“A few more seconds,” Annick said, “and he’ll be in the camp. It’ll be more difficult to take him then.”

“Why?” Valyn demanded, staring at Kaden. “Why do you want him alive?”

Kaden forced his eddying thoughts into a channel, the channel into speech. There would be no second chance to say what he had to say. The arrow, once loosed, would not be called back.

“We know him,” he began slowly. “We need him. Back in Annur we can observe who he talks to, who he trusts. He’ll help us to unravel the conspiracy.”

“Yeah,” Gwenna snapped, “and maybe he’ll murder a few dozen more people on the way.”

“I’m losing him,” Annick said. “Decide now.”

“Oh for ’Shael’s sake,” Laith grumbled. “Just kill him already. We can sort out the details later.”

“No,” Kaden said quietly, willing his brother to see past the present, to understand the logic. “Not yet.”

Valyn held Kaden’s gaze for a long time, jaw tight, eyes narrowed. Finally he nodded. “Stand down, Annick. We have our orders.”

2

Plan might be too noble a word,” Pyrre said, reclining against a large boulder, head back, eyes closed even as she spoke, “but I’d like to think we had some sort of vague inclination.”

They’d made it back from the monastery easily enough, rejoining the rest of the group in the hidden defile where they’d set up camp. The other Kettral were checking over their weapons, the two monks sat cross-legged on the rough stone, while Triste fingered the long scab on her cheek, her wide eyes darting from one person to the next as though unsure where to look, who to trust.

Valyn studied the girl a moment, surprised all over again at the course of events that had led such a fragile, arresting young woman to this place, tangling her up in the same snare with soldiers and monks. She was a concubine, Kaden had said. Adiv had offered her to Kaden as a gift, one intended to distract the new emperor while the Aedolians made ready to murder him. Evidently, Triste wasn’t a part of the plot, but she was plenty distracting all the same. Valyn felt like he could watch her forever, but then, she wasn’t the one who needed watching. With an effort, he shifted his gaze to Pyrre Lakatur.