The feast was well underway when Izakiel strolled into the great hall, freshly poured into his fi clothing and spshed with enough st to drown out the smell of the low streets.

  Every eye turned his way. Young women colored when he favored them with a smile. Young men noted every detail of his dress ament, eager to keep up with the prince’s fashion. Ambitious nobles assessed his g their daughters, hunting for opportunity.

  Over the years, Izakiel had already enjoyed most of the prettiest courtiers his age—and several of their handsomer mothers. He had no iion of tripping into their snares. When it became necessary, he would be married off to some fn princess or the daughter of a powerful lord with designs ohrone. In fifty years or so, if his father expired without killing him first, the of Night would e to rest on Izakiel’s brow and he would receive the Blood of the Strong Gods, leaving him leader of the nation and their eternal war with the betrayers.

  At the head of the hall, his brooding sire sat scrutinizing him.

  Though it was said that Izakiel was the very portrait of the king, with the same dark hair, fair skin, and always-visible notch-mark dimples high on their cheekboo Izakiel’s mind, he and Hazerial had never much resembled one another.

  There was something chilling in the king, something that sent icy spiders crawling down the spi was well known that Hazerial had beera-blessed before he took the throne and received the triune blessing of the Blood of the Strong Gods. Perhaps it was the lingering threat of puppet strings jerking tight that set Izakiel’s teeth on edge whenever he was face-to-face with his father.

  To the king’s left sat her, backed by a half-dozen Royal Thorns. The only woman in the kingdom who had ever successfully grafted the magical swordsmen to herself—who had ever even been allowed to attempt the ceremony—she kept them close by, symbols of her power and untouchability. The mad queen could flirt with her Thorns in front of the king and the entire court and fao reprisal whatsoever; the king valued her gifts too highly.

  The mad queen was not Izakiel’s mother. His mother, the first queen, had dutifully produced two healthy male children and then been repced by this loathsome… vile… disgusting…

  He was too drunk to produce a satisfactory epithet. He couldn’t rightfully call the mad queen a whore. He liked whores. Whores either took ho payment or robbed you blind, and then they left. After fourteen years, there was still no sign of Jadarah’s exit. The only sotion he had was that his pet name for her—“the mad queen”—had been adopted by nearly everyone in the kingdom.

  She grinned mogly at him, twisting a dark ri ored with white bone beads around her bloodstained fihe night’s oracle must have been a success, then.

  Izakiel’s mouth snarled into a hateful smile. Yes, there was the defted belly that for the st few months had swollerim body Jadarah so prided herself on. She was despicably geous and as Teikru-blessed as he was—facts that only served to make him hate her more. He hoped she would still be alive wheook the throne, so he could chop the head from her body himself.

  By the mad queen’s side, Izakiel’s half-sister, little Kelena, huddled in her chair. Where her mother was vibrant, deadly, nearly impossible to look away from, the thirteen-year-old princess was almost invisible. When one did finally notice her, she looked brittle and terrified—afraid to flee, afraid to stay, afraid to make a sound. Today, pink blotches stood out high on her por cheeks, and Izakiel khey weren’t from the sunlight. Kelena had probably never even glimpsed that shining orb except in paintings and illumiory books.

  He gave his sister a reassuring smile. She ventured a shaky twitch of the lips.

  Spotting the momentary pse in terror, the mad queen leaned close to the girl, eyes never leaving Izakiel’s as she whispered poison into Kelena’s ear. The shred of hope in Kelena’s expression crumbled, and the princess shrank in on herself.

  Well, there was always the odd ce that Izakiel would kill Jadarah ahead of his accession. If he could get past her Thorns, that was. And of course, the king would be angry that he’d destroyed such a valuable tool, but surely another she-viper could be found to serve the dual fun of w the auguries and warming the king’s bed.

  Perhaps an actual viper this time. It would have a better personality. It might even bathe on a while.

  There was a clearing of a throat, and Izakiel realized betedly that his brother stood at the king’s right hand, fag the gathered nobles.

