As soon as the roads were passable again, a messenger arrived at Thornfield carrying the news that the yearly grafting would take pce early, at first thaw. To accommodate the king, the spring mock tournament was moved forward to the tail end of winter.

  Along with the change in scheduling, the king had sent Grandmaster Heartless an unusual order. In addition to the king’s requirement, Crown Prince Etianiel would be grafting eight Thorns. To make up for the painfully low number of seniors, six of the third years would have to be grafted.

  As these premature graftings were becoming more commonpce, the third years had adapted—either consciously or unconsciously—by taking names earlier and earlier.

  Prince Izak would undoubtedly be at the forefront of his brother’s graftings, as Commander of the Crown Prince’s Thorns. He was still going by “Four,” but it was no mystery what name he would choose.

  The best swordsman in their year, the pirate, was another obvious choice for early grafting. Twenty-six had yet to decre a name, but Grandmaster suspected that was due to a ck of trust in his fellow students, not indecision.

  Normally, Grandmaster would have included Lathe in his list for the king and heir, as the half-blind berserker was right on the prince and pirate’s heels for skill level, but Heartless couldn’t in good conscience give the boy to either his current sovereign or the future king.

  He filled the spot that would have been Lathe’s with Fifty-one. Compared to the berserker, the bastard of West Crag was slower than frozen honey, but he would make a solid support man, and among ranks of natural show-offs and gloryseekers, that quiet dependability was as rare and valuable as gold.

  If Fifty-one and the pirate nded in the same guard, there was a chance they would pgue it with infighting, but Grandmaster put that in his report as well, along with the suggestion that under Izak’s command, the prince might be able to keep the pirate in line.

  ***

  The first- and second-year brackets were nothing spectacur in Lathe’s opinion. Scabs lost his first match and spent the remainder of his bracket gambling and hanging around with his enterprising friend Thirty, who had taken up the job of student bookmaker after Ondreus was grafted.

  It looked as if Thirty would take the second-year championship through a deftly applied combination of poisons, bribery, and intimidation.

  Lathe raged at the thought that Thirty might win, and even worse that Scabs—who had listened to his friend’s advice and id heavy bets on the merchant’s son to take the championship—would soon be flush with coin.

  “We’ll find another way to bribe his mouth shut,” Izak assured in a low voice her while they watched the championship bout.

  “Who’s caring about Scabs’s mouth?” Lathe muttered. “It’s bad medicine, them flux-piles getting what they want.”

  “Have you ever noticed that bad medicine is anything you don’t like?” Izak asked.

  “’Course I don’t like it! What kinda silt brain likes bad medicine?”

  “Do not do anything rash,” the pirate warned her.

  Lathe didn’t have any rash actions pnned. But she was standing right there when Thirty and his opponent pushed their match up against the crowd. Impulse spoke up, and Lathe had never been one to ignore an impulse.

  While the young men and boys around her were scuttling out of the way of the fighters’ bdes, Lathe threw her weight into a punch to Thirty’s liver.

  Then she scuttled back.

  Thirty’s face went from pink to gray to green, and he colpsed. His opponent, a powerful second-year who hadn’t been susceptible to Thirty’s intimidations and had yet to catch a dose of paralyzing poison, put his longsword to Thirty’s neck.

  “Winner!” Fright announced, slipping between the young men. “Sixty-two!”

  Thirty regained color as he pushed up to his hands and knees, passing his usual pink flush for a livid red.

  He rounded on Lathe. “You cheating, scum-guzzling—”

  “In a real skirmish, there will always be unforeseen circumstances,” Lathe said in a solemn imitation of Grandmaster Heartless. The mimicry fell apart when she shot Thirty a nasty grin. “I might be scum, me, but least I didn’t lose a whole championship ’cuz I wasn’t lookin’ where I was goin’.”

  Multiple bystanders had to intervene to break the two of them up. Lathe was still screaming insults as her roommates dragged her bodily away. Thirty seethed in the grasp of the other students, his livid complexion draining away to be repced by a curtain of lethal white.

  With the onlookers alternately egging the fight on and compining that the dey was interfering with the next bracket, no one noticed Scabs smiling to himself.

  ***

  Kelena wasn’t used to being around her father for more than an hour at a time, so the carriage ride from Mistfen to Thornfield was a tense and uncomfortable affair. She squeezed into the corner of the seat across from the King of Night, trying to breathe in what little air his suffocating presence didn’t banish and attract as little notice as possible.

  Perhaps going unnoticed was one skill she actually possessed. For the better part of the journey, the king only acknowledged her existence when they had to stop for her sake. Thankfully, that could almost always be taken care of when the whole entourage stopped for the day at an inn or public house.

  If Mother had come along, the queen might have called attention to Kelena’s idiocy more often. She would have pointed out all the ways Kelena was failing the most basic tests of existence and reminded Kelena what a tax she was on everyone around her. But Mother and a flock of priests had traveled ahead to Shamasa to prepare a suitable high pce for the Springlight sacrifices and the coming wedding.

  Kelena couldn’t bring herself to rex in the king’s presence, but she took soce in the knowledge that she had been released from her training.

  “The crippled lord requested it specially,” Jadarah had sneered when she pulled Kelena from the st ritual. “And Eketra’s favorite king agreed. Lucky for Little Nothing that Mother finished what they started. They don’t care what happens to you when the strong gods finally turn their scorn your way, but Mother does.”

  Kelena shivered as the carriage rolled across the sandy strip of nd. She tried never to think about the strong gods’ hatred for her. When she got too close to the thought, her mind turned to nothing and hid. She would return hours ter and find herself somewhere else altogether, the trek having gone on without her.

