Kaden shook his head, trying to imagine fifteen years among the Ishien, fifteen years locked in the darkness, the only thing waiting beyond the steel door, pain. It could drive a man mad, but then, Kiel was not a man. Kaden turned to face the Csestriim.

“What now?”

Kiel met the stare. “You are the Emperor.”

“For you, I mean. We were tied together during the escape, but we are not any longer. Why are you still with us? With me?”

The Csestriim looked past Kaden to the mouth of the alley, where men and women, oxen and children, jostled in the bright light of the sun. “Your history,” he said finally.

Kaden raised his brows. “My history?”

“Not just yours. That of your whole race.” He paused, frowned, then went on. “As I told you, I was the historian of my people. I have spent a very long life in the study of cities and nations, wars and brief periods of fitful peace.”

“You said you knew my father,” Kaden insisted. “That you worked with him.”

Kiel nodded. “I chronicled his life, or a part of it—his time on the Unhewn Throne.”

“But why?” Kaden demanded, coming back to his original question. Clearly the historian had no part in his father’s death—he had been imprisoned in the Dead Heart for almost two decades—and yet he was Csestriim, built from the same flesh, his mind patterned on the same alien thoughts as the creatures who had burst into Assare millennia earlier to murder the children. “Why would you chronicle us? Humans? Why would you help me?”

To his surprise, Kiel smiled. “You are interesting. Your race is interesting, even more so than my own. Humans are unpredictable, self-contradictory. Where our history was a long account of reasoned debate, yours is ablaze with error and ambition, regret and hope, love and loathing, all the things we cannot feel, all animating your every decision. Most of my kind wanted to see you crushed from the start, but I . . . I was curious. I remain curious.” He shrugged. “As for why I would help you, in particular: as I said, you are the Emperor of Annur. I can come no closer to the unfolding of history.”

Kaden watched the man a moment, then nodded slowly. It made a strange sort of sense. More, he realized he wanted to trust the historian, wanted another person on his side, someone who understood something of the empire he was supposed to rule.

“Thank you,” he said. “For helping us break free.”

Kiel frowned. “We are free, but not secure. We still have not decided our next step.”

“The chapterhouse,” Kaden said. “The Shin branch where we agreed to meet Valyn. We’ve missed the meeting by weeks, but he could be waiting there. He could have left a message, instructions, a warning.”

The Csestriim nodded. “I know the place. It’s near here, but the Ishien know it, too.”