“The first time I journeyed to your city,” he said, “I was eight. I did not want to come, but my father was in chains, and we do not allow a person—man or woman—to die without witness.”

Kaden nodded, unsure how to respond.

“I went to your palace, inside your red walls, and I watched while seven of your citizens, men and women unknown to me or my father, men and women whose only sight of sand was a thin strip along the shores of your sea, decided his death.”

“This is the way of Annurian justice,” Kaden said. “All cases are decided by a council of seven.”

“This is the way of cowards,” Gabril said. “Your father watched this ‘trial,’ but he did not speak. When my father died, your father watched, but he did not wield the knife. When they dragged me from the hall, I swore I would see your father dead, and now I have.

“You come to me offering ‘condolences’ for my father’s murder? Then I will tell you this: I rejoice in the murder of yours. I came to see Sanlitun dead, to witness the life drained from his bones. I am only sorry I did not plant the knife in his beating heart myself.”

He considered Kaden for several heartbeats, then raised his cup, eyes intent above the rim, waiting.

Kaden said nothing. Anger flared, but he extinguished it, then crushed out the sparks of pride and shame as well. He had not come to trade barbs with the son of a dead traitor. To lose himself in a dispute with Gabril the Red was to forget the greater threat posed by Ran il Tornja and Adare, to abandon his best hope of blocking their attack. Kaden revolved Gabril’s story in his mind, searching for a crack, a fracture, a way in.

“You saw my father laid in his tomb months ago,” he said finally. “Why have you remained in this city you so clearly loathe?”

Gabril’s eyes narrowed. “My comings and goings are mine, and not yours to question.”

“Then I take back the question,” Kaden said. There was a shape to the verbal dance, but one he could discern only imperfectly. “You offered me a tale, and I will offer you one in return.”

Gabril hesitated. “Speak,” he said finally, “and I will hear your words.”

“Your father,” Kaden began, choosing his course carefully, “Gabril the Gray, hated the empire.”

The First Speaker nodded curtly. “Bedisa creates all the world’s people as equals. To set one man above the rest, to steal from the others their own voices, this is an abomination.”