Etian had known during the feast that Jadarah would come to him that day. The way she’d grinned and guzzled wine, all the slaughter and the sacrifice must have excited her. She came to his chamber late, in the small hours before sunset, so soon after he’d left Seleketra’s chambers that he suspected she’d been having him watched.

  As ordered, Phriese said nothing to the mad queen. The Thorn kept his protruding eyes on the floor as he let her in.

  Her stench filled the small space. Breathing through his mouth wouldn’t help, Etian knew from experience. Hatred for her and for himself swelled until it was nearly as suffocating as the smell.

  Her Thorns posted themselves at the two empty corners of the room, well within sword reach of the bunk.

  Phriese looked to Etian; the crown prince nodded at the door. The grieving Thorn went to the spot without question.

  “You looked for me all these days, didn’t you, blind prince?” Jadarah purred, splaying herself across his bed. “Waited and craved and couldn’t have.” She chuckled darkly. “What was it we said in Siu Carinal? That a starving man will only turn down a poisoned feast until he gets hungry enough?” She trailed one gore-stained hand lightly over her bodice. “You thought you could gorge yourself on that ugly whore of yours, but she didn’t satisfy, did she? We both know what you’re starving for.”

  Etian’s skin crawled, but the familiar, shameful lust took over.

  The horrible truth was that some disgusting part of him did crave her. Ploughing the mad queen was an awful sort of escape, an unreality as addictive as the release itself. For a time, the world, his responsibilities, his plans, the endless strategies and contingencies and expectations, every life that relied on him not making a single misstep, all slipped mercifully away.

  He forced his attention back at the last moment, from escape to ugly reality.

  Reaching between the stone wall and the straw tick, Etian found the dagger he’d wedged there. His fist curled around the hilt. He prepared to signal Phriese.

  “The strong gods told me a story tonight, blind prince,” Jadarah whispered. She scraped ragged nails over his sweat-slick throat, and a chill skittered down his spine. “Do you want to hear the whispers of the high places?”

  Etian’s harsh breathing sounded loud in his own ears.

  “Once there was a blind prince who stuck his sword into a piece of ice, a river rat, and a beautiful queen.”

  With every word she spoke, the scent of death grew stronger. “And everywhere the blind prince stuck his sword, there grew another little blade. Three little blades, every one of them a knife to their brothers’ throats.”

  Horror pulsed like a heartbeat in his veins. The hilt of the dagger felt hot against his sweaty palm.

  She wasn’t saying what he thought she was saying.

  “Liar.” The accusation came out like a gasp.

  “It’s too late for lies, blind prince. The strong gods have already declared that the sword will never depart from your house. I’m just another one of your sword bearers.”

  Etian realized he was shaking his head.

  “Oh yes.” She slipped her hand between them and caressed her still-flat stomach. “I’m not going to sacrifice this one. This one is mine. My own little Josean. Our little Josean.”

  Jadarah let out a dark laugh. “Just wait until Reuel meets his brother.”

  ***

  Phriese thought Etian’s earlier look had meant that retribution wasn’t coming that day. He’d thought it meant, Stand by the door and watch her Thorns in case they try anything.

  They didn’t try anything. Manly and Fieryhands’s eyes glazed over, and their mouths hung slack while they watched their murderous witch of a mistress bed the prince. The queen’s Thorns seemed barely cognizant of anything around them.

  Phriese kept a wary eye the swordsmen, but he was thinking of Jili waiting for him to get off duty.

  The strangest thing he’d experienced over the past few days was how he could remember holding her cold, stiff body in his arms and still expect at any moment to round a corner and walk right into her.

  On the bed, the queen muttered something to the prince, purring out nonsense just loud enough that Phriese could hear the timbre and inflection of her voice, but couldn’t catch any words.

  He wondered how much time had passed since he’d gone on watch. He thought his shift was almost over. Another hour or two and he could go see his girl.

  Then bone crunched and flesh squelched. A piercing, inhuman screech shook the air in the tiny chamber.

