It's Izak's turn under the thornknife, and we've only got a few chapters of Book 1 left!

  Well, guess what, we're chugging straight through the weekend, no stopping until we've got all the st chapters posted. Tomorrow through Monday, I'll post a chapter every day.

  Be there or be square, friends!e

  The final graftings were those of the future Royal Thorns, the men who would serve the Crown Prince now and, if they survived long enough, when he ascended to the throne.

  As commander of his brother’s Thorns, Izak was first in line. Eighty-eight and Fifty-one, both of whom would be grafted soon after Izak, acted as his seconds. Twenty-six—Aan, rather, Izak reminded himself—hovered near his new charge, unable to leave Kelena’s side so soon after the grafting. Royal Thorns crowded around her and the pirate, weapons drawn, ready to run Aan through if he twitched in the wrong direction.

  Izak had heard the stories circuting about royal botch-jobs, but he didn’t suffer from any undue concern. Etian lived with a bde in his hand. There was no one he trusted more to shove a wooden knife into his heart and tear it back out.

  Sure, their roles were reversed, the elder was about to serve the younger for the first time since Khinet had put his second-born son in service to his firstborn, but Izak wasn’t afraid. He’d seen the worst that could happen. The runt…

  Well, hadn’t he known all along that the rubbish pit was where he belonged? If he ended up tumbling down the sandy slope alongside Lathe, at least she wouldn’t rot alone.

  Etian raised the thornknife.

  Izak braced himself, the breath hissing in and out through his gritted teeth. Fifty-one and Eighty-eight gripped him tighter, holding him in pce.

  The ghost city fred off Etian’s lenses as he plunged the wooden bde toward Izak’s chest.

  Bone crunched. Izak let out a choked cry as pain exploded outward from the site of impact. The air clotted in his lungs.

  He died.

  Izak expected the stillness of the grave he had so often imagined, a dark and peaceful nothingness, but he was surrounded by the eerie green of ghostlight. Surrounded and filled with it. It was as if the ghost city that mirrored Thornfield every night had rushed out of the sky and into him.

  And there they were.

  Josean. Bent, broken nose over a grim scowl. Scarred, rippling muscles. Spear dripping the blood of enemies and the blood of innocents.

  Eketra. Long hair wound into an intricate, orderly coil. Delicate fingers tipped with cwed nails plucking at endless bloody webs.

  Teikru. Hungry lips, darting tongue. Burning eyes. Open arms and open legs beckoning to a bottomless pit.

  The strong gods.

  Izak couldn’t move. He had no body. He was nothing more than thoughts, and even those seemed stunted and slow.

  Teikru smiled. “This Son of Khinet is a faithful worshipper at my altar.”

  The god-goddess spoke without a motion of the lips. Warm, dark, inviting, suggestive, Teikru’s voice was as familiar to Izak as his own. He’d never heard it before, but he knew it.

  “Not always.” Josean spoke with the same unmoving countenance, though his voice was harsh. “This is a bsphemer and a heretic.”

  “Once he was.” Teikru ran a hand across voluptuous curves and sculpted sinews. “Now he buries himself in me. He feeds on my sweet, ripened fruit and drinks the wine of my passion.”

  “He is the prince of the stolen crown.” Eketra’s cold voice was familiar as well, though Izak didn’t know why. She cocked her head slightly. An artful curl dangled from her coil of hair. “Do you seek the return of your stolen throne, Prince of Loss?”

  Teikru chuckled. “He seeks pleasure and oblivion. All other paths are closed to him. Even bsphemy fails him.”

  It had failed his uncle, that great man. It had failed Lathe, dirty little runt crushed under a world too big for low street brats. If the pirate had cried out to his pirate god for help assassinating the king, then that bsphemy had failed, too.

  What was there of Izak to fail? He’d given all he had over to drowning himself in women and liquor because that had been the fastest way to escape. He hadn’t even truly believed in the strong gods, but he’d seen their influence—violence and greed and lust. They were powerful, and they were everywhere.

  “Then he is ours,” Eketra said.

  Izak. Your service is commanded.

  Josean scowled. “Will he serve his purpose?”

  “I have blessed him,” Teikru said. “He cannot fail.”

  “It is decided,” Eketra said. “Send him north.”

  Return to your master. Take root where your soul will not be driven out.

  The world shifted around Izak. He felt rain on his skin. Mud caked his clothing, made it hang heavy. He felt hands clutching his arms. Darkness surrounded him but for a single glimmer of light, a pure silver moonbeam.

  Breath grated in his throat and tore at his lungs like cws of ice. Fifty-one and Eighty-eight struggled to hold him. The rustic had fallen to one knee, and the bastard’s boots slipped in the mud as he fought to remain upright. Their harsh panting made great billows of steam in the chilled night.

