Etian couldn’t get anything coherent out of his younger sister, so he took her to his apartments and sent for servants to clean 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-centered dullard, hadn’t once thought 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 necessity the kingdom never looked away from. A secondborn 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 palace walls remembered that Kelena existed? 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, confused.

Etian had forgotten. “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. Emotion left to run rampant made mistakes.

Defense first.

“Stand guard over my rooms. You’re protecting 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 coronation, 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 bloodline; it didn’t extend to insane spouses.

The mad queen’s most recently slaughtered batch of Thorns had yet to be replaced, and she had no blood magic beyond what she used to communicate with the strong gods. She had no protection. Surely she wouldn’t attempt to fight her way in.

Then again, the moves of a lunatic could hardly be predicted. Etian knew that 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 once. They had been children, standing together watching the new queen carry out a gory ceremony on a high place, and Etian had just whispered, I wish she’d fall off and die.

Ten years later, Izakiel had been disinherited and sent away, Kelena was a ghost in her own life, and the pathetic secondborn 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 flames, but with his lenses lost and potentially broken in the tower’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 custom 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 common prisoner of war?” he demanded, thumping a fist on the back of the chair. “Worse than one!”

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

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

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

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

“Be seated, Etianiel.” The king gestured 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 second coming of the warrior strong god.”

Hazerial adjusted his robes over the warming pan. “I inherited a kingdom at war, as did my father and his father. The Kingdom of Night has been at war since the days of Khinet himself. We cannot exist in peace while the Helat walk the Earth with our birthright.

“To end this war and right the ancient 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 blasphemous heresies was next, of which my brother was the most regrettable loss.

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

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

As if he could sense Etian’s impatience, the king returned to the girl in question.

“The last piece, however, is your younger sister,” Hazerial said. “Do you know that she was born in the high places at the exact moment when all favors were turned away? The priests and her mother have tested and verified it over and over again. No strong 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 turned their faces away from her, and they still do. Kelena is the Cursed of the Strong Gods.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“What does that mean?”

“When her time comes, the Cursed will bear the fruit of a thousand hells, unleashing them upon the Helat. And in that moment I will crush the Children of Day under my heel and restore 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 plans. He chose the most glaring first.

“It hardly seems strategic to marry off the bearer of a thousand hellfruits to some lord on the far borders of the kingdom. In that scenario, 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 lay the necessary groundwork in the child of her blood. On the night of reckoning, all of the strong gods will turn their loathing upon the Cursed at once, and the seed will burst forth and tear through the Children of Day like a sword through rotten meat.”

Hazerial leaned forward. He was almost certainly looking Etian 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 concerns you most? The fate of an entire nation or the brief and passing discomfort of a child?”

Etian scowled.

“It shouldn’t be a hard question for the second coming of Josean,” Hazerial said. “You can save one or you can 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 inside out? 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 scene and you know as well as I do that this is the only way.” Hazerial settled back in 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 Khinet.”

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

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

Hazerial’s slipper wedged beneath Etian’s shoulder and flipped him onto his back. There was a wet crunch beneath 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 when he’s told, or she will have the princess and a defiant little rag boy to play with.”

The king knelt next to Etian and lay 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 crown prince who mysteriously became a drooling idiot, never to be seen outside the palace again?”

Hazerial’s warm, dry touch was worse than the roach’s death throes. If Etian could have cringed away from the king’s hand, he would have. But instead, he just lay 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 controlled 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, infected 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 beneath 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 come?”

“Came and left in a huff when we told 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 flagstones. “You want us to wait and accompany you to the pit house? We can probably catch the last few fights.”

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

Another look.

“As you say, Your Highness.”

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

Seconds passed before she recognized where she was.

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

The clawing and thrashing began then, but Etian had been learning to fight through beatings while his sister was still in the womb. He ignored the 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 and ventilation 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 or might have been his imagination.

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

Shove her out the tower window. Take Kelena to Lord Clarencio and tell them 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, crying, sniveling like an infant.

Imagine the luxury of crying. The indulgence of pouring out all the awful truths, having them run out of your eyes instead of filling you up and rotting you from the inside out.

Jadarah’s stench washed over him. The world sharpened as she slid his lenses back into place. The glass was smudged with greasy fingerprints. The earpieces were warm with her body heat and likely crawled with infestations.

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

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

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

Her whimpering made Etian want to scream.

Imagine the luxury of screaming.

He stood up, and Kelena sank into the chest.

The heavy lid dropped. The hasp fell into place, bounced once, stayed. Jadarah held up a thin bodice dagger covered in flaking gore.

“Stick it in,” she panted.

Etian took the blade 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 rumormongers were no less inclined 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 crown prince stood waiting to lead his betrothed into the throne room.

The royal groomsmen who fancied themselves friendly with the prince thought he looked cleaner 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 changed almost every hour.

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

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

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

“You’ve changed,” she said.

Darios of Thivera flashed through Etian’s mind.

“If you can carry on, I can,” he said.

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