Prince of Thorns

Four years earlier, in Corion’s lair, Jorg and the Nuban lay completely helpless. Corion reveals that he knows all of Jorg’s secrets and can read his mind. Corion knows that Jorg wonders why a man of such power does not attempt to make himself emperor. Corion explains that the Emperor must come from one of the royal families—“Nations won’t follow monsters like me” (306)—and that people like Olidan and Renar are game pieces manipulated by the real players like Corion and Sageous. He causes Jorg to forget about Renar and instead wreak havoc under his own direction. Corion also places a magical injunction on the Nuban to protect Jorg.

Jorg leaps back to consciousness on the tomb slab in his mother’s crypt and begins to choke someone. He tumbles off the slab and finds that his memory of his encounter with Renar has been restored. He sees that he was choking Hanna. Katherine forces her way into the room and sees Hanna unconscious on the floor. She draws a knife and tells Jorg that she is going to kill him.

Katherine rushes towards Jorg, who finds himself unable to call upon his usual strength of will. Spreading his arms wide, he asks if Katherine can finish what his father started, and she falters. When she looks over at Hanna, Jorg takes the opportunity to knock her out with a vase readily at hand.

As soon as he strikes her, he feels his strength return. The voice he associates with the briars urges him to kill her and cut out the weakness in him. In his mind he can see Corion speaking the words he hears, but he resists and shakes off the influence. Jorg leaves Hanna and Katherine on the floor of the room and leaves to find Renar and at last enact his revenge.

At the dungeons Jorg convinces the jailer to stand aside and looks for Makin. He finds Makin in a filthy cell. Makin doesn’t believe what he sees at first—he was certain he saw Olidan kill Jorg—but he eventually tries to struggle to his feet.

Makin is very weak, and Jorg tells him he will leave Makin behind if he can’t stand on his own, noting that he left Lundist to die in the same room. Makin tells Jorg that Lundist was only bruised but that Olidan had him executed for his failure. Jorg struggles to cauterize his emotional attachment to Makin, and Makin uses his distraction to trip Jorg to the floor and punch him out.

Makin and Jorg are riding towards Renar’s stronghold. Makin asks why they are going to kill Corion rather than retaliate against Olidan. Jorg responds cryptically, hinting towards his recent revelation of who the true players of “the game” are.

Jorg tells Makin how he killed Price, Rike’s brother, here in front of the inn before them. In his recollection, Jorg and the Nuban are returning from their encounter with Corion and unexpectedly stumble across the brothers. When Price emerges from the tavern, he flies into a fit of rage as soon as he spots Jorg. The Nuban refuses to shoot Price, telling Jorg in a voice other than his own, “They have to see you do it” (328).

Price strides towards Jorg but pauses in confusion when Jorg asks why he wants to kill him. Jorg takes the opportunity to throw a rock at one of Price’s eyes. Jorg picks up two more stones and puts the second through Price’s good eye and the third down his throat. Jorg finishes him off with a rock to the head.

Jorg explains to Makin that the throws he made were impossible and that Corion was guiding his hand. Price’s inexplicable rage was probably instigated by Sageous, who wanted to remove Corion’s new “game piece” from the board. They go into the tavern and continue talking as they drink. When Makin asks why Jorg thinks this encounter with Corion will go better, Jorg answers that he has grown and also that he feels different since he ate the necromancer’s heart. He believes himself to be imbued with magic now, pointing out that Olidan is not incompetent and that he should have died from the knife to his chest.