King of Thorns

I told Sageous my sins cried out for more, and I intend to give them company. I will burn and I will harrow and Orrin’s lands, Egan’s blood-stained inheritance, will be delivered into my hands. I will stand King of Arrow, of Normardy, of Conaught, of Belpan, of the Ken Marshes, of Orlanth, and of the Renar Highlands. I will take these lands and make a weapon of their peoples. In fire and in blood I will bend them to my will, because this is a game with no rules, and I will be victorious if it beggars hell.

I write this as we camp after a hard day’s riding. I make a crabbed hand across pages as white as gold can buy. Perhaps they were destined for more worthy thoughts, but I set mine here. Sageous wrote his words across his skin and it left him weak. My father keeps them to himself and it leaves him less than human. I write mine here, as if ink and paper can take the blame from me. The surgeons like to bleed a man, to let ill humours out, so that he may face the world anew. Perhaps they should just hand him a quill and let the poisons spill from him whilst he keeps his blood for its intended purpose.

Beside my pages are Katherine’s, scavenged from the ruination below Rigden Rock. I saw her burn. I saw her among the flames, her horse screaming. Or was that a dream in the darkness that followed? In any event the wind scattered her words across the dead and I followed them to the corpse of a baggage mule. I said once, these feelings are too fierce to last. They can only burn. Make us ash and char. And we burned, both of us—but still I want her. Though if she stood here now, she would only hate me and pride would edge my tongue to cut her in return.

Pride has ever been my weakness and my strength, but there are three things only of which I’m proud. The first—I climbed God’s finger to stand alone in that high place and find a new perspective. Second—I went to the mountain for Gog, even though I couldn’t save him from his fire, just as no one can save me from mine. Third—I fought the all-sword, Master Shimon with the sword-song all around, and we made a thing of beauty.

There will be pride to come, enough to drown in, but perhaps there will be no more things of which to be proud.

A time of terror comes. A dark time. The graves continue to open and the Dead King prepares to sail. But the world holds worse things than dead men. A dark time comes.

My time.

If it offends you.

Stop me.