The royal procession had ridden into the City of Blood through the southern gate, and they left three nights later, several wagons and servants heavier, by the northern gate. This was also known as the war gate, so called because mustered armies used it so often to leave Siu Rial for the border. The king’s highway ended at Siu Rial, but enough hooves and carts had passed by over the centuries that the way was well-carved into the soil and stone of the land.

  Other cities in the kingdom, such as Siu Ferel to the west and Siu Baital at the eastern edge of the Cinterlands, were located farther north than Siu Rial, but in the center of the realm, the fighting had at times reached as far south as Khinet’s great City of Blood. Over two thousand years of war, the territory had changed hands multiple times. No Helat attacks had encroached that far since Asriel IV had constructed his great weir where the Salt River flowed across the border, but the common folk remained leery of building a home north of Siu Rial.

  Nights passed without sight of house or tended field, just empty plain dotted with lakes and melting snowdrifts. Now and again the procession came upon the burnt-out ruins of old fortresses or lichen-covered cairns where ancient battlefields had yielded their corpses to hungry mass graves. At times they saw smoke from distant fires. Bands of raiders and deserters made their home in the contested land, but the few who strayed close enough to scout the royal train received the wrong end of a blade for their efforts, courtesy of the crown prince and his Thorn outriders.

  Days, Thorns and servants huddled around their cookfires, making each other shiver with gruesome childhood tales about wraith armies fighting endless battles of the dead at the bottom of frozen lakes and vengeance-thirsty corpses that stalked the cursed ground, or bragged about great-great-greats whose heroism and blood had retaken land the pointy-ears had stolen just over that rise.

  The dutiful and the devout among them wondered whether the strong gods could hear their prayers so far from the closest ghost city. King Hazerial was the deity’s hand on earth, but the Chosen of the Strong Gods was far from approachable. Selektra, the rumors began to say, was a kind and sympathetic ear, happy to convey their concerns and appeals to her mother, Eketra, if the offering was sufficient.

  The demand on the demigoddess grew as they progressed north until the crown prince started assigning a Thorn to ride alongside his consort during the night and two to watch over his consort’s pavilion on days when Etian rode patrol. Some days the supplicants sought after Seleketra from the moment the horses stopped, not even allowing her luxurious pavilion to be raised before falling on their knees at her feet.

  Much to his fellow Thorns’ amusement, Phriese was one of those supplicants. One dreary day, after the crown prince and the rest of their contingent had ridden out to patrol the area around camp, Phriese left Rake at his post at the pavilion door and ducked inside.

  Nervously, Phriese knelt and emptied a small purse of coins, rings, brooches, all the best trinkets he’d won at dice, onto the pavilion’s floor of woven mats.

  “I wonder if you might talk to Teikru for me, Your Worship?” He stared at the glittering pile so he wouldn’t see Rake’s stupid smirk where he’d poked his head in the door. “If you might… if you might ask the strong god-goddess to fix my eyes before I go into the betrayers’ territory?”

  From her cushioned couch, Seleketra’s ghostlit gaze trailed over the Thorn. Phriese fidgeted awkwardly. He felt disgustingly out of place in front of such beauty. He’d never been handsome—he had a rabbity face with an unfortunate underbite—but in his last autumn at Thornfield, an infection had left his eyes bulging and red-rimmed.

  He gulped. “My eyes see just fine—”

  Rake guffawed. “Twice as far as the next guy.”

  Phriese glared at him, a scathing reply on the tip of his tongue, but only a fool would curse somebody right in front of a deity. Even a half-deity.

  “—and I’m a devil with a longsword, Josean knows it,” Phriese went on. “But if I die up north…” His face turned as red as a sunburn. “Well… I-I…”

  “You don’t want the pointy-ears to laugh at how ugly you are!”

  “Rake, return to your post,” Seleketra said.

  Still snickering, the wiry Thorn bowed out of the pavilion into the misty day.

  “Go on, Phriese,” she said kindly.

  He rubbed the eyes in question. “That stupid pimple. I don’t care if the Helat laugh at me, Your Worship, but I was already bad enough before that fever. And you know how Prince Etian is saying he’ll retire every one of us Thorns who comes back from this mission? Well, I was hoping if I make it back maybe I’d find a girl who wanted to marry me.”

  “The gold and jewels you’ve offered me could buy a very beautiful wife.”

  “But maybe not one that loves me. Maybe just one that loves shiny things.”

  “You don’t believe anyone will love you unless you look different?”

  “How could they? I never got a girl the grafting didn’t get for me, Your Worship. I’ll take the retirement and the pension and be glad, but if His Highness retires me, I won’t even have the grafting to help me find a wife.”

  For several long seconds, Seleketra stared at him with that burning green fire. Phriese shifted uneasily, wondering if he’d mucked this up by contradicting her. Or maybe this was a matter beneath her notice. Maybe he should’ve just kept his mouth shut and saved his gold.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Finally, gently, the demigoddess said, “If you change your face, you change yourself, and your self is very good as it is, Phriese. I will ask Teikru to send you a woman who loves you as you are, without grafting or alteration.”

  Phriese wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It wasn’t what he’d asked for. But maybe an ugly beggar should be thankful for whatever the strong gods threw his way. He bowed and started to leave, but a gesture from Seleketra brought him back.

  “I do not need your gold, Phriese. You watch over me daily, and you protect my warlord prince with your life. That is offering enough.”

  Scooping the coins and jewelry back into his purse, the bewildered Thorn left the pavilion to resume his post.

  Outside, Rake caught sight of Phriese stuffing the purse back inside his uniform jacket. “Too ugly for even the strong gods to fix, huh?”

  “Go plough yourself.”

  When their fellow Thorns returned, they all got a kick out of Rake’s version of events, hooting and teasing Phriese.

