“This is not a negotiation,” she said firmly. “It is a fact.”

Nira rounded on her snake-quick, snapping the side of her cane into Adare’s temple, knocking her a few paces down the steep embankment. For a few heartbeats Adare fought the throbbing pain and the rising darkness. Finally she was able to struggle to her knees, then her feet. At last, holding her skull, she looked up to find the old woman shaking her head, a quick, curt motion, lips tight.

“I understand you’re a princess and all,” Nira hissed. “You’re bright. You’re ambitious. You’ve won a few petty little battles. . . .”

“Petty battles?” Adare demanded, trying to get her feet beneath her. To show weakness now was to fail, and she could not afford to fail. “I saw the Chief Priest of Intarra destroyed. I gelded his entire Church.”

Nira snorted. “A batch of sun-blind fools.”

Adare wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but the woman was already bulling ahead. “You’ve been a minister a few months. I ruled this whole fucking continent”—she paused to stab her cane into the soft earth—“for centuries. You had a quarrel with a priest? We,” she included Oshi in her gesture, “battled Dirik and Chirug for decades. I faced Shihjahin on the black rock for three nights and three days while the earth cracked around us and men died by the thousands.”

Her lips were drawn back in a snarl. Adare felt a cold hand close around her heart.

“I saw your family rise from nothing, watched Terial struggle to found his little empire, scraping together our ashes and calling them a civilization. I saw Terial die. And Santun, and Anlatun—all of them. Missed your father’s funeral tendin’ ta Oshi’s cough, but make no mistake about it girl, when the time comes, I will see you stuck in one a’ those caves, bony hands folded on your chest. So if you think, you presumptuous little bitch, that because you are a fucking Malkeenian, a princess, a clever girl in a stupid world, think this: for a thousand years and more I have refrained from using my powers. For a thousand years I have kept my brother from destroying everything he sees. I hope to continue doing so until I’ve done what I intend to do, and if you’d seen what my brother is capable of, my hopes would be your fucking prayers.”

She shook her head, and some of the fury had drained from her voice when she spoke again. “Our fight is not with you, girl, but if you cross me, you’ll wish it had been you and not that useless priest who burned in Intarra’s fire.”

When the woman finally fell silent, Adare realized she had taken two or three steps back, as though driven bodily by the force of Nira’s fury.