Prince of Thorns (Broken Empire #1)

by Mark Lawrence

“A man who’s got no fear is missing a friend, Jorg,” he said, and a smile found its way onto those thick lips of his. “Running ain’t no bad thing. Leastways if you run in the right direction.”

Gomst crawled out, stiff and weak. As the old should be. I liked that he had the grace to feel the years on his shoulders. Some the years just toughened.

Ignored it for the joy of being stubborn.

I held my sword up. The brothers around me took a step back, but to his credit, Makin didn’t flinch.

Make an enemy of hatred, Jorg. Do that and you could be a great man, but more importantly, maybe a happy one.”

And we went out into the day, and all the heat of it couldn’t touch the ice in me.

I were in his place, I’d have been looking for an opportunity to stick a knife in me. But I knew enough to know that most men didn’t share my priorities.

Out in the marshes I’d made a dead man run in terror, with nothing more than what I keep inside. It occurred to me that what scared the dead might worry the living a piece too.

Cowards make the best torturers. Cowards understand fear and they can use it.

Answers come when I stop trying to think it through and just speak. The best plan I’ll come up with is the one that happens when I act.

Anything that you cannot sacrifice pins you. Makes you predictable, makes you weak.”

He cleaned up well, and for the smallest moment I hated him without reservation.

Something tight laced those last words. Makin didn’t like Sir Galen any more than I did. And he’d met the man.

The perfumes of lords and ladies tickled at my nose: lavender and orange oil. On the road, shit has the decency to stink.

eyes. I liked him a little better for wearing his hostility so plainly.

“The wise-men of Nuba tell it that the door stands ajar.” He

“There’s a door to death, a veil between the worlds, and we push through when we die.

You couldn’t trust his eyes though. He had kind eyes, and you couldn’t trust them.

When the hand exploded I was as surprised as anyone. A big crossbow bolt will do that to a hand. The Nuban turned his face toward me, away from the sights of his bow. I saw the white crescent of his smile and my limbs were free. I swung my arm up, sharp and hard. The skull in my hand hit the necromancer’s face with a most satisfying crunch.

“There is no evil, Makin,” I said. “There’s the love of things, power, comfort, sex, and there’s what men are willing to do to satisfy those lusts.”

That’s a plan for children’s games, Jorg.” I let that slide. It was a fair question, and I didn’t feel like falling out with Makin.

“Sometimes you almost fool me, you’re that good, Jorg.”

“We’re not old friends. A little over three years ago you were ten. Ten! Maybe we’re friends, I can’t tell, but ‘old’? No.”

“And what is it that I’m so good at?” I asked. He shrugged. “Playing a role. Filling in for lost years with that intuition of your...

“I think you need to have lived more to truly know a man’s heart. You need to have made more transactions in life to know the worth of the coin you spend so freely.”

“Forget the girl, Chella. Tell me who stands behind this boy. Has Corion grown weary of Count Renar and taken a new piece to the board? Or has the Silent Sister shown her hand at last?”

“She thinks to win the game with this half-grown child?”

The Nuban shrugged. He never argued for the sake of being right. I liked that in him.

He frowned. “You’re going to shoot him?” The guard laughed, but there wasn’t an ounce of humour in the Nuban. He was getting to know me.

I thought about vengeance. About how it wouldn’t give me back what had been taken. About how I didn’t care. Hold to a thing long enough, a secret, a desire, maybe a lie, and it will shape you. The need lay in me, it could not be set aside. But the Count’s blood might wash it out.

“Come, Prince of Thorns, come out of your hiding, come out into the storm.”

“Why is the roof blue, Brother Jorg?” he asked. He seemed to think the outside world was just a bigger cave. Some philosophers agree with him.

I should have kept my eyes on him, should have remembered where I got my mean streak.

Is this a dagger I see before me?

The kind of fear that’d make you sacrifice mother, brother, everything and anything you’ve ever loved, just for the chance to run.

“It has to be one of the Hundred. Nations won’t follow monsters like me. They’ll follow a lineage, divine right, the spawn of kings. So we who have taken our power from the places where others fear to reach . . .

we play the game of thrones with pieces like Count Renar, pieces like your father. Pieces like you, perhaps.”

In the end it’s about staying power. They should put that on headstones, “Got tired.” Maybe not tired of life, but at least too tired to hold on to it.

Katherine’s hair ran like silk between my fingers. “She’s my weakness.” My voice now, my lips. One little step, one more death, and nothing would ever touch me again. One little step and the door on that wild night would close forever. The game would truly be a game. And I would be the player to win it.

Brother Roddat stabbed three men in the back for each one he faced. Roddat taught me all I know about running and about hiding. Cowards should be treated with respect. Cowards best know how to hurt. Corner one at your peril.

For a moment I considered finishing the job with Katherine’s knife, but it’s good insurance to let ineffective jailers live.

“Prince Jorg. That’s me. Pushed the last Watch Master over the falls. Now take me to Coddin before I lose my famously good temper.”

I can’t say I’m sorry for the things I did. But I’m done with them. I wouldn’t repeat those choices. I remember them. Blood is on these hands, these ink-stained hands, but I don’t feel the sin. I think maybe we die every day. Maybe we’re born new each dawn, a little changed, a little further on our own road. When enough days stand between you and the person you were, you’re strangers. Maybe that’s what growing up is. Maybe I have grown up.