After the grandmaster’s quiet, passion-filled meditation on the bde, he could have asked the new recruits to mar Siu Rial itself. Instead, the old ma all momentum fall out from beh him and began droning on about procedure, blood magid exag standards.

  Izak let his mind wander. Procedure teo reveal itself in time, and he knew better than anyone what the energies of the blood could do to a man. The questions he wanted answered were when he would be allowed to get out of the rain and into some dry clothing and whether Thornfield served wine or ale with meals.

  But the mundane information held captive the imaginations of the peasants and criminals. Even Penuel-Deood with his mouth hanging opehe master described how the king could boil his enemies from within and close off portions of a mind as easily as smming doors.

  Everyone was eager to angle for a pce at court until they sidered that they could be made a drooling bag of meat and bo the king’s merest displeasure.

  “If’n he’s got such powerful strong medie,” the loudmouthed little boy from the low street crowd wao know, “then how e he needs us?”

  With a nod, the grandmaster aowledged the question he’d been angling for someoo ask.

  “Many of you e from backgrounds that romanticize life in a pace, but royalty, by nature, are surrounded by enemies, and none so much as the King of Night. Not only do the betrayers, the Children of Het, seek to destroy all Children of Night, but especially the king and his household. As well, there are closer enemies who seek to steal the throo have the king as master is a stant battle, and it requires endless vigince. As the old saying goes, ‘kings sleep; Thorns must not.’”

  Izak rolled his eyes. From what he’d seen, the Thrafted to his father spent all their on-duty time herding royal children and all their off-duty time lounging, gambling, and flirting with the pace’s fairer staff. If the Royal Thorns had averted any assassinations in Izak’s lifetime, it was a well-kept secret.

  More to the truth than perhaps propriety permitted the grandmaster to say, the Thrafted to the kihere to protect Hazerial from threats within his own household. he son who’d been training for seventeen years to use the royal blood magic as effectively as the sire. Hadn’t Hazerial been about Izak’s age when he and Ahixandro killed their father and took the throne?

  Hazerial’s paranoia at beirayed in the same way must finally have gotteter of him. Perhaps he believed that making a prirained in the sword and not in magiext in line would extend his rule. After all, one who had received the Blood of the Strong Gods could not die by time or illness. Only violence would do it. And who could kill the divinely appointed ruler of the strong gods but their chosen one? Even one as disgusted by the family magic as Izak might someday decide his ambition outweighed his revulsion.

  Such would be the ravings of the mind of ara-blessed king. The strong goddess bestowed upon her favored ones wheels within wheels of scheming, and when one was ever plotting against the world, then how could anyone in that world be anything but an enemy?

  I’ve known him all my life, Izakiel, Uncle Ahixandro had said. I know the man he be. My brother see around ers, but he ’t see what’s right in front of him. That’s why he needs me.

  Clearly, the king had not agreed.

  ***

  The downpour picked up vi as dawn tried to break beyond Thornfield’s thick walls. The best the newborn sun could manage was a cloudy gray that faded the ghostly green battlements above but couldn’t banish them entirely.

  The st of roast meat and hot bread slipped into the space between raindrops. Izak watched enviously as the sparrers at the far side of the bailey broke up and filtered into the keep and the surrounding low buildings.

  Such was not to be the fate of the new arrivals, not while the grandmaster still had breath in his lungs.

  “Anyone learn to wield a sword, but to bee a Thorn, to uphold that great and terrible responsibility to protect the king himself, requires more. The threats that face His Majesty and his family e from those who live steeped in magiobles who learn to use its power from birth. Defending him will require not only steel but blood magic.

  “Each of you has this magining through your veins. Without it, you would not have been chosen to bee a Thorn. Many men have aspired to join our ranks, and many have beeo the king’s armies instead. It is a job no less honorable and no less deadly, but ohat does not require any measure of blood magic.”

  A murmur went through the crowd.