  Whereas Izakiel and Hazerial could be deemed slightly soft around the edges due to the intrinsic luxury of their statioian appeared fed from the same steel as the sword he wore everywhere. Lean, hard, and athletic, sixteen years of obsessive training had carved away any hint of baby fat or childish foolishness from the Josean-blessed sed prince.

  Nearly as tall as Izakiel, with the same striking House Khi features, Etian had ied their te mother’s poor eyesight and smooth fao dimples marked his cheeks—even in the rare event that he smiled—and he looked out at the world through smoked lenses. Without the gsses, Izakiel knew, his brother was as good as blind.

  It seemed Izakiel had walked in on the annou of Etian’s departure for Thornfield.

  That gave him his first twinge ret. The highest honor a sedborn prince had was to bee ander of his elder brother’s Royal Thorns, ensved by blood and magic to the firstborn. Martial servitude was Etian’s birthright, as the was Izakiel’s.

  Of course, the people of the Kingdom of Night never called it “ensving.” That was too ugly a word. “Grafting” was more patable. Etian would be grafted to Izakiel with invisible magical s that could never be loosed.

  The sed prince was already a superb swordsman, having trained nightly from the time he could hold a dagger, first with their uncle, who had been grafted to their father, and then with his rept Vorino.

  Yet Etian was not half the swordsman he would be when he left Thornfield. There, he would be hoo the deadly edge that could only e of the harshest measures and magics. And wheian’s training was plete, Izakiel would drive a magical bde carved from the wood of the thorhrough his brother’s heart and graft his soul in servitil his death. So it was for every sed son in the Kingdom of Night, going back to that first betrayal of their aor Khi.

  The arra had ruck Izakiel as very fair. Etian had devoted his life to the sword, whereas Izakiel had stopped studying the royal blood magic years ago with minimal sequences. It was well known that the divine power of kinghood came with the Blood of the Strong Gods, anyway, and required only minor upkeep with the occasional disemboweling, massacre, y. In Izakiel’s opinion, that responsibility could and should be treated with every measure of disdainful xity avaible.

  But Etian never pined. Like the strong god whose favor he had been born uhe younger prince pursued his duty with the single-minded dedication of the Josean-blessed.

  The least Izakiel could do to repay his brother was to aowledge the sacrifice Etian was being forced to make by the bad luck of birth order.

  He swiped a pearled goblet from the closest lord’s hand and raised it to Etian.

  “My heartiest gratutions, Brother—” on your departure from this of vipers. “—on surviving to your sixteenth year without leaping off the ramparts. Thornfield doesn’t deserve a warrior of your skill and intelligence, and I do not deserve the loyalty of the Thorn you will bee.”

  Behind his smoked lenses, Etian’s dark brows twitched downward. Hard to tell through the ging effects of the liquor what that particur expressio. Etian was not the type to take offense, and he had always been exceptionally uanding of Izakiel’s geable nature.

  “Well spoken,” King Hazerial said in a voice dangerously soft. “You realize the worth of your Josean-blessed brother to a kingdom at war and the limited value of yourself. No doubt you will rejoi our decision to renounce your status as heir apparent and give it io our sedborn son.”

  Izakiel blihe fine vintage gealing in his throat. For the life of him, he couldn’t wring any sense from what his father had just said.

  Hazerial tinued withard for his fusion.

  “As the strong gods decreed, the birthright of the is bestowed this day upon the man who will keep our people strong. Today, we break with the traditioablished by reat aor Khiwo millennia ago.”

  A buzz filled Izakiel’s ears. The titter of ughter from the mad queen. The murmur of shocked whispers passing from courtier to courtier. The sound of someone’s world disiih his feet.

  “Etian,” the king announced, “you are ianiel, Prince of Night, Chosen Son of the Most High King, who will rule after my death. When the moon rises again, you will begin your training to receive the Blood of the Strong Gods.”