  Etian’s fist reared back, a glistening dagger clutched in it. Blood droplets splattered Phriese’s cheek and uniform.

  Screaming like madmen, the queen’s Thorns launched themselves at Etian.

  Phriese had always had some of the fastest reflexes at Thornfield. Before Manly and Fieryhands could get to Etian, Phriese threw himself between his prince and the rampaging swordsmen. He swept up his longsword just in time to meet Fiery’s blade.

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  He was supposed to signal me, Phriese thought dully as he parried Manly.

  Behind him, the slaughter carried on. Struggling, smacking, a low growl. The mad queen’s shriek gurgled into a wheeze, and the bony crunches turned into the sickly squish of pulp.

  Manly tried to shove past him. Phriese turned, swinging for the back of Manly’s neck. His stroke landed with a meaty thwack as Manly’s falchion laid open the prince’s ribs.

  Something slammed into Phriese’s chest. The pain caught him a moment later, and with it the realization that he was looking at Fiery’s sword buried sidelong in his breast. Phriese wanted to scream, but the air wouldn’t come.

  Teeth bared in an insane snarl, Fiery wrenched his sword free and went for another strike.

  Phriese’s longsword was still lodged in Manly’s neck bones. The queen’s dying Thorn collapsed, pulling Phriese down with him.

  Flopping on top of Manly sent another burst of pain through Phriese’s ruined chest. Air bubbled from the gash. Blood soaked his uniform jacket. His blood. The wound felt cold and hot at the same time, as if the air outside and the breath inside were warring for control.

  Maybe Manly wasn’t the only Thorn dying.

  In the hall, Phriese heard the priests of the strong gods yowling and slavering, drawn by the butchery, but too lost in their mindless frenzy to devise a way in. Ceremonial daggers thunked into the door. The bar rattled in the frame.

  Beside the bed, Fiery swung his sword in a vicious overhead chop at Etian. Phriese tried to shout a warning, but his airy rasp was lost in Fiery’s howl. Weakly, he looped an arm around Fiery’s ankle and yanked.

  A flash of skin and blade. Etian slammed Fiery against the stone wall, burying the bloody dagger in the Thorn’s throat. With a vicious twist of his free hand, Etian jerked Fiery’s sword away, then rammed it to the hilt into its owner’s gut.

  The queen’s last Thorn slid down the wall, blade scraping the stones, then slumped to the floor.

  Shouting, pounding at the door. Thinking, intelligent voices, not the bloodthirsty scream of priests in a frenzy. The rest of the crown prince’s Thorns, pulled in by the panicking grafting.

  A huge body slammed into the door. The wood groaned and crackled, but the bar held.

  Sketcher, Phriese thought. Don’t come in. You don’t want to see this mess. You’ll never be able to draw anything beautiful again.

  Etian staggered back to the bunk, holding the wound in his side. He dropped to his knees beside Phriese. The prince leaned close, squinting.

  He’s trying to see whether I’m alive or dead, Phriese realized. Where are his glasses?

  “I’ll get a healer,” Etian panted. With the bloody hand still clutching the dagger, he patted Phriese’s shoulder. “Hold on.”

  Phriese just shook his head, unable to speak. The hole was too deep, and it was too late. His blood magic knew that this was something it couldn’t heal; it had given up the fight.

  Outside, the shouting and pounding on the door went wild.

  “Izak…” Etian crawled toward the chamber door, his empty hand holding his side together. “Heal…”

  Phriese let him go. He let them all go. His shift was over. Jili was waiting on him just around the corner.

  ***

  Numbly, Etian watched over Izak’s shoulder as Rake, Dolo, and Hare dragged bodies out of his chamber. Phriese was first, followed by the queen’s Thorns. The last men she would ever graft. The last lives she would ever waste.

  Izak spoke while he healed the ribs stove in and muscle slashed by the sword, but Etian couldn’t understand a word his brother said.

  A bloodskin was shoved at him. Izak made him drink.

  That was a chore. Etian couldn’t believe how badly his hands were shaking. Even being the first man over the wall at Helat-occupied Siu Ferel hadn’t affected him like this.