  The moonbeam winked out, and the green light of the ghost city illuminated the bailey.

  Blood cooled as it trickled down the ft pnes of Izak’s stomach. The wound in his heart was sealing. He twisted his arms free of his friends’ grasp and prodded the rapidly scabbing hole. He could feel the negative space inside his chest growing together, filling with scar tissue.

  Then a strange magnetism drew Izak’s attention, something inside his skull pulling, insisting, like fingers hooked into his eye sockets.

  Etian stood in front of him, holding out the thornknife.

  “Your soul resides within this thornknife until such a time as you die again or I release you from service,” his brother recited.

  The magnetism grew more pronounced, somehow a pull and a press at the same time. It buzzed with the demand that Izak finish the ancient rite.

  He bowed his head. “I am Crown Prince Etianiel’s.”

  Relief.

  Footsteps in the mud. Master Smith handed Etian a swordstaff.

  The ebony haft was polished to a dull gleam and inid with silver. It was topped with a curved bde as bright as the full moon. Bck stain had been worked into the steel’s intricate etchings.

  “Your weapon.” Etian presented it.

  The beauty of the piece overwhelmed Izak. His throat closed. His eyes stung. It was the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen, and all he’d had to do to receive it was watch his little runt die and chain his unwilling best friend to his sister until death.

  The swordstaff came to rest in Izak’s hands, perfectly banced, as heavy as memory, as light as promise.

  He was supposed to name the weapon when he took it, but Izak hadn’t thought of a name. He hadn’t believed he would make it this far—in three years, he hadn’t once believed he would be kneeling here.

  Prince of Loss, Eketra had called him. He lost those he loved, he brought loss to others. He lost faith and interest and hope, and he ughed every time because nothing was less funny than loss.

  Izak swallowed.

  “Her name is Loss.” He raised the swordstaff and pressed his forehead to its haft. “My blood, soul, and bde are grafted to your service, Etianiel. Let nothing part us from you or from each other.”

  “So be it,” Etian said. “Rise, Izak of House Khinet, Commander of the Royal Thorns of the Crown Prince of Night.”

  ***

  Seven more Thorns were grafted to the crown prince, among them the bastard Fifty-one and Eighty-eight, the huge rustic whose art Izak and so many others at Thornfield had enjoyed. Fifty-one took the name the Hare of West Crag and received a hand-and-a-half sword he named Spite. Eighty-eight became Sketcher, and his longsword Lovely.

  Etian struck true each time, and when the graftings were finished, no one but Lathe was dead.

  As the riotous congratutions shifted toward the dining hall, Izak realized that only the ungrafted students were moving freely. He, the pirate, and every other Thorn remained close by their masters. That overwhelming draw grew stronger whenever he thought of moving away from Etian.

  Ondreus, a grafting from the year before, was among those who had escorted Hazerial to Thornfield. He smiled when he saw Izak’s expression.

  “Just remember it eases with time,” Ondreus said. “At least for Royal Thorns.” He aimed a nod of the head toward Kelena and the pirate. “Private Thorns don’t have as many fellow guards to spread the burden over.”

  The king followed Grandmaster into the keep, surrounded by his newly grafted Thorns. Most had their weapons drawn as if an assassin might leap out of the ghost city onto their heads.

  Izak recalled the eerie green light in that pce of the strong gods and gnced up at the mirror of Thornfield in the sky. Perhaps it wasn’t an entirely unfounded fear.

  Etian made to go inside, but Izak stopped him.

  “Just a moment.” Izak waved to his sister. “Kelena!”

  The princess hurried to his side. Aan followed, his face stony with hatred, cutss and swordbreaker drawn.

  Hare, Sketcher, and the rest of Etian’s Thorns moved to intercept the pirate.

  Izak leveled Loss at Aan’s throat before realizing what he was doing. Izak shook his head in attempt to clear the compulsion to attack. The pirate wasn’t a threat to his master. Not an immediate one, anyway.

  With great effort, Izak stood the swordstaff up and addressed his siblings.

  “There’s something we have to do before we join the feast,” he said, though he had his doubts as to whether he could eat anything right then, that magnetic droning in his brain was so intense. “I know it’s raining and cold, and everyone’s starving.” He looked from his brother to his little sister. “I wouldn’t ask this, but Twenty—Aan and I can’t leave your sides yet. I think it might drive us insane to let you out of our sight so soon after being grafted. Please just humor me.”

  “Anything,” Kelena promised, though she was shivering and white from the cold downpour.

  Water dripped from Etian’s hair and lenses. “What is it?”

  Izak looked at the pirate and saw fury warring with accord in his friend’s gre.

  “We have to give our brother to the ocean,” Izak said.