  Hazerial turned dark eyes upon his firstborn. “Izakiel, you are hereby stripped of all cim to the throne and the title Prinbsp;Bestowed Son of the Most High. You are from this moment on only Izak of House Khi. You will leave for Thornfield in your brother’s pce, whereupon finishing as a full Thorn, you will be grafted into the servid prote of your future king until death.”

  ***

  Despite his public removal from the line of succession, Izakiel—no, Izak now, as he no longer had any cim to the royal suffix of ia in the chair at his father’s right hand, which should have been reserved for the prince.

  Etian had made no move to take it, and what was a little pettiness on top of humiliation?

  “Masterful stroke, old man.” Izak checked the depths of his wine for the poison his father must surely have dropped into it. “Eketra must be lig her lips with glee. She loves a good knife in the back.”

  Hazerial stared out over his subjects. “While the strong goddess will certainly be pleased with your childish injury, betrayal had nothing to do with our decision. Tonight’s augury showed us the way to destroy the Children of Day ond for all, and shogly, that was not by bequeathing the throo a prince more ied in whores and liquor than the royal blood magic with which he was born.”

  “That’s what her augury said, was it?” Izak’s eyes cut around the divine ruler to the queen, whose gore-stained hand had snaked behind her seat to caress her closest Thorn.

  “ you holy say that you’re the better man to rule?” the king asked. “That you are the son of your bloodline most dedicated to the strong gods and the Kingdom of Night?”

  Izak ground his teeth, the liquor pounding in his head. Like every other move his father made, the questions were calcuted to drive enmity between himself aian. To keep the brothers from trusting one another enough to join forces against him, as the king and his brother had done against King Ikario IX more than thirty years before.

  Some rancid instinct had the lie oip of Izak’s tongue. A bination of the urge to believe he would have made the better ruler and the selfish desperation to hang onto his fortable life in the pace while casting his brother into harsher climes. He even checked to see whether Etian would overhear his reply.

  The glint in Hazerial’s eye and the appearance of both pairs of dimples said he knew how close Izak was to tearing down every bridge he’d built with his younger brother.

  To curb that fetid impulse, Izak instead asked, “How do you io get me to Thornfield? Drag me there in s?”

  “That won’t be necessary. The queen always birth another daughter to raise in her own image. She’s fond of Kelena, but not attached.”

  Meaning if Izak protested too hard, his little sister would be dust.

  “Masterful,” he muttered again and polished off his wine. A bloodsve ghosted mindlessly forward to refill it. “When do I leave?”

  ***

  The horses were saddled and ready at su, a pair of handsome royal mounts and a packhorse with enough provisions for the two-week trip south, though Izak’s status as the firstborn son of the King of Night still held enough clout to get him fed and boarded anywhere along the way.

  Castle Sangmere loomed over the stable yard, stark and indifferent backed by the dying sunlight. Little by little, the ghost city faded into the darkening sky overhead, refleg the towers, the keep, the walls, and the surrounding City of Blood.

  Vorino and a groom fussed around, cheg ches and buckles and saddlebags, and Izak stood by not helping.

  Except for a ge of riding clothes and a few odds and ends he’d snuck out of the pace, the former prince was traveling mostly empty-hahorns owned only their ons and whatever their masters chose to give them; Thorns-in-training had even less.

  “You look terrible,” said a voice from behind him.

  Izak pasted a grin on his fad turo face Etian. “That’s not what the whores on the low streets said.”

  “They had a vested i in lying. I don’t.” Etian’s lenses caught the dying light, and his haed on the pommel of his ever-present sword. A sword he no longer o wield. “Think you’re capable of staying in the saddle?”

  “I may still smell and look drunk, little brother, but I promise you I am disgustingly sober. Late oerday.” Izak let out a dramatic sigh. “Lots of beautiful faces to bid farewell after the feast, lots of sweet thighs to relutly drag myself from between.”

  It was true that Izak hadn’t slept, but he’d spent the day alone, lying awake for most of it otle in his antechamber, drinking. Closer to sundown, he’d risen to wander Castle Sangmere’s sleep-hushed corridors. He’d been so drunk that he nearly wandered down to the duo take o look at the Inquisition Hall and traitor’s cells. After all, why not heap waking nightmares onto this twisted wreck of fate? But he’d turned coward halfway dowairs and slunk back to his apartments to hide.

