Kiel nodded. “As I said, my goals are not those of Tan’is. He seeks a return to the past. I am more interested in chronicling the present.”

The Csestriim fell silent. Kaden stared at him a moment, then turned to Triste. She met his eyes with her own wide, wild gaze, then shook her head helplessly.

“I don’t know, Kaden,” she said. “He helped us. He keeps helping us. He’s here, right?”

Kaden blew out a long, unsteady breath. “All right. If you want to help, help. What about Ran il Tornja? What is he doing?”

“As I told you before,” Kiel replied, “he has not abandoned his charge. The gods are gone, beyond his reach, but he seeks another way to destroy you. Has sought one for many thousands of years.”

“And the fact that he’s taking action now . . .” Kaden began, trailing off as the horror hit him.

Kiel nodded. “It is impossible to be certain of the movings of another mind, but it would seem that our lost general has finally found what he seeks.”

33

No, no, no, you’re missin’ the point, ya ox’s ass,” Nira said, smacking her cane against her palm, causing her horse to start. “Ya don’t need ta sign the papers, and swear the oaths, and have yer tits anointed with the holy oils, and whatever all other little bits a’ theater yer family’s been parading around the last few hundred years. Ya just do it.”

Adare took a firm rein on her temper. She was exhausted. Exhausted from riding from dawn until well past dusk every day since Annur. Exhausted from trying to anticipate il Tornja’s next deception. Exhausted from second-guessing herself. Exhausted from wondering if she had overstepped in claiming the throne, a throne never intended for her, a throne for which she might be killed, or even worse, forced to kill good people, Annurian citizens who would rise up against her, refusing to accept a female Emperor. Exhausted from telling Fulton over and over to back off, to give her space to talk in private, to think. Exhausted from sitting appropriately upright in her saddle when she wanted to collapse over the cantle. Exhausted from the sickness that twisted in her gut every morning, a result, no doubt, of the miserable camp food. Exhausted from worrying about the scars laid into her skin, from trying to wring some sense from the events at the Everburning Well. And exhausted from Nira’s endless tirade of acerbic counsel, Nira, who, despite her advanced age, seemed the only person in the long muddy ranks with any energy left.