The Complete Broken Empire Trilogy: Prince of Thorns, King of Thorns, Emperor of Thorns

We made our way through fields turned half to swamp, stumbling in the darkness, me tripping over my exhaustion.

The door to the barn groaned a protest then squealed open as the Nuban heaved on it. A dog barked somewhere in the distance, but I doubted any farmer would dare the rain on the strength of a hound’s opinion. We reeled in and fell into the hay. Each limb felt leaden, I would have sobbed with the tiredness if I’d let it have its way.

‘You’re not worried the dream-witch will come after you again?’ I asked. ‘She’s hardly going to be pleased if her present to the King has escaped.’ I stifled a yawn.

‘He,’ said the Nuban. ‘I think it’s a he.’

I pursed my lips. In my dreams the witches were always women. They’d hide in a dark room I’d never noticed before. A room whose open doorway stood off the corridor I had to follow. I’d pass the entrance and the skin on my back would crawl, invisible worms would tingle their way across the backs of my arms. I’d see her, sketched by shadows, her pale hands like spiders writhing from black sleeves. In that moment, when I tried to run, I’d become mired, as if I ran through molasses. I’d struggle, trying to shout, vomiting silence, a fly in the web, and she would advance, slow, inevitable, her face inching into the light. I’d see her eyes … and wake screaming.

‘So you’re not worried he’ll come after you again?’ I asked.

Thunder came in a sudden clap, shaking the barn.

‘He has to be close,’ the Nuban said. ‘He has to know where you are.’

I let go of a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been keeping.

‘He’ll send his hunter after us instead,’ the Nuban said. I heard the rustle as he pulled the hay down on himself.

‘That’s a pity,’ I said. It had been a long time since I’d dreamed of my own dream-witch. I rather liked the idea that she might be chasing us here, to this barn, in the jaws of the storm. I settled back into the prickle of the hay. ‘I’ll see if I can dream a witch tonight, yours or mine, I don’t care. And if I do, this time I’m not running anywhere. I’m going to turn around and gut the bitch.’

16

Four years earlier

Thunder again. It held me for a moment. I felt it in my chest. Then the lightning, spelling out the world in harsh new shapes. I saw visions in the afterimages. A baby shaken until the blood came from its eyes. Children dancing in a fire. Another rumble rattled the boards, and the darkness returned.

I sat in the confusion between sleep and the waking world, surrounded by the creak of wood, the shake and rattle of the wind. Lightning stabbed again and I saw the interior of the carriage, mother opposite, William beside her, curled upon the bench-seat, his knees to his chest.

‘The storm!’ I twisted and caught the window. The slats resisted me, spitting rain as the wind whistled outside.

‘Shush, Jorg,’ Mother said. ‘Go back to sleep.’

I couldn’t see her in the dark, but the carriage held her scent. Roses and lemon-grass.

‘The storm.’ I knew I’d forgotten something. That much I remembered.

‘Just rain and wind. Don’t let it frighten you, Jorg, love.’

Did it frighten me? I listened as the gusts ran their claws across the door.

‘We have to stay in the carriage,’ she said.

I let the roll and rock of the carriage take me, hunting for that memory, trying to jog it loose.

‘Sleep, Jorg.’ It was more of a command than a recommendation.

How does she know I’m not asleep?

Lightning struck so close I could hear the sizzle. The light crossed her face in three bars, making something feral of her eyes.

‘We have to stop the carriage. We have to get off. We have to—’

‘Go to sleep!’ Her voice carried an edge.

I tried to stand, and found myself weighed down, as if I were wading in the thickest mud … or molasses.

‘You’re not my mother.’

‘Stay in the carriage,’ she said, her voice a whisper.

The tang of cloves cut the darkness, a breath of myrrh beneath it, the perfume of the grave. The stink of it smothered all sound. Except the slow rasp of her breath.

I hunted the door handle with blind fingers. Instead of cold metal I found corruption, the softness of flesh turned sour in death. A scream broke from me, but it couldn’t pierce the silence. I saw her in the next flash of the storm, skin peeled from the bone, raw pits for eyes.

Fear took my strength. I felt it running down my leg in a hot flood.

‘Come to mother.’ Fingers like twigs closed around my arm and drew me forward in the blackness.

No thoughts would form in the terror that held me. Words trembled on my lips but I had no mind to know what they would be.

‘You’re … not her,’ I said.

One more flash, revealing her face an inch before mine. One more flash, and in it I saw my mother dying, bleeding in the rain of a wild night, and me hung on the briar, helpless in a grip made of more than thorns. Held by fear.

A cold rage rose in me. From the gut. I drove my forehead into the ruin of the monster’s face, and took the door handle with a surety that needed no sight.

‘No!’

And I leapt into the storm.

The thunder rolled loud enough to wake even the deepest buried. I jerked into a sitting position, confused by the stink of hay and the prickle of straw all around me. The barn! I remembered the barn.

A single point of illumination broke the night. A lantern’s glow. It hung from a beam close by the barn door. A figure, a man, a tall one, stood in the fringes of the light. The Nuban lay at his feet, caught in a troubled sleep.

I made to cry out, then bit my cheek hard enough to stop myself. The copper tang of the blood sharpened away the remnants of my dream.

The man held the biggest crossbow I’d ever seen. With one hand he began to wind back the cable. He took his time. When you’re hunting on behalf of a dream-witch I guess you’re never in a rush. Unless one of your victims escapes whatever dreams have been sent to keep them sleeping …

I reached for my knife, and found nothing. I guessed it lost along whatever path my nightmare had led me through the hay. The lantern struck a gleam from something metal by my feet. A bailing hook. Three more turns on that crank and he’d be done. I took the hook.

The storm howl covered my approach. I didn’t sneak. I walked across slow enough to be sure of my footing, fast enough to give ill fortune no time to act against me.

I’d thought to reach around and cut the bastard’s throat, but he was tall, too tall for a ten-year-old’s reach.

He lifted the crossbow to sight down at the Nuban.

Wait when waiting is called for. That’s what Lundist used to tell me. But never hesitate.