A month passed before Lord Kariot the Elder ered cio. The Hall of Law had just let out its final summer session. The royal household would be heading south to Siu al soon, which meant the court must scramble to follow.

  “Mattius, old man!” Kariot slung an arm around his shoulder as if they were bosom friends and slowed to match cio’s progress through the corridor. “Well-argued piece about retaining security in our holdings by keeping hti home. Nasty prab, that motion to send standing armies to the northern front, nasty.”

  “I admit I was surprised to hear you had shifted your stan the issue.” cied off the sweaty, pigeoed lord and gave him a stiff smile. “My apologies, but my ow is enough to hold up today.”

  “Of course, cessions to the mady, of course.” Kariot dabbed at his jowls with a silk handkerchief. The Siu Patanal Hall of Law was old stru, one of the first stone buildings iy, a former fortress of cut stone, nearly windowless except for a handful of archer loops at vantage points. The pce held heat like an oven.

  “As for the motioh know it’s just passing gas.” Kariot shook out the kerchief before tug it away again. “I’m sure yetting what you out of its tinued presence. Myself, I’m leveraging the nonseil Orkitria agrees to be more reasonable about caravans passing through his puny little holding.”

  “I ’t imagine why he doesn’t want uhralled bloodsves dragged through Siu Ferel.”

  Kariot shook his head. “The braiurkey ’t see the be of having first pick of the litter. and at pre-sacramental prices, too.”

  The Lord of House Orkitria was trying with all his might to brand his single rge city as the Shining Star of the East. T ivory-washed buildings, shimmering fountains, terraced gardens. Any bloodsves in Siu Ferel should be sery, a silent part of the grandeur, not desperately trying to escape ging passersby to kill them and their children before they were ensved.

  Of course, if the motion held off much longer, Siu Ferel might just be overrun by Het. In the short time cio had mao stall sending the standing armies, the king’s army had been routed twice, each time falling back farther. Thus Orkitria’s eagero see reinforts between himself and the Children of Day. Hard to vihe royal household to spend a summer in your lovely city when it was occupied by the enemy.

  House Mattius’s loyalty had been called into question multiple times since report of the first retreat had e in, but so far only in the fashion of political p. The suggestion had yet to gain any momentum given the number of lords who still balked at the idea of signing over all their sworn fightio the .

  “But the motion’s her here nor there,” Kariot went on. “I wao speak to you about my son.”

  “Ah.” cio schooled his features into bnkness.

  “You know how these young men are, all piss and vinegar, getting liquored up and looking for any scrap they fall into. I daresay you were the same in your youth. I certainly was.”

  cio replied with a nonittal grunt.

  “In any case, let it be known that I don’t done a bit of it. The d’s bee home to rusticate until the new year as punishment.” Kariot chuckled. “And don’t think that wasn’t a tussle! Thought his yelling and crashing about would wake the bloodsves. But there’s still only one lord of House Kariot. Yes, and he rules with an iron fist.”

  “It was well-handled, I’m sure.”

  “Just wanted you to know he wouldn’t be troubling you again.”

  “Oh, he was no trouble at all,” cio said. The boy had practically thrown himself dowairs.

  “Drunk, too, him and his friends. So drunk he could have made up any night-forsaken story.”

  “Of course. Liquor is well known for improving one’s deceptive abilities.”

  Kariot turned a little red around the jowls. “For him it does. Bloody little liar. Never know what he’s going to say. Told his mother once I was going to have her assassinated. Of all the nonsense!”

  A pair of bloodsves pulled ope entry doors, revealing the shrinking shadows of early m. The outside air was mercifully cool, but by midday, the sun would once again bake the city. Autum closer and closer.

  “sider the i fotten, Kariot, old man.” cio stopped ireet and cpped the red-faced lord on the back. “Boys will be boys, after all. It’s up to us to settle things like noblemen.”

  Kariot’s beaming griurned. “Couldn’t have said it better myself. Now about that iron price you’ve been driving up…”

  ***

  The tradition of first-year hazing carried on as always. Where most sed-, third-, and fourth-years usually waited until it was veo go oack—say, when a first-year stumbled across their path—Lathe went out of her way to pester them.

  Specifically, the fat mert’s son, Thirty. Appearing suddenly out of nowhere, spping him between the doughy shoulder bdes with all her might, then disappearing again was the runt’s favorite pastime.

