The feast that followed was short on guests, but the cooks had prepared no less food for lack of mouths. The Royal Thorns who weren’t on duty guarding the walls of Shamasa Redoubt were invited to celebrate as well. Conversation and laughter rang through the hall. The odors of roast meat, vegetables, fruits, pastries, and mulled wine mingled with the oily smoke from the torches and the occasional puffback from the hearth.

  Encouraged by the smell of food and festive atmosphere, a massive war hound who’d been skulking around the edges of the fortress since the massacre crept back in and began begging for scraps, much to the delight of the young men.

  Within minutes, the Hare of West Crag had the dog doing tricks.

  “He likes me,” the bastard told Izak as the dog lay its head across his lap. “Must be able to smell my father’s hounds on me. I’m going to bring him along when we ride north.” Hare thumped the big beast on its side, eliciting a wagging tail that knocked Gray’s wine cup off the table. “You want to go north, don’t you, big boy? You want to kill some pointy-ears with us?”

  “Does slobber mean yes?” Izak drawled, moving his foot well clear of the strings hanging from the monster’s mouth. He didn’t mind dogs, but he saw himself as more of a cat-person. Like Izak, felines spurned all affection—until they wanted attention; then they demanded it.

  They didn’t drool, either.

  Far to one end of the royal table, the mad queen gulped wine and sneered at her king’s conversation. Her attention strayed down the benches to the blind prince and found his dark eyes already trained on her from behind his lenses, despite the consort at his side.

  Jadarah cackled to herself, hearing again the whispers the strong gods had spoken to her in the howl of the Springlight sacrifices. Blind Josean had been waiting for her to come to him since his arrival at the redoubt, hoping to advance his little game. Finally, the time was ripe. She would strike today.

  At the center of the royal table, Duke Clarencio and his new wife sat talking quietly together. They had to lean close to hear one another over the raucous celebration.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t arrive at Shamasa earlier,” he told Kelena. “I would have liked to spend a few days getting to know you better.”

  “I know a little about you.” Her cheeks blushed beautifully from the wine and the close, warm air of the dining hall. “I know that you did everything you could to speed our marriage so I wouldn’t have to train anymore with Mother. And I’ve heard Izak say that you’re usually fighting with the other lords to abolish things like dyre fighting and bloodslavery and… well, lots of things.”

  Clarencio smiled. “Just a few of the reasons I’m not very popular with the peerage. I’m afraid you won’t receive many invitations to grand society events now that you’re shackled to me.”

  “I never did before. At least, I don’t think I did.” She took a sip of her wine. “Will the Helat imperial city be very different? And their society? I wouldn’t mind seeing what a Helat ball is like. Do they celebrate like we do, with dancing and feasts?”

  “That isn’t something that came up during my correspondence.” Clarencio thought of the well-made clothing and rich ornamentation the Helat messengers had worn. Part of the reason he’d had to stop by his banker was the lingering question of whether wealth so common that their lower castes outfitted themselves like nobility—or whether it had all been for show. “I think they enjoy fine clothing and jewelry, so it stands to reason that they would make occasion to show them off.”

  He took a breath to say something else and had to stifle a cough. His lungs didn’t take well to smoke, and the dining hall’s poor ventilation was aggravating them.

  Kelena looked stricken. “As wife of the ambassador from the Kingdom of Night, I’ll be expected to entertain, won’t I? I heard a noblewoman talking of such things at the ball. But I-I’ve never had to organize a gathering before. I don’t know anything about running a household.”

  “Don’t worry, I don’t entertain often, but brought staff who make even me look accomplished at it. The rest…” Clarencio shrugged. “I suppose that must come with experience.”

  A dark ringlet had slipped loose from her tightly coiled hair. Without thinking, he brushed it away from her face and tucked it behind her ear, marveling at the silky feel of her skin.

  Her cheeks blazed brighter, and she looked away.

  “Sorry.” Clarencio took his hand back, not wanting to make her any more uncomfortable than she already felt. “I think I’ve had enough wine.” He tried a laugh that turned into another strangled cough. “Enough smoke, as well. Would you care to step outside for some fresh air? We should still have an hour or two before the sun rises.”

  “That would be wonderful.” Kelena slipped over the bench with considerably more ease than he did.

  Back on his good leg, Clarencio gently guided his new wife to the side away from the walking stick and offered her his arm. As they skirted the edges of the revelry, the foreign Thorn shadowed his mistress.

  Outside, the wind was stiff but the sky was clear. The Festival of Springlight didn’t always herald the arrival of temperate weather, but this one had brought a subtle shift toward warmth, like a gesture of goodwill for the newlyweds. It blew the odors of the stables and rotting corpses away from them and brought in the fresh scent of melting snow.

