“You’re stalling,” she told herself, speaking the words out loud, using the sound to goad her into action. “You’re a scared little girl and you’re stalling. This is why the old vultures on the council think you’re too weak for your post. This, what you’re doing right now. Father would be ashamed. Now stuff the ’Shael-spawned cloth back in your pocket, leave off mugging at yourself in the mirror, and walk out the door.”

Not that it was quite that easy. Beyond her outer door waited Fulton and Birch. The pair of Aedolians had watched over her each morning since she turned ten, their presence as reliable as the walls of the palace itself. She had always found them a comfort, two stones in the shifting currents of Annurian politics; now, however, she worried they might destroy her plan before she could set it in motion.

She had no reason to distrust them; in fact, she had thought long and hard about confiding in the two, about asking them to come with her when she fled. Their swords would make the long road that much safer, and the familiar faces would be dearly welcome. She thought she could rely on them, but then, she had relied on il Tornja, and he had killed her father. Fulton and Birch were sworn to guard her, but so were the men sent east to retrieve Kaden, and though they’d been gone for months, no one had heard anything from him.

Keep your own counsel, she reminded herself as she swung open the door. Keep your own counsel and walk your own path. At least she wouldn’t get them killed if her whole plan collapsed.

The two soldiers nodded crisply as she stepped out.

“A new dress for you, Minister?” Fulton asked, narrowing his eyes at the sight of the rough wool.

“I understand wanting out of those miserable ministerial robes,” Birch added with a grin, “but I thought you could have afforded something a little more stylish.”

Birch was the younger of the two, a dashing portrait of military virility with his exotic blond hair and square jaw. He was pale, almost as pale as the Urghul, but Adare had seen plenty of bone-white northerners, mostly ministers and bureaucrats, come and go from the Dawn Palace. No one was likely to mistake Birch for a minister. The man was built beautifully as one of the sculptures lining the Godsway. Even his teeth were perfect, the kind of thing an artist might use as a model.

Fulton was older than his partner, and shorter, and uglier, but around the palace people whispered that he was the more deadly, and though Birch could be brash and outspoken around Adare—a familiarity earned after years dogging her footsteps—he deferred to the older man instinctively.

“I’m leaving the red walls,” Adare replied, “and I don’t want to be noticed.”