The priood and paced to the window, passing within arm’s reach of Hazerial as if to prove that he wasn’t afraid. “Send Kelena off with the Lord of the ternds. Even a traitor’s son with a taste for child brides is a better pt than Jadarah’s grimy clutches.”
“vince me,” Hazerial said.
Izak sighed as if he were the one most weary of this versation.
“The pirate’s greatest weakness is his code of honor,” he said, staring out the window. “He won’t do anything that promises his iy—say, lying or stabbing a man outside of bat. And, most especially, using blood magic. He has the aptitude, as you must already know or you wouldn’t have sent him to Thornfield. But he calls it an abomination. Refuses it out of hand, eve would be him.”
Now that was an iing development. The Mark should have called to blood, thirsted for it.
“You have vinced us to allow Kelena’s release from her mother as accorded in the marriage tract,” Hazerial said graciously. “As well, your information may prove useful to the Kingdom of Night in the war against the Het.”
The prince didn’t look away from the window. “I’ll attempt to keep my rejoig to a decorous level.”
Hazerial smirked. “Attempt it on your way out.”
***
The grafting took pce the following midnight. Training ended early, and the meal ut on hold until after the ceremony. The private graftings during the year had been attended by only the he necessary students, and such masters as the ceremony required. For the royal grafting, everyone in the school turned out, excluding the kit staff, who were busy preparing the post-ritual feast.
Jadarah had demanded Fuller for her Thorns, but Hazerial wasn’t about to give up the best from the senior css. In sotion, she got Fuller’s sed, Manly, and Striker as well. The tter wasn’t much to look at in Izak’s opinion, but the mad queen was delighted by his bullying nature. She had already appointed him leader of her Thorns. From the grandmaster’s reendations, only Fieryhands, Baijalon, and Twelve were pretty enough for her. To that, she added a few of the less skilled but beautiful faces.
They weren’t much loss as far as Hazerial was ed. He was taking the rest of them.
Fuller went first. He k before the king and opened his shirt. Manly and another friend stood to either side, hooking their arms through the prospective Thorn’s to steady him. If the thornknife was off by even an inch or wavered as it went in or out, it would kill him irresurrectably.
A hush fell over the courtyard. The students stood with their eyes fixed on their future as Hazerial raised the thornknife. Some flinched and closed their eyes as the wooden bde plunged home, but many found themselves uo even blink.
Bone ched and Fuller screamed. Several students who’d never shown a weakness around blood went soft at the knees, heads spinning, stomachs heaving. A first-year—and not the you of them—lost trol of his bdder. Oher side of Fuller, his friends trembled, faces gray, fighting to hold the limp corpse steady.
Hazerial tore the thornk and dragged its bloody tip across the dead man’s forehead, drawing a gory cross.
“Fuller, your service is anded,” he intoned. “Return to your master. Take root where your spirit will not be driven out.”
The corpse spasmed. The ghost city overhead flickered to bck.
The thornknife glowed like a moonbeam, the only illumination in the bailey.
A ragged gasp echoed through the air, and thehornknife went dark. The eerie green light from the ghost city blossomed once more.
Fuller pulled his arms from his friend’s grasp, his eyes open, panting. He swallowed hard and pressed a hand to his chest, where the blood trickled down to stain his shirt. Besides the quickly scabbing over hole, he looked unharmed.
“Your soul resides within this thornkil such a time as you die again or we release you from service,” Hazerial recited.
Fuller bowed his head. “I am the king’s.”
Master Smith stepped forward, extending to His Majesty a hand-and-a-half sword of a quality that only ever graced the hands of a Thorn.
“Your bde,” the king said.
Tears wavered in the young man’s eyes as he took it.
“Echo. Her name is Echo.” Fuller’s voice was hoarse with emotion. “My blood, soul, and bde are grafted to your service, Your Majesty. Let nothing part us from you or from each other.”
“So be it. Rise, Fuller.”
As the horn stood, a roar shook the bailey. Two huudents and staff shouting and whooping in joy. Fuller’s friends desded on him, crushing him in hugs and spping his back. The horn’s face glowed with amazement and relief and pride. He wasn’t the only oh tears wetting his cheeks.
And then Fuller’s moment of glory was over, and he was hustled out of the way for the grafting.
In the end, only two of the thirty-seven died. An unprepared third-year who had hastily chosen his he day before, and Baijalon, whose heart Jadarah impaled slightly off target. Both were removed from the bailey to the rubbish pit before the horn was grafted. It didn’t do to have another fresh corpse too close while trying to call someone else back from the grave.
With the ceremonies pleted, the new Royal Thorns apaheir masters io the feast, searg every step of the way for dangers and treacheries only they could feel. The rest of Thornfield followed, nausea and panid grief for the two dead all but fotten iriumphant celebration.
Nine was at the head of the surge. Only death itself could stop the runt from eating.
Twenty-six hung back, and Izak with him.
“It will have to be during my grafting ceremony,” the pirate said the first words he’d spoken sihe sn’s arrival. “That is the only time I will be able to kill him.”
“That doesn’t interfere with your ws of honor? Killing a man when he’s not engaged in bat?”
“The dirter king owes a blood debt. The only honor in a blood debt is when it is repaid.”
Izak grinned. “I knew your pirate logic was just twisted enough for this job.” He spped Twenty-six on the back. “e o’s get some food and I’ll tell you what else yoing to have to justify to pull this off.”
