tent Warning: Sexual tent and evilness from everybody's least favorite mad queen. If that's not your thing, friends, skip and I'll see you in the chapter!e

  Sitting atop a terraced hill, Bzing Prairie, the House Mattius residence, rawlie bejeweled with glimmering windows of leaded gss in fiery reds, es, yellows, and blues. Besides being visible in the daytime for miles across the grassnd, like a smokeless fire, Bzing Prairie’s cim to fame was that at night, no trace of ghostlight mirrored it in the sky, a y for such a grand old residehe ghost city of Siu Baital, a day’s ride to the southwest, was a favored view from the estate’s natural hot springs.

  Word traveled well ahead of the royal progress about the bloody end to the tour held at House Skalia. Implicatiohat something simir would take pce at Bzing Prairie when the king and his neointed heir arrived.

  The current lord of House Mattius, a man in his early thirties named cio, was the only son of the te ternds rebel. King Hazerial had bestowed the title on him after he had alerted His Majesty to his father’s treason. In fact, cio had gone so far in his quest to i that he’d led his father’s arrest himself.

  Lord et the train of wagons, carriages, and horsemen at the border of his holdings as Lord Zinote had, but the Lord of the ternds brought no army with him, just a carriage and footmen.

  Etian expected a bootlicker of the highest order, but cio didn’t simper. When the prince resehe lave him no more than the requisite bow and a ile.

  “I don’t ride. Bad leg.” cio tapped his boot with his walking stick to indicate the limb iion. “However, Your Majesty and Yhness are wele to join me in my carriage, as it please you.”

  In spite of the beautifully cold, clear night, Etian had been ordered to attend the king in the lord’s carriage. He climbed in behind the older men—cio’s entrance was something of an achievement, given his rail-stiff leg—and sat in a er where he could observe them both.

  Etian guessed that he was there to double the intimidation in case the lordling harbored any rebellious ideas of his own. The interior of the carriage was too small for a sword swing, but the royal blood magic was a better on in close quarters anyway. More precise.

  The carriage lurched into motion. cio didn’t begin orating on the barbaric treatment of the natives or the dyre as his father had been known to do, nor did he seek a subject which showed he had memorized Hazerial’s is by rote and was eager to ehem. The Lord of the ternds seemed perfectly tent to allow the miles to roll by in silence.

  Silent, but not uful. The air pressed close while the opposing sides studied one another.

  “It was brought to our attention that you haven’t attehe Hall of Law in nearly a year,” the king finally initiated.

  odded. “I’ve had a run of bad health that prevented long-distaravel. My representatives have been carrying out their duties satisfactorily in my stead, I hope?”

  “We prefer the true heads of our noble houses present whenever possible.”

  “I’ll see that I’m there iure, Your Majesty.”

  Hazerial pressed the narrow advantage. “You petitiohe with a marriage tract several months ago.”

  The heavy drape over the window closest to e uns a er, allowing in a burst of cold air.

  “ays closed, that ohe lord thumbed the snap shut again. “I was informed that Your Majesty’s wisdom was to reject the tract, and so I terminated iations.”

  “Remind us which house you sought to engage.”

  “Our neighbors, House Agata. Mosole has a few unmarried daughters left, and I’m being an old man. After that st bit of poor health, it seemed prudent to produ heir.”

  The king nodded. “The girl would e with a hefty dowry, as well.”

  “I was more ied in their exports,” cio said.

  House Agata held the ties south of House Mattius’s. Excellent horse try. Their stables bred mounts for the as well as the wealthiest nobles in the kingdom.

  All of that would be wasted on a man who couldn’t ride, however.

  House Mattius was surrounded by prairiend that grazed healthy, hearty livestod supplied the with much of its yearly grain, but its prosperity y mainly in the mining done in the rocky hills of its southwestern ties. For the st hundred years, all the iron ore in the Kingdom of Night had e from House Mattius’s mines, making them precariously indepe of the and its favor.

  And they would remain indepe of the until the ore ran out. That expihe marriage request. cio’s people must have found a vein along their southern border stretg into House Agata’s nd, or at the very least have hope that they would find one. If the ternds miopped produg and had no fresh veins to delve into, the ight finally bring House Mattius to heel. By denying the marriage, Hazerial had been tightening the leash.

  No indications of such a drying up had appeared in the Royal Archives yet, but Etiahat a wise steward would mete out the ore evenly through the years while stockpiling the rest to prepare for just such a day.

  “Have you no illegitimate children you might seek to establish?” Hazerial asked.

  “hat lived past infancy.”

  “We assume this is due to the father’s poor health?”

  cio twisted his walking sti his hands. “Unfortunately, it seems so. My parents also lost several infants between myself and my sister. My sister had no indication of sharing my dition, but her offspring did. She died in childbirth, and the babe not long after.”

  Etian goward the king, w if this information was o him. None of it had been recorded in the Archives, but it would have given Hazerial an easy reason to deny the lord’s request to marry.

  Hazerial showed no surprise. “After much sideration, we are now prepared to grant your request to wed.”

  cio’s dark brows jumped. Had Etian been in the crippled lord’s seat, he would have positioned himself for the follow-up strike, but clearly the Lord of the ternds was unfamiliar with his king’s fighting style.

  “You are very gracious, Your Majesty. I will inform Lord Mosole immediately.”

  “Don’t bother.” Now that Hazerial had the lord where he wanted him, he struck. “You won’t be marrying a member of House Agata. If you still wish to marry, you will enter a tract for our daughter, Princess Kelena.”