  The grandmaster raised a gnarled hand to quiet them. “What I’ve said is true. You may have heard otherwise, but it is not only nobles who are born with blood magic. A small portion of the on popution are born with it as well, and you are part of it. Many of you do not realize what you are capable of. All your life you have believed you were luckier or more physically gifted than yicless terparts, when in truth you fueled yreatest feats with energies stolen from those around you.”

  “How could somebody not know?” It was the dirty little runt who kept interrupting. “I k my whole life, me. Just like I knowed you don’t never drink from your twin ’cuz stealing their energy makes a body weak. They take sick easy and ’t wake up if you do it too often.”

  The whipmaster looked to the grandmaster for a ruling oerruption. In Izak’s opinion a good beating might actually get through the kid’s thick skull, but the grandmaster gave a ive shake of the head.

  “Nine will spend the day at scullery i.” The old man turned blue eyes on the child. Izak wondered how many snot-reet urs the grandmaster had to deal with every year. Clearly enough that they didn’t faze him. “You’ll be able to eat a once you’ve ed the pots to the cook’s liking.”

  The boy wrinkled his dirty nose. “I was helping, me. Everybody oughta know not to steal medie from your own folks.”

  “And now they do. Interrupt again, and the sc for disrespect of a master will be enforced.”

  The grandmaster waited to see if the boy would test the procmation. No more objes or outbursts were forthing.

  With that settled, the elderly swordsman addressed them all again. “While you are here, you will train not to rely on the blood or energies of others. You will strehe magi your own veins to enhance every aspect of bat, instinct, and endurahe blood of others is a luxury, not a y, and a Thorn must be capable of operating without it.”

  There was a small distra as a handful of senior students approached the thorn tree, dragging fe copper basiweehese were pced before the new arrivals and filled with water from the wellhouse.

  “I said before that once you step into Thornfield’s bailey you have no past,” the grandmaster said. “This isn’t meaningless prattle. We keep no records here of who you were before you came to us. Your former life, titles, crimes, or triumphs are all erased.”

  A fussy-looking master of middle years passed by each basin and tossed in a handful of powder.

  “Of course, some of that past is harder to leave behind. If you will please strip off your s and wash , you will be allowed to ehe keep a in out of this rain. Master Malice is waiting ih the appropriate rept garments.”

  Izak eyed the rain plinking across the surface of the bathwaters. He wasn’t keen on bathing in cold water, but he would be gd to rid himself of the stink of wet horse. Too, looking at the most heavily encrusted members of the new recruits, he would rather be at the head of this bathing endeavor thaail. Something told him they wouldn’t be refilling the basins after every wash, and he didn’t much fancy pying isnd to a bunch of drowning lice.

  Before he could be edged out by someone covered in grime, Izak strode to the first basin, tossing ridihers as he went.

  Penuel-Denuel and the fn murderer must have shared his s. They were the o strip away their sodden clothing and climb into a basin. The final basin was fought over by one of the other well-dressed ds and a barrel-chested rustic. The rusti and cmbered in.

  An astri st curled Izak’s nose hairs as he sank into the chilly water. Looking at the low street recruits, he hoped the ser was strong. Mites had takehe royal reside Siu Patanal when he was a child. Eradig the little monsters had been su uaking that the court had avoided residing there for two years after.

  “Oh no!” The little loudmouth—Nine—backed away, hands raised. “No, no, no. I ain’t getting in that, me.”

  “One way or another, yoing into that water,” Grandmaster Heartless promised.

  Nine shook his ringworm-stri head. “Folks get drowned in water! Miasma collects around water and gives folks the coughing siess. Water’s bad medie. Better not to tempt it.”

  The grandmaster the whipmaster.

  Izak thhly ehe chase that followed. Nine was fast and nimble and didn’t mind stealing energy from anyone he came within drinking range of—the grandmaster included. Unfortunately for him, Master Saint Galen had the advantage of reach, especially when he added his whip to the test.

  The sh snarled around Nine’s ankle mid-step, and the boy sptted on his fa the mud.

