She chuckled. “You can’t release me. I understand that you’ve had a very exciting promotion, but I serve a god, not an emperor, and Ananshael is quite clear about the honoring of contracts.”

“And what,” Valyn asked finally, unable to hold on to his silence any longer, “are the exact terms of your contract? To protect Kaden at Ashk’lan? To escort him back within the borders of Annur? Or is it a permanent thing—you have to follow him around the rest of his life, making sure no one sticks a knife in his back while he’s eating braised duck or making love to his future empress? I’m not sure the Aedolians—let alone the empress—will appreciate a Skullsworn lurking around the halls.”

Pyrre laughed a warm, throaty laugh. “One could be forgiven, after the recent performance of the Aedolian Guard, for thinking the new Emperor might prefer a change of personnel.” She looked over at Kaden with that half smile of hers, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. When he didn’t respond, she shrugged. “Sadly, I won’t be fluffing his imperial feather bed or massaging his radiant buttocks. My task is to see him back to the city of Annur, to ensure that he reaches the Dawn Palace safely. After that, our time together, sweet though it has been, is finished.”

Valyn studied the woman, trying to see past the careless façade, the casual bravado, past the very real fact of the ’Kent-kissing knife she kept flipping and flipping.

“Who hired you?” he asked.

She raised an eyebrow. “That would be telling.”

“It’s time to do some telling,” Valyn said, shifting to put a little more space between himself and the Skullsworn.

She noticed the movement, caught her knife, and smiled. “Nervous?”

“Cautious,” Valyn replied. “A Skullsworn shows up in the Bone Mountains, just about as far as you can get from Rassambur without hiring a ship, claiming she has come to guard an emperor when the whole world knows the Skullsworn pay no fealty to any state, kingdom, or creed but their own sick worship of death.”

“Sick,” she replied, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Sick. How uncharitable. There are priests and priestesses of Ananshael who would kill you for those words.” She tapped the blade of her knife speculatively against her palm. “Are you interested in seeing how your Kettral training holds up against someone more skilled than those cumbersome Aedolians?”

Valyn measured the ground between them. The woman hadn’t moved, hadn’t even bothered to sit up, but a quick flick of the wrist would send that blade straight at his chest, and he didn’t have any illusions about his ability to snatch daggers out of the air. She didn’t smell scared. She smelled . . . amused.