It was a feeble attack, and the Ishien commander was already rising to his feet, teeth bared, but he had dropped Tan’s naczal, and Kaden took it up, the shaft cool and smooth in his hands. The violence seemed to have jolted Triste fully awake, and she writhed in the arms of her captor like a caught wolf, screaming and scratching, biting and clawing. The Ishien was larger, but the same brutal strength with which the girl had broken Matol’s hand back in the Dead Heart seemed to have surfaced once more.

Kaden circled them, cool and distant inside the vaniate, considering his options. The naczal was deadly in Tan’s hands, but he wasn’t even sure which end to strike with. Any effort to attack Triste’s captor was just as likely to hurt her as it was to reach the Ishien. He watched, searching for an opening, seeing nothing but a flurry of arms and struggling flesh. It was no good. He wasn’t Valyn or Pyrre. The monks hadn’t possessed so much as a single sword. He’d stayed alive in Annur this long only by deflecting and dodging attacks, pitting the strength of one foe against another: Adiv’s men against the Ishien, the aristocrats against the imperial guards, the soldiers on the other side of the kenta against whoever he had shoved through. The strategy had worked, until now. On the green circle of grass, cliffs dropping into the wide blue sea on every side, there was no more dodging to be had, no more deflecting. It was time to fight, and Kaden knew nothing of fighting.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Matol said. “I’m not taking you back to rot with your teacher. I’m going to gut you right here.”

He stooped, never taking his eyes from Kaden’s face, to pick up the sword dropped by his lost companion. The other Ishien shifted, blades at the ready, faces closed. The vaniate, Kaden realized. He wasn’t the only one acting from inside the trance. They were all inside the vaniate, all except Triste, who had redoubled her thrashing.

As Matol talked, Kiel slipped to Kaden’s side.

“Cut me free,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to the rope knotting his hands.

Matol pointed his sword at Kaden. “You murdered my man to help this inhuman scum, and you’re still helping him, dancing when he says dance, like a demented puppet. I’m going to put this steel in your flesh, and I’m going to watch you squirm. You should thank me. I’m going to cut the strings.”

Kaden ignored him, turning instead to slit the rope binding Kiel’s wrists. The rough fiber parted effortlessly beneath the naczal blade. That made two of them free. Kaden hesitated, then handed the spear to Kiel.

“Can you use this?”