  Shamasa’s foundation shifted frequently due to the harsh freezing cycles and groundwater that plagued the crude early constructions in the north. Steps were added and removed as needed as the building heaved or sank. Currently, it had a single wide stone stair and a wooden half-stair on the far end to make up for the disparity.

  “Let’s pause here a moment.” Clarencio cleared the smoke from his lungs with a harsh cough that, once started, he had some trouble stopping.

  “Are you well?” Kelena laid a hand on his shoulder hesitantly, as if she were afraid he would shout at her for touching him. “My brother Izak is an excellent healer; I can go get him.”

  “It’s nothing. The fresh air is all I need.”

  While they spoke, his wife’s Thorn slipped past them, scanning the bailey for threats.

  Clarencio was unnervingly reminded of the stolen young swordsmen who had been so dedicated to his father that they wouldn’t leave his side even when they knew they were doomed. Between the time Lord Paius had grafted them and the night he died, Clarencio had only managed one private conversation with his father. He would be damned if he started off his marriage under the same precedent.

  “Kelena, Alaan,” he said when the Thorn had completed his assessment. “I think it would be best if the three of us spared a moment for an uncomfortable conversation.”

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  His wife’s eyes widened; Alaan’s scowl looked like a challenge.

  Night take me, they’re young. Clarencio felt like an old nursemaid about to call down children for bad behavior. I’ve had too much wine for this.

  He addressed the Thorn first. “I understand that you didn’t ask to be enslaved to Kelena. I find the soul slavery of the grafting as contemptible as bloodslavery, but more insidious because Thorns are hailed as great heroes throughout the kingdom. From childhood, boys play at being them and dream of one day joining their ranks. And once you’re there, Thornfield fills your heads with the glory of a valiant death protecting your master.”

  “I don’t want anyone to die protecting me!” Kelena insisted.

  “I’m hopeful it won’t come to that,” Clarencio said. “I only mention all of it so that you both know my stance on the subject. There’s going to be quite a stir throughout the kingdom when word gets out that my wife grafted a Thorn. Hypocrisy will be the least of the allegations, after I led the arrest against my father because I disagreed with his choice to do the same.”

  “If your father broke the laws of honor, then your actions were justified,” Alaan said. “The accusation of hypocrisy is not—you had no hand in my grafting.”

  “My detractors aren’t interested in the truth when scandal serves them better.” Clarencio leaned against the wall to take some of the weight from his leg. “Likely they’ll start worse rumors about you, Kelena, because of your mother’s reputation. You may be accused of using your Thorns in the same way she does.”

  Beneath the roses in her cheeks, Kelena’s face went as white as fresh cream. “I would never do that to Alaan.”

  “Dirters believe what they wish, not what is evidenced by fact.” Alaan met Clarencio’s eyes with another challenging glare. “You suggest these possibilities to evade asking that which you truly wish to know: The princess and I have not been intimate. She has been faithful to you, and I would not touch a woman promised to another man. Even a dirter.”

  “You favor the blunt approach. Good, so do I,” Clarencio said, slightly annoyed at being scolded by a man half his age. “Put it plainly—I don’t want a third party in our wedding chamber, today or any other day. That won’t be the only privacy we want, either. I understand that your grafting makes Kelena’s safety an imperative for you, but we can’t have you hovering over us night and day. That’s no way to build any relationship, let alone a marriage.”

  At his side, Kelena wrung her hands. Her worried gaze darted back and forth between her Thorn and Clarencio as if she feared they would come to blows.

  But Alaan only nodded in agreement, albeit somewhat stiffly. “That is the right of a man and wife. I will afford you what privacy the grafting makes possible.”

  “We’ll need a bedchamber with a single entrance,” Kelena said suddenly. “It’s easier for Alaan to relax when there’s just one door to guard. And no windows.”

  Clarencio remembered his father’s bedchamber. A deathtrap, one of his Thorns had called it. The other two had adored it, because it allowed for one-man shifts overday and cut down on the strain of constant vigilance.

  “When we’re at Blazing Prairie, my ancestral home, that won’t be a problem. I was preoccupied this evening and didn’t notice much about the apartments I’m set up in here, but I’ll send a man ahead to the Helat imperial city to procure something to fit those specifications.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace.”

  “You’re welcome, Your Highness.” The lilt of humor in his address drew Kelena’s eyes to his. Clarencio smiled. “I don’t believe a princess is required to address her husband formally—unless she prefers to. Just between you and me, I wouldn’t be upset if you used my given name.”

  That brought the bright smile back to her face. “Sometimes I am just a silly goose.”

