“Bash his head in?” Nira asked brightly. She turned to her brother. “Whatta ya say, Rosh? How’d ya feel about a quick brick to the brain?”

He turned his rheumy eyes on her, open mouth revealing his yellowing teeth. “If you think so, Nira . . .” he responded hesitantly. “Whatever you think is best.”

The old woman let out an exasperated sigh. “Whatever I think is best. What a pathetic pile o’ bones you’ve become.” She turned back to Adare. “I’m tempted to kill him almost every day. Seems it’d be a mercy, but then, he’s my brother. Bad thing to kill your own brother with a brick. Besides, maybe I can heal him. Maybe I can find the one who knows how.”

“The last Csestriim,” Adare said.

Nira nodded. “The smart one. The one with the ideas.”

“And you think it’s Vestan Ameredad?” Adare asked, shaking her head. “Why?”

The old woman frowned. “Nah. Not really. Been looking for a lot of years, and only had a couple of brushes ta show for it.”

“But why Vestan?”

Nira nodded, as though considering the question anew. “He’s a meddler, this bastard I’m hunting. Meddled with me. Meddled with others. Likes to be near the center of the pile of shit. We weren’t the only kings he propped up over the years, and if this Ameredad’s fixing to topple your empire . . .” She shrugged. “I’ve walked across half a continent for less. ’Sides, sounds like he more or less fits the bill—tall, dark, unfunny, smart.”

Adare stared. “There must be a hundred men who fit the description. A thousand. If the Csestriim you’re looking for cleaves to centers of power, why aren’t you in Annur? Why aren’t you in the Dawn Palace?”

Nira raised an eyebrow. “Just walk up ta the palace and batter at the door with m’ cane? Is that it?” She shook her head. “Ain’t as easy ta get in and out a’ those nice red walls as ya think. ’Sides—Oshi and I just did a couple decades in Annur. Nothin’ but burned rice and shit stink. It’s in Olon that the pot’s boilin’ over, and so Olon’s where we’re goin’. Like I said, probably ain’t Ameredad, but ya sit in one place too long, ya get old.”

Adare studied the woman. It seemed like a mad plan, crisscrossing the earth looking for the creature who had given them immortality, but then, the Atmani were mad. That was the one thing on which all the historians agreed.

“And if it is him? If the man leading the Sons of Flame is the one you’re looking for? What then?”

“See if he can fix us.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Oshi. “Fix him.”

“And if he can’t?”

“Kill him.”

“I need Ameredad,” Adare blurted. “I need the Sons of Light to overthrow il Tornja.”