  Gray and Sketcher stood over the dripping bed. Probably wondering what the protocol was for a dead mad queen.

  Eventually, they picked her up, one man on each end. Without his glasses, Etian couldn’t see the expressions on their faces, but from their posture he could tell both were trying not to touch any more of her than they had to.

  From the neck up, Jadarah was unrecognizable. Her face was a soup of blood, flesh, and bone fragments. For so long, Etian had planned to cut out her black heart, but the blade hadn’t pierced her chest once. Her face had been all he could see. Her lying, venomous, loathsome face.

  That old day terror from childhood came back to him. Jadarah swinging his mother’s decaying head over his bed. At least, he’d told himself it was a day terror. He’d had to.

  His son’s name had sounded like a curse on her tainted lips. But she couldn’t reach the boy anymore. Pasiona, their son, even Izak and Kelena were safe from that wretched, diseased harpy.

  Hare stopped next to Etian and passed him his lost glasses. The wound cried out in Etian’s side as he sat up, but the pain was distant, as if it belonged to someone else.

  “Careful,” Izak muttered. “The muscles aren’t finished knitting yet.”

  Etian scooted back to lean against the wall, and Izak returned to healing him.

  “Do you remember what you said to me that night on the high place?” Etian asked. He finished off the dregs from the bloodskin and laid it on the sopping, ruined bunk. “When I said I hoped she would fall off and die?”

  “The strong gods don’t give out luck that good,” Izak had told him back then.

  “I remember,” his brother said quietly. He raised one knee and propped his arm on it.

  Izak’s troubled frown came into focus when Etian slipped the glasses over his eyes. The smoked lenses were smudged and one had a hairline crack at the edge, but they were strangely clean of blood. Where had Hare found them that they hadn’t gotten a speck of red on them?

  Movement in the doorway. Commander Poiran.

  “Prince Etianiel, Prince Izak.” Deep, disturbed lines scored the man’s face. “His Majesty demands your presence in his quarters immediately.”

  Etian nodded. “We’ll come as soon as I’ve dressed. Gray, wake Seleketra. Tell her to outfit herself for an audience with the king, but don’t mention this… any of this.”

  At the mention of the courtesan, Izak’s head snapped around to Etian.

  Grabbing the bunk’s creaking wood frame, Etian pulled himself to his feet. The fresh scar twinged in his side.

  Izak was a second behind him, lurching up to his full height. “Hazerial will make you rip her apart yourself for what you did to Jadarah.”

  Etian sorted through his trunk and began pulling on a pair of unbloodied trousers.

  “Listen to me!” Izak grabbed Etian by the shoulder and spun him around, but when they stood face to face, the elder prince faltered. Izak’s eyes leapt back and forth between Etian’s as if he’d never seen him before. “Tell me this isn’t what you were planning. Tell me this isn’t why you brought her to this night-forsaken end of the world.”

  Etian shrugged off Izak’s hand. “If you can’t go through with this, stay here until it’s over.”

  “She’s done nothing to deserve this. You can’t—”

  “This is war, Izak. You can or you die.” Etian pulled on a shirt. “Or, because it’s Hazerial, someone you love dies.”

  “She’s innocent!”

  “Get your hands off me!”

  Grappling and cursing, the brothers crashed over the bunk and into the puddle of blood and butchery on the floor. Izak managed to land a punch that split Etian’s lip open before Dolo and Sketcher wrestled him off.

  Etian climbed back to his feet. “Someone inform His Majesty that Izak is unable to attend him today.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Izak tore free from Dolo, but he couldn’t break Sketcher’s grip. A man who could break down a reinforced oak door didn’t let go easily. Izak swiped at Etian, missing by inches. “Think for a second about what you’re doing!”

  “Izak, I order you to remain in my quarters until my audience with the king is completed.”

  The last bit was inaudible beneath Izak’s thundering curses, but the effect was the same. Etian grabbed the last clean shirt he’d brought along and dressed in the hall, leaving his raging older brother trapped by the grafting in a doorless room.

  e