The royal progress crawled eastward, its endless carriages, carts, horses, and ox ing the highways into mud pits. Etian had no she of invitations from royal hangers-on, but sitting in a coach for hours on end rankled, no matter the pany. He practiced his horsemanship on many of the nights, rag mounts and staging horsebabat with the king’s Thorns who hadn’t drawn carriage duty. hts, he exercised his bowmanship with the grooms and woodsmen, taking small game and, once, a hart from the local underbrush, while the sed half of the royal train was digging itself out of roads made impassable by the first half.

  Though Etian didn’t realize it, he was a favorite among both the royal guard and the pace’s rougher borers. King Hazerial was a distant, deadly, unknowable figure. Izakiel had been a jovial catastrophe preparing to inflict himself on the kingdom.

  There had been a celebration iables wheian had been promoted to Prin his brother’s stead. Sure, lots of folks sighed what a shame it was that the a w of birth order set in pce by Khi himself had to be overturo make it happen, but a solid Josean-blessed king was infinitely preferable to the caprice of Teikru’s favorite son. There were still some trembling, toothless elderly who remembered Lareana I, the queen regnant who had caused so mufighting and turmoil with her endless suitors and sorts. Better to avoid a reign led by the god-goddess’s whims altogether.

  Lord Zinote and his standing army met the royal train at the border of his ties, under pall of a heavy rain. Scores of sworn knights shivered in full armor, each backed by corresponding plements of dripping soldiers. Forest green and ice-white banners of House Skalia hung sodden.

  The passage through the holding to Zinote’s mansion did even more to damage the roadways. The peasants had to make new paths to market or risk losing half their goods in the muddy ss their lord had created in his attempt to show both deferend military might to the king.

  ***

  The Zinote manse, fittingly he Overlook, was located on a bluff overlooking the wide Salt River and had been structed only twenty years before in the new patial style, filled with tiled floors and long, open rooms made to look even rger by mirrored walls. Its furnishings were as luxurious as Mistfen Pa Siu al, all cquered wood a cushions.

  Etian had read a unique from House Skalia in the Royal Archives from the middle years of stru. In it, Zinote requested Thorns to protect him against traitorous vassals across two ties. The financial and agricultural records from the corresponding years told the rest of the story—building their lord’s mansion had bled the ties dry.

  The king had grahe lord’s request, and the following year’s records showed new vassals managing the nds iion. No more threats of uprising reared their heads while stru was pleted.

  Due to the rain and the massive escort slowing the royal caravan’s already borious progress, the pany arrived at the Overlook te in the m. Given the hour, Zinote suggested postponing the tour until the king’s batants had had a few days to rest, but Hazerial assured him that would not be necessary for his champion. Although Etianiel was a udent of the royal blood magic, the prince’s lifetime orous training had left him capable of outperf the most well-rested fighters.

  Apologies were made for impugning the prince, and the tour was set for the following day. The stands had already been structed in advance of the royal household’s arrival, so carrying on with the festivities was only a small matter of inf the local petitors, the bands scheduled to perform, and the cookstaff that their outd roast had been moved up.

  By midday, the royal visitors had bathed aled down to the wele feast with their hosts.

  Zinote’s pair of Thorns, in their aced spot behind their lord’s seat, were swallowed up by Hazerial’s full plement of fifty-two Royal Thorns and the mad queen’s six.

  The House Skalia Thorns looked faded and worn in the face of their royal terparts. Though both men were fit and imbued with the sharp-eyed iy of all Thorns, they were sunk deep in middle age, uired because Zinote khe king would not grant him another set. The king’s guard looked like a herd of fresh, high-headed stallioo the older swordsmen, none of them over thirty and few of them likely to see it posted in the pace.

  Jadarah’s Thorhe freshest of the lot—her guardsmen rarely saw twenty-five. The mad queen tired quickly of her toys, and Hazerial gifted her with repts like an indulgent kennel master tossing treats to a favored dyrehound.

  The life expecy for Royal Thorns was low, but there was an endless supply of replenishments to choose from.

  The foolishly proud Zinote could n himself to give another man the head seat at the high table, nor could he openly jilt his king, and so he had promised by having his staff y pce settings fht. Hazerial and Zinote shared the tral position, with Lady Zinote and Queen Jadarah to Hazerial’s right, and Princess Kelena stuck to her mother’s side. To Zinote’s left sat the prince, Zinote’s daughter, and finally the lord’s steward. In that way, it might be sidered pure ce that there was ed focal point of the feast rather than a struggle between a lord’s aggrandized self-image and his o belly crawl to keep nds and family and head firmly attached.

  The food was excellent—fatted calf garnished with bitter herbs, crow stuffed with te peas and carrots, spit-roasted piglets, fish fresh from the river only a few miles away, creamed turnips, mushrooms and onions in butter, eborately decorated tureens made of crusty bread that held seas of delicate soups.

  Etian didn’t mind the seating arra. Zinote was too busy fawning over the king for the prio o pay attention to the lord, and the acousti the feasting hall allowed Etian to catch a good deal of the hunting and war stories being traded by the knights and soldiers at the low tables.

  Although he should probably make an attempt at versation with the young woman beside him. It would be smart to have aablished base if their marriage tract held.

  The problem Etian faced was the same one he’d had in opening moves with Kelena—namely, w what lords’ daughters talked about.

  He was about to ask whether her family staged hunting parties, knowing they did, and whether she rode out with them, which he couldn’t even begin to guess. He stopped suddenly, realizing he had no idea what the girl’s name was.

