Azhen Kaen grew more and more impatient and temperamental. He had believed Jorat would be an easy victory, and it had turned into a quagmire. Aeyan’arric began attacking more, and more villages emptied before she arrived. “Priests” of the Black Knight—dedicated to the Nameless Lord—began spreading the air sigil, rendering the Lysian gas Senera had used against Mereina obsolete. Senera began encountering Joratese using talismans to shield against magic. Kaen’s inability—more so, Relos Var’s inability—to track down the rebel leaders causing so many problems rubbed the duke’s temper raw. He snapped and bit at everyone around him.

Kaen did not stop sending Aeyan’arric into Jorat.

For several years after I first vowed my loyalty to Duke Azhen Kaen, he tested me. I hated these trials, but he never asked me to do anything too objectionable; I never traveled into Jorat with Senera, for example. He made me a symbol of his future rule—a Joratese taking orders from a Yoran—his promise of things to come for anyone who doubted their duke. I delivered messages to the clan houses, just to be seen. I wore Kaen’s rings in my hair and Relos Var’s jewels at the neck of a red cloak far too thin to protect anyone else from the cold. The Yoran nobles and courtiers took to calling me Dyono Tomai, or the Red Knight, and I was never quite sure if they meant it as a compliment. I suspected not.

Then came the day when Duke Kaen asked me to do something a little more serious than running errands.

“I want you to clear out the prison,” the duke told me over a game of Zaibur. “Xivan doesn’t want to take the time, but it’s grown too crowded.”

I paused and cocked my head. “You want me to release the prisoners?” I hoped I had misunderstood what he was asking.

He snorted. “I want you to execute them.”

I remember the moment quite well. The scent of burning wood from the nearby fireplace mixed with the odor of spiced butter tea from the tray next to us. The mage-light lamps cast a yellow glow over us, sparkled against the diamonds in his thick white beard. I stared at him, and he smiled.

Azhen Kaen knew exactly what he was asking me to do. He was escalating his tests. Would I kill for him? Not just fight for him, but put someone to death just because he asked it?

I bowed my head as I moved a game piece. “Do you wish me to make an example?”

“No. Dead will do just fine. I’ll order some men to assist you as you require.”

Which meant he’d order some of his soldiers to make sure I went through with it and then report back to him. After all, what good was a test if he didn’t have a way to verify the score?