Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, Book 3)

The Duke of Bonne harrumphed and snorted and favoured me with dark looks, but he waited for our party so I sent Makin his way with a nod and a wink, knowing there aren’t many who won’t fall to his charms.

And within the hour we were once again before the Gilden Gate, the ancient frame of wood that had kept me from my rightful place at the last Congression. My taint of course was burned out of me at the breaking of the siege at the Haunt. Even so, I didn’t relish approaching that gateway. A hand that’s been scorched won’t want to return to the iron, even when every sense but memory is telling you the heat has gone from it.

‘After you, my dear.’ And I ushered Miana through with the baby. It turned out that another ruling, recorded by the dutiful Ecthelion in YE 345, provided that although children were not permitted to be designated as advisors they may be brought to Congression if accompanied by both parents. Handy things, books. And by-laws. If applied selectively.

‘I’d advise against it, advisor,’ I said as Katherine moved to follow my wife.

‘And when did I start taking your advice, Jorg?’ Katherine turned those eyes on me, and that foolish notion I might be a better man, that I could change, swept over me once again.

‘The gate will reject you, lady. And its rejections are not gentle.’ No rejection is gentle.

She frowned. ‘Why?’

‘My father didn’t know you as well as I do, as well as the gate will know you should you try to pass. You’re dream-sworn. Tainted. It will reject you and it will hurt.’ I tapped my temples.

‘I— I should try.’ She believed me. I don’t think I’d ever lied to her.

‘Don’t,’ I said.

And she moved away, shaking her head in confusion.

‘Rike,’ I said, and one after the other the brothers entered Congression. Marten, Sir Kent, Osser, and Gomst followed. Lord Makin with Duke Bonne.

Katherine sat on a marble bench, hands folded in her dark skirts, watching the last of us, Gorgoth, Taproot, and me.

‘I don’t know what will happen,’ I told the leucrota. ‘The gate might reject you, it might not. If it does, then you’ll be in good company.’ I nodded toward Katherine.

Gorgoth flexed his massive shoulders, muscle heaped beneath red hide. He bowed his head and moved forward. As he reached the gate arch he slowed, as if stepping into the teeth of a gale. He moved one step at a time, gathering himself before each. The effort trembled across him. I thought he must fail but he kept on. The strain drew a groan from him, very deep. He moved into the arch. I could imagine the set of his face from the taut line of his shoulders. And as he stepped through the Gilden Gate it creaked and flexed, resisting him but in the end admitting his right. He slumped when he crossed into the throne hall, almost falling.

‘I should try.’ Katherine stood, uncertain.

‘Gorgoth has dipped his toes in the river. You swim in it.’ I shook my head.

Over her shoulder I saw three figures entering the far end of the antechamber, preceded by a pair of guards. They drew the eye, this trio. Three more different delegates it would be hard to imagine. I kept my gaze on them and let it turn Katherine.

‘The Queen of Red, Luntar of Thar, and the Silent Sister.’ Taproot whispered it from behind me, using my body to shield himself from their view. Katherine drew a sharp breath.

Luntar and the sister flanked the Queen of Red, a tall woman, raw-boned but handsome once. She had maybe fifty years on her, more perhaps. Time had scorched rather than withered, her skin tight across sharp cheeks, hair of the darkest red scraped back beneath diamond clasps.

‘King Jorg!’ she hailed me still twenty yards away, a fierce grin on her. The black swirl of her skirts flashed gem-light as she strode toward us, her collar rose behind her, whalebone spars fanning out a crimson crest that spread above her head.

I waited without comment. Luntar I had met but held no recollection of. He boxed my memories in the cinders of Thar. Next to the queen’s splendour he looked dour in a grey tunic and white cloak, but few would remark on his clothing: his burns demanded the eye. I imagined that Leesha might have looked this way before the hurts done to her in the Iberico Hills closed over with ugly scar. Luntar’s wounds lay wet. Thin burn-skins parted with each movement to reveal the rawness beneath.

‘The Silent Sister is the one,’ Taproot hissed. ‘Watch her! She slips the mind.’

And true enough, I had forgotten her already, as if it had been just the two of them, Luntar and his queen, approaching. With an effort, the kind you use when confronting an unpleasant duty, I forced myself to see her. An old woman, truly old, like the wood of the Gilden Gate, a grey cloak rippling around her, almost fog, the cowl hiding most of her face: just wrinkles and a gleam of eyes, one pearly blind.