  Seeing that he’d lost, Nine decided to fall on his own sword. Rather thahe approag whipmaster grab him, he scramble-galloped on hands and khe final few yards through the mud and spshed fully clothed into the basin with Penuel-Denuel.

  With an incredulous cry, the bastard tried throwing the runt out. That didn’t work, so he vacated the basin himself ahe sloshing waters to the boy and his various low street parasites.

  Chug, Izak ducked under his own bathwater, gave his thick hair a cursory scrub, then climbed out. A few of his peers acted awkwardly about being naked—maybe they were ed the cold didn’t show them to best adva Izak had never been shy, whether in public or private. He strode fidently to the keep, hoping to find the aforementioned master waiting with dry linens and warm clothing.

  The narrow stairs dipped in the ter from turies of foot traffic, but no loose stone rocked beh Izak’s feet. Inside, he paused to sheet the water from his chilled skin. Limewashed pster coated the walls, holding the o winds at bay. The narrow entryway ceiling soared twenty feet above his head, pocked with murder holes. her these nor the farthest, darkest ers had beeo cobwebs. Even the soot looked as if it were regurly scrubbed from behind the flickering sces.

  Thornfield wasn’t pretty, but it was well-maintained.

  Spotting no master in the immediate viity handing out dry clothing, Izak followed the warm glow and noise ing from the far end of the choke-point corridor.

  A grand hall opened before him, alight with torches and a massive firepce. Scores of boys and young men filled long trestle tables, eating and talking. More than a few were pointing and guffawing at the new arrivals—Penuel-Denuel and the fn probable murderer had beat Izak inside. Izak gave his spectators a bow and dimpled grin before looking around for the promised outfitter.

  The high table at the frohe masters. Izak wondered how many were former Thorns. They certainly had the simmering iy he associated with his father’s guard. Could there truly be that many who’d been released from service to live out their days in peace? In all his life, Izak couldn’t recall hearing of a single Royal Thorn who had beeired by the king, but perhaps lords were less stingy with their grafted swordsmen.

  Vorino had the seat of honor at the masters’ table and was deep in versation with the other men. He looked more animated than Izak had ever seen him. He even ughed. This night was being more surreal all the time.

  “First-years, over here!” a deep voice called.

  Izak turo find a stocky, muscur master with skin so dark brown that it was almost bck. Around his thieck hung a strand of pale pink shells. He must have hailed inally from the Coffee Isnds.

  Izak had now seen as many fners in one day as he saw at court in a season. Of course, he entered a good number more in the wh houses. That recreation ardless of where one was born.

  He joihe Coffee Isnder and the pair of dressing recruits.

  “Master Malice?” Izak guessed. He gave the master a courtly half-bow. It never hurt to get on the good side of oailors. Especially when one paid tabs as rarely as royalty did.

  The dark master replied in kind, then asked, “Number?”

  “Four.”

  “Ah.” As in, Ah, the prince has arrived.

  Master Malice sized Izak up for a momeo foot, then shoulder to shoulder—then dug into the stacks of folded clothing and came out with hose, trousers, a belt, a padded jacket, and a roughspun shirt. Peasant clothing. No silk robes or cloths of state to be found.

  “These should fit.”

  Izak dressed, eyeing Penuel-Denuel and the fner for hints at how to adjust the ces orousers. Those were o him. As were the ties on the shirt’s long sleeves. He ched the cuffs back to his forearms so they wouldn’t drag in the food that would hopefully be served before his stomach chewed through his spine.

  “—so’s I took and gutted him and tripped his pals up with that rope sausage that fell outta him.” Nine’s high-pitched voice cut through the chaos of versation. The boy was still fully clothed and dreng the stone floor with every step, but this didn’t seem to bother him. He chattered away at the naked rustic beside him as they ehe hall.

  Master Malice waved the boys over, then tossed Izak a pair of boots. Sturdy stru, but they wouldn’t turn any heads at court.

  “You lot take a seat,” the clothing master told Izak, the bastard, and the fner. “On the ing night, you’ll start your serving tasks, but si’s your first day, it’s traditional for st year’s crop t you dinner.”