Kaden had taken strength, through the most dire of his monastic trials, in thinking that his suffering at the hands of the Shin was the same suffering his father had experienced decades before, that the running and digging, carrying and fasting, were actually bringing him closer to Sanlitun, despite the gulf of miles between them, that one day, when Kaden returned to Annur, they would sit down together, one man with another, not just to learn the necessary apparatus of government, but to really talk for the first time.

That possibility had shattered like old crockery when Adiv’s treacherous delegation arrived in Ashk’lan. There would be no reunion. No discussion. No meeting as men. Sanlitun hui’Malkeenian remained remote as the graven statue of him that looked down sternly on the Godsway. Kaden had no idea if his father had preferred water or wine, let alone whether or not he would have conferred with the Csestriim. He considered the prisoner once more, the begrimed face, the unwavering eyes. Would Sanlitun hui’Malkeenian have broken bread with such a creature? There was just no way to know.

“May I ask,” Kiel said quietly, when he’d straightened up, “why I am here?” He gestured to the doors leading into the torture cells. “Are you certain it’s not for more pain?”

“There is another prisoner,” Tan replied. “One we want you to see.”

A look that might have been curiosity crossed Kiel’s haggard face. “One of my kind? Who?”

“That,” Tan said, “is what you are here to tell us.”

It was almost possible, in the dim light of the low-ceilinged cell, to believe that Triste was just resting, that the heavy wooden chair to which she’d been chained was just another chair, that the lanterns had been turned low to accommodate an easier sleep. As Kaden’s eyes adjusted, however, he could make out the steel manacles binding her wrists and ankles, the streaks of tears on her grimy face, thin lacerations running the length of her arms. Clearly she had been flogged or whipped.

“Couldn’t you give her a cloak?” he asked.

Matol snorted. “Are all you Shin so tenderhearted?” Then, as though to a small child, “This is how torture works. You start on the mind well before you begin with the body.”

Kaden couldn’t pull his eyes from that body, from the angry strips of red where the flesh had broken. Horror welled up inside him. The Shin had taught him to deal with emotion, but never in the face of such savagery. When he finally managed to look away from the wounds, he found that Triste had opened her own eyes, that she was staring at him silently in the flickering light.

“Kaden,” she said quietly. His name in her mouth sounded like a plea and an accusation both, and he realized that she had been watching him stare.