Clarencio found his betrothed in the redoubt’s squat dining hall awaiting the Springlight sacrifices with the king, crown prince, and a tattooed woman in exotic dress. The princess’s repulsive mother was nowhere in evidence.

  At the tap of his walking stick on the flagstones, Kelena looked up and her face lit up in a beautiful smile. She met him halfway to the table and led him to the empty seat beside hers.

  Benches being a nemesis of his ruined leg, Clarencio would have preferred to remain standing, but the princess seemed so eager to have him with her that he wrestled himself onto the seat. Judging by the stares he received, it was quite the demonstration.

  “I was so happy to hear that your carriage came in yesterday, Lord Clarencio.” Kelena had blossomed into an incredible young woman, sweet where her mother was lascivious, elegant where the queen was crass. “I worried you wouldn’t make it in time.”

  “The river delayed us,” he said.

  “The Salt is treacherous this spring,” Hazerial said. “We don’t believe it has flooded this severely in at least seven years.”

  Seven years ago being the spring after the Cinterlands Massacre. Clarencio pretended not to notice the reference.

  “Our ferryman swore it means a good harvest is on its way, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain.” Clarencio accepted another cup of coffee from a servant. “All the rain seemed to keep the highwaymen hidden away, at least.”

  Kelena’s dark eyes widened. “You weren’t accosted, were you? We saw their fires in a few places, but none attacked our train. None that got past Etianiel and Izak, anyway.”

  “Sketcher was the real hero of those skirmishes,” said a Thorn leaning on a swordstaff behind the crown prince. “If the big brute were here to embarrass, I would regale you with tales of his feats.”

  It only took a glance to place the speaker. The last time Clarencio had seen him, Prince Izak had been a robust twelve years old, spoiled lazy, and heir to the kingdom. He had stretched out to his father’s rangy height since then, the childish softness replaced with lean muscle. Clarencio had heard around court that Izak was the spitting image of his sire as a young man, but to see it for himself was startling. If time hadn’t lightened the king’s hair and added crow’s feet to the corners of his eyes, Clarencio could have believed the men twins.

  The most obvious difference was the lopsided grin on the younger man’s face; it gave Prince Izak the appearance of being an entertaining drinking companion and a dangerous gambling partner.

  “The highwayman situation is getting worse every year,” Etian said, adjusting his lenses. “I heard from Orkitria that House Mattius was offering pardons to any man in your holding who swears onto your gaol staff and helps contain the problem.”

  Clarencio nodded. “I’ve only had a few months to evaluate the experiment, but so far it seems to be effective.”

  Perhaps because, in his holding, a good number of the former highwaymen were horse nomad slaves from escaped House Agata and deserters from the northern front desperate for some way to redeem themselves and return to their families.

  “You haven’t seen a surge in gaoler corruption?” Etian asked.

  “We had two incidents early on, but the first man was hung as soon as the matter was discovered, and the second was beheaded. Their bodies were displayed in Siu Baital outside the gaol as a warning. Things have quieted down since.”

  The conversation drifted to other subjects. During a lull, the crown prince introduced his consort, the exotic Seleketra. She looked surprisingly young to Clarencio, but then he couldn’t judge. From his thirty-five years, everyone in the dining hall but Hazerial looked like children to him.

  “As long as we’re making introductions,” Izak reentered the conversation with the cheer of a lifelong pot-stirrer, “Lord Clarencio, my sister’s Thorn, Alaan. His Majesty, in his infinite strong-god-given wisdom, had Kelena graft him two months ago. The pirate will be accompanying you into Helat territory as a protective measure.”

  Stomach dropping out, Clarencio twisted on the bench. The Thorn Prince Izak indicated, a fierce-looking young foreigner, loomed behind Kelena. Like all Thorns, he had the resting intensity of an ax embedded in a still-screaming face. If the young man’s bronzed skin, sun-streaked hair, and gray-green eyes hadn’t marked him as an Ocean Rover, the black blades on his belt would have.

  In recent generations, with advances in smithing, the Children of Night had come to favor lighter swords with longer, narrower blades. Excellent reach and speed, but at a loss of the strength and power afforded by heavier steel. On the sea, it seemed, pirates opted for force over reach, and shorter blades that must allow for maximum maneuverability in the close quarters of a ship.

  A cutlass like that black beast could chop a man’s arm off as easily as slice a second grin into his belly and let his guts dribble out. Clarencio hadn’t seen a swordbreaker in years, but he could easily imagine a rapier or longsword snapping in half with a twist of the dagger’s wicked teeth.

  Luckily, Clarencio had experience being blindsided with Thorns. His late father had stolen three of them from Thornfield.

  “Forgive me if I seem discourteous,” he said, extending a hand to the pirate. “I try to make it a point to greet all men on equal footing, but at times my condition demands otherwise. In this case, I think it wiser not to injure myself falling over a bench I barely made it onto in the first place.”

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  The pirate said nothing. He glared through Clarencio.

  Clarencio took his hand back, letting a nod suffice.

  At least Prince Izak was enjoying himself. “Your ‘all men are equal’ dog won’t hunt with the pirate, your lordship. Alaan views all of us dirters as equally beneath him.”

  “No, he doesn’t!” The attention of the table turned to Kelena, and she blushed down at her plate.

  “It is unseemly that a Thorn would converse with the royal family at table,” Hazerial interceded. He eyed his elder son with obvious distaste. “Be they commander or otherwise. Etianiel, we expect you to keep your men under better control. All of them.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Smirking, Prince Izak sketched a mockingly apologetic bow. “I am the king’s and crown prince’s humble servant.”

  Etian and Kelena glared at their elder brother, one annoyed behind his smoked lenses, the other pleading.

