“Fly me to the kenta,” Tan replied. “I will visit the Ishien, learn what they know, while you return to the capital with your brother. We will all meet in Annur.”

Kaden said nothing. He stared out over the western peaks so long that eventually even Pyrre propped up her head, squinting at him between slitted lids. Tan also remained motionless, also staring west. No one spoke, but Valyn could feel the tension between the two monks, a silent struggle of wills.

“No,” Kaden said at last.

Pyrre rolled her eyes and dropped her head back against the rock. Tan said nothing.

“I will not be shepherded from place to place, kept safe while others fight my battles,” Kaden said. “The Csestriim killed my father; they tried to kill me and Valyn. If I’m going to fight back, I need what the Ishien know. More, I need to meet them, to forge some sort of alliance. If they are to trust me, first they have to know me.”

Tan shook his head. “Trust does not come easily to the men of the order I once served.”

Kaden didn’t flinch. “And to you?” he asked, raising his brows. “Do you trust me? Will you take me to the kenta, or do I need to leave you behind while Valyn flies me all over the Bones searching?”

The monk’s jaw tightened. “I will take you,” he said finally.

“All right,” Valyn said, rolling to his feet. He didn’t like the plan, but at least they were moving, at least they were finally doing something. All the sitting and talking was keeping them pinned down, making them easier to find, to attack. “Where are we going?”

“Assare,” Tan replied.

Valyn shook his head. “Which is what . . . a mountain? A river?”

“A city.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It is old,” Tan said. “For a long time it was dangerous.”

“And now?”

“Now it is dead.”

3

It was her eyes that would get her killed.

Adare understood that well enough as she studied herself in the full-length mirror, safe behind the locked doors of her chambers inside the Crane. She had exchanged her ministerial robes for a servant’s dress of rough wool, traded her silk slippers for serviceable traveling boots, discarded her silver rings and ivory bracelets, scrubbed the faint traces of kohl from her eyelids and ocher from her cheeks, scoured away the delicate perfume she had favored since her thirteenth year, all in the effort to eliminate any trace of Adare, the Malkeenian princess, the Minister of Finance, all in the hope of becoming no one, nothing.

Like killing myself, she brooded as she stared at her reflection.