Uh-oh, Jadarah's bad as gross as ever. R-rated tent warning for sexual references and tent, gore, nast, ew, and corruption.

  If that's not your thing, skip this chapter, and I'll see you tomorrow in the one!e

  News raced through the kingdom that Priianiel had retaken Siu Ferel and hung the Het invaders from its ramparts. Every peasant from the delta to the City of Blood celebrated the sed ing of the warrior strong god. Josean had returned. Wild, glorious tales of the prince’s victory circuted throughout the kingdom.

  Following on the heels of this news, Pasiona received a missive from her husband.

  Etian’s only refereo the battle was, The Het are stunning warriors. The letter tained nothing of his own exploits, though this was no surprise, as Etian rarely had anything to say about a fight or match after it cluded. The rest of the missive simply informed her that there were no women in Siu Ferel with whom he had been intimate or po be intimate, and urged her to stay away from the queen ahorns.

  Etian had warned her of the woman before they parted as well, but thus far his s had e to nothing. Pasiona and the queen rarely crossed paths. She had seen Jadarah twice siia—at the feast the day the kiurned from grafting his new Royal Thorns and again during the Festival of Springlight.

  The victory at Siu Ferel called for another feast, albeit a slightly less well-attended ohan the Springlight celebration. Except for the dispossessed Lord of Siu Ferel, most of the lords of the Kingdom of Night had returned home for the summer to assemble entirely anding armies from the dregs of their popuce. In the absence of their fighting men enf w and order, highwaymen and marauders were being an increasing problem. The peasants were growiless. They served their lords uhe promise of prote, but their crops were burning and their families were being sughtered while their lords did nothing.

  Pasiona heard little of this discussed at the feast, however. When the noblewomen spoke of their husbands’ abse was only as a wele relief on household gambling and wh expenditures, which soared when the men were daily in one another’s pany. Not to mention it gave the dies undivided time to devote to their own torrid liaisons.

  Briefly, Pasiona had sidered taking a lover until Etiaurned. Her desire had been running wild in her pregnancy, sending her asmic dreams that woke her in the depths of the day, whiehow only fahe fmes.

  Etian’s letter hadn’t asked whether she was refraining from other men, and she doubted he would objeyway. Except for that one brief, terrifying moment when she had asked about his sister, he’d never demanded anything of her.

  A he was refraining from other women.

  In the end, Pasiona couldn’t bring herself to indulge. There was a ce that Etian loved her, and that his firm resolve against taking a mistress was a maion of that love.

  Perhaps she was deluding herself. The Josean-blessed were not known for their romanticies. But there was the letter to her alone, brought by a Royal Thorn who had cimed to carry only it and a report for the king. Aian’s that she could be somehow hurt by Queen Jadarah.

  A strange fear, ihe queen was disgusting, but hardly frightening. Pasiona had heard of women who suffered nausea during their pregnancies; she hadn’t experiehat ailment until Jadarah took Etiay seat beside Pasiona.

  “A glorious feast, is it not?” The queen waved her goblet at the merriment. “Minstrels, performers, dancers rejoig in blood-soaked victory. All that’s missing is the blind prio absorb his worship.”

  Pasio aside the soft bit of bread she’d been dipping in her garlic soup, her stomach revolting at the mingled sts of death ahat hung around Jadarah like a shroud. She swallowed the sudden rush of nauseous saliva and switched to breathing through her mouth.

  “I am certain my husband prefers the battlefield to celebrations.”

  Jadarah hmmed, a parody of sympathy ione. “But what does the princess of ice prefer?”

  “Are you referring to me or Princess Kelena?”

  “Don’t py coy. You’ve heard what they say about you in the court.” Jadarah leaned closer and whispered, “Of course, we both know they couldn’t be more wrong, don’t we?”

  Pasiona fixed a bored expression on her face. “I agine what you mean.”

  Jadarah chuckled.

  “She ’t imagine and she doesn’t wake up g out from passionate dreams that show her exactly what I speak of.” The queen traced the shell of Pasiona’s ear and dowhroat, making the princess’s skin crawl. “But no blind prio soothe the ache. Poor frozen fme.” She stroked Pasiona’s hair. “Doesn’t she know a lover could quench the fire until her blind priurns? Thorns are abundant here, and they crackle and burn hotter than any other.”

  “I have finished with this versation.” Pasiona stood, her stomach roiling, and bowed coldly to the queen. “Your Majesty.”

  “Watch them sometime, princess of ice.” Jadarah’s purring voiehow mao follow Pasiona through the musid the noise of the crowd. “Open the hidden door in the Corridor of Portraits, and you’ll see how hot Thorns burn.”

  ***

  Pasiona had no iion of finding out what the queen had meant. Unfortunately, with Etian on the northern front, she also had little to occupy her time. The renovations to the Sangmere nursery had been pleted swiftly and effitly, even with her myriad demands. Reading, art, and embroidery failed to hold her attention, and she couldn’t stand to parade around with the other nobles, making sure she was seen in her best dresses and gossiping about what everyone else had chosen to be seen in.

  She was restless and bored. Although she was disgusted by the queen’s attempt to pry into her affairs, the thought of finding a hidden door was intriguing.