  Better by far to remember the Lord of the Cinternds and their conversation that beautiful, shining day. The shimmering colors and sweet music, his kind concern. Lord Crencio had been as handsome as she remembered, but not frightening at all. He had seen how stupid she was, how obviously empty, and still he had spoken to her as if… as if she existed.

  Hooves thumped outside the carriage, and a shadow crossed between the moonlight and the window.

  The first time that had happened on the journey, Kelena had screamed, terrors fluttering up from the depths of her mind to prove what an idiot she was. Now she knew it was just one of the Royal Thorns delivering a message.

  Hazerial pulled the curtain back farther, and her brother’s gsses bounced moonlight into the interior of the carriage. Kelena cringed away from the refraction.

  She didn’t know why, but her skin buzzed whenever Etianiel was near. She couldn’t look directly at him; it made her feel as if she were draining away whenever she tried.

  At least the crown prince didn’t spend any time in the carriage, preferring to ride with the Thorns. He had tried to speak to her once since leaving Mistfen, but she had barely been able to hear him over the buzzing in her skin, and she’d stumbled through her answer so badly that she couldn’t bme him for not trying again.

  “We’re coming up on the Thornfield gatehouse now,” he reported to the king.

  Hazerial nodded and let the curtain fall by way of dismissal. His dark stare turned to Kelena.

  She tried to shrink without moving. She wished she was a worm or a speck of dust, something so small he couldn’t even see her.

  “You will remain at our side the entire time we are at Thornfield,” Hazerial said.

  Kelena hastened to nod obediently. Something about the way the king said it made her think he would y out more proscriptions, but Hazerial fell silent again.

  The carriage slowed. Outside, patrols and Thorns shouted back and forth. The conveyance leaned slightly as it turned. The wheels rattled over a grating, then quieted as they returned to sand.

  The carriage stopped. The door opened.

  “Follow,” Hazerial ordered. He rose and descended into the ghostlight.

  Kelena swallowed, her heart thundering in her ears. Out there under the night sky, the ghost city would be gring down, waiting for the Nothing One to dare to stand beneath its glow.

  On numb legs, she inched toward the door. A footman offered her a hand down, but Kelena didn’t see it. Instead she grasped the frame of the carriage as she climbed down. Mud slicked her fingers.

  Idiot! Why hadn’t she realized that would happen? The green ghostlight pressed down, loathing her as she bit her lip and hid the offending appendage in the folds of her cloak.

  A prickle of unease drew her attention. A feeling of being watched by more than the ghost city. She raised her head.

  A thousand eyes were fixed upon her every move. The terrors were there in the middle of the night, staring at her, breathing at her, shouting at her. They would descend upon her and there would be nowhere she could escape to. She would be back in it again, trapped in the bck.

  Her head spun, darkness washing in from the edges of her vision.

  “Kelen?” The familiar voice cut through the muffled rushing in her head.

  She looked up to see Izakiel pushing his way through the crowd. A crowd that was nothing more than a mass of men and boys, no terrors at all. They were smiling and jostling with one another to see something.

  To see her. They were all looking at her.

  Heedless of the gathered crowd, Izakiel scooped her up and spun her around like he used to when she was a child.

  Was any of this happening? Had she imagined it all? Could she truly be far away from the bck and hugging her elder brother again? She buried her face in Izakiel’s neck and breathed in his scent.

  A lifetime of memories came flooding back—him tossing her into the air, teasing her, calling her names, letting her ride around the courtyard with him, swearing to her that every word out of Mother’s mouth was a lie, telling her never to listen…

  Tears burned Kelena’s eyes. Always crying, always such an idiot.

  With a final squeeze, Izakiel set her back on her feet, grinning that dimpled grin she had missed so dearly. Still the hero of her childhood, but different. His angles were sharper, the boyish softness she remembered chiseled into manhood.

  “I can’t believe how you’ve grown, Kelen.” Funny how it used to annoy her when Izakiel called her the boy’s version of her name—now it only added to her love for him. He tapped her on the nose. “You’re so much taller and less ugly.”

  She ughed through her tears. “You too, but you smell worse.”

  “I been trainin’, me! Ain’t had no time for baths.”

  “Why are you talking like a peasant?” It felt as if all the ughter he’d taken with him when he left three years ago had rushed back into her at once.

  “Kelena.” Hazerial’s cold voice strangled the giggle in her throat.

  She retreated to the king’s side, her head lowered.

  “Forgive my loss of decorum, Your Majesty,” Izakiel said.

  At the edge of her vision, she saw him sketch a sarcastic bow, and her heart surged.

  Izakiel still wasn’t afraid of anything! Not the King of Night, not Mother. Just being near him again made her feel stronger.

  “Enough.” An elderly man with white hair shoved Izakiel back toward the wall of young men. He raised his voice and ordered, “Everyone return to the match.”

  They went, reluctantly tearing their eyes from Kelena. Izakiel went with them, but not before sending her a conspiratorial wink.

  The older man, who introduced himself as Grandmaster Heartless, led the king and his entourage into the keep. Etianiel stalked out of the royal chambers almost immediately, leaving Kelena alone with the king once more. Her shoulders tensed until the muscles in her back screamed.

  “I am sorry, Your Majesty,” she whispered, the weight of the ghostlight out the window pressing down on her heart and lungs. “Please forgive me for—for being so frivolous when I saw Izakiel. It was hardly becoming of a princess.”

  Hazerial scowled. “You cannot be held responsible for that asinine pest. Eketra will deal with him as she sees fit. Put him from your mind. You have a much greater task ahead, and you cannot afford distraction.”