The third-year bracket was in its final round when the patrols on the walls began shouting that outriders had just passed the thornknife graveyard. Within minutes, a pair of Royal Thorns was at the gatehouse requesting entry for the king’s entourage.

Beech and Twelve, the third-year championship hopefuls, were forced to delay their half-finished match while they and the rest of the students scrambled to put themselves in an order befitting the arrival of royalty.

Nine changed into her clean set of clothing; to the close-rat, clean clothes were already uphill finery.

Twenty-six, who wasn’t interested in showing any type of deference to the dirter king, remained in what he was wearing.

Izak changed into his soiled clothing that had been waiting for laundry day.

“I’d hate for someone to miss my contempt for our sovereign and his lovely queen,” the prince told his roommates with an acidic smile.

By the time the royal carriage pulled into Thornfield’s walls, the bailey was boiling with young men jostling for a view of the carriage door. Even Nine was practically clambering up Izak’s side.

“Stop it!” He shoved her off.

“I want to see a royal, me. Me and Pretty seen plenty a’ fancy folk afore, but never royal folk.”

The upperclassmen had seen the king the year before, and a smaller number had seen the queen with him the year before that, but they were still awed by the combined presence of Their Majesties. Most of the first-year class had never seen a noble before; they stared on in open-mouthed wonder as the carriage door opened.

Izak was Teikru-blessed enough to admit the mad queen was beautiful. A wonderful, gropeable body dripping with deadly allure and smooth, flawless skin—if you could find it under the caked filth and dried gore. One might think she bathed in raw sexuality, if one didn’t know that what she truly bathed in was the blood of infants. Add to that the complete lack of less smelly, less dirty women to compare her to, and the temperature of the crowd raised several degrees as a Royal Thorn helped the queen descend the carriage steps.

Grandmaster Heartless showed the royal couple inside. The disappointment was palpable as the keep’s doors closed behind them and the masters ushered the students back to finish out the third-year bracket.

Before the sovereigns’ arrival, Beech and Twelve’s match had been the subject of earnest debate, raucous cheering, and much advice-shouting. After, the young men finished their match a distant secondary attraction to the much more fascinating entertainment of reliving the appearance of the soft curves, bloodred lips, and dark ringlets of the Queen of Night.

***

Throughout the year, an unprecedented number of fourth-years had been grafted to private postings. Three to the lord of Siu Carinal, a baker’s dozen scattered across the coastal holdings where the lords were up in arms about bolstering defenses against the pirates, and three to the governor of the Coffee Islands, who was always clamoring that the natives teetered on the verge of revolt. Well over the usual sprinkling of private Thorns the king gifted to his most favored and sometimes least trusted courtiers.

With two more seniors dead from the ague that winter, that left a meager thirty-one ready for grafting. A small crop indeed. Most years the king needed at least a score and ten to replenish the royal ranks, and he was planning on giving his wife another six to throw away.

Grandmaster Heartless hated to do it, but he’d spent several sleepless days preparing a list of the best third-years as well to fill the gap. Some, like Beech, the winner of the third-year bracket, were excellent swordsmen but not mature enough for a posting. Others like Twelve, the runner-up, were close to ready all around—skilled, educated, and capable of handling the stress and strain that came with being grafted. Another year at Thornfield would have given Twelve the confidence and authority to become a commander, but the strong gods were rarely interested in waiting for what a man could become.

Once the king and queen were settled in the royal suite, the best appointed and least used chambers at Thornfield, and the king had cleansed himself of the dirt from the road, Hazerial called for Grandmaster.

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Like the rest of the fortress turned school, the royal chambers were only kept plastered enough to plug up the drafts, and as a kindness to the future Thorns of those who slept there, the rooms were sparsely appointed. No tapestries or hangings or unnecessary furniture large enough to conceal an assailant. As it was higher in the central tower, however, the windows were true windows with leaded glass panes, not narrow archer loops. The bed’s down-stuffed mattress had been aired and beaten back into luxuriant softness, and the bedclothes were of the highest quality available in the area. It might not have been what the king and queen were used to, but to the boys of Thornfield, it would have seemed a piece of paradise.

“Your Majesty,” Grandmaster said, bowing from the doorway.

