The Providence of Fire

38

After a decade spent studying small-team tactics and training to fight in Wings of five or six, it was easy to forget just how impressive a full Annurian field army really was. As a child, Valyn had seen legions march down the Godsway of the capital, rank after perfect rank, pennants held high, spears precisely angled toward the sky. He remembered the pageantry, but had forgotten the sheer mass of men and metal, the sense that an entire city had taken up arms. As he studied the encamped Army of the North from behind a small copse of trees, however, he found himself struck anew by the sight. None of the individual soldiers could match the rankest Kettral cadet, of course, but that was missing the point; the army was never intended for the precise work of the Kettral. Where the Kettral relied on timing and precision, the army was a creature of mass and momentum, slow to start up but near impossible to stop.

What they were doing here, however, buried in the dense forests of the Thousand Lakes, Valyn still couldn’t say. The two Annurian riders had been carrying a message for the kenarang all right, but the ’Kent-kissing thing proved to be written in some sort of cipher, a long string of meaningless letters and numbers that neither Valyn, Talal, or Laith had the faintest idea how to unravel. Both Annurians claimed ignorance of the contents, and Valyn believed them-there was little point in encoding a message if the meat of it could be extracted from the bearers at the point of a knife. All the messengers could give him was a destination, Aats-Kyl, a logging town at the southern tip of Scar Lake, and so Valyn and his diminished Wing rode southwest instead of south, following miserable tracks through dense northern forests of balsam and pine to Aats-Kyl. If il Tornja was planning an assault on the steppe, he’d certainly chosen an indirect route, but then, maybe that was the point.

“Looks like the entire Army of the North,” Talal observed.

Valyn nodded, running the long lens up and down the arrow-straight rows of tents. The Annurians had pitched their camp a little outside of the town proper, on a series of fields that might have been planted with squash or beans. Whatever the crop, it was destroyed now, the labor of an entire season ground back into the mud by the boots of the army.

He tried to estimate numbers, a task made easier by the fact that the Annurians always laid out camp in a neat grid, rank upon rank of taut white legionary tents divided into four quarters. At the center of each quarter stood a complex of larger pavilions: mess hall, blacksmith, quartermaster, and medical. A quick count of tents suggested twenty thousand men; more, if they were double-bunking to drop their carry weight on the march. It was a huge force, but Valyn couldn’t help but compare it to the nomadic encampment north of the White. Where the Urghul army had flowed from one hill to the next, their api and campfires sprawling over the steppe nearly as far as the eye could see, the Annurian force fit neatly into a single row of fields.

Valyn paused, squinted through the lens at the far side of the camp. He wasn’t high enough to get a good view, but it seemed that the soldiers there were armored differently from the rest. Occasionally, as the men worked in the setting sunlight, he caught a bright flash that looked more like bronze or gold than steel. It hardly made sense. The legions were too practical to spend money on ornamentation, but then, Valyn was quickly discovering that there was a lot he never learned on the Islands. The strange armor could have been one of a hundred things, and Valyn let it go, shifting his long lens to look over the town itself.

It was larger than he’d expected, maybe a thousand houses, almost all of them log-built cabins, stables, and sheds, some with stone chimneys, some with simple holes in the roof where the smoke could escape. That smoke hung over everything, a thick haze that Valyn could feel scratching at his throat, that he could taste on the back of his tongue. He had forgotten the stench of cities and villages in his years on the Islands, where the near-constant salt wind off the ocean scoured the archipelago night and day. The men and women of Aats-Kyl, however-mostly loggers, judging from the mills at the edge of the village-seemed not to notice the reek of dung and rot, smoke and cut pine, that lay on their town like ash.

A few thin dogs scrounged scraps outside the doors, and a single sow, evidently escaped from her pen, rooted at the foot of a small well. The streets were mostly dirt, though recent rain and the passage of men and horses had turned them to mud. Valyn picked out two large buildings that looked like temples-to what god or goddess, he couldn’t say-and a proud, three-story structure of chinked logs and fieldstone, half hall, half tower, near the town’s center. Even that building, however, was overtopped by the dam, a huge embankment of earth, stone, and wood to the north of the town, at the south end of Scar Lake. Valyn turned his attention to the structure, staring through the long lens.

The sun had already settled into the serrated tops of the firs, but close to two hundred men-Annurian legionaries, judging from their uniforms-were hard at work by torchlight, digging through the earthen dam. Their commanders had them on a quick rotation, each group working no longer than two hours before a second marched in to take its place and the first returned to the camp. Valyn had been studying them since just after noon, and the pace never flagged. They showed all intentions, in fact, of working straight through the night, though with what goal in mind, he couldn’t say. There were Kettral who specialized in hydraulic analysis-diverting rivers, destroying aqueducts, poisoning groundwater-but even Valyn could tell that a gap in the dam would flood the river below. The town was high enough that it would probably survive, but he couldn’t see why anyone would take the risk.

“Something’s put an ember up their asses,” Laith observed.

