The training courtyard stood off the older, northwestern portion of Castle Sangmere. The longest two of its five irregular sides were made up of thick curtain wall, where the city garrison barracked its soldiers. The shorter three were the walls of the castle’s northern kitchens, angled where it had suited the builders over the centuries, and lined with barrels. A handful of chickens, ducks, and a bobbing, suspicious guinea had wandered in from the stable yard to peck bugs from the gaps in the stones and drink from the puddles.

  The clash of sword and buckler echoed in the space. In the pale light of the ghost city above, soldiers practiced swordwork, lounged, ate, or passed through carrying messages and food for officers.

  Every year, the king required a levy from his lords, a number of men and boys correspondent to the size of the holding. Those found to have the blood magic were sent to Thornfield, while the magicless were drafted into the king’s army and sent north to fight the Helat.

  City garrisons were populated by men born without blood magic as well, but unlike the king’s army, they were mostly volunteers. Men looking to defend their city and uphold justice or bruisers eager for a career in violence that didn’t require the travelling life of a mercenary. Extraneous sons, runaway apprentices, and those in search of better pay or more adventure than what was available at the docks or the mills all found a home at the local garrison.

  Garrison men and Thorns tended to clash when they came together. The local swords defended a king or lord’s city or residence, while the Thorns defended the lives of those kings or nobles, so it was easy for jurisdiction to become snarled. No official rulings had ever been made on whether Thorns or soldiers ranked higher, but both parties believed the other to be redundant. As such, their commanders usually kept the two forces separate.

  But Etian had wanted a change from drilling with his guard. His Thorns couldn’t level everything they had at him; their graftings wouldn’t allow it. Neither would his father’s Thorns, who were bound to protect the king’s bloodline. The city soldiers might not attack their crown prince with the intent to kill, but they could; there were no magical shackles stopping them.

  Besides that, the garrison’s combat training was more lax than a Thorn’s years of brutal forging, meaning it bred a wider variety of fighting styles. Etian was sick of thrusting and knowing his opponent would parry and counter by rote. He wanted the raw unpredictability of a common man fighting for his life without the reassurance of healing provided by the blood magic.

  The garrison was happy to accommodate him. The older men remembered fondly how the child Etian had sought them out when his royal sword tutors refused to train any longer in a night and how the boy had joined the soldier’s exercises. The Josean-blessed prince had never shied away from honest sweat and bruises, and he had never spurned their advice even though it came from the mouths of lowborn soldiers. The fact that the Crown Prince of Night wanted to spar them rather than his own Thorns reinforced the soldiers’ certainty that they were the better group of fighting men.

  None of them could get a lick in on Etian these days—not singly, in twos and threes, or even whole squads—but that was to be expected from the second coming of the warrior strong god.

  Izak had never held the same status in the garrison’s combined esteem. Just like when he was younger, while his brother trained, Izak lounged around talking with his men and admiring the occasional skirt that passed through from the kitchens. Add to that his youth, the unearned title ‘Commander of the Crown Prince’s Royal Thorns,’ the spotless uniform, and a swordstaff prettier than most jewelry that made the garrison swords and pikes look like scrap metal, and Prince Izak embodied the smug arrogance of the Thorns.

  When Izak stepped in between the crown prince’s matches to announce that he had convinced Princess Kelena’s pirate to spar, smirks passed between the soldiers. The fool had spent the night watching his brother beat the trousers off every Thorn in the courtyard and half the garrison. The Teikru-blessed elder prince must have contracted the brain rot from all that whoring. Practice swords or not, this was going to be a massacre.

  “I’ve got three gold on the pirate,” Izak said, flashing those pompous royal dimples. “Any takers?”

  As it happened, there were plenty.

  Etian cleaned the splattered mud and streaks of sweat from his glasses, then watched the wagers placed while he toweled sweat from his face, arms, and chest. Excitement tingled along his nerves. Izak had realized what he hadn’t—Etian wasn’t in Kelena’s direct bloodline, neither an ancestor nor a descendent, so the pirate could fight him openly without interference from his grafting. The pirate could kill him if he wanted.