  ***

  Jadarah was furious.

  “You would rip her out of my hands? My own child?” She beat her chest. “You gave her to me!”

  Hazerial stood at a huge window in Bzing Prairie’s royal suite, looking southward toward the distant ghost city that indicated Siu Baital. With the House Mattius estate’s eerie ck of ghost city, the view stretched uninterrupted for miles in every dire and upward an awful infinity.

  Jadarah stalked to the window and ripped the curtains closed. She hated seeing the dark autumn sky hangiy like some awful looming threat. The strong gods were quiet here, their voices swallowed by all those frozen hateful stars.

  Slowly, Hazerial turard her. “I gave the girl to you to seed. What have you been doing all this time?”

  His face was boredom and ice, and that made her anger burn all the hotter. She wahe frozen king to meet rage with rage. She wanted shrieking and howling and violen the bedchamber to match the shrieking and howling and violen her.

  “And what if she ’t bear the seed?” Jadarah demanded. “What if that little nothing miscarries all your carefully id pns? Then will you crawl g to me?” She wrung her hands dramatically. “‘Oh, all my precious plotting and scheming! If only I’d given you time to do it properly, Jadarah,’ you’ll wail, ‘if only, if only, if only!’ You child-stealing, selfish beast!”

  “How much time with the child will seal it and stop you clug about this?” he drawled.

  Without even sidering the question, she hurled a him. “She ot be properly prepared ihan five years!”

  With a dispassionate grunt that made Jadarah gnash her teeth, Hazerial crossed to the bed where robes had been id out and began to dress for the midnight meal.

  “You’ll have her while the lord of House Mattius follows court. He ’t possibly ask to withdraw before a year is up without insulting the . He’ll pn to leave in one, but by then, he’ll be trapped for at least three.”

  “A year?” Realization dawned on Jadarah—she wasn’t the only one having trouble hearing the strong gods in the ternds. “Does the great Hazerial need a whole year to she lowly crippled lord in his web? it be that the ing King of Night ot find the correct manipution point to lever the cripple into pce? Did Eketra fet to tell her favorite king the cripple’s weakness?”

  Jadarah cackled and cpped her hands, the bone beads in her hair ughing along with her like a chorus. Oh, it must be driving him insane! Without that key pieanipution, Hazerial was left staring at a lock he couldn’t open, and no matter what was locked away from him, it would be the only thing he wanted.

  “I know your tiny mind only uand the cept of maneuvering ohread at a time,” Hazerial said, irritation bleeding into his void filling her with glee, “but it’s rarely so simple as that. I am closer than any other Chosen of the Strong Gods has ever been. Webs upon webs must be woven together now, and not a sirand must be mistimed.”

  “A year?” Jadarah slunk up behind her frozen king and purred in his ear. “Dangling just outside mighty Hazerial’s reach for a whole year, the crippled lord doing whatever the crippled lord pleases? What might the cripple aplish in that much time, Hazerial? What might he do without your puppet strings to march him along?”

  With a flick of his arm, Hazerial carelessly swatted her across the room. The sharp protrusions of her spine scraped painfully against the scrollwork of a settle’s armrest, and Jadarah cried out in pleasure at the fre of agony.

  The door to the antechamber rattled. A fist thumped on the wood, and a male voice shouted, one of her toys demanding to be let in.

  A grin curled her sumptuous bloodred lips.

  If Hazerial touched her again with the Blood of the Strong Gods, that door would crash in, and the sughter would begin. By sunrise, she would need a new set of Thorns. She lost a lot of excellent toys to Hazerial’s rough py. No matter that he wouldn’t kill her, no matter that her Thorns could feel her throbbing with desire. Their grafting forced them into defending her from harm, whether or not she loved and courted and sought that harm.

  All that powerful manflesh straio breaking, torn to pieces, spilling their blood, bowels, and tears all over these nice fgstones, all for her. Excitement pouhrough her veins, drowning out the strong gods’ sileh its heady thrill.

  Her Thorns would feel that, too. It was a side effect of the grafting Jadarah had discovered with her first set of sword boys. She felt every sensation they did as if it were her own, and they hers. They had writhed in the bloody mess as they died, whimpering in pain and pleasure while she and the frozen king writhed on the growing pile of corpses. The fusion, fear, and disgust that prefaced their death throes were delicious.

  Lig her lips, Jadarah decided it had been far too long since her st sughter.

  Boots and shoulders battered the door, her toys sensing the growing danger.

  “You do better than that, Hazerial.” She lifted the skirting of her dress and dragged her jagged nails across the flesh of her thighs, opening bloody furrows. “Please the strong gods. See if you break another queen.”

  The shouting iechamber increased in iy, and the beating on the door turned into the hack of a bde. The portal wouldn’t hold much longer.

  Hazerial scowled at her, but desire burned in that cold, ptuous gre. She k was no simple thing for a man to say no to her, and it was just as plicated to say yes. That was what kept dragging them back.

  “Whatever it takes, finish the girl’s preparations within the year,” Hazerial ordered as he began removing the clothing he’d just put on.

  The upper panel of the door splintered with a wooden crackle. Panicked eyes and fshing steel were visible through the narroerture. The sword chopped into it again, throwing slivers onto the rug.

  “I want this room to rain red,” Jadarah said. “Give me what I want, and you have her.”

  Hazerial closed the space between them in a stride and grabbed the queen by her slehroat.