  Ignoring his offspring, the king turned his attention to Clarencio.

  “We afforded our daughter a Thorn for her safety from our enemies. We could not allow Kelena to risk travel in Helat territory unguarded. The Children of Day betrayed us once and their armies fight always to maintain what they stole. Short stretch, then, to imagine them doing the same once more, this time with the beloved child of their rightful king in hand.”

  Clarencio gave a carefully neutral reply and resumed drinking his coffee. Thorns may have been the best swordsmen in the kingdom, but he’d seen how many men it took to kill three of them, and that number fell far short of an army.

  Years ago, Clarencio and Etian had discussed Hazerial’s intentions for betrothing the princess to the son of the traitorous Cinterlands lord. They had decided then that whatever number of explanations they could discern, the king must have another handful that he kept to himself.

  A Josean-blessed swordsman never took a step without at least two reasons for moving, as the old saying went. By the same measure, an Eketra-blessed king never grafted a Thorn to his daughter without at least five.

  “They are in place!” Queen Jadarah skipped in through the dining hall’s arched stone entrance, her ragged skirts swaying around bare, bloody feet and calves. “The strong gods hunger for the savory perfumes of the spring sacrifices. They thirst to tie their crippled lord and little nothing together as one! Come, Chosen of the Strong Gods! Come, blind prince! Hobble along, crippled lord! Come, come, come!”

  ***

  In lieu of altars, the high place sacrifices had been affixed to the tower’s crenelations. Clarencio surveyed the appalling scene, trying not to react.

  Seven servants from the royal staff, one child that a groomsman had brought along because the mother had passed away, and a young man Clarencio recalled serving as aide to one of the king’s secretaries. With hundreds of rotting heads stacked along the parapet, it looked as if they lay bound atop piles of screaming faces.

  Queen Jadarah flitted around the circle, carving open chests and setting still-beating hearts afire. The agonized wails and sobs of the sacrifices twined with the deep humming chant of the priests to create a hair-raising music.

  Between the sacrifices, the dismembered heads, the priests, the royal family, a secretary recording the proceedings, and Clarencio, the tower roof was fairly crowded. Prince Izak was the only Thorn in attendance. The rest had been forced to wait below.

  Huddled between Hazerial and Clarencio as the butchery went on, Kelena crept imperceptibly closer to Clarencio’s side. He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  As the wailing pierced the sky and made his ears ring with ghosts of the Cinterlands Massacre, Clarencio thought he wouldn’t have shunned some solace himself. He was glad he’d told Saro to lie low for the night. He wished he could have done the same, but his marriage to the princess was to take place under the scrutiny of the strong gods, according to the ancient royal tradition.

  Most wedding rituals he’d attended had been for friends of his family—mine foremen’s children, serving staff, or citizens of Hotsprings, the village below Blazing Prairie. His father Lord Paius had rarely turned down a wedding invitation to the common folk of his holding, because they believed the presence of their lord blessed their marriages. When he couldn’t be there, he sent his son, and when Michiala was still alive, his daughter, which the people of House Mattius’s counties liked just as well.

  Despite his family’s vocal opposition to most of the Kingdom of Night’s practices and vices, Clarencio did have a smattering of friends among the nobility. He’d been to a few noble wedding rituals. Ariane had invited him to all of her sisters’ ceremonies and promised to invite him if she ever found herself a suitable third or fourth noble son with no hope of inheriting his father’s title.

  None of the weddings, noble or common, that Clarencio had attended had been held on a high place, with a ghost city dipping down so close that it felt as if he could reach up and touch its eerie green watchtower. He certainly hadn’t been to any weddings where the fires of enemy soldiers flickered at the edge of a great forest less than a mile away. And none of those ceremonies had taken place surrounded by sacrifices shrieking out a shrill chorus while their insides roared with pale flames that shimmered from green to blue to violet.

  That was the prerogative of House Khinet, the direct descendants of the man who had fathered the Children of Night.

  When the priests declared the final sacrifice accepted by the strong gods, the mad queen beckoned Clarencio and Kelena to the center of the tower to kneel.

  The night seemed determined to force Clarencio into awkward positions. To achieve something like a kneeling position, he first had to go onto his hands and good knee, then slide his bad leg out to the side like a prop before straightening back up. At least he didn’t have to worry about it folding halfway through the ritual and spilling him on the tower roof; that leg was a stone pillar—worthless for walking, running, riding, or climbing, but outstanding for immobility.

  The king came forth next. With the queen’s ceremonial dagger, Hazerial slit his palm and dabbed both Kelena’s and Clarencio’s foreheads with the Blood of the Strong Gods.

  “Herewith, I mark my consent to unite this Kelena, royal daughter of House Khinet, third issue of her sovereign father, Hazerial the Fourth, Chosen of the Strong Gods, to this Clarencio, noble son of House Mattius, first issue of his lord father, the late traitor, Paius of the Cinterlands.”

  The mad queen handed the king a cup of dark liquid, black in the glow of the ghostlight and the shifting flames of the sacrifices.

  “As the blood that flows in the veins of your offspring will be the blood of your two houses mingled,” Hazerial intoned, “so shall you two sup together on one blood this day. Drink.”

  Clarencio braced himself as Hazerial passed the cup from Kelena’s lips to his. Thankfully, the blood within was mixed heavily with fortified wine to keep it from coagulating. He managed a sip without gagging.

  “By this marriage, and for faithful services rendered to the crown, we raise Clarencio of House Mattius from Lord of the Cinterlands to Duke of the Cinterlands. Rise, Duke Clarencio and Princess Kelena, man and wife, witnessed and approved of the strong goddess Eketra, the strong god Josean, the strong god-goddess Teikru, and of the ancient House Khinet.”

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