King of Thorns Ace Books by Mark Lawrence PRINCE OF THORNS KING OF THORNS King of Thorns BOOK TWO OF THE BROKEN EMPIRE MARK LAWRENCE ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England This is a work of fiction Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content Copyright © 2012 by Bobalinga, Ltd Map by Andrew Ashton Cover design by Annette Fiore DeFex Cover illustration by Jason Chan Cover hand lettering by Iskra Johnson Text design by Laura K Corless All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission Please not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights Purchase only authorized editions ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc FIRST EDITION: August 2012 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lawrence, Mark, 1966– King of thorns / Mark Lawrence.—1st ed p cm.—(Broken empire; bk 2) ISBN: 978-1-101-58126-1 I Title PS3612.A9484K56 2012 813’.6—dc23 2012011252 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 10 ALWAYS LEARNING PEARSON Dedicated to my son, Rhodri ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I need to thank my reader, Helen Mazarakis, for reading King of Thorns one chunk at a time as I wrote it, and telling me what she thought Many thanks go to Ginjer Buchanan at Ace for taking a chance on me, and to both her and Kat Sherbo for all their labour in making The Broken Empire series a success My editor at HarperCollins Voyager, Jane Johnson, deserves huge thanks for all her splendid efforts to date Thanks also to Amy McCulloch and Laura Mell, who have worked various wonders on my behalf And finally, my agent Ian Drury must be thanked for getting me the gig in the first place and for continuing to sell my books across the world Gaia Banks and Virginia Ascione, working with Ian at Sheil Land Associates Ltd., also need thanking for their efforts in getting Jorg’s story into so many translations Table of Contents Acknowledgments Prologue 1: Wedding day 2: Wedding day 3: Wedding day 4: Four years earlier 5: Four years earlier 6: Four years earlier 7: Four years earlier 8: Four years earlier 9: Four years earlier 10: Four years earlier 11: Wedding day 12: Wedding day 13: Wedding day .. .King of Thorns Ace Books by Mark Lawrence PRINCE OF THORNS KING OF THORNS King of Thorns BOOK TWO OF THE BROKEN EMPIRE MARK LAWRENCE ACE BOOKS, NEW... none of that fazes him Every moment of a crisis he’ll be considering the angles, tracking weapons, looking for the opening, taking it “Well now.” I pulled him close, hand clapped to the back of. .. Miana, I have the pleasure of introducing His Highness Honorous Jorg Ancrath, King of the Renar Highlands, heir to the lands of Ancrath and the protectorates thereof.” “Charmed,” I said, inclining