  None of them were laughing a few days later, however, when a sturdy, ruddy-faced cook’s girl started hanging around the bug-eyed Thorn. It was Jili who brought up being a Thorn’s wife, not him, and how she had always admired a man who could make a living wage off dice without losing his shirt.

  Plans and promises were made and sealed with the gaudiest brooch in Phriese’s collection.

  Over subsequent nights and days, Hare, Dolo, Gray, and Faren all went to make furtive requests of Seleketra. Rake mocked them louder than anybody. But one night, when he had the first shift riding alongside the demigoddess, the wiry Thorn sidled up to Seleketra with an offering of his own.

  ***

  Between his duties as Commander of the Crown Prince’s Thorns, attending the increasingly frequent strategy meetings with Etian and the king, and a good measure of intentional avoidance, Izak didn’t speak to Seleketra himself until halfway through their journey from Siu Rial to Shamasa.

  The night was unusually warm, though the occasional sprinkling of flakes drifted from the cloudy sky. Most melted well before they reached the ground, consumed by the temperate breeze blowing up from the south.

  Hazerial forewent the carriage in favor of riding with his younger son. Apparently Izak’s input was not wanted in whatever the current and future Kings of Night discussed that time, because at a word from their father, Etian told Izak to trade places with Sketcher, who was riding guard for Seleketra.

  Izak could take orders from his younger brother, but not with any convincing grace.

  “Yes, Your Future Majesty,” he said icily before turning his mount away against the grafting’s protests.

  He found Seleketra and Sketcher on the opposite side of the procession, riding a few lengths apart from the wagons to avoid the mud splatter. The big rustic was expounding on the way the starlight fell just so on the flurries, and the talent it would take to capture such natural glory in charcoal and parchment.

  Sketcher broke off awkwardly when Izak fell in beside them.

  “Anyway.” He rolled his huge shoulders, then looked expectantly at Izak. “What is it, Commander?”

  “The king’s riding with Etian tonight, and he specifically requested that the best man join him. I said I’d get you.” Izak jerked his chin toward the front of the wagons. “And warn Phriese to ride well behind them; His Majesty won’t want that girl of his hovering around making mooneyes while he’s having a private word with his son.”

  With a rumbled affirmative, Sketcher put his enormous boots to his mount, and they lumbered away.

  For nearly a mile, the demigoddess and the prince rode together in silence.

  Seleketra finally ended it. “For as much time as we both spend around Prince Etianiel, one would think we’d have spoken before now. Yet I find I hardly see you, Commander.”

  Izak grinned at a distant stand of trees on the horizon. “I know my limits, Your Worship. Is that the proper address for a deity come to earth from on high?”

  “It’s the one I hear most often,” she allowed.

  “Tell me, how does one address a gorgeous young close-rat from Siu Carinal dressed up like a deity? The courtly manners lectures at Thornfield failed to cover that instance.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Seleketra stiffen. He should leave it at that, some well-placed animosity. But when he glanced more fully in her direction, he realized her face had gone stark with alarm.

  “How can you tell?” she whispered.

  Izak cursed himself for trying to push his own bad mood onto her. “Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone else can. Maybe if the pirate heard you, but your accent is so faint that if you’d told me I imagined it, I might have believed you.” He shrugged. “I just been hankerin’ to hear it again, me.”

  She frowned warily. “Why?”

  “I used to know a little runt with a much thicker version of your accent.” A sad smile tugged at his lips. “Could hardly understand a word she said, but she talked so much that I picked up a bit here and there.”

  The frown softened. “What happened to her?”

  “My father.”

  A small, tattooed hand lighted on his.

  Izak pretended that Loss needed adjustment in her saddle sheath, and Seleketra obligingly didn’t try to touch him again.

  “You loved her,” she said.

  He snorted. “There are few women I’ve wanted to bed less in my life.”

  “That’s lust.” Seleketra raised her face to the starry sky overhead. “It can come along with love, feed it even, but it’s not the same as love.” She shot him a mischievous grin. “I know some about that, me.”

  Izak couldn’t help chuckling. “You and me both.”

  Her laugh rang through the night air, pretty and clear, drawing envious glances from the nearest Royal Thorns.

  “Stay as far from the king as you can, Seleketra,” Izak said, turning serious. “If Hazerial finds out that you mean anything at all to my brother, he’ll destroy you just to teach Etian a lesson.”

  “I’ll beware of him,” she promised. “But your brother… He’s very cautious of giving away anything of himself; he never lets his guard down. How can anyone know if they mean something to him?”

  “I know he values you, because once we arrived at Siu Rial, he only trained all night.” Seeing that she didn’t understand, Izak spelled it out. “It used to be that your Josean would train all night and all day, Seleketra.”

  “Oh.” The gratified smile made her look heartbreakingly sweet beneath the tattooed sigils.

  “It’s surprisingly lonely being a courtesan, isn’t it?” he asked. “Ploughing your way through life with anybody who’ll lie down. Everybody wants you, and nobody loves you.”

  Seleketra adjusted her grip on the reins and forced a laugh.

  “Usually, it’s my lovers unburdening themselves to me.” She was trying for a joking tone, but her ghostlit eyes were glittering and full. “A demigoddess doesn’t go crying to mortals. Especially not when she gets to eat every day.”

  “Princes either.” Izak scanned the dark horizon so she could hastily wipe her eyes. “But there are so many different types of starvation.”

  “Some of ’em are easier to live with,” she said. “They hurt, but they don’t kill you.”

  Izak knew his limits. And he knew when he was about to fly past his limits at a full gallop.

  “Well,” he said, “if’n you ever find yourself hungerin’ to talk close-rat to somebody, you know where to find me.”