She bristled at the talk of giving up. “These are my soldiers,” she replied stiffly. “They are marching to defend my empire. I will march with them.”

“There is little you can do when we reach the Urghul.”

“I can be there.” Adare didn’t know much about soldiering, but she’d read enough treatises on war to understand the importance of morale. “I can show them that I’m not going to hide while they lay down their lives.”

And, she added silently, I can keep an eye on you.

She’d been forced to make common cause with the kenarang, but that didn’t mean she trusted him, not even with Nira’s hidden noose of fire tight around his neck.

Csestriim. Her mind still bucked at the notion, refused to truly accept it. She’d read thousands of pages about the Csestriim—treatises penned by scholars had who pored over their ancient cities, speculation by philosophers, religious tracts, and fantastic tales—but for all the ink spilled, none of it had seemed real. The fact that il Tornja, her father’s killer, her former lover, the man who at that very moment stood at her side gazing north into the night, was thousands of years old, had worn hundreds of names and played dozens of roles through the millennia . . . it just seemed impossible.

“Adare . . .” he began.

“I’m going,” she said. “Seventy miles. Thirty-five a day . . .”

“More, with the convolutions of the shoreline.”

“I’m going.”

He nodded, as though he had anticipated her stubbornness. How much of what she’d done had he anticipated? The question made her flesh crawl. She had no answer.

“At least,” he pressed, “march with the Army of the North, with me.”

Adare hesitated. The plan, hammered out between il Tornja and Vestan Ameredad while Adare looked on, was to split the armies. Ameredad would take the Sons up the eastern shore of the lake while il Tornja and the Army of the North moved along the west. The division meant that if the Urghul did try to slide down the sides of the lake, there would be a force to meet them whichever route they chose. Better, if the two armies were able to match pace—a big if—they’d have a chance to catch Long Fist between them. The arguments made good sense, but the division worried Adare. Ideally she would have been able to keep an eye on both Ameredad and il Tornja, but then, the world wasn’t ideal.

“The Sons are mine,” she said.

Il Tornja nodded. “Understood. But you are Emperor now. Which means the legions are yours as well. It would do the men good to see you among them. Ameredad is more than capable of leading his own soldiers.”