Welcome back, peeps! Let the graftings begin!e

  A rain shower began just before midnight, turning the already muddy bailey into a chilled, sandy soup, but no student or master at Thornfield ever missed a grafting. It was a final show of support for their fellows and an opportunity to see their future.

  There was also an element of morbid fascination that most of the students would have denied. They didn’t want to see the men they had trained with die. But anything could happen. Especially this time. No Thorn had died by the king’s hand in over thirty years; Hazerial was far too practiced now to botch the ritual.

  The crown prince, however, had never performed a grafting before. Old horror stories of previous first-time graftings by the heirs to the throne had begun to make the rounds as soon as Etianiel had ridden into the bailey with the king’s carriage. He was Josean-blessed, certainly, and the second coming of the warrior god, most likely. But could he wield a thornknife with the required precision to bring a man back from the dead?

  On top of that, rumor had it that Lathe, the girl who had lied to them all and murdered two of their fellow students, was being rewarded with a grafting. If they hadn’t seen her standing there in the bailey among the seniors and the chosen third-years, most of them would never have believed it.

  Izak didn’t want to believe it. “Why didn’t you just say no?”

  “Why don’t you just shut your mouth?” Lathe wriggled excitedly on the spot, boots squelching in the muck. Her breath steamed in the cold air.

  “It doesn’t matter what he promised you, Lathe, it won’t be what you think. He’s a liar.”

  “That’s what everybody said about me, and lookit, here I am.”

  Izak turned to Twenty-six for some kind of help, but he may as well not have wasted his time. The pirate’s face was set in a gre of grim determination. He wore his clean set of Thornfield clothing, every stitch in perfect pce—he’d even scraped down the stubble on his cheeks and trimmed his beard. Couldn’t go to hell looking scruffy.

  These were the friends he’d been saddled with. A suicidal fool who thought he could assassinate the Chosen of the Strong Gods, and a younger, dumber fool who thought she’d been given the chance of a lifetime, never mind that it had come from the deadliest of spiders ever to spin a web.

  The graftings began with the fourth-years. Izak flinched with every crunch of breastbone. Every pained scream and grunt seemed to cut into his guts. The ghost city flickered out, thornknives glowed with the souls of the men they were resurrecting, and the ghost city shone anew. Men bowed their heads and pledged their swords and their lives to their master, the King of Night.

  Izak hadn’t prayed sincerely in more than ten years—not since he’d given up on the Bsphemous One. But as the number of new Royal Thorns grew and the number of men between his friends and the thornknife shrank, Izak closed his eyes and entreated the god who had abandoned his uncle.

  Save them. Save the idiot pirate and the little liar. Don’t let whatever Hazerial is doing succeed. Stop him. I know you hate him and the strong gods, so stop him and stop whatever he’s doing. Don’t let him or Eketra get what they want tonight. I know you can’t hear me. I know you don’t listen to us, and you only love the Het, but please, save my friends.

  The st of the fourth-years was swallowed up by the crowd’s congratutions, and Lathe was called forward.

  For the first time since the graftings began, Twenty-six acknowledged Izak’s presence with a nod. They were her seconds. They followed Lathe out into the center of the bailey.

  Master Smith stood nearby with a gorgeous pair of twin steels. Unlike some of the masters who were still outraged at the thought of a girl being grafted—never mind the fact that she’d been duping them for three years now—Master Smith’s eyes shone. It was well-known that the big man had always had a soft spot for the troublesome runt and the mischief she caused.

  Lathe knelt in the mud where thirty men had knelt before. A shirt with cings down the front had been provided for her, an attempt at some preservation of modesty. She fiddled with the strings for a moment, then finally the shirt opened to reveal a strip of pale skin down the center of her chest all the way to her navel.

  Hazerial stepped forward.

  Please, Izak prayed. He’d lost all coherence in his desperation; the only word he could form now was please.

  He and Twenty-six took Lathe by the arms.

  It had to be a clean blow—clean path in, clean path out. That required resistance on the part of the one being grafted, but sometimes they couldn’t provide enough on their own. Hence the seconds to hold the prospective Thorn in pce. Izak widened his stance and braced himself. From the corner of his eye, he saw Twenty-six do the same.

  Hazerial raised the thornknife.

  Please. Izak’s heart pounded so hard that it hurt.

