Twice a year, Thornfield pitted the students against their own csses in a mock tour. This determined ranking, and for the seniors, ranking was everything. The best-rahorns in any css were almost always grafted to the king. On only the rarest of occasions was Hazerial known to give away his best potential Thorns.

  Although the masters hammered the honor and pride of their order into the students’ heads night in and night out, it was well known that Royal Thaihe most fringe bes. They had dozens of fellow Thorns to ease their workload and often received whole days off from guarding the king and royal family. While they were on guard, there were usually so many of them in one pce that it wasn’t unheard of to spend days gambling and telling stories with only the occasional high-alert situatioiful women from cities across the kingdom warmed their beds, and many Thorns enjoyed supplementary ine from wealthy, off-the-record patronesses as well.

  Private Thorns could expect to be grafted with two fellow Thorns at most, which severely cut down on—if not altogether elimiheir recreation time. They also had the stant threat of their masters being charged with treason, heresy, or looking at the king the wrong way hanging over their heads. No Thorn could allow their master to walk into harm, which meant fighting to the death when the arrest was attempted.

  As far as anyone knew, Saint Daven was the only Thorn who had survived his master’s death, and the messy rumors swirling around the i were enough to keep any Thorn in his right mind from hoping to join that small fellowship.

  So while Royal Thorns rarely lived long enough to be retired, they got enough enjoyment from their short stints at the pad heard enough horror stories about their private terparts that they weren’t pining.

  Thornfield’s mock tours were holidays for the students. All lectures and training were suspended for two weeks—“Extra lessons not included,” Grandmaster broke the o the ed Nine—while the students gathered around the bailey to watch the matches, cheering, shouting advice, and analyzing mistakes from the sidelines.

  Even the masters got caught up in the festive atmosphere, fetting that the game was essentially deg which boys would live fast, luxurious, short lives and which would live potentially slow, torturous ohe betting iudents’ quarters was nothing pared to the money ging hands between the masters.

  First-years, as they were generally less skilled and less exg than their older terparts, fought their bracket out first, usually cluding in a short few days.

  Twenty-six swept his initial matches, all against much rger oppos. Dirters were tall, but most of them had only half a year’s experieh steel ons. They didn’t stand a ce against an O Rover who had cut his teeth on a cutss and swordbreaker.

  Izak shocked everyone wheook all of his first matches as well. In truth, he had sidered losing early on so he could rex and watch the rest of the proceedings, but it would have been too obvious. Losing to rustics twice his width and low street psychos half his height, all of whom had never held a sword before ing to Thornfield? Unsable.

  Penuel-Denuel—better known to Izak now as Fifty-one—was the toughest oppo he faced in those early rounds. The bastard had been trained in the saber for years, idly at first, then more strenuously as it became gringly apparent that he wouldn’t be made legal heir.

  From the beginning of their match, it seemed clear to the spectators that Fifty-one would rout the former prince. He drove Four across the bailey with a series of perfectly pced sshes and aggressive footwork that had the priruggling to keep up. The smart money was on the bastard of West Crag.

  Then came a split sed of hesitation. The urmured. Had Fifty-ourned his ankle on a loose stone? Caught a bit of dust in his eyes?

  The bastard lurched into motion again, but too te. Four sidestepped, deftly slipping his staff between the bastard’s calves. With a twist, he colpsed Fifty-one’s stand dropping him to one knee on the sandy ground. Four whipped the sword end around aed its bde across the back of Fifty-one’s neck.

  Rumors began immediately that Fifty-one had lost iionally to his prince, but the dumbfounded look on Fifty-one’s face was enough to tell Twenty-six and anyone else with half a brain that he’d beeen ht.

  When Four offered Fifty-one a hand up, the loser threw back his head and ughed. He grabbed the prince’s hand and was hauled to his feet. After the winner was decred, Fifty-one hung around with Fhing and bemoaning his loss alternately with his smug-looking queror.

  Twenty-six had been trained from childhood to spot the nuances of a skirmish. He dismissed questions of turned ankles and vision impairments immediately; the bastard had suffered her. There was a single gring point that no one in the crowd around Twenty-six was mentioning—Four hadn’t used his swordstaff until the end of the match.

  Four was uo relying on ons. Instead, the bastard’s hesitation must have e as a result of some blood magic treachery.

  The masters had announced before the matches began that there were no rules fagement except that the only blood magic allohat each fighter brought with them into bat—no theft from the spectators.

