The Wheel of Osheim (The Red Queen's War, #3)

by Mark Lawrence

“Steady on!” I waited for a loosening of his grip then slipped free. “The bad news is you owe me two camels—” I caught Lisa’s look of outrage. “Three! Three camels. Good ones!” “Same old Jal!” Barras laughed, punching my shoulder. “No, really. I’m not jo—” “Thank you!” And he was back to the hugging.

Highness’ is the correct form of address when the steward is of noble birth . . . if we’re being formal, Jalan.” “Fuck that, your highness.” I sat back and exhaled, then wiped the sweat from my brow.

“If I die in your absence Prince Jalan is to be demoted to peasant. There, I should be safe enough now?”

Pride lets a man be skewered on the point of other people’s expectations. How often had I walked into the proverbial, and sometimes literal, fire with Snorri watching on, my justifiable instinct to run in the opposite direction crushed under the weight of his confidence in me?

A heavy fist took the treason from my mouth and the rest of the world followed into darkness a moment later.

“The point is that there are things I’m prepared to die for. Times when it is right to make a stand, whatever the odds. And if Tuttugu and I would do what we did for Hennan’s grandfather—an old man we didn’t, as you rightly say, know. Then what do you think I’m prepared to do for my children? For my wife? Whether I can win is

“If he tries to run ride him down, Sir Thant!” The little count knew me too well.

I didn’t have the strength to move. But I had the desire, and I moved anyway.