“I’ve seen the reason,” Kaden said. “I’ve been to Assare, to the orphanage where the bones are piled up like wood.”

“Ah, Assare,” Kiel said, blowing out a long, slow breath. “What a mistake that was.”

“A mistake?” Kaden asked. “You murdered hundreds of children, an entire city of people, and it was a mistake?”

“I was not there,” Kiel replied, “but yes, I call it a mistake. How would you term it?”

Kaden searched for the word. “A massacre.” He shook his head. “An abomination.”

“Abomination,” Kiel said slowly, as though tasting the sounds. “It seems as though Scial Nin and his monks did not succeed with you. Not completely. Although,” he said, spreading his hands, “you passed the kenta to come here.”

Kaden nodded, realizing only as he did so that the statement was a trap, a trick. Kiel hadn’t known how he arrived until Kaden himself nodded. Irritation pricked at him like a bluethorn.

“You said you knew my father,” Kaden said, trying to return the conversation to safer ground.

The Csestriim nodded. “We were . . . not friends, but something analogous.”

“Prove it.”

Kiel considered him awhile. “That will be difficult. You’ve been with the Shin since you were a child.”

“I remember him well enough,” Kaden said, suddenly resentful of the idea that this inhuman creature claimed to know Sanlitun better than he had himself.

“All right then,” Kiel said. “Do you remember what he used to say about ruling his empire? The strongest leader is the one who does least.”

Kaden had heard his father voice that idea or something similar dozens of times, but, after a moment, he shook his head. “All that shows is that you were in the Dawn Palace. Or that you knew someone who knew someone in the Dawn Palace.”

Kiel cocked his head to the side. “Fair enough. How about the formation that he kept on the ko board in his study whenever he wasn’t playing. The Fool’s Fortress.”

Kaden’s mind filled with the tiny cluster of stones.

“He kept it there,” Kiel went on, “to remind him of the weakness built into any perception of strength, to remind him that confidence sows the seeds of its own destruction.”

“I never heard him say that,” Kaden said.

“You never heard him say a lot of things,” Kiel replied. “You couldn’t have been more than ten when he sent you away.”

“It still doesn’t prove anything, doesn’t prove that he knew you, that he trusted you.”

For a long time the prisoner remained silent, staring out through the bars of the cage at a life Kaden could neither see nor comprehend. Finally, he focused on Kaden once more, a smile tugging the corners of his mouth.

“Your leg,” he said, “there is a small mark shaped like a crescent moon on the inside of your right thigh.”

Kaden resisted the urge to reach down and touch the small, dark spot.