  A Four hadn’t resorted to the tactic immediately. He had waited until he’d nearly lost, either because the attack required time to prepare or specific pt to activate. He may even have goo the match hoping to win without using blood magic, then realized he could not.

  Whatever it was, whey-six fought Four—and it looked certain that they would fight, the way the bracket was falling—he would have to finish Four quickly to avoid the unknown attack.

  ***

  Nine did much better than anyone expected in the first-year bracket, tearing his way through foes much rger and more experiehan he was, much to his bloodthirsty fellow youudents’ delight.

  The little berserker hacked and sshed and swung his twin swords like a whirlwind, taking all sorts of hal damage while chopping through the best-id of defenses. He was like a tiny blood-fevered bull that had to be hacked to pieces to be stopped. Then, when it was least expected, Nine would appear exactly where he o be, with swords to ned spine, breastbone and gut, roin and throat. No one saw how he got there. A trick of speed and chaos, the older students specuted, some misdire in all that wild animal filing.

  When the boy finally lost to Four, in what would have been the finals of a real tour, Master Saint Daven was the only one disappointed in Nine’s showing.

  “He stay on,” Grandmaster remarked, pig up the thread of their month-old versation as if no time had passed. “He bested every er but the prince. Results like that ot be dismissed.”

  Saint Daven wasn’t impressed. “He should’ve made it to the championship fight. He’ll have to tihe extra lessons.”

  “I leave that to your discretiohis up, and you might just make a Royal Thorn out of a half-blind child.” Grandmaster watched the boy animatedly reliving his fight with his friends. Rather than being hurt and embarrassed by the loss, Nine was talking the ear off of his roommate, the former prince, seemingly ecstatic at how handily he’d beeen.

  Unlike many of the youhornfield masters, Heartless never lost sight of the true goal in the festive air of the mock tours. He had returned dozens of his brothers’ thornknives during his service. He could never fet that the boys rehashing their wins and losses today would tomorrow be the thornknives filling the graveyard outside the walls.

  He was raising these boys to die. A few might survive, as he had, as the masters of Thornfield had, but most wouldn’t.

  There was a reason they called each year of prospective Thorns “crops.” They were there for a season and then cut down.

  ***

  The first-year championship fight came down to Four and Twenty-six. By then all suggestion of the prince winning by defereo noble blood had run aground. The prince was capable of something the best fighters in their year could not defend against. That was the only expnation.

  None of Four’s oppos would go so far as to describe his tactic for defeating them. Twenty-six rarely spoke to his fellow students unless required by y, but he heard others asking Four’s defeated foes what he’d doheir answers were vague, embarrassed.

  “But I would have won otherwise,” they invariably cimed, “Four told me so.”

  And Four always backed them up. “I’m nowhere near as tale fighting as he is. I cheated. Simple as that.”

  But Four never said how.

  As they moved to the ter of the bailey for the final match, Twenty-six kept an eye on his oppo. Prepared, but not tense; watchful, but not so eager that he rushed to ter every twitch. Four’s cims about cheating might in themselves be a distra. A smart man with enough fht and time could set such a thing into motion for the sake of intimidation or misdire.

  Master Fright raised a haweehe embroidered kerchief hooked in his fingers fluttering in the faint night breeze.

  “Both parties ready?”

  Frinned and leveled his swordstaff. “I’d say, ‘may the best man win,’ but odds are I’m going to.”

  “Talk is useless.” Twenty-six scraped the ft of his cutss down the length of Four’s bde. Steel hissed against steel. “Speak with your on.”

  He’d never fought against a spear before. The only spears on O Rover ships were short, sturdy harpoons used for hunting sea creatures. Otherwise, the quarters were too tight for a long, thrusting on to be effective. From what he’d seen of Four’s bouts and training, however, the read momentum of the swordstaff were its strengths. Is arc, he could avoid the bde at the end and mitigate the momentum of the swing.

  “Fight!” The kerchief snapped aside.

  Twenty-six whipped his cutss wide, smag the staff out of the way. Four lurched onto his back foot and spuaff, but Twenty-six was already too close for the stick to hit him with any force. The swordbreaker’s serrated edge naturally filled ihe cutss had been, rag for the prihroat.

  Four’s eyes widened in shock. Perhaps the prince had expected caution seeded by the duplicity he’d been heralding at every turn. Time must be the secret, then, to whatever blood magic Four o win.

  The swordbreaker was a breath from Four’s throat, the cutss swinging back to join it.