  He didn’t recall ing across it in his scouting reading. She looked close to his age. At sixteen years old, she wouldn’t have been alive during the stru uprising, and she hadn’t beeioned in any of the agricultural or financial records for the ties. Assuming the girl awn in the king’s unfathomable game rather than an active pyer, Etian hadn’t bathering any intelligen her.

  More fool him.

  He opened his mouth to ask what her name was, but she cut across him before he could speak.

  “Don’t bother.”

  Etian blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Your father is here tarm my father into signing the marriage tract for a pittance, because, one assumes, the previously hi betrothal bribery has all goo the war in the north. My family estates will be added to the royal holdings when I i, building up the ’s coffers even more and proving an excelleurn on a tiny iment.

  “Meanwhile, I’ll be your brood sow, produce a son or two, and theher be banished, accused of some idiotic treachery and executed, or die in a tragic act, leaving you vely free to seek out a nubile new child queen.”

  In an evenly matched fight, the one who scored the opening hit nearly always came out the victor. Usually, that was him.

  This young woman, however, hardly paused her scathing opening volley to take a breath. She gred out over the filled feasting hall, her ice-blue eyes fixed on the family banners swaying against the back wall.

  “So, if it please Yhness—” She twisted the request with bitterly ironic obsequiousness. “—let us fo the sweet talk and preteell me when to open my legs and when you’re done. Iurn, I’ll tell you when there’s an heir. We ignore each other the rest of the time.”

  Etian hadn’t given Zinote’s daughter more than a cursnce before, but she—whatever her name was—was actually quite beautiful. Her eyes were a blue nearly as pale as the icy trimmings on her dress, and a sliver of white showed beh her irises. Her hair ale, frozen yellow rarely seen on Children of Night.

  Realizing he was stariiaeo adjust his lenses while he wiped the dumbfounded expression off his face.

  “Do you think I’ll o know your o get on with all that?”

  Pale brows jumped in e before returning to an icy frown. He had scored a hit.

  “Royal Sow should suffice,” she bit out.

  “And I suppose you’ll address me as the Royal Boar?”

  Another hit. He attacked before the ice princess could ter.

  “Of course, you’re wele to call me Etian, if you would rather. Most people did before my brother was disied.”

  “Many felicitations on your . I trust your backstabbing arm is not overworked?”

  Etian suppressed a smile. “Felicitations on your uping nuptials, Lady Sow. If the str works, that is.”

  “I suppose we’ll know after the tour. Exactly how many of my family’s men are you pnning to murder?”

  She moved fast. Etian stepped up his tempo to outpace her.

  “I thought six or seven should be enough for the first night.”

  “In that case, I fear I shall be indisposed and uo attend.”

  “Think you’ll get away with it?”

  She sniffed. “I get away with anything in the bounds of my father’s nds.”

  “That expins why you’re being such a sore loser about this marriage tract—you’re spoiled.”

  “I did not lose!” Fuming made her pale eyes lighten until they were nearly clear. Had he thought she was beautiful? Girls at court were beautiful. She was geous.

  “I, at least, have the grait when I’ve beeen.”

  “If royalty suffers defeat, it is because they were not smart or fast enough to ge the rules in their favor.”

  A hit to her.

  Etian ughed. “I ’t tradict you there. The best I do is ge the rules in my favor. Tell me your name and I’ll ge my tour pns: hs by my sword.”

  “But many by another on?”

  “I’ve been ordered by His Majesty to make a show of the royal blood magic. I try not to kill ah it, but I ’t make promises. I’m not yet practiced enough with spells to be certain of the same precision as the sword.”

  “Naturally, there will be no way for me to dis between actal deaths and iional ones?”

  He sidered this. “No, I don’t think there is a way. Though I’m told I have a very obvious pout when I fail at something.”

  Her eyes narrowed. Even thinned like that, the slivers of white showed beh her irises.

  The answer came to him.

  “There’s a specific guardsman you’re worried about,” he guessed.

  “One man with a sword is much the same as every other.”

  “Except for this one.” Etian did a quick search of the knights a-arms and found one square-jawed man of about twenty downing ale and gring up at the lord’s daughter from beh heavy, lowered brows. No chivalrisignia, so just a on soldier. “You love him.”

  “I do not love.” She turned her icy gaze to the opposite side of the room from the man iion.

  The soldier looked like a brawler, puffed-up ear and squashed nose. Everyo Thorns had been required to remove their ons in the king’s presence, but the man had the breadth of chest and arms that came from years of swinging a greatsword.

  “I won’t kill him.”

  Not even a twitch. “Kill whom?”

  “I am going to have to beat him, however. You know as well as I do that the newly ed prince ’t lose some rural touro a nobody, even for the sake of his future wife. If you don’t want him to be maimed for life, tell your paramour to stay down when I put him down.”

  Etian had fought enough different types to know that the odds of a man who looked like that listening to such a plea were infinitesimal, but she could try. Maybe an ice princess would succeed where lesser women would fail.

  “I don’t love either,” he told her. “I ’t see a point to it. I’m not likely to be an affeate husband, but I will be an effective one. Perhaps that will make us a good pairing. You seem like you’ll be an effective queen.”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Then I swear by Josean o put you away, either by death or banishment. Women with minds like swords are rare among the nobility. I would have to be a simpleton to spurn such a valuable on.”

  “Any man would.”

  “Even if she is a spoiled brat who won’t tell me her name.”

  Her rose haughtily. “Pasiona.”

  Her admission was a sheathed bde. Etian responded in kind.

  “It’s a beautiful name for a queen.”