The muscles on Garuwashi’s jaw stood out. He said nothing for a long time. “Curse you,” he said finally. The iron in him seemed to melt. “Curse you for taking my sword, and curse Feir for making me live. He did come out of the Wood. He said he’d been chosen to make another Ceur’caelestos for me. He knew the sa’ceurai would never understand, so he gave me this hilt and swore to return by spring. I believed him.” Garuwashi breathed deeply. “And now you come again to destroy me. I don’t know whether to hate you or admire you, Night Angel. I almost had you. I saw it in your face. Do you never run out of tricks?”

Kylar didn’t let his guard down. “You don’t even want Cenaria, do you? You just thought it would be another quick victory that would make your legend grow.”

“What is a warleader without war, Night Angel? I was invincible before I took Ceur’caelestos, and now you wish me to lose—against Cenaria? You don’t know what it is to lead men.”

“I know what it is to kill them. I know what it is to ask others to pay for my mistakes.”

“Do you know what it is to refuse to be satisfied with the meager portion life hands you? I think you do. Can you imagine me squatting in a field next to my one servant with my trousers rolled up, picking rice? These hands were not made for a hoe. You took this name Kylar Stern. Why? Because you were born with an iron sword, too.

“My men need food, but they need victory more. With me or without me, they are here for the winter,” Lantano Garuwashi said. “The tunnels we widened to get through the mountains are rivers and ice now. If you expose me, the sa’ceurai will kill me, but then what? They will vent their fury on your people. For everyone’s sake, Night Angel, let that go. Go instead and tell this queen to surrender. I give you my word that if she does this, not a single Cenarian will die. We will take nothing more than food and a place to winter. She will be granted her throne once more when we leave in the spring.”

And you won’t ask for anything else once you have Cenaria and Ceur’caelestos both, right?

Kylar shook his head. “You’ll surrender.”

“I can’t,” Garuwashi said through gritted teeth. “In surrender, even Cenarians lay down their swords at the victor’s feet.”

Kylar hadn’t thought of that. It wasn’t the thought of surrender that was impossible for Lantano Garuwashi, it was the physical act.

“Maybe,” Kylar said, “maybe there’s a third way.”

27