The royal progress crawled eastward, its endless carriages, carts, horses, and ox churning the highways into mud pits. Etian had no shortage of invitations from royal hangers-on, but sitting in a coach for hours on end rankled, no matter the company. He practiced his horsemanship on many of the nights, racing mounts and staging horseback combat with the king’s Thorns who hadn’t drawn carriage duty. Other nights, he exercised his bowmanship with the grooms and woodsmen, taking small game and, once, a hart from the local underbrush, while the second half of the royal train was digging itself out of roads made impassable by the first half.

Though Etian didn’t realize it, he was a favorite among both the royal guard and the palace’s rougher laborers. King Hazerial was a distant, deadly, unknowable figure. Izakiel had been a jovial catastrophe preparing to inflict himself on the kingdom.

There had been a celebration in the stables when Etian had been promoted to Crown Prince in his brother’s stead. Sure, lots of folks sighed what a shame it was that the ancient law of birth order set in place by Khinet himself had to be overturned to make it happen, but a solid Josean-blessed king was infinitely preferable to the caprice of Teikru’s favorite son. There were still some trembling, toothless elderly who remembered Lareana I, the queen regnant who had caused so much infighting and turmoil with her endless suitors and consorts. Better to avoid a reign led by the god-goddess’s whims altogether.

Lord Zinote and his standing army met the royal train at the border of his counties, under pall of a heavy rain. Scores of sworn knights shivered in full armor, each backed by corresponding complements of dripping soldiers. Forest green and ice-white banners of House Skalia hung sodden.

The passage through the holding to Zinote’s mansion did even more to damage the roadways. The peasants had to make new paths to market or risk losing half their goods in the muddy swamps their lord had created in his attempt to show both deference and military might to the king.

***

The Zinote manse, fittingly named The Overlook, was located on a bluff overlooking the wide Salt River and had been constructed only twenty years before in the new palatial style, filled with tiled floors and long, open rooms made to look even larger by mirrored walls. Its furnishings were as luxurious as Mistfen Palace in Siu Carinal, all lacquered wood and velvet cushions.

Etian had read a communique from House Skalia in the Royal Archives from the middle years of construction. In it, Zinote requested Thorns to protect him against traitorous vassals across two counties. The financial and agricultural records from the corresponding years told the rest of the story—building their lord’s mansion had bled the counties dry.

The king had granted the lord’s request, and the following year’s records showed new vassals managing the lands in question. No more threats of uprising reared their heads while construction was completed.

Due to the rain and the massive escort slowing the royal caravan’s already laborious progress, the company arrived at the Overlook late in the morning. Given the hour, Zinote suggested postponing the tournament until the king’s combatants had had a few days to rest, but Hazerial assured him that would not be necessary for his champion. Although Etianiel was a new student of the royal blood magic, the prince’s lifetime of rigorous training had left him capable of outperforming the most well-rested fighters.

Apologies were made for impugning the crown prince, and the tournament was set for the following day. The stands had already been constructed in advance of the royal household’s arrival, so carrying on with the festivities was only a small matter of informing the local competitors, the bands scheduled to perform, and the cookstaff that their outdoor hog roast had been moved up.

By midday, the royal visitors had bathed and settled down to the welcome feast with their hosts.

Zinote’s pair of Thorns, in their accustomed spot behind their lord’s seat, were swallowed up by Hazerial’s full complement of fifty-two Royal Thorns and the mad queen’s six.

The House Skalia Thorns looked faded and worn in the face of their royal counterparts. Though both men were fit and imbued with the sharp-eyed intensity of all Thorns, they were sunk deep in middle age, unretired because Zinote knew the king would not grant him another set. The king’s guard looked like a herd of fresh, high-headed stallions next to the older swordsmen, none of them over thirty and few of them likely to see it posted in the palace.

Jadarah’s Thorns were the freshest of the lot—her guardsmen rarely saw twenty-five. The mad queen tired quickly of her toys, and Hazerial gifted her with replacements like an indulgent kennel master tossing treats to a favored dyrehound.

The life expectancy for Royal Thorns was low, but there was an endless supply of replenishments to choose from.

The foolishly proud Zinote could not bring himself to give another man the head seat at the high table, nor could he openly jilt his king, and so he had compromised by having his staff lay place settings for eight. Hazerial and Zinote shared the central position, with Lady Zinote and Queen Jadarah to Hazerial’s right, and Princess Kelena stuck to her mother’s side. To Zinote’s left sat the crown prince, Zinote’s daughter, and finally the lord’s steward. In that way, it might be considered pure chance that there was no exalted focal point of the feast rather than a struggle between a lord’s aggrandized self-image and his need to belly crawl to keep lands and family and head firmly attached.

The food was excellent—fatted calf garnished with bitter herbs, crow stuffed with late peas and carrots, spit-roasted piglets, fish fresh from the river only a few miles away, creamed turnips, mushrooms and onions in butter, elaborately decorated tureens made of crusty bread that held seas of delicate soups.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Etian didn’t mind the seating arrangement. Zinote was too busy fawning over the king for the prince to need to pay attention to the lord, and the acoustics in the feasting hall allowed Etian to catch a good deal of the hunting and war stories being traded by the knights and soldiers at the low tables.

Although he should probably make an attempt at conversation with the young woman beside him. It would be smart to have an established base if their marriage contract was upheld.

The problem Etian faced was the same one he’d had in opening moves with Kelena—namely, wondering what lords’ daughters talked about.

He was about to ask whether her family staged hunting parties, knowing they did, and whether she rode out with them, which he couldn’t even begin to guess. He stopped suddenly, realizing he had no idea what the girl’s name was.

