Sitting atop a terraced hill, Blazing Prairie, the House Mattius residence, was a sprawling estate bejeweled with glimmering windows of leaded glass in fiery reds, oranges, yellows, and blues. Besides being visible in the daytime for miles across the grassland, like a smokeless fire, Blazing Prairie’s claim to fame was that at night, no trace of ghostlight mirrored it in the sky, a novelty for such a grand old residence. The ghost city of Siu Baital, a day’s ride to the southwest, was a favored view from the estate’s natural hot springs.

Word traveled well ahead of the royal progress about the bloody end to the tournament held at House Skalia. Implications were that something similar would take place at Blazing Prairie when the king and his newly appointed heir arrived.

The current lord of House Mattius, a man in his early thirties named Clarencio, was the only son of the late Cinterlands rebel. King Hazerial had bestowed the title on him after he had alerted His Majesty to his father’s treason. In fact, Clarencio had gone so far in his quest to inherit that he’d led his father’s arrest himself.

Lord Clarencio met the train of wagons, carriages, and horsemen at the border of his holdings as Lord Zinote had, but the Lord of the Cinterlands brought no army with him, just a carriage and footmen.

Etian expected a bootlicker of the highest order, but Clarencio didn’t simper. When the crown prince was presented, the lord gave him no more than the requisite bow and a cool smile.

“I don’t ride. Bad leg.” Clarencio tapped his boot with his walking stick to indicate the limb in question. “However, Your Majesty and Your Highness are welcome to join me in my carriage, as it please you.”

In spite of the beautifully cold, clear night, Etian had been ordered to attend the king in the lord’s carriage. He climbed in behind the older men—Clarencio’s entrance was something of an achievement, given his rail-stiff leg—and sat in a corner where he could observe them both.

Etian guessed that he was there to double the intimidation in case the lordling harbored any rebellious ideas of his own. The interior of the carriage was too small for a sword swing, but the royal blood magic was a better weapon in close quarters anyway. More precise.

The carriage lurched into motion. Clarencio didn’t begin orating on the barbaric treatment of the natives or the dyre as his father had been known to do, nor did he seek a subject which showed he had memorized Hazerial’s interests by rote and was eager to engage them. The Lord of the Cinterlands seemed perfectly content to allow the miles to roll by in silence.

Silent, but not uneventful. The air pressed close while the opposing sides studied one another.

“It was brought to our attention that you haven’t attended the Hall of Law in nearly a year,” the king finally initiated.

Clarencio nodded. “I’ve had a run of bad health that prevented long-distance travel. My representatives have been carrying out their duties satisfactorily in my stead, I hope?”

“We prefer the true heads of our noble houses present whenever possible.”

“I’ll see that I’m there in the future, Your Majesty.”

Hazerial pressed the narrow advantage. “You petitioned the crown with a marriage contract several months ago.”

The heavy drape over the window closest to Clarencio came unsnapped at a corner, allowing in a burst of cold air.

“Never stays closed, that one.” The lord thumbed the snap shut again. “I was informed that Your Majesty’s wisdom was to reject the contract, and so I terminated negotiations.”

“Remind us which house you sought to engage.”

“Our neighbors, House Agata. Mosole has a few unmarried daughters left, and I’m becoming an old man. After that last bit of poor health, it seemed prudent to produce an heir.”

The king nodded. “The girl would come with a hefty dowry, as well.”

“I was more interested in their exports,” Clarencio said.

House Agata held the counties south of House Mattius’s. Excellent horse country. Their stables bred mounts for the crown as well as the wealthiest nobles in the kingdom.

All of that would be wasted on a man who couldn’t ride, however.

House Mattius was surrounded by prairieland that grazed healthy, hearty livestock and supplied the crown with much of its yearly grain, but its prosperity lay mainly in the mining done in the rocky hills of its southwestern counties. For the last hundred years, all the iron ore in the Kingdom of Night had come from House Mattius’s mines, making them precariously independent of the crown and its favor.

And they would remain independent of the crown until the ore ran out. That explained the marriage request. Clarencio’s people must have found a vein along their southern border stretching into House Agata’s land, or at the very least have hope that they would find one. If the Cinterlands mines stopped producing and had no fresh veins to delve into, the crown might finally bring House Mattius to heel. By denying the marriage, Hazerial had been tightening the leash.

No indications of such a drying up had appeared in the Royal Archives yet, but Etian knew that a wise steward would mete out the ore evenly through the years while stockpiling the rest to prepare for just such a day.

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“Have you no illegitimate children you might seek to establish?” Hazerial asked.

“None that lived past infancy.”

“We assume this is due to the father’s poor health?”

Clarencio twisted his walking stick in his hands. “Unfortunately, it seems so. My parents also lost several infants between myself and my sister. My sister had no indication of sharing my condition, but her offspring did. She died in childbirth, and the babe not long after.”

Etian glanced toward the king, wondering if this information was new to him. None of it had been recorded in the Archives, but it would have given Hazerial an easy reason to deny the lord’s request to marry.

Hazerial showed no surprise. “After much consideration, we are now prepared to grant your request to wed.”

Clarencio’s dark brows jumped. Had Etian been in the crippled lord’s seat, he would have positioned himself for the follow-up strike, but clearly the Lord of the Cinterlands was unfamiliar with his king’s fighting style.

“You are very gracious, Your Majesty. I will inform Lord Mosole immediately.”

“Don’t bother.” Now that Hazerial had the lord where he wanted him, he struck. “You won’t be marrying a member of House Agata. If you still wish to marry, you will enter a contract for our daughter, Princess Kelena.”