  “My husband.” Mehet pressed a hand to his cheek, her forehead to his. Her teal eyes glittered like gems. “My raedr.”

  The cutss and swordbreaker crashed against wood.

  “Light burn me, who is she?” Four whipped his swordstaff, throwing off the heavy steel ons. “Tell me you’ll introduce us, Twenty-six.”

  Twenty-six spun around the thrust of the staff. His cutss hissed through the pce where Four stood and hit nothing.

  “Araam?” Mehet’s arms slipped around him and pulled him closer. She smelled like saltwater and perfumed oils, and she was soft, so soft. She moahe sound made his throat go dry and his heart pound like a storm surf on hidden rocks. “My Araam.”

  Four whistled from nearby. “She’s geous. For Teikru’s sake, what are you waiting for?”

  Araam—no, he was Araam no lowenty-six crashed into Four.

  Except Four was already gone again. Or maybe he’d never been there.

  Twenty-six was in Haelbringr’s , tangled in silkes and warm furs and the arms of his ughing, beautiful wife…

  No. Mehet was dead, goo the depths with her burning wedding vessel. He was ihornfield bailey. Fighting.

  Fighting who?

  “Kill me and my Mark will lift,” the blood drinker king purred. “Kill me aurn to your precious pirates victorious.”

  Araam—Twenty-six—someone drove the swordbreaker into the dirter’s heart.

  No. There is no dirter king here, . I am fighting Four.

  “You were fighting Four.” The king’s face shifted, narrowed. His hair darkened, his eyes lost their fathomless frozen-mud sheen, and two sets of dimples appeared in a smiling face. “Now you’ve lost to Four, I’m afraid.”

  Twenty-six y sprawled in the sand. The priood over him with the bde of the swordstaff resting on his sternum. Around the bailey, men and boys cheered. The sudden clearing of his head was nearly as disorienting as the illusions had been.

  Four spuaff up as butt in the dirt, then reached out a hand to offer Twenty-six help up.

  The cutss had been smacked away or dropped, and blood poured from a stab wound iy-six’s palm that would no doubt match Four’s bde, but the swordbreaker was still clutched in his opposite hand. The urge to grab Four by the arm and yank him down onto its serrated bde roared iwenty-six. His muscles shook with the desire to kill.

  It was the Mark that stopped him, that fist of stone log him in pce.

  Twenty-six forced the hatred and rage down into that boiling maelstrom in his chest. When he could move agaiood, ign Four’s offer of help.

  “I told you.” Four let his hand drop and shrugged. “I cheat.”

  “Losses are more informative than victories,” Twenty-six said, looking into the dark eyes of his roommate, the son of the monster.

  ***

  Despite Nine’s pints, the ons master wouldn’t allow the runt to skip out on his extra sword lessons, so when the festivities were finished for the night and the crowd broke up, Izak returo their room alone.

  Twenty-six made it back to the room hours ter, when the sun had already begun its climb up the eastern side of the sky. Ign Izak, the pirate went straight to the archer loop and stared out at the lightening surf.

  “She really was geous.” Izak sat up on his bed and leaned against the stone wall. “I’d give both my eyes for a day in the arms of a beauty like that. Take my ears while you’re at it. Who is she?”

  The pirate’s shoulders and arms twitched, then froze. He stood in silence for several long minutes.

  Most of Izak’s oppos had ughed off his attack because their fantasies were too embarrassing or too predictable. Nine’s had been eous, on level with the rger-than-life stories he loved to spiing to watch the ridiculously one-sided battle unfold before his single w eye aing to run his grubby hands through imagined piles of gold had tickled the runt to no end.

  Twenty-six wasn’t ughing. After what Izak had seen, the prince hadn’t expected him to be.

  “ you not tell?” Twenty-six’s voice was strained, either holding back fury or f the words past it.

  “I saw the girl’s mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear what she said,” Izak admitted. “I’m not a true mind reader. That little trick just vomits back at you what’s most often on the surface of your mind.”

  “Are there true mind readers among your people?”

  “I’ll tell you if you tell me.”

  Twenty-six went silent.

  Was he sidering whether the trade was worthwhile? Better throw the pirate some treasure up front.

  “There must be true mind readers somewhere,” Izak said. “I’ve read about them, and I don’t believe they’re entirely fictitious. If I use blood magic to scrape your mind for its fo imaginings, then someone must be able to hear or read the thoughts in there.”

  After aretch of silewenty-six said, “The woman was a heroine among our people. Someday her epics will be sung across every wave in the o.”