  Lathe took a deep breath and blew it out. Her arms flexed beneath Izak’s grip, wiry, stringy muscles over sharp elbows and wrists, preparing for the wooden knife to plunge into her heart.

  Hazerial struck. Izak felt the impact resonate through the runt’s body, felt the crunch of her breastbone in his stomach.

  Lathe spasmed, her arms yanking inward. Izak clutched the arm he held to his chest, screaming please over and over again in his head.

  Hazerial tore the thornknife free, and Izak felt the scrape and suck of the bde in Lathe’s wound as if it were dragging against his own bones.

  She was supposed to go limp now. She was supposed to be peacefully dead and awaiting resurrection. But Lathe’s legs squirmed in the mud, sliding, a slow filing. She gave a single sob and fought to drag her arms away from Izak and Twenty-six, but only succeeded in pulling them in close in a horrible mockery of a hug.

  Mud spttered them. Izak’s arms cramped with the effort of holding on. It was useless, he already knew it was, but he couldn’t let go.

  Steaming blood bubbled from the hole in Lathe’s chest, gushed out in weak pumps, slipping down to soak the waist of her pants. It was all perfectly visible in the unwavering light of the ghost city that should have flickered to bck while her soul was drawn into the thornknife.

  Little by little, Lathe’s struggles calmed. The bubbles slowed, then stopped. Her body went limp. Her eyes stared unblinking at the ghost city while raindrops fell into them.

  Izak released his grip and slumped on his side in the mud, the muscles in his arms still burning.

  On her opposite side, Twenty-six sat back on his heels and closed his eyes. Maybe he was talking to his pirate god.

  The bailey was silent except for the falling rain.

  Someone wept.

  Kelena, Izak realized numbly. Kelena was crying for a dead girl she didn’t even know. Meanwhile Izak’s eyes were dry.

  Because I knew all along this would happen.

  Izak looked up at his father and saw a monster willing to waste every life that came his way. Innocent, guilty, good, bad, young, old, it didn’t matter to Hazerial, just as it didn’t matter to the strong gods. To any god for that matter. Even Lathe’s precious Cormorant hadn’t bothered to save her.

  “Ha.” Izak stood up and bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Ha!”

  He ughed until he doubled over and put his muddy hands on the knees of his mud-slick trousers. He ughed until Twenty-six hauled him upright and punched him in the mouth.

  “Be a man,” the pirate ordered in a low growl.

  Izak nodded. He wiped the mud from his lips with his sleeve, then massaged the jaw that felt as if it had come unhinged from the blow. Somewhere at the far edges of his mind, it hurt.

  “I guess it’s your turn to die now,” he muttered.

  Twenty-six gripped Izak’s forearm. It was the first time in three years that Izak could remember the pirate ever making an outward gesture of friendship.

  ***

  Pretty fell into bed, exhausted from Seleketra’s night of gaiety on the arm of the Lord of Siu Carinal, followed by a day in his bed. In public, the aging lord was brash and annoying; alone he was grumpy and fumbling, constantly trying to bme Seleketra for his failings.

  Pretty hoped Athalia would tell her soon that Seleketra’s time favoring the lord was over. There were other inquiries, after all. The Daylily had gone out earlier that evening to meet with one. She might already be back with a more suitable proposition.

  For now, however, Pretty wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep. She sank into the downy depths of her bed, warmth spreading from her skin into the mattress and bnket. She pulled a pillow close, cuddling up to it like she used to cuddle up with Brat in their little bolt-hole.

  Pretty never cried over Brat anymore. She had seen a man burn alive for her. Men had killed each other trying to win her companionship. Brat was an old bruise in a heart that had since had to endure much worse to survive. Athalia was right, it never stopped hurting, but Pretty had gotten harder around the pain.

  Except this time, the dull ache didn’t fade as Pretty slipped toward sleep. It was getting worse. She twisted her hands in the covers, tears welling up in her eyes. Her stomach bucked, and she shoved her face into her pillow to stifle the sound of her sobs.

  She hadn’t cried over Brat in a long while, but tonight she couldn’t stop herself. The ache was sharper than it had been since she’d first lost Brat, as bright and fresh as icy cold spring melt flooding into the Closes. It fell on her like a colpsing tunnel. Brat was gone, and Pretty would never see her again.

  Pretty hugged her pillow and sobbed fit to wake the tempered dead.