Her face twisted with fear and revulsion, hands balled into fists at her side. For a moment she stood, a tower of mute fury and grief. Then, with a shriek, she hurled herself at Kaden. He caught her by the shoulders, but her fists rained down on him, pounding against his chest, his head. There was none of the inexplicable strength she had shown back in the Dead Heart, but the blows were powerful enough. As she sobbed, he pushed her back, forced her to stare into his eyes.

“She didn’t betray you,” he said. “Not when she gave you up the first time, and not now. She knows Adiv, she understands his power, his ruthlessness, and she’s frightened for you, frightened that if she doesn’t do something to stop me, he’ll kill us both. She tried to help me, brought me to Gabril, helped to set up the meeting with the nobles. But when Adiv appeared in the temple, she quailed. It must have seemed the game was up, and she did what people so often do—she threw her lot in with what she hoped would be the winning side. She tried to protect herself and her daughter.”

Slowly Triste’s fury subsided, replaced by a blank hopelessness. Her hands dropped, and she backed away, not looking at him, not looking at anything.

“The list of names,” Gabril said quietly.

Kaden nodded. He’d already memorized the list of the conspirators—it was a trivial matter—but he couldn’t trust that Morjeta would remember them perfectly. He’d given her barely enough time with it, but when he returned, there was no doubt—the paper had moved ever so slightly. There was a new tension around the leina’s eyes. Her knuckles were white and bloodless where she clutched her skirts.

“Both of them,” Triste said, her voice lost, flat.

“Both of them what?” Kaden asked.

“They both gave me up,” she replied. “My mother gave me to . . . him. He gave me to you.”

Kaden opened his mouth to reply, then realized he had no consolation to offer.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “They gave you up.”

46

Il Tornja tried to dissuade her.

“It’s going to be a brutal march, Adare,” he said, nodding out over the inky expanse of the lake. The sky was still full black, the stars undiminished by any hint of dawn, and yet the Army of the North and the Sons of Flame were already ranked in their marching columns, the men muttering to one another. They kept their voices low, in the way of people everywhere who speak before the sun has risen. “You can’t ride,” the kenarang went on. “The lake bottom won’t support a horse, and if you give up halfway there, Ameredad can’t spare more than a few men to guard you.”