“A chieftain named Long Fist. Or a shaman. It’s not entirely clear. Our scouts rarely return, and though il Tornja has dispatched several Kettral Wings against the man, they have failed to find him, let alone eliminate him.”

“But why would they attack a group of monks?”

“Presumably,” Adiv replied, “they were not after the monks. I would suspect this is all a part of Long Fist’s plan. He aims to destabilize the empire by killing Sanlitun’s heir, then to strike in the ensuing confusion.” He hesitated, clasped his hands before him.

“What?” Adare demanded.

“There is more.”

“I got that. What is it?”

“Your brother,” Adiv replied after a pause. “Valyn. It looks as though he may have been involved.”

Adare stared. Valyn. He would be a man grown by now, a Kettral in his own right, but all she remembered was the wiry, dark child who had raced about the Dawn Palace brandishing wooden swords. He’d been loud and reckless, irritating when there was work to be done, but never cruel.

“Say more,” she growled quietly.

Adiv spread his hands. “We can’t be certain, but he disappeared from the Islands in direct violation of orders. Ashk’lan was burned by the time we got there—clearly Urghul work, as I said. But . . . there were signs of Kettral presence as well. A smoke steel blade lost in the rubble.” He shook his head. “We can’t be certain, of course. No one actually saw your brother, but he is still missing. It would not be the first time siblings killed over the Unhewn Throne.”

“No,” Adare said abruptly, the blood mounting to her face, fingers curling into claws. “No. The kenarang murdered my father. Murdered him and then made me his tool to cover the murder. I know, you fucking bastard. I know all of it.”

Nira put a withered hand on her arm, but Adare shrugged it off. She was shouting, she realized, and though a faint voice in her mind told her she should keep her voice down, that no one was served by her strident accusations, the return to the palace had torn open the memory of her father’s death, of his body laid in the tomb, and she wanted nothing more than to find il Tornja and everyone else responsible, to slit their throats and tumble them, graveless, into some stagnant canal.

If Adiv was taken aback by her rage, he didn’t show it. Instead, he nodded and reached forward, plucking a small scroll from the neck of a slender green vase at the center of the table.

“The kenarang told me that you would say as much. He instructed me to give you this.”

Adare took the scroll—fine vellum stamped with the rising sun of Annur—and turned it over warily in her hands.

“What new lie is here?” she asked, running a finger over the wax impression.