The fourth-year bracket was both louder and less watched than all of the other brackets combined. Boisterous spectators jostled and shouted advice to the combatants, each one hoping to stand out from the crowd as particularly smart and skilled to Her Majesty. The queen only encouraged the attention by sending sultry glances, licking her lips, and trailing her hands suggestively over her bodice. Less than half of the population of Thornfield saw or cared who won the senior bracket. It was Fuller, and he almost forgot it himself when, along with the compliments of the king and grandmaster, Jadarah gave him a congratulatory kiss with her whole body pressed against his.
Izak snorted at the wonder and shock warring on the champion’s face. “He’s realizing he’ll have to burn those clothes; that stench will never come 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 since the 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 glare to its target and found that the king was staring back at the pirate with a cold smile twisting his lips.
“Brace yourself,” Izak warned Twenty-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 late supper, while Jadarah was ostensibly being shown around the grounds by her choice Thorn candidates, 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 communique he was penning 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 managed to 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, insolently, and no doubt intentionally, giving the king his back.
Hazerial scowled. “You will stand in the presence of royalty.”
“Sounds as if you have me confused with another former crown prince, old man.” Izak stretched his boots toward the hearth and laced 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 lad. From the low streets in Siu Carinal. Almost impossible to understand, but he jabbers so much that I manage to catch a bit here and there.”
“Forget the low street trash. Tell us what you have learned about the pirate.”
“Well, he snores dreadfully. Thinks all our food is unclean because it’s raised on dirt. Turns brown in the sun, sort of like those plantains from the Coffee Islands.”
As always when communicating with his firstborn, the impulse to rip the insolent 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 glared at the back of Izak’s head. “What are the pirate’s weaknesses?”
“The usual.” Izak shrugged. “Blades, burning, bludgeoning… Drowning by accident is unlikely, considering he swims like a fish, but I imagine if you held his head underwater 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 common with foreigners.”
Hazerial exhaled slowly. He was going to have to draw a weapon to get anything useful out of this blasted discussion.
“Kelena is betrothed to the new Lord of the Cinterlands.”
Izak gave a sharp laugh.
“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 can’t wait to finish lectures each day so we can conspire 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.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“The Lord of the Cinterlands wants to end Kelena’s training immediately and take her away from her mother,” the king said, gently setting the ruined quill aside. “I can make that happen, or I can chain her to the queen for the rest of her life. My decision depends entirely upon what you tell me today.”
A rare look of contemplation crossed Izak’s features.
“How is Etian these days? Etianiel, rather.”
“He wed the daughter of Lord Zinote last month.”
Izak affected a shiver at the mention of his former betrothed. “Her Iciness, Pentia or Paletie or something. My sympathies to the groom. Any word of an heir?”
Was he contemplating retaking the throne? The lack of an acknowledged heir would make a takeover simpler for Izak. Eketra remained uncommonly silent on the subject; perhaps Izak wasn’t fishing for opportunities at all, but something else.
“None yet,” Hazerial said to see what Izak would do with the truth. “We expect news 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 frozen teeth and do her duty for the kingdom. But then you’ll have to drag Etian away from the fencing ring and the pit houses long enough to finish the job. Good luck with it, is my point.”
“Demeaning my appointment for the future queen of the nation. Very mature.”
A seated bow. “I live only to serve.”
“I am informed that Kelena has been particularly distressed of late. 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 ones the queen sacrifices to the strong gods.” The prince stood 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 Cinterlands. Even a traitor’s son with a taste for child brides is a better placement than Jadarah’s grimy clutches.”
“Convince me,” Hazerial said.
Izak sighed as if he were the one most weary of this conversation.
“The pirate’s greatest weakness is his code of honor,” he said, staring out the window. “He won’t do anything that compromises his integrity—say, lying or stabbing a man outside of combat. 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, even when it would benefit him.”
Now that was an interesting development. The Mark should have called to blood, thirsted for it.
“You have convinced us to allow Kelena’s release from her mother as accorded in the marriage contract,” Hazerial said graciously. “As well, your information may prove useful to the Kingdom of Night in the war against the Helat.”
The prince didn’t look away from the window. “I’ll attempt to keep my rejoicing to a decorous level.”
Hazerial smirked. “Attempt it on your way out.”
***
The grafting took place the following midnight. Training ended early, and the meal was put on hold until after the ceremony. The private graftings during the year had been attended by only the nobles, the necessary students, and such masters as the ceremony required. For the royal grafting, everyone in the school turned out, excluding the kitchen 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 class. In consolation, she got Fuller’s second, Manly, and Striker as well. The latter 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 recommendations, 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 concerned. He was taking the rest of them.
Fuller went first. He knelt 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 blade plunged home, but many found themselves unable to even blink.
Bone crunched 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 youngest of them—lost control of his bladder. On either side of Fuller, his friends trembled, faces gray, fighting to hold the limp corpse steady.
Hazerial tore the thornknife out and dragged its bloody tip across the dead man’s forehead, drawing a gory cross.
“Fuller, your service is commanded,” 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 black.
The thornknife glowed like a moonbeam, the only illumination in the bailey.
A ragged gasp echoed through the air, and then the thornknife 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 thornknife until 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 blade,” 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 blade are grafted to your service, Your Majesty. Let nothing part us from you or from each other.”
“So be it. Rise, Fuller.”
As the new Thorn stood, a roar shook the bailey. Two hundred students and staff shouting and whooping in joy. Fuller’s friends descended on him, crushing him in hugs and slapping his back. The new Thorn’s face glowed with amazement and relief and pride. He wasn’t the only one with tears wetting his cheeks.
And then Fuller’s moment of glory was over, and he was hustled out of the way for the next grafting.
In the end, only two of the thirty-seven died. An unprepared third-year who had hastily chosen his name the day before, and Baijalon, whose heart Jadarah impaled slightly off target. Both were removed from the bailey to the rubbish pit before the next Thorn 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 completed, the new Royal Thorns accompanied their masters inside to the feast, searching every step of the way for dangers and treacheries only they could feel. The rest of Thornfield followed, nausea and panic and grief for the two dead all but forgotten in the triumphant 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 since the sovereign’s arrival. “That is the only time I will be able to kill him.”
“That doesn’t interfere with your laws of honor? Killing a man when he’s not engaged in combat?”
“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 slapped Twenty-six on the back. “Come on, let’s get some food and I’ll tell you what else you’re going to have to justify to pull this off.”