  After downing most of a waterskin, Etian went to the rack to select the practice weapons. He’d seen the pirate’s swordbreaker and cutlass. The garrison didn’t have anything on hand that looked like the wide, curved pirate blade, but Etian found a longsword that matched its weight without being much longer, then added a wooden practice dagger to it.

  The discussion picked up again when Princess Kelena entered the courtyard accompanied by her Thorn. Comparisons surged. Etian was a good half a head taller than the pirate, but the pirate was more muscular. Two blades to the pirate, one to the crown prince. The crown prince had the royal blood magic, but the pirate had the Thorns’ magical enhancements.

  All worthless guesswork until the blades started flashing, Etian knew.

  While last of the bets were laid, soldiers bowed to Kelena and ushered her over to a barrel in the lee of the chimney, where she could sit sheltered from the cold spring wind and enjoy the warmth radiating through the stones from the kitchen’s blazing fire. Izak joined her and Alaan, talking animatedly and bouncing his swordstaff idly between his hands.

  Etian fought the urge to smile. Izak wanted to see him lose—he’d said as much. “Just once, I’d like to see someone dunk that self-satisfied smirk in the mud.” He must be giving the pirate some last-minute advice.

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  Bringing the wooden weapons, Etian returned to the churned mud at the center of the bailey. Alaan removed his uniform jacket and blades, handing them to Izak for safekeeping, then reluctantly left his ward behind and stalked out to meet the crown prince.

  Etian offered him the wooden longsword and dagger. “There are others over there if these won’t work.”

  The pirate hefted the longsword and tested its balance and swing. His fingers opened and closed on the hilt of the dagger, accustoming himself to its grip and weight.

  “They are sufficient,” Alaan said.

  “How do you want to determine a loss?”

  “A strike that would kill.”

  “Blood magic?”

  “If you need it.”

  “Or if you do.” Etian grinned. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  The courtyard fell silent as the crown prince raised the wood falchion he’d chosen. The pirate took a fighting stance. His cold, gray-green glare locked on Etian’s as he scraped the longsword down the falchion’s blade, making the woodgrains rasp together.

  It had been years since a sparring partner had tried intimidating Etian.

  He lunged, stuffing the longsword’s range back down the pirate’s throat. Alaan’s dagger drove Etian’s falchion upward, and the pirate’s head shot toward Etian’s face.

  Etian jerked to the side and threw his shoulder into the blow. The pirate pulled the headbutt at the last moment and spun, longsword whistling toward the back of Etian’s neck. Etian smacked it aside and stepped back.

  The combatants eyed one another at the edge of sword’s reach. Tension crackled through the air, while the crowd shouted advice.

  The pause stretched out.

  Etian measured the pirate.

  Alaan measured the crown prince.

  “What are they doing?” some impatient spectator asked. “Why don’t they fight?”

  Someone else guffawed. “Ain’t you never heard the story of the sword gods?”

  Etian smiled then, the motion pulling more toward the unscarred side of his face where the muscles moved more easily.

  The old swordmaster’s writings contained a story of rival master warriors who met in a field for a duel. The men stood for hours staring at one another. Then, without ever drawing their swords, they turned and left.

  The pirate was more calculated tonight than he’d been during in their brief battle at Thornfield. The rashness born of desperation was gone, replaced by cold, competent awareness.

  In the stillness, Etian could see a similar assessment running behind the pirate’s glare. He was coiled and waiting for Etian’s next offensive.

  Etian obliged him, going from distance to close-quarters in a heartbeat. The wooden swords clacked, the impact ringing down through their steel cores and into the wielder’s palms.

  The dagger thrust toward Etian’s ribs. He twisted away.

  The longsword arced. The falchion redirected and countered.

  The speed of the blows increased until the spectators could hardly keep up. The thwacks sounded like an army chopping wood. The crown prince and the pirate battled across the courtyard, their boots slinging muck, and the occasional upward slash of a blade doing the same when it caught a muddy ridge.

  They pulled apart again, the fight lurching to another sudden halt. Tense silence gripped the courtyard this time. Everyone held their breath in anticipation. Who would move first?

