“The whole southeastern quadrant is clear,” Annick said. If Talal was worried about Kaden’s feelings, the sniper seemed indifferent. She spoke in clipped periods, almost bored, while those icy blue eyes of hers scanned the rocks around them, never pausing. “No track. No blood. The attackers were good. For Aedolians.”

It was a telling crack. The Aedolians were some of Annur’s finest soldiers, handpicked and exhaustively trained to guard the royal family and other important visitors. How this particular group had been incited to betrayal, Kaden had no idea, but Annick’s obvious disdain spoke volumes about her own abilities.

“What are they doing down there?” Valyn asked.

Talal shrugged. “Eating. Sleeping. Cleaning weapons. They don’t know about Ut and Adiv yet. Don’t know that we arrived, that we killed the soldiers chasing Kaden.”

“How long will they stay?” Kaden asked. The slaughter seemed absolute, but some part of him wanted to descend anyway, to walk among the rubble, to look at the faces of the slain.

“No telling,” Talal replied. “They’ve got no way to know that the smaller group, the one that went after you, is dead.”

“They must have a protocol,” Annick said. “Two days, three days, before searching or retreating.”

Laith rolled his eyes. “It may shock you to discover, Annick, that some people aren’t slaves to protocol. They might not actually have a plan.”

“Which is why we would kill them,” the sniper replied, voice gelid, “if it came to a fight.”

Valyn shook his head. “It’s not going to come to a fight. There’ve got to be seventy, eighty men down there. . . .”

A quiet but fierce cursing from behind them cut into Valyn’s words.

“The ’Kent-kissing, Hull-buggering bastard,” Gwenna spat, rolling easily over a spine of rock into a low, ready crouch. “That whoreson, slit-licking ass.”

Valyn rounded on her. “Keep your voice down.”

The red-haired woman waved off the objection. “They’re a quarter mile off, Valyn, and the wind’s blowing the wrong way. I could sing the ’Shael-spawned Kettral attack anthem at the top of my voice and they wouldn’t notice.”

This defiance, too, surprised Kaden. The soldiers he remembered from back in the Dawn Palace were all rigid salutes and unquestioned obedience. While it seemed that Valyn had the final call on decisions regarding his Wing, none of the others went out of their way to defer to him. Gwenna, in particular, seemed determined to nudge her toe right up to the line of insubordination. Kaden could see the irritation on his brother’s face, the strain around his eyes, tension in the jaw.

“Which bastard are we talking about now?” Laith asked. “There are plenty to go around these days.”

“That fancy prick Adiv,” Gwenna said, jerking her head toward the northwest. “The one with the blindfold and the attitude.”