It’s what I am, and if you want excuses, come and take them.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5 - Four years earlier
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9 - Four years earlier
Chapter 10
Chapter 11 - Four years earlier
Chapter 12 - Four years earlier
Chapter 13 - Four years earlier
Chapter 14
Chapter 15 - Four years earlier
Chapter 16 - Four years earlier
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36 - Four years earlier
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
King of Thorns
Ace Books by Mark Lawrence
PRINCE OF THORNS
KING OF THORNS
King of Thorns
BOOK TWO OF
THE BROKEN EMPIRE
M A R K L A W R E N C E
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
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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 do 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 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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
14: Four years earlier
15: Four years earlier
16: Four years earlier
17: Four years earlier
18: Four years earlier
19: Four years earlier
20: Four years earlier
21: Four years earlier
22: Wedding day
23: Wedding day
24: Wedding day
25: Wedding day
26: Wedding day
27: Wedding day
28: Four years earlier
29: Four years earlier
30: Four years earlier
31: Four years earlier
32: Four years earlier
33: Four years earlier
34: Four years earlier
35: Wedding day
36: Wedding day
37: Wedding day
38: Wedding day
39: Four years earlier
40: Four years earlier
41: Four years earlier
42: Four years earlier
43: Four years earlier
44: Four years earlier
45: Wedding day
46: Wedding day
47: Wedding day
48: Wedding day
49: Wedding day
PROLOGUE
I found these pages scattered, teased across the rocks by a fitful wind. Some were too charred to show their words, others fell apart in my hands. I chased them though, as if it were my story they told and not hers.
Katherine’s story, Aunt Katherine, sister to my stepmother, Katherine who I have wanted every moment of the past four years, Katherine who picks strange paths through my dreams. A few dozen ragged pages, weighing nothing in my hand, snowflakes skittering across them, too cold to stick.
I sat upon the smoke-wreathed ruins of my castle, careless of the heaped and stinking dead. The mountains, rising on all sides, made us tiny, made toys of the Haunt and the siege engines strewn about it, their purpose spent. And with eyes stinging from the fires, with the wind’s chill in me deep as bones, I read through her memories.
