“I don’t give a fuck for some pauper’s wine shop,” Tevis snapped. “Or for the ’Shael-spawned figs.”

For once, Kaden found himself agreeing with the Nishan. The fig vendor and the wine merchant were irrelevant. It was the view over the square itself, and of the Shin chapterhouse in particular, that was crucial. He needed to see what was about to happen, and, more important, he needed them to see.

As he had hoped, Triste’s trip to the chapterhouse two days prior had gone without incident. She knocked on the door, delivered the note penned in Kaden’s own hand, and left. She said that she’d spent half the walk back to the Temple of Pleasure glancing over her shoulder and the other half running, but no one had accosted her, and as far as she could tell no one had followed her, either.

Kaden hoped that she was wrong.

For the twentieth time, he went over the plan. It would have been so much simpler to just fight, to attack the Ishien, then Adiv, then il Tornja and Adare, to keep attacking and attacking and attacking until his foes were dead or he was. It might even have been possible with Valyn’s Wing at his back, but Valyn had never reached the meeting point. For all Kaden knew, Valyn had never escaped Assare. He put the grief from his mind, focusing on what mattered: he had no Kettral, no way to attack, nothing. It seemed too much to hope that he might take up that nothingness and use it as a weapon.

The memory of Gabril sparring in the courtyard of his palace filled Kaden’s mind once more. He watched the motion of the robe as the soldiers circled, watched those long spears stab out, testing, probing. Gabril had offered no resistance—that was the whole point—letting the mistakes of his men lead them to their doom. Yielding, too, offered a way to victory. Of course, it could offer a quick path to death as well. Kaden took a deep breath, and turned back to the assembled aristocrats, wondering which path he had chosen.

“I’ve given Tarik Adiv your names,” he said, keeping his voice level, calm.

Toward the back of the room, Kiel raised his eyebrows. Triste gasped. A snarl of shock, then a hiss went up from the assembled nobility, dismay and disbelief twisting their faces. After a moment, appalled stares gave way to exclamation and protest, accusatory fingers and a furious clamor of voices. Kaden forced himself to wait, to allow their anger to mount, to let the tension stretch to the point of breaking. For this to work, he needed them scared.