  This was no one-sided feud, however. Once while the first-years were serving the midday meal, Thirty actally dashed Lathe across the back of the head with the metal ptter hard enough to bend the ptter and y open a gash on her scalp.

  Lathe had to be dragged off Thirty by Izak and a senior. The much rger Thirty had to be helped to the healer’s shed.

  Bands of first-years began lying in wait for Lathe, though the bands were never made up of the same members twice. One scrap with the bloodthirsty berserker was more than enough to put anyone off the mert’s son’s gold.

  Gold seemed to be the only way Thirty could get loyalty.

  “He doesn’t uand how gauche it looks to keep throwing it around,” Fifty-one said, helpfully stating what Izak and every other student of noble blood had already noticed. Though this time the bastard of West Crag could cim to have more insight into Thirty than the rest of the students, as Thirty and another first-year had been pawned off on Fifty-one ay-eight as roommates.

  Twenty-six was the only man Thirty seemed to fear. For weeks, the mert’s son told anyone who would listen that he kept his distance because, “Pirates are louse-ridden, disgusting vermin that spread disease. My father bought an order of bloodsves from them once, and every single sve had the crotch rot.”

  When he heard, Twenty-six frohirty.

  “O Rovers do not trade with blood drinkers, nor do ture or transport sves. We are not dirters. We give our enemies swift, merciful death in battle.”

  It was calmly and reasonably stated. It just happeo be stated while the pirate was thumbing the serrated bde of his swordbreaker and eyeing the first-year’s fat throat.

  Thirty stopped spreading rumors about pirates after that.

  ***

  No truly stunning fighters had developed among the first-years by the time Thornfield’s autumn mock tour arrived, but Izak enjoyed having a few days to ze about watg their bracket before his own began.

  The prince was getting aced to how currency worked, so he put gold on most of the fights. He won some and lost some. Fifty-one was close enough to a peasant that he’d been raised handling money; he expihat Izak’s losses and wins more or less celed one another out. But Izak had fun, and as far as he was ed, that was the point of gold in the first pce.

  Lathe tried to wager on herself to win the sed-year bracket, but the student bookmaker, a third-year who had retly taken the name Ondreus, refused to let the ru because the wager matched exactly the amount of mohat had been stolen from his stash the night before.

  Twenty-six refused to gamble oour.

  “Let me guess,” Izak said. “Betting goes against the ws of pirate honor?”

  “No. It is a waste of resources.” Dirter money was a waste of resources in itself, sidering how often the s he saw were faked or shaved down, but if he’d had any mowenty-six would have stowed it away on the off ce that it might be required t him closer to killing the king.

  “Eai is never a waste of resources,” Izak said.

  ***

  Mock tours had always been the most anticipated events at Thornfield, but sihe start of their rivalry, the matches between Four and Twenty-six had bee the highlight of the holiday. It was a fone clusion that the prince would win; the question was how close the pirate would e to beating him.

  That autumn, Twenty-six outsted another eruption of thorns and a gale of knives only to lose the championship to a blistering whirlwind of fire. Having half the flesh on his body burnt bck didn’t stop him; he passed out from the ck of air.

  “Didn’t have many fires on the open o, huh?” Four asked the day whey-six had recovered enough to talk.

  “O Rovers are wise enough to take care with fmes,” he said, iing his hands and arms. They had taken the worst of the damage in Four’s failed attempt to get him to drop his cutss and swordbreaker. Twenty-six had bcked out with the ons still clutched in his melting fingers.

  Already the seared yers were peeling away to reveal healthy flesh beh. He had put no scious effort into repairing the burns; his body was healing itself.

  Four noticed. “You should learn to use blood magic offensively. You’ve got the ability, and your body clearly knows what to do.”

  Twenty-six stared down at the newly grown skin. The sun had faded from him over the past year and a half. He was still naturally darker than the rest of the dirters at Thornfield, but stand him up o any O Rover on the sea and it would be obvious who spent their time skulking in the shadows.

  How much evil did he have to embrace? How much more of an abomination did he have to bee?

  He closed his fist and watched the veins and muscles shift beh the skin, thinking of the name he would take when he was grafted. The color darker than any other, poised over the depths of the deepest chasm. The man who could redeem the blood debt from the dirter king.

  “Show me,” he told Four.