  This time it was Alaan who closed, feinting with the longsword. Etian countered and Alaan parried, knocking his falchion high. At the same time, the dagger slashed for Etian’s thigh.

  Etian circled to avoid the blow, then crashed in against the flat of the longsword, pinning the pirate’s sword arm awkwardly against his chest.

  He swung his falchion.

  Alaan caught it on the dagger. “Your sister fears you. Why?”

  Etian’s brow furrowed. “What?”

  The pirate’s elbow snapped into his chin, clacking his teeth together. Etian spun away, aiming a slash at the pirate’s groin as he went. The pirate slapped it away with the longsword.

  Blood seeped from the side of Etian’s tongue where he’d bitten it. The pirate’s comment had been a distraction. Another novelty. The only other person who thought to try distracting Etian these days was Izak.

  Crown prince and pirate closed again, wooden blades crashing through a rain of blows and counters. The crowd scattered as Etian backed Alaan into the corner of the curtain wall.

  The pirate trapped the falchion between his longsword and dagger. Glaring, Alaan forced the blades toward Etian’s face.

  “You let your mother abuse her.”

  “The mad queen isn’t my mother.” Etian’s arms shook with the effort of holding the blades off. “And it wasn’t abuse! Kelena was chosen by the strong gods—”

  The air whoofed out of Etian’s lungs. Alaan’s kick staggered him, but Etian kept his feet and backpedaled.

  Alaan crossed the distance between them in a lunge. Etian sidestepped and thrust, but Alaan ducked inside the blow, dagger slashing. Etian gave him no room to breathe. He pushed closer, smothering the pirate’s attacks.

  Amazingly, Alaan returned the strangulation, pulling the noose of blades even tighter. Their strikes and deflections were barely distinguishable now. So fast and short were they that the impacts sounded like rattling dice.

  Etian caught hold of the pirate’s dagger wrist. He arced his falchion in an overhand blow, but Alaan caught it on the longsword. Their hilts locked.

  “The strong gods chose Kelena, not me.” Etian leaned on the blades, using his superior height to lever them downward, where he could swipe his falchion free of the longsword and into Alaan’s throat.

  Cords stood out in the pirate’s neck as he pushed back. “Justice is harshest to those who sin against their own blood.”

  “I won’t be judged by a savage whose people behead their own women when they lose a battle.”

  “To protect them from rape and enslavement at the hands of dirters,” Alaan replied. “What have you ever done to protect your sister?”

  “My—”

  All at once, the upward pressure on the blades disappeared and Alaan twisted his dagger wrist free of Etian’s grip, yanking the crown prince forward.

  The longsword hacked at Etian’s back.

  Lightning-fast, Etian righted his stance and threw his falchion into the block, all his weight behind the blow.

  Wooden swords splintered. Bits of broken blade spun away.

  Etian dragged his sheered falchion hilt along the inside of Alaan’s arm, leaving a ragged scratch studded with slivers. With it, he hooked the broken longsword hilt out of the pirate’s grasp.

  Before it hit the ground, the steel core and jagged wood of the broken falchion was pressed up under Alaan’s throat.

  The courtyard filled with cheers and hooting and scattered applause.

  The combatants remained frozen. Etian’s dark eyes leapt back and forth between Alaan’s lighter ones. Their chests heaved with exertion, their breath, hot and bitter, clouded the small space. Sweat dripped onto the back of Etian’s fist from the pirate’s wooly jaw, joining the suddenly icy perspiration that soaked the crown prince head to foot.

  Throughout the courtyard, whoops and shouts hailed him as the winner. They couldn’t see the wooden dagger digging into his inner thigh. If that were real steel, his lifeblood would be spilling down his leg.

  The pirate might be dead, but so was the crown prince.

  Gray-green eyes never leaving Etian’s face, Alaan disengaged the wooden dagger and stepped back.

  “Losses are more informative than wins,” he said, handing over the practice blade.

  As the foreign Thorn returned to his mistress, Etian eyed his brother and sister through mud and sweat-flecked lenses. Izak shoved Alaan in a show of good-natured dismay at his apparent loss. Kelena beamed at the pirate as if she knew the truth of their mutual defeat.

  “They are, at that,” Etian muttered in agreement.