“It was a mistake to come to the Heart. The Ishien know nothing about the plot against your family. They have learned nothing from Triste. They follow a pointless path while the empire reels.”

Kaden stared. “You’ve had word of the empire? Of my brother?”

“Nothing of Valyn, but Ishien returning through the kenta say that your sister has disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Kaden asked, suddenly sick.

“She may be dead. She may be imprisoned. The Ishien do not know, nor do they appear to care.”

“And you do?” Kaden asked. After so long locked in the seamless darkness, the sudden wash of light and words threatened to overwhelm him. “I thought you were indifferent to politics.”

“I am,” Tan replied. “This goes beyond politics. The Csestriim have struck at the heart of Annur. I cannot fathom their reasons, but one thing is clear: they will use the chaos, they will exploit the disorder, and I will not give them that advantage. You need to return to Annur. You need to take your place on the Unhewn Throne.”

Hope bloomed inside Kaden, flowered a moment before he crushed it out. He gestured to the slick stone walls, the weight of rock above their heads, to the massive iron door. “The Ishien seem to have other ideas.”

“I am finished,” Tan said, “with the ideas of the Ishien. They are not the order I left more than a decade ago.”

“So . . . what? We just walk out?”

Tan shook his head. “You listen poorly. Three men wait beyond this door. They trust me little more than they do you. You will leave when they aren’t watching you.”

“How?”

The monk reached inside his jerkin, sliding free first an old, rusted key, then a short knife, the blade no longer than Kaden’s finger. It wasn’t a weapon—he could imagine someone using it to cut the heads off fish—but it looked sharp.

“Where did you get the key?”

“Perhaps you forget,” Tan replied, “that I lived here a long time before I left for the mountains.”

“All right,” Kaden said, measuring his breathing, stilling the sudden excitement moving inside. “You leave, then I take the key—”

“Listen,” Tan said, cutting him off, “before you talk.” He waited, silent and unmoving, until Kaden nodded. Then he extended his arm. “Find my pulse.”

Confused, Kaden reached out, taking the older monk’s wrist in his hand. After a few moments he found the vein, then the steady beat of the blood pent up inside. The pulse was slower than his own, regular as the drip in the back of his cell, as though it had beaten out the same silent rhythm for months, for years.

“Match it,” Tan said.

Kaden nodded once more, closed his eyes, then slowed his own heart, parsing each beat until it mapped perfectly onto the low, slow tidal thrum of his umial’s heart.

“Done,” he said finally.