  The Overlook, her family’s mansion in the heart of the House Skalia holding, tained a handful of hidden passageways, though they weren’t truly secret, just cleverly cealed shortcuts to allow servants to move from the kits to the ballroom or dining hall without being seen. As a child, she had used them to eavesdrop and spy oivities she had been too young to attend.

  She had been in Castle Sangmere’s Corridor of Portraits on multiple occasions, but she had never seen anything that hi a hidden door. Furthermore, she could see no logi eg a remote and rarely used hallway full of old paintings to anywhere else in the pace.

  To search the door out might be diverting. An intellectual exercise. In any case, it would be better than another hour of boredom.

  The passage was better hidden than she expected. There were ale gaps or drafts as there were around the secret doors in her former home. It took fhts of sc the walls before Pasiona spotted the wilt on the lower er of the frame enclosing a portrait of some a king whose name she did not care enough to wo.

  She pressed the er.

  The frame shifted. There was a cliside the woodwork that she felt more than heard.

  The bottom half of the portrait and the wall below it swung open silently. Perhaps the servants kept the hinges oiled in order to e and go without disturbing the nobles.

  Suddenly, Pasio eyes on her back. She looked down the corridor first one way, theher. No ohe only ones watg her were monarchs long dead, their eyes shiny and crazed by crag paint.

  Casting a final gnce over her shoulder, Pasiona stepped into the dark passageway.

  ***

  Expl Sangmere’s secret passages proved to be more than the brief diversion of a single night. Uhe short servant corridors Pasiona had known as a child, this rawliwork of routes through the castle. The tunnels narrowed in some pces, widened in others, climbed and burrowed. She fous iower, the dungeons, the corridors outside the feasting hall, the royal residences, and the courtyard. Whenever she believed she had explored the passages to their limits, she found a new offshoot.

  She never once saw evidence of another person using the passages. The queen obviously knew about them, but Pasiona never caught sight nor st of the woman there.

  During her sed week of expl the secret passages, Pasiona’s shoulder brushed a strange protrusion on the wall, elig a grating sound. A sliver of light appeared.

  She ran her hand over the area and found a small knob. Sliding it farther opened a narrow slot. She leaned down to look through.

  The slot opened high on the wall of the castle kits. The st of baking bread wafted through, making her mouth water. Below, cooks rushed to prepare the uping meal while boys fed the fire and maids scoured pots. One boy snatched a pastry, unseen, while a cook’s back was turned. A cook shoved a spoon down the back of her colr and scratched between her shoulder bdes before returning the spoon to the pottage she was stirring. A maid and young man made meaningful signs at one another whehey believed they were unobserved, then finally made separate excuses before skulking out, no doubt to meet and argue somewhere more private.

  It wasn’t until the food transitioned from the ovens and fires to tureens and trays that Pasiona realized how long she had beehralled by the simple domestic service.

  The secret passage became more iing every night. She found dozens more view ports. She saw visiting dignitaries hunched over writing desks covered in part, listeo them plotting with their spies. She watched nobles in residence using bloodsves as if they were living whores. Or beating them. Or hag them to pieces. Or, in one case, hurling hideous verbal attacks that were clearly meant for someone else until the noble was red in the face.

  One port revealed a handsome tower room furnished in blues and pinks, but pletely uninhabited. She tried it several times of night and day, but no one ever appeared.

  The barracks of the Royal Thorns were particurly eaining. As disgusted as she was by the queen, Pasiona could now uand what she’d meant by Thorns burning hot. Some of the mehrough three or four women a night when they were off duty—and not all of those were on girls or servants. Ladies of the peerage visited as well, many of them leaving behind valuable tokens of their satisfa that, Pasiona learned from listening to the men badger each other, were frequently pawo supplement their wages.

  When they weren’t fornig as if the world were about to end, the Thambled, drank, joked, squabbled, read, meheir uniforms, or sharpeheir swords. Pasiona found herself caught up in their petty inter-guard dramas. Things like who had a new sweetheart, who had lost his shirt at cards, and who loughing dy rivals and would get their eyes scratched out if either noblewoman found him out.

  The day she opened a view port and saw King Hazerial oher side, her heart stopped. But the sn didn’t immediately lock eyes with her and use the Blood of the Strong Gods to turn her body i. He was occupied.

  Young, beautiful men and women were scattered across the floor of his bedchamber, their skin white as snow, their throats torn out. Oraddled his p, her arms and legs hanging limply, while he gulped the blood directly from her neck.

  The queen’s chamber, when Pasiona found it, was infinitely worse. Bodies littered the floor, some so bloated with decay that she couldn’t tell whether they were man, woman, or child. Rays of ghostlight flickered off the walls, making the corpses look as if they were gasping for air. The queen and one of her Thorns were making vigorous use of the chamber, though Pasiona couldn’t imagine how the young ma from vomiting. A glimpse of his face showed he eained simir doubts as to whether he could keep down his ge.

  When Jadarah pluhe ko his bowels, the matter was decided for him.

  Choking back a startled scream, Pasiona fled the passage. She barely made it back to the garderobe in her own chambers before violently emptyiomach.

  If she lived a thousand years, Pasiona vowed as she wiped her mouth with a shaking hand, that was oion of secret passages she would never return to.