***

Jadarah was furious.

“You would rip her out of my hands? My own child?” She beat her chest. “You gave her to me!”

Hazerial stood at a huge window in Blazing Prairie’s royal suite, looking southward toward the distant ghost city that indicated Siu Baital. With the House Mattius estate’s eerie lack of ghost city, the view stretched uninterrupted for miles in every direction and upward an awful infinity.

Jadarah stalked to the window and ripped the curtains closed. She hated seeing the dark autumn sky hanging empty like some awful looming threat. The strong gods were quiet here, their voices swallowed by all those frozen hateful stars.

Slowly, Hazerial turned to regard her. “I gave the girl to you to seed. What have you been doing all this time?”

His face was boredom and ice, and that made her anger burn all the hotter. She wanted the frozen king to meet rage with rage. She wanted shrieking and howling and violence in the bedchamber to match the shrieking and howling and violence in her.

“And what if she can’t bear the seed?” Jadarah demanded. “What if that little nothing miscarries all your carefully laid plans? Then will you crawl crying to me?” She wrung her hands dramatically. “‘Oh, all my precious plotting and scheming! If only I’d given you time to do it properly, Jadarah,’ you’ll wail, ‘if only, if only, if only!’ You child-stealing, selfish beast!”

“How much time with the child will seal it and stop you clucking about this?” he drawled.

Without even considering the question, she hurled a number at him. “She cannot be properly prepared in less than five years!”

With a dispassionate grunt that made Jadarah gnash her teeth, Hazerial crossed to the bed where clean robes had been laid out and began to dress for the midnight meal.

“You’ll have her while the lord of House Mattius follows court. He can’t possibly ask to withdraw before a year is up without insulting the crown. He’ll plan to leave in one, but by then, he’ll be trapped for at least three.”

“A year?” Realization dawned on Jadarah—she wasn’t the only one having trouble hearing the strong gods in the Cinterlands. “Does the great Hazerial need a whole year to snare the lowly crippled lord in his web? Can it be that the cunning King of Night cannot find the correct manipulation point to lever the cripple into place? Did Eketra forget to tell her favorite king the cripple’s weakness?”

Jadarah cackled and clapped her hands, the bone beads in her hair laughing along with her like a chorus. Oh, it must be driving him insane! Without that key piece of manipulation, Hazerial was left staring at a lock he couldn’t open, and no matter what was locked away from him, it would be the only thing he wanted.

“I know your tiny mind can only understand the concept of maneuvering one thread at a time,” Hazerial said, irritation bleeding into his voice and filling her with glee, “but it’s rarely so simple as that. I am closer than any other Chosen of the Strong Gods has ever been. Webs upon webs must be woven together now, and not a single strand must be mistimed.”

“A year?” Jadarah slunk up behind her frozen king and purred in his ear. “Dangling just outside mighty Hazerial’s reach for a whole year, the crippled lord doing whatever the crippled lord pleases? What might the cripple accomplish in that much time, Hazerial? What might he do without your puppet strings to march him along?”

With a flick of his arm, Hazerial carelessly swatted her across the room. The sharp protrusions of her spine scraped painfully against the scrollwork of a settle’s armrest, and Jadarah cried out in pleasure at the flare of agony.

The door to the antechamber rattled. A fist thumped on the wood, and a male voice shouted, one of her toys demanding to be let in.

A grin curled her sumptuous bloodred lips.

If Hazerial touched her again with the Blood of the Strong Gods, that door would crash in, and the slaughter would begin. By sunrise, she would need a new set of Thorns. She lost a lot of excellent toys to Hazerial’s rough play. No matter that he wouldn’t kill her, no matter that her Thorns could feel her throbbing with desire. Their grafting forced them into defending her from harm, whether or not she loved and courted and sought that harm.

All that powerful manflesh strained to breaking, torn to pieces, spilling their blood, bowels, and tears all over these nice clean flagstones, all for her. Excitement pounded through her veins, drowning out the strong gods’ silence with its heady thrill.

Her Thorns would feel that, too. It was a side effect of the grafting Jadarah had discovered with her first set of sword boys. She felt every sensation they did as if it were her own, and they hers. They had writhed in the bloody mess as they died, whimpering in pain and pleasure while she and the frozen king writhed on the growing pile of corpses. The confusion, fear, and disgust that prefaced their death throes were delicious.

Licking her lips, Jadarah decided it had been far too long since her last slaughter.

Boots and shoulders battered the door, her toys sensing the growing danger.

“You can do better than that, Hazerial.” She lifted the skirting of her dress and dragged her jagged nails across the flesh of her thighs, opening bloody furrows. “Please the strong gods. See if you can break another queen.”

The shouting in the antechamber increased in intensity, and the beating on the door turned into the hack of a blade. The portal wouldn’t hold much longer.

Hazerial scowled at her, but desire burned in that cold, contemptuous glare. She knew it was no simple thing for a man to say no to her, and it was just as complicated to say yes. That was what kept dragging them back.

“Whatever it takes, finish the girl’s preparations within the year,” Hazerial ordered as he began removing the clothing he’d just put on.

The upper panel of the door splintered with a wooden crackle. Panicked eyes and flashing steel were visible through the narrow aperture. The sword chopped into it again, throwing slivers onto the rug.

“I want this room to rain red,” Jadarah said. “Give me what I want, and you can have her.”

Hazerial closed the space between them in a stride and grabbed the queen by her slender throat.