Hazerial motioned for him to enter. After a year of seeing the king’s eldest son nearly every night, it was strange to gaze upon those same features mirrored in the sire—thick dark hair with barely a trace of gray, sharp House Khinet features, and the slash-like indentations high on the cheekbones that accompanied the dimples occasionally visible on either side of his mouth.

A fire had been lit in the hearth early that evening to burn off the spring dampness and scent of disuse, but as the night wore on into morning, it had burnt down to embers, leaving behind a pleasant glow of warmth. A glow that the queen was letting out while she leaned out the southeastern window to watch the young men below with a hungry leer on her face.

“The best prospects from the year.” Grandmaster handed over the parchment he’d brought, preparing for the usual questions.

The king gave the list a cursory scan.

“The names these brats take. Blaze. Fuller. Carrion?” Hazerial snorted and rolled up the parchment, patting it on an open palm.

Heartless let the comment lie. Given his past, he was a poor choice to belittle foolhardy young men and the names they chose.

The king’s dark eyes pierced Grandmaster Heartless. “If we graft them all, who have you pegged as the natural leader?”

“Striker will try to take that place, Your Majesty, but he’s not suited for it. His peers think he’s an oaf and a bully, and they’re not wrong. Fuller’s got the support of the group. Innate strategy and crisis prioritization. If he lasts the year, he’ll have the experience dealing with older Thorns. He could easily take over the commandery of the Royal Thorns by then. Favors the hand-and-a-half sword.”

“His second?”

“You’ll want Manly for it. Cool headed, but just a touch slower with the critical decisions. Respected by the rest of the students. An excellent shortsword man. Fuller’s solid indoors and out, but Manly excels at close quarters combat.”

“Which would you recommend be grafted to the queen?”

After everything that had been invested in the young men, after everything the students had gone through to serve, Heartless would as soon slice them up and toss them into the ocean with the sharks.

“Baijalon, Daring, Twelve, Thirty-three, and Palata,” he said. “For their leader, Fieryhands. His name may be idiotic, but he has the gumption to keep a smaller squad attentive to their duties.”

Jadarah’s fine, dirty nose wrinkled.

“Are they as ugly as the ones you wanted me to graft last time?” She glared at the parchment as if its presence offended her. “I’ll inspect the seniors at the feast and point out the ones I want.” She returned to the window, muttering, “Sometimes the ugly ones are useful, though. They try harder, and their seed usually takes faster. We’ll see…”

Hazerial went on as if the queen weren’t still mumbling to herself.

“What of our captive pirate? How does he stack up against the rest of our prospective Thorns?”

Grandmaster Heartless hadn’t imagined that he would be answering for a first-year who wasn’t the king’s son, but he kept close enough tabs on the night-to-night goings on in his school to discuss any student.

“In quality of weapon work, the pirate can outperform everyone in his year.” It was customary to claim the prince as the highest rank in his crop of thorns, but Heartless had never seen the use in lying—for the sake of royal conceit or anything else. “He’s a devil with a cutlass and swordbreaker. He’s well educated, quick, and, excluding a bout with the grippe this winter, hardy.”

“How is his vision? At night and during the day.”

“Average at night. However, as might be expected of his people, excellent in daylight.”

Hazerial tapped the parchment against his chin. “So he retains his day vision. How do you expect your report on him will go when it’s time for his grafting? Tell us where you see him in three years’ time.”

Over at the window, Jadarah’s attention perked up. She craned her neck to watch her husband while Grandmaster replied.

“He could become a leader if he wanted to, but he shows too much scorn for his fellow students to do it. Much more likely, in three years, I’ll be suggesting Izak for commander of Prince Etianiel’s Thorns. Izak already has the support, and what he currently lacks in stratagem, he confers on with Twenty-six. The pirate, rather.”

Hazerial’s dark brow rose. “Friends, are they?”

“The young men who lodge together here often form close bonds. You could graft them under the same master, and the pirate might take orders from Izak. Might.” Grandmaster belatedly remembered Hazerial’s original communique stating that the pirate would become a Royal Thorn. “Of course, Your Majesty is capable of bringing anyone to heel, savages included.”

Hazerial nodded, then after a moment, he smiled.

The king’s smiles were never pleasant. To Heartless, seeing one felt like standing over an open grave while a cold wind blew. The wiry white hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and he suppressed a shiver.

“That will suffice, Grandmaster. We grant you leave to go.”