He hurled himself forward, launching himself squarely into the nearest man’s chest. He had just a heartbeat to hear Triste shouting, Matol cursing, both sounds devoid of meaning inside the emptiness of the vaniate, both voices almost lost in the gulls screaming overhead, the waves crashing against the cliffs below. He had half a heartbeat to feel the sun, hot as a slap to the skin, a quarter heartbeat in which his foe tried to shove him off while Kaden wrapped his arms tight and drove forward with his legs, pushing, pushing, until they were both falling through the next kenta, the one that Kiel had warned him led into the Dawn Palace.

The Ishien went through first, backward, somehow keeping his balance as Kaden strove to bring him down. Even as they moved, Kaden could feel the other man shifting, adjusting, dropping his weapon and bringing his hands to bear, starting a pivot that would end with a throw. Kaden had no doubt he would be on the ground in moments, his face pressed into the dirt, but the man didn’t have moments. The hot sun winked out as they slipped through the invisible surface of the kenta into a stone chamber lit on all sides by torches, a stone chamber guarded by a dozen men, half of them with crossbows.

Silence reigned for a heartbeat. Then the first bolts leapt from the bows, outpacing the shouts of alarm that followed, the quick responses of reflex and fight moving so much faster than understanding. Several must have flown wide, but Kaden could feel at least two of the bolts punch into his adversary’s flesh, jolting them both. The man didn’t cry out, didn’t so much as groan, but Kaden could feel him hesitate, sagging as the steel lodged tight. Emotion should have come over Kaden then—relief or fear or savage joy—but there was no emotion inside the emptiness. He had accomplished one goal. Many remained. Quickly, he pulled himself free of the corpse, considered the rounded kenta chamber, then stepped back through the gate into the blinding sun.

He’d been gone just a few heartbeats, but everything had changed. The man he’d dragged through the kenta, who was now lying dead on the other side in some secret chamber beneath the Dawn Palace, had been the one guarding Kiel. Which meant that, at least for the moment, the Csestriim was free. His wrists remained bound behind him, but that hadn’t stopped him from moving to the kenta leading to the Shin chapterhouse, hadn’t prevented him from kicking Matol’s legs out from under him as he emerged.