“Because he wants to be emperor, not kenarang, and he understands that there are only two entities with the power to resist him.” She held up two fingers. “My family, and your Church.” She frowned. “I should say, we had the power to resist him, but he has already stripped most of that away. I did not draft the Accords alone, nor was I the sole author of the strike against Uinian. Who do you think brought me to your temple in the first place? Who do you think told me that your Chief Priest killed my father?”

Lehav studied her over steepled fingers. “So you allowed yourself to be used. If this is true.”

“I was a fool,” Adare agreed, shoving down her pride. “I spent years hearing about Uinian’s hatred for my family, and when the time came, I believed what I was told.”

“And your judgment was further impaired when you made yourself the kenarang’s whore.”

Adare stifled a sharp retort. Though she had hoped word of her romantic liaison would remain in the Dawn Palace, she hadn’t really expected as much.

“My personal mistakes are beside the point here. . . .”

“It seems to me that they are exactly the point,” Lehav replied. “Even if I accept every article of your tale, look what I am left with: you admit that you were a willing participant in the murder of my priest. . . .”

“A leach,” Adare insisted.

Lehav waved the interruption aside. “You admit that you spent time in the bed of the kenarang, the man behind both Uinian’s murder and your father’s, and you admit conspiring to ruin Intarra’s one true Church with your Accords. Even if you are honest, you have proven yourself a fool and a foe to the faithful. Why would I do anything but burn you?”

“Because if you burn me, you will fail,” Adare said bleakly. “Il Tornja will have turned his two chief foes against each other, and he will win.”

“We will face il Tornja when the time comes,” Lehav said. “This city is better defended than you realize.”

Adare thought back to the pairs of soldiers blocking the alleyways above, to the warren of streets and ruins. It could well prove the end of an Annurian legion, especially if the local population sided with the Sons of Flame. Il Tornja would have to raze the place to dislodge them, and razing an Annurian city would be insanity for a usurper of the throne. Not since Terial the Short laid siege to Mo’ir three centuries earlier had an Annurian emperor attacked his own citizens, and that hadn’t ended well for Terial.