The Csestriim took it, sighted down the shaft. “It has been many centuries,” he said, spinning the blade in a smooth, practiced motion, “but the memory is strong.”

Kiel slid in front of Kaden, blocking Matol’s advance, and suddenly the odds didn’t look so long. Matol’s jaw tightened. Evidently his reading of the scene mirrored Kaden’s own.

“Billick,” he said, turning to one of the remaining soldiers. “Get the others. They’re just beyond the Cavaltin gate. You can be back in twenty breaths.”

Kaden had no idea where Cavaltin was, or which kenta led to it, but it hardly mattered. Somewhere, somewhere close, more Ishien waited, maybe dozens more, heavily armed and ready. When they came, there would be no escape. It was just a fact, true as the sky above them was true. Billick charged across the green sward, passed through the kenta, then vanished. Triste chose that moment to twist in her captor’s grasp, sink her teeth into his collar, and then, as he roared and jerked back, to wrench free.

Matol cursed, shook his head, then spat into the grass. Triste’s panicked escape had thrown her almost directly into the man’s path, and he stepped forward, raised his sword, then hacked down in a vicious arc. Kaden could only watch as the sword fell toward her head, but Kiel was quicker, sliding the naczal into the gap, deflecting Matol’s blow into the dull earth. The Csestriim withdrew the spear, preparing another thrust, but before he could move, Triste staggered to her feet. Kaden expected her to flee, to hurl herself away from the blades, but instead she lunged forward into Matol, her face drawn with fear and fury, eyes wide as suns, hands clutching around his back, pulling him close even as she drove them both back.

“Get off me, you soulless whore,” Matol spat. He twisted, but couldn’t wrench free. With his sword arm trapped against his side, he couldn’t bring the blade to bear.

“It is you,” Triste murmured, “who abandoned your soul.”

No, Kaden realized. That isn’t Triste. The frightened child who had sobbed in his pavilion back in Ashk’lan was gone, replaced by the woman who had shattered Matol’s wrist weeks earlier. The Ishien was older than her, taller and stronger, but Triste was bearing him up and back somehow, forcing him to give ground, her muscles bent to the task, tendons straining in her legs, the backs of her knees, her neck. Strangely, she was smiling, full lips parted with the effort of breath.

“I warned you,” she said, voice lapidary as polished stone, “that this day would come.”