Had he been optimistic enough to hope that the Aedolians might slacken their vigilance while surrounded by more than twenty legions, he would have been disappointed. A pair of men in full plate flanked the doorway while eight more surrounded the tent, two at each corner, back to back, facing out into the night: a double diamond. The position was simple, but nearly impenetrable—double sight lines, redundant postings, physical contact between pairs. . . . There were ways to break it, and Valyn had studied them, but each required multiple attackers and ranged weapons. With his full Wing he could probably get inside, but the odds of emerging again were pretty long. And il Tornja’s pavilion was likely to be the same. The thought made his palms start sweating all over again, and with an effort he shoved it aside.

Do what you came to do, he reminded himself. The kenarang’s time will come.

He stepped away from the torchlight and walked back into the chaos of the camp, stealing glances at the soldiers as he passed. He recognized insignia from the Thirty-third Legion, the Fourth, and the Twelfth, plus a few he couldn’t quite recall. The composition of a field army tended to be somewhat fluid. Legions rotated in and out, and the individual men comprising the Army of the North would vary considerably over the course of a decade or so.

He circled around Adare’s latrine to approach from the opposite direction. Standard legion procedure placed the long lines of latrines on the camp’s perimeter, but then, standard legion procedure didn’t account for a princess in the midst of so many military men. Adare’s presence had forced the camp commander to improvise on the established pattern, setting aside a small patch of earth for her personal use, surrounding it with a rough tent, and conscripting two weary soldiers from their normal duties to dig a deep hole for his sister’s safety and comfort.

It was the weariness of the men that Valyn was counting on as he approached.

“All right, assholes,” he said, stepping inside the canvas flap, “go eat your fucking chow.”

The nearest legionary, a young man with a wine-stain birthmark across half his face, looked up with a scowl.

“And just who in the fuck are you?”

Valyn snorted. “You need a formal introduction? If you want to keep digging, by all means. . . .” He gestured toward the hole, then turned toward the tent’s entrance.

“Hold up, friend,” called the other. He was older than the first, and leaned on his shovel. The meager lamplight flickered off his sunburned scalp. “What’ya want?”

Valyn turned back, raised an eyebrow. “What I want is a nice sweet girl to suck my cock as I fall into a deep sleep, but what I get is Captain Donavic, may Ananshael bugger him bloody, sending me over here to spell you two lucky horsefuckers.”

“Who’s Captain Donavic?” demanded the younger man.