He didn’t recall coming across it in his scouting reading. She looked close to his age. At sixteen years old, she wouldn’t have been alive during the construction uprising, and she hadn’t been mentioned in any of the agricultural or financial records for the counties. Assuming the girl was a pawn in the king’s unfathomable game rather than an active player, Etian hadn’t bothered gathering any intelligence on her.

More fool him.

He opened his mouth to ask what her name was, but she cut across him before he could speak.

“Don’t bother.”

Etian blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Your father is here to strongarm my father into signing the marriage contract for a pittance, because, one assumes, the previously hinted at betrothal bribery has all gone to the war in the north. My family estates will be added to the royal holdings when I inherit, building up the crown’s coffers even more and proving an excellent return on a tiny investment.

“Meanwhile, I’ll be your brood sow, produce a son or two, and then either be banished, accused of some idiotic treachery and executed, or die in a tragic accident, leaving you conveniently free to seek out a nubile new child queen.”

In an evenly matched fight, the one who scored the opening hit nearly always came out the victor. Usually, that was him.

This young woman, however, hardly paused her scathing opening volley to take a breath. She glared out over the filled feasting hall, her ice-blue eyes fixed on the family banners swaying against the back wall.

“So, if it please Your Highness—” She twisted the request with bitterly ironic obsequiousness. “—let us forgo the sweet talk and pretense. Tell me when to open my legs and when you’re done. In return, I’ll tell you when there’s an heir. We can ignore each other the rest of the time.”

Etian hadn’t given Zinote’s daughter more than a cursory glance before, but she—whatever her name was—was actually quite beautiful. Her eyes were a blue nearly as pale as the icy trimmings on her dress, and a sliver of white showed beneath her irises. Her hair was a pale, frozen yellow rarely seen on Children of Night.

Realizing he was staring, Etian pretended to adjust his lenses while he wiped the dumbfounded expression off his face.

“Do you think I’ll need to know your name to get on with all that?”

Pale brows jumped in outrage before returning to an icy frown. He had scored a hit.

“Royal Sow should suffice,” she bit out.

“And I suppose you’ll address me as the Royal Boar?”

Another hit. He attacked before the ice princess could counter.

“Of course, you’re welcome to call me Etian, if you would rather. Most people did before my brother was disinherited.”

“Many felicitations on your crown. I trust your backstabbing arm is not overworked?”

Etian suppressed a smile. “Felicitations on your upcoming nuptials, Lady Sow. If the strongarming works, that is.”

“I suppose we’ll know after the tournament. Exactly how many of my family’s men are you planning to murder?”

She moved fast. Etian stepped up his tempo to outpace her.

“I thought six or seven should be enough for the first night.”

“In that case, I fear I shall be indisposed and unable to attend.”

“Think you’ll get away with it?”

She sniffed. “I get away with anything in the bounds of my father’s lands.”

“That explains why you’re being such a sore loser about this marriage contract—you’re spoiled.”

“I did not lose!” Fuming made her pale eyes lighten until they were nearly clear. Had he thought she was beautiful? Girls at court were beautiful. She was gorgeous.

“I, at least, have the grace to admit when I’ve been beaten.”

“If royalty suffers defeat, it is because they were not smart or fast enough to change the rules in their favor.”

A hit to her.

Etian laughed. “I can’t contradict you there. The best I can do is change the rules in my favor. Tell me your name and I’ll change my tournament plans: no deaths by my sword.”

“But many by another weapon?”

“I’ve been ordered by His Majesty to make a show of the royal blood magic. I can try not to kill anyone with it, but I can’t make promises. I’m not yet practiced enough with spells to be certain of the same precision as the sword.”

“Naturally, there will be no way for me to discern between accidental deaths and intentional ones?”

He considered this. “No, I don’t think there is a way. Though I’m told I have a very obvious pout when I fail at something.”

Her eyes narrowed. Even thinned like that, the slivers of white showed beneath her irises.

The answer came to him.

“There’s a specific guardsman you’re worried about,” he guessed.

“One man with a sword is much the same as every other.”

“Except for this one.” Etian did a quick search of the knights and men-at-arms and found one square-jawed man of about twenty downing ale and glaring up at the lord’s daughter from beneath heavy, lowered brows. No chivalric insignia, so just a common soldier. “You love him.”

“I do not love.” She turned her icy gaze to the opposite side of the room from the man in question.

The soldier looked like a brawler, puffed-up ear and squashed nose. Everyone but Thorns had been required to remove their weapons in the king’s presence, but the man had the breadth of chest and arms that came from years of swinging a greatsword.

“I won’t kill him.”

Not even a twitch. “Kill whom?”

“I am going to have to beat him, however. You know as well as I do that the newly crowned prince can’t lose some rural tournament to a nobody, even for the sake of his future wife. If you don’t want him to be maimed for life, tell your paramour to stay down when I put him down.”

Etian had fought enough different types to know that the odds of a man who looked like that listening to such a plea were infinitesimal, but she could try. Maybe an ice princess would succeed where lesser women would fail.

“I don’t love either,” he told her. “I can’t see a point to it. I’m not likely to be an affectionate husband, but I will be an effective one. Perhaps that will make us a good pairing. You seem like you’ll be an effective queen.”

“Of course I will.”

“Then I swear by Josean never to put you away, either by death or banishment. Women with minds like swords are rare among the nobility. I would have to be a simpleton to spurn such a valuable weapon.”

“Any man would.”

“Even if she is a spoiled brat who won’t tell me her name.”

Her chin rose haughtily. “Pasiona.”

Her admission was a sheathed blade. Etian responded in kind.

“It’s a beautiful name for a queen.”