  Only because they hid you away so well that you’ve barely seen any of the world around you. You’ve probably never even had a man pay you court.

  Stifling a wince, Clarencio pushed away from the wall and offered her his arm. “I believe the ground is solid enough for a walk before sunrise, if you’d care to take one?”

  “I would love that,” she said sincerely.

  They stuck to the edges of the bailey, close to the wall and well away from any piles of rotting bodies, where the ground was less churned by foot traffic and the sodden terrain less likely to trip Clarencio’s bad leg or swallow his walking stick.

  In line with his promise, Alaan remained at a tactful distance, giving the new husband and wife as much privacy as his grafting allowed.

  ***

  The sun rose and the sacrifices burned low on the high place, their wailing chorus waning. The king retired from the feast, and the mad queen skulked off with her Thorns not long after.

  The rest of the Thorns filtered out in twos and threes to take their shift on the wall or relieve their friends on guard duty. Several snuck out with serving staff to find a bed, a closet, or in a few cases, a shadowy corridor. The servants who weren’t otherwise occupied set to clearing away trays and cups and scraps.

  Sketcher and Hare and the enormous, slobbering war hound accompanied Etian and Seleketra back to the courtesan’s chambers. With Phriese’s new designation as the sole overday guard for Etian’s chamber, the rustic and the bastard would stand the first watch over the courtesan’s quarters. Izak had been given the option, but he knew better than to think he could stand posted at the door and stomach what was taking place inside. Not when he knew what he knew about Etian and Jadarah.

  The elder prince wandered the fortress for a while, looking in on a few dice and card games before deciding he was too restless for any of it. An early afternoon escape with his best friend and his little runt would have been perfect, smoke-stepping down a long stretch of beach to the public house, where they could drink and commiserate on the best way to deal with this latest problem of the mad queen. Then he could leave the pirate to watch Lathe get unacceptably drunk while upstairs Izak lost himself in Casia and Danasi’s sweet embrace.

  Not to be ever again, of course. The runt and Casia were dead, their lives both meaninglessly thrown away on that spit of sand. A wise and annoying sword tutor had once told Izak to enjoy the dream while it lasted. He should have realized those days sneaking out of Thornfield were just another dream.

  So Izak wandered instead, just him and Loss. She never strayed far from his hands these days, as if the appendages were afraid Hazerial might try to steal away that love as well.

  Izak chuckled to himself. If the king knew what Etian had planned, Hazerial would not only take Loss, but forcefully return her somewhere Izak would find very uncomfortable.

  In the stables, he found wood planks slowly disintegrating and in places broken off altogether, leaving behind the suggestions of stalls rather than actual divisions. The royal horses wandered the interior beneath stripes of sunlight let in through the gaps in the walls, mounts mixing with carriage horses and draft, making it impossible to hastily pick out and saddle any specific animal.

  The nearest trees grew on the Helat side of the border. If the fort’s officers had wanted to repair the stables, the commander would have had to send men south to search out the sparse lumber that dotted the lakelands. Or contract a woodcutter to haul in loads of timber, an expense Izak doubted the crown had been willing to fund.

  He was already well versed in the barracks and its patchwork of new and old masonry. Throughout the centuries, mortar and daub had been applied throughout Shamasa wherever repairs were necessary, somehow without ever quite managing to rebuild the whole place. Even the commander’s tower, where his father had taken up residence, severely lacked in the luxury that Izak would have expected to be left behind by a man of high rank.

  Avoiding his father’s apartments, Izak meandered through a war room filled with outdated charts and crumbling ledgers, up creaking stairs, and onto a roof with battle-scarred, uneven crenelations. Facing intentionally away from the high place tower, Izak imagined he could see shapes moving at the edges of the distant forest. Helat soldiers, perhaps. The commander must always have been the first to know when the betrayers attacked.

  During strategy meetings, Etian had suggested that massive reforms were needed in the war’s funding. Restorations and repairs were at the top of his concerns, new weapons and armor, which Izak had found himself agreeing with as he wandered through the armory. Rust grew on breastplates from a bygone era and once-strong hardened leather crumbled beneath his fingers. The standing armies the lords afforded the crown came well supplied and often well horsed, but the king’s army, it seemed, were forced to fight with weapons dragged off the battlefield decades ago.

  When—if—Etian took the throne, the Josean-blessed warrior might bankrupt them just trying to rebuild their northern border. Perhaps he would find a way to fatten up the royal treasury that their father had overlooked. Perhaps it wouldn’t come to any of that if this push to take the Helat imperial city killed them all.

  Izak hoped the conditions at the redoubt weren’t typical of all the strongholds in the north. If they were, he got the sinking suspicion that the Kingdom of Night wasn’t the side winning this war.