The words landed like a blow. Not that he felt any particular attachment to a massive chunk of rock he hadn’t seen since his childhood. If the Shin had taught him one lesson, it was the futility of coveting such things. Adare, though, had been his one connection to his family, to his father. While Kaden and Valyn had been struggling through their training at the ends of the earth, Adare had stayed, had lived inside the red walls, had made Annur her home. She was his link to the city, to the father and mother he’d lost, and now, it seemed, that link was severed.

“All but claimed the throne?” Kiel asked.

“There wasn’t time,” Morjeta said. “They’re marching north now, the princess and the kenarang, to meet some sort of Urghul threat in the north.”

Ut and Adiv had mentioned the Urghul back in Ashk’lan. Kaden pulled the memory to the forefront of his mind. Some shaman had united the tribes for the first time, using his collected force to test the Annurian border.

“Il Tornja won victories against the Urghul,” Kaden said. “Before my father died.”

“It was those victories,” Morjeta replied, “at least in part, that won him the role of kenarang.”

Kiel nodded. “A familiar strategy in military insurrections.”

“What strategy?” Kaden asked, trying to keep pace with the leaps in the conversation.

“Provoke a foe, then use the newfound threat to convince your own people they need a military rather than a civilian ruler.”

“It doesn’t sound like he’s trying to convince anyone,” Triste said. “He murdered Kaden’s father in secret. He covered it up!”

“But the Urghul threat helps his cause.”

“Except,” Kaden said, “it’s not his cause anymore. Adare’s claimed the throne, not il Tornja.”

“And,” Morjeta said, “all reports are that he’s supporting her claim.”

Kaden met Morjeta’s eyes a moment, then turned away. The leina’s bedchamber was not small—back at Ashk’lan, half a dozen monks could have shared the room with space to spare, and yet back at Ashk’lan he could have stepped through the door into open air, into a world of sky and snow and stone bordered only by high cliffs and the horizon. Here, one room led to another. He could leave Morjeta’s bedchamber, leave her suite of rooms altogether, only to find himself in another room, hemmed in by other walls. Suddenly it seemed he had returned not to a city but to a labyrinth, one he had faint hope of escaping.

“An alliance then,” Kiel said finally.

Kaden hauled his mind back to the present.

“Adare gives il Tornja legitimacy,” the historian continued, “while the kenarang provides her with military power and expertise, the imprimatur of victory in battle. And if they are sharing a bed once more . . .”