  Izak grinned. “I wish more Kingdom of Night epics were about beautiful women with that perfect, all-low. Not a hint of white on her. Do your women bask naked in the sun to brown like that? Better yet, do your meo watch while they do?”

  Again that strained, frozen posture.

  “Aha,” Izak said. “More than just a famous story for pirate boys to put themselves to sleep with, isn’t she?”

  “If I could kill you, you would be thrice dead by now,” Twenty-six finally forced out.

  “Who is she really?”

  “ your king create illusions as you ?”

  “Arade of information, you say? That’s fair. I don’t know if the king do that particur trick. I only do it to people I’ve been around a while. There’s a certain level of foreknowledge required. Just enough that I probe around in your head, which takes less intimacy than one might guess. Minds are surprisingly defenseless. Of course, it’s worthless against an enemy I’ve just met. I imagine King Hazerial has something much more effective up his sleeve.”

  When the pirate made no move to fulfill his side of the trade, Izak prompted him with, “And the goldey of the waves was…?”

  Twenty-six was shaking now, a tremor so faint that it would have been imperceptible if not for the slight movement of his sandy hair, whi the past several months siheir arrival at Thornfield had grown lohan fashion dictated.

  “e on, Twenty-six,” Izak cajoled. “How are you going to get enough information to murder the king unless you uphold your end of the bargain?”

  The frozen posture disappeared. The pirate whirled to face Izak, suspi narrowing his gray-green eyes.

  Izak nodded. “I saw him, too, and I add sums as well as the maer, usually. Who was she?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Call it an idle fancy, call it rubbing salt in the wound. Whatever it is, I’m not giving you anything else until I know.”

  The stubbornness reared its ugly head. “I need nothing from you.”

  “I beg to differ. You want Hazerial dead, but you don’t know how to kill him. I may only have known you for half a year, but even I know that when a pirate sees an opening, he attacks. Instead, you hesitated. You were scared.”

  “I fear h or dirters.”

  “My father is both, and you should certainly fear him.” No flicker of surprise there, so the pirate had already guessed or been told who Izak was. “Who was the girl?”

  “Woman.”

  “Woman, then. Who was she?”

  “Tell me how one kills su abomination as your king.”

  “I don’t know. If that were on knowledge, do you think I would be nguishing here at the wrong end of the world?”

  That gave the pirate pause.

  “You would have killed your own father?”

  “Of course not! Do I strike you as suicidal? But I certainly would’ve milked the knowledge for all it was worth so I could stay in Siu Rial.” Izak frowned. “Though he probably would’ve killed me for that.” He shrugged. “Well, one way or another, if I knew how to murder the Chosen of the Strong Gods, I would already be dust. So you see, I’m worthless to you, just like she is.”

  Twenty-six started to protest, but Izak bulled ahead. “She stopped you from winning today. Let go of her, and maybe I won’t be able to use her against you ime.”

  Izak expected more of that frozen rage, but it didn’t rear its head again. Twenty-six gred for a long, long mihen something shifted behind those gray-green eyes.

  “Your people murdered her,” the pirate said. “But she fought to the death and beyond. She is a heroine, worthy of her p paradise.”

  More or less as Izak had guessed, then. “And you—her lover? admirer? ued lovesick devotee?—where were you?”

  “I failed her and my tribe. That is all that matters.”

  “So you’ve got a dead woman, a thirst for revenge, a kiher of us knows how to kill, and his shiftless disgrace of a son sleeping across the room from you. What’s your move?”

  “You said minds are defenseless, but you require time and knowledge of your victim to use their thoughts against them.”

  “I wouldn’t call them victims—”

  “So there must be some defehat holds up against your attack.”

  “I’ve seen a well-made wall or two.” His uncle’s had been imperable. A full-scale i had been required to break that down. “I may have even learo make a few in my day. What will you give me in exge for teag you how they work?”

  “I gave you a way to the vilge.”

  Izak grinned. “That’s not how we iate round. You didn’t think to barter back then; that’s your loss.”

  Twenty-six’s ever-present scowl deepened. “What do you want?”

  A beautiful woman to hold. A fast horse back to the hedonistic life he’d left behind. A certain mad queen’s head on a pike. The better man to succeed his father, and as fast as possible. Younger siblings who uood loyalty the way Nine did or honor the way Twenty-six cimed it worked. Proof his uncle hadn’t died for nothing.

  “To tell the truth, I don’t know,” Izak said at st. “But I’ve got a hunch you’re the pirate to get it for me.”