Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, Book 3)

‘No wait!’ He put up his hands, as if that would stop a quarrel! ‘He’ll be here!’


‘But you will not.’ I squeezed the trigger, but before I’d applied sufficient pressure the guard ranks parted and Jarco Renar sat before me on a roan mare in golden armour. I turned the crossbow toward him.

‘I would have sent out someone else,’ I told him. ‘Just to see if I knew what you look like.’ It happened that I knew what he looked like, though we had never met.

Jarco hadn’t his brother’s chubbiness, or that deceiving amiability Marclos had. A taller man, broader in the shoulder, he had more of my uncle’s look about him, more of the Renar wolf.

I advanced Brath toward him. Hands tightened on sword hilts all around me.

‘Here.’ I gave Captain Devers the loaded crossbow, leaning in for a conspiratorial whisper. ‘If he attacks me be ready to shoot him. You’re here to protect me, remember. Cousin Jarco has his own defenders, the guard who rode with him out of Crath City.’

I pulled Brath’s head around. ‘Jarco, so pleased you could join us.’

‘Cousin Jorg.’ His horse stepped around Captain Rosson who was taking a damned long time to die for somebody shot through the chest.

A squeeze of the knees brought Brath in closer. Harran’s empty helm dripped dark blood on my leg.

‘I’m not happy with you, Jarco,’ I told him.

‘Nor I with you, Cousin Jorg.’

‘That rebellion of yours left me weak in the face of my enemies, Jarco.’ With the soldiers lost taking Hodd Town back under control, the defence against the Prince of Arrow would not have been quite so desperate. The battle had left Hodd Town rather the worse for wear too, and it had been ugly to start with.

‘You sit in my throne, Cousin.’ He had a touch of Father’s coldness in his eyes, and some of Uncle’s wildness. I would have paid well to be a spy at court the day Jarco came to beg King Olidan’s favour. How had my father greeted his nephew? ‘You rule over my people,’ Jarco said.

‘They love me well.’ I smiled to irk him. Jarco knew it for truth. Kings who bring victories are always loved and the price paid soon forgotten. The Highlanders had found new pride at being the centre of a realm of nations. As Uncle’s subjects they had been a footnote in the business of empire, forgotten often as not. Happier, safer no doubt, but men will spend such coin to hold themselves in better esteem, for we are shallow creatures, brutish and raised on blood.

‘What is it you want of me, Jorg?’ He faked a yawn and stifled it.

‘I note that you worry over your inheritance, Cousin, but you seem to have forgiven me for your father.’ A shrug and a tilt of the head to show my puzzlement. ‘And your sweet brother.’

‘I do not forget them.’ Muscles bunching around his jaw.

‘Perhaps you would like something to remember them by, to remember your lost heritage? Your lost pride. It can be hard to lose your family.’ I slid Gog from my scabbard, hilt toward my cousin. The blade had been Uncle Renar’s, ancient work, forged from Builder steel and brought into Ancrath hands by my father’s grandfather when he took the Highlands for his own as the empire crumbled.

Jarco took the sword, quick as you like. Better to have it in his hands rather than mine. I could see the hate burning in him. To some men there’s no poison worse than a gift, none worse than a measure of pity. I would know.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Should some harm befall me, should the Highlands ever cry for a trueborn Renar on the throne, it wouldn’t be you who gets to wear the crown.’

The blade stood between us, his ancestral steel.

He frowned, black brows crowding. ‘You make no sense, Ancrath. I hold title before that mewling babe of yours.’ William let out an obliging cry before Miana stuffed his mouth again.

‘But even in your grasping for your father’s title, Jarco, you would admit that his right to it outweighs your own?’

‘My father … ?’ The point of his sword, of the blade I’d named Gog, aimed at my heart. My breastplate lay neatly wrapped behind me, strapped to the saddlebags.

‘I should have let Uncle die. A better man would have. But I do so enjoy our chats. Enough to walk down all those steps to the dungeon several times a week. He speaks of you often, Jarco. It’s hard to understand his words these days, but I don’t think Uncle Renar is well pleased with you.’

It took one more smile to make him crack. He had a quick arm, I’ll give him that. Even deflected with Harran’s helmet Jarco’s thrust ran through my hair as I ducked.

ChooOOoom! And Captain Devers did his duty.

Jarco fell backwards off his nag, feet coming up out of his stirrups. I had to laugh.

Katherine jumped down beside him in the mud, careless of her skirts. Miana offered me a wordless stare. The look of someone who’s got what they asked for, bitter or not, and knows it.