  “Apparently, I’m andeering Mule-Face.” Izak Vorino. “No sword tutor to practice with. You should’ve taken the night off and slept in for on your life.”

  “I wao get some sparring in with the guard before I met the blood magic tutors,” Etian said.

  “Your work ethic makes my skin crawl.”

  “Your ziness makes mine crawl. I feel my speed and reflexes failing just standing this close to you.”

  “You’ll uand when you’re older.”

  Etian snorted.

  The brothers fell silent as a lord rode past in full armor, polished steel glinting in the pale green ghostlight from the brightening ghost city. A procession of attendants, household, a-arms followed. Izak’s departure was being overshadowed by the ’s preparations to go to war with the pirates. The closest nobles were mustering their forces on the grounds outside Sangmere. The nobles between Siu Rial and the coast would join as the king’s army passed through their holdings.

  Longing fshed behiian’s lenses. It was obvious he wao go to war—he’d trained for battle his entire life—but Izak had heard that the new prince would be ag regent in the king’s absence.

  Regency was a responsibility Izak had beerusted with oime and never again.

  “Wish the old man bad luck from me when he rides out,” Izak said.

  Etian shook his head. “His battle pn’s too well made. It’s his neointed heir—he’s an impeccable strategist. Handsome, too. The kingdom will have the pirates under imperial thumb and their gold in the war coffers before winter.”

  Izak smirked. “Well, if you ’t i a kingdom fast, i it fat.”

  “That’s everything, Yhness,” Vorino said, mounting up.

  “ing.”

  Izak gnced up at Sangmere’s closest tower. He’d hoped Kelena might steal away from her mother long enough to say goodbye. Just in case she couldn’t escape, however, he’d left her a ribbo she would know had e from him. Deep purple to plement her pale skin and dark hair and eyes. It was her favorite color, an admission that had taken him years to gain enough trust to coax from her.

  And now he was leaving her in the jaws of that rabid she-wolf.

  “Etian.” With a start, Izak realized his mistake. “Etianiel, rather.”

  The younger prince grimaced. “Don’t call me that.”

  Izak ignored his brother’s protest. “While I’m gone…”

  Was there anythiian could do to protect Kelena? Both younger siblings had looked to Izak to shield them from Jadarah, and beyond that, Etian had never seemed close with their little sister. He’d spent his childhood driven to obsession with the sword, while Kelena had barely survived these thirteen years in the cws of the repulsive wench who’d birthed her.

  “Yhness, we must ride.” Vorino reined his mount toward the gatehouse, tugging the packhorse along. “We’re due at the Kariot holdings by daylight.”

  With an annoyed grunt, Izak swung himself into the saddle and turned his horse so that he could see his brother.

  “Don’t let the mad queen have her head,” he said. “She’ll try every twisted trick she think of to sink her cws into you, but there’s nothing she do to the heir apparent.”

  Etian nodded, all trace of humone.

  Nothing Jadarah could do, unless one ted holding a secret over a man’s head until he made himself sick. Luckily, the straightforward, Josean-blessed sed prince had no cause to fear such tactics. That was the prerogative of cowards like Izak.

  He looked over his shoulder at Sangmere. It was the st he would see of the pad Siu Rial for four years, and wheurned, it would be in magical s. At least Izak would be serving a brother who would someday be an ho, just, and powerful ruler. Their uncle hadn’t had the same good fortune.

  As Izak rode for the gatehouse, Etian drew his sword and saluted. Izak offered a wave and a smile that hopefully did not bear the weight of the doom settling around his shoulders.

  Movement high iower caught his eye. A small, pale hand waving a dark-purple hair ribbon.

  Izak grinned. Seen off by the only two people he cared about in Siu Rial, he put his heels to his mount before he ged his mind and rode into the teeth of fate for their sakes.