Kaden had expected as much. Kiel had already explained to him the Mo’iran system of tribal rule, in which all men and women, regardless how poor, had a voice and a vote at the council fires. The Csestriim had explained the political processes of the Western Deserts efficiently and clearly, but Kaden wanted to hear Gabril himself say the words. Everything hinged on the Speaker.

“Surely,” Kaden pressed, “some people are more capable than others? Some see further and deeper into the heart of important matters.”

“And those people,” Gabril said, “speak first and last at the fires. But to silence the voices of others is cowardice and injustice both. It turns men and women to beasts.”

“The people of Annur are hardly beasts.”

“Your empire has made them docile. Compliant. Incurious. Your family turns the people into goats, then you strut among them as though you were lions, preying on the weak, devouring them.”

Gabril’s voice was tight but controlled, his fury carefully reined. Any doubt Kaden had about the Speaker’s hatred of the empire had vanished.

“Your father believed this, too,” Kaden replied, “and so he worked in secret to bring down the empire. To set in its place a—”

“Circle of Speakers,” Gabril said defiantly. “And he would have succeeded, had he not been betrayed. He was not alone in his desire to hear many voices about the fire.”

“As you said, you came to Annur to see my father brought low—”

“To see him dead,” Gabril said, cutting him off. “To see the great lion gutted.”

Kaden ignored the gibe. “But you have stayed to continue your father’s work.”

Gabril’s lips tightened. His hand dropped to one of the blades at his belt. Kaden schooled his body to stillness even as he locked gazes with the Speaker.

“You’re still here,” he said, pushing ahead with a story based in part on Kiel’s description of Mo’iran culture, partly on Morjeta’s assessment of Gabril’s activities in the city, and partly on pure hunch, “because the other aristocrats are here, all the dispossessed nobility from across the empire, in a single city. What better place to continue the work of your father? What better city in which to labor toward the destruction of Annur?”

Kaden fell silent, spread his hands, and waited.

“I had intended,” Gabril said, drawing his knife after a pause, “to allow you to depart unharmed.”

“And now?”

“Now, I will not repeat the errors of my father. I will see you dead before you can overturn the great work.” He rose to his feet, slipped the other knife from his belt, and set it on the table in front of Kaden. The steel was dark as coal save for the edge, which gleamed in the sunlight. Kaden made no move to reach for it.

“I offer you the choice your father never offered mine,” Gabril said, gesturing toward the knife. “To die a man.”