Farilane’s own mouth dropped open in surprise. “How dare I? Are you seriously going to stand there before me and be outraged at the suggestion that I should order your deaths only hours after you did the same to me?”

“You can’t do it!”

“Of course I can!” she shouted at him, then pointed back at the square. “Have you not noticed them? In this situation, one is overkill. There are a hundred knights behind me. With just one word, they will drop you to the marble on which you stand and lay out any who complain.” Farilane looked to Kolby, who stared back at her stone-faced. His expression, while betraying no hint of his opinion or his mind, was beyond grim. Those cold eyes terrified her, and for a moment, she wondered if he’d really do it.

Once more, a hush fell over the world. When she spoke again, it was in a soft, gentle tone, yet she could be clearly heard. “I can, but I won’t because that’s not who I am. These men behind me wouldn’t be here if that were the case. They are honorable and so am I. But I could order your imprisonment. I could ask Kolby to haul you both off to some secure villa and make certain you never leave. If I did, who could stop him?”

“I could,” Martasen Dray stepped out of the doorway.

Farilane pulled her leading foot from the higher step and stared at the former First Minister. “I’m sorry. When last we met, you were on my side—I certainly was on yours.”

“I am not on anyone’s side,” Dray declared in a remarkably conversational voice, as if they were arguing about the chance of later rain. “At least not the side of anyone here.”

“Whose side are you on?” she asked, genuinely curious. The man whom she’d once written off as dull turned out to be an onion of infinite layers.

“We follow the Cenzlyor, Suri.”

Farilane’s brows gathered in a furrow above the bridge of her nose. “Unless my information is wrong, the mystic Suri is dead—has been for some time.”

“Yes,” Dray replied. “But we have kept her spirit alive. We are the Cenzars, the followers of the Cenzlyor, guardians of the peace she established nearly two thousand years ago.” As he said this, twelve monks filed out of the palace and formed a line to either side of Dray.

“So all the Monks of Maribor are Artists.”

“No.” The former First Minister shook his head. “The monks came later. We have lived and trained in the Forest of Suri for centuries. We watch the world from the shadows, safeguarding Suri’s achievement.”

“The peace between humans and Fhrey.”

He nodded.

“And the monks?”