It was the kind of comment the flier would have made a month earlier, but all levity was drained from the words. Instead of glancing over slyly as he spoke, he refused to meet Valyn’s eyes, keeping his gaze fixed on the town. It had been that way since their botched attack on the messengers four days earlier. Part of Valyn missed his friend’s banter, but an even larger part welcomed the new solemnity; it relieved him of having to joke, to smile, to fake happiness or humor. They had come all this way to kill the man who had killed his father, and as long as he focused on that single fact, as long as he focused on the relevant tactics and dangers, the goal would fill his mind, pushing back the memory of the men he had already murdered. It kept him going, but it didn’t leave anything left over for smiling.

“The Urghul,” Talal said. “It has to be the Urghul.”

Valyn nodded. “Long Fist was massing for something,” he agreed. “That was clear as rain.”

“Which means,” the flier observed acidly, “that our dear friend the shaman has fucked us.”

Valyn revolved the idea as he considered the army once more. At the center of the camp flew a massive banner emblazoned with the Annurian sun. Beneath the banner, a dozen soldiers were hard at work erecting a huge pavilion. Something that large could only belong to il Tornja, and Valyn panned back and forth with the lens, searching in vain for some sign of the man.

When he and his Wing rode out from the Urghul camp ten days earlier, Valyn had expected to travel all the way to Annur, to have to find the kenarang in his own palace and kill him; even for the Kettral, it had seemed a nearly impossible task. Something, however, had flushed il Tornja into the open. It made for an opportunity, but put Valyn on his guard at the same time. It also meant delaying even further his reunion with Kaden, but Kaden would have to fend for himself awhile. Clearly, events had outpaced Valyn since he quit the Islands. There were new stones on the board, and sticking obstinately to an outdated plan was a quick way to get dead.

“An Annurian army on the move could mean one of several things,” he said slowly, passing the long lens to Talal. “It certainly doesn’t exonerate il Tornja for my father’s death. For any of the deaths. In fact, it squares with what Balendin told us.”

Laith stared at him. “An Annurian army headed north means that someone to the north is misbehaving, and unless you think the actual thousand lakes have sloshed out of their beds to march south, that means the Urghul.”

“But according to Long Fist,” Talal observed quietly, “this is all a part of il Tornja’s strategy. It’s easier to justify a transition to military command if there’s a war that needs fighting. He could have murdered Sanlitun and provoked the Urghul, all with the ultimate goal of consolidating his own position.”

“Which means there’ll be more than just one death to lay at his feet,” Valyn added. “If the kenarang’s forcing a major battle just to keep his seat on the throne, he’ll be killing thousands. Tens of thousands, Urghul and Annurian alike.”

“I’m not sure I want to start laying deaths at feet,” Laith replied. “Not given what we’ve been up to recently.”

“Valyn,” Talal began, long lens fixed on one of the gates in the palisade ringing the town, where a dirt road spilled out into the fields beyond. Valyn had studied it earlier. It was an obvious attack point, and though the loggers had built squat towers to either side, an experienced siege team would force it easily. Valyn squinted. Figures on horseback were emerging from between the wooden walls.

“Who is it?” he asked, turning to Talal.

“What does your sister look like?” the leach asked.

Valyn shook his head. “I don’t know. Tall. Thin. I haven’t seen her in ten years. I was hoping to find a way to talk to her in Annur.…”

“You might get the chance a little early,” Talal said, passing the lens back to Valyn and gesturing toward the valley. “I can’t be certain, but that sure looks like a woman with burning eyes.”

Valyn stared at the leach, then reached over for the lens. There were half a dozen riders, followed by a dozen or so men on foot. It took him a moment to find the range and focus, but when he finally managed it, a figure on horseback leapt into view. She sat her horse proudly, back straight as a spear, but it was clear within heartbeats that she wasn’t really comfortable on her mount; she rode the poor creature as though it were a palanquin, not swaying at all to accommodate the beast’s gait, sitting hard and low in her saddle, as though her legs could no longer hold her up.

Adare.

Despite the long years, he recognized his sister at a glance. Even without Intarra’s eyes, he would have known her. She was older, of course, a woman instead of a girl, but she had the same lean build, the same angularity to her features, the same honey-pale skin-shades lighter than either Valyn’s or Kaden’s, except … He squinted through the lens. It was hard to be certain at the distance, but it looked as though a delicate tattoo ran down one side of her face, a few graceful lines that seemed to glow in the sunlight, starting beneath her hair and swirling down her neck into her robes.

He shifted the lens to consider those robes more fully. His sister finally seemed to have shed the dresses she spent her childhood cursing. The golden cloth of her clothing was rich enough for any princess’s gown, but cut in the austere style of an imperial minister, trimmed at the collars and shoulders with black. The shifting fashions of the Dawn Palace, the subtle social signaling of wardrobe, had never much interested Valyn, but Adare’s clothes spoke of authority, even command. That, and the armed men escorting her.

“What in Ananshael’s sweet name,” he muttered, lowering the long lens, “is Adare doing with an army on the march?”

“Does it matter?” Laith asked. “This is what we wanted, right? She can tell us what’s going on. Forget the old plan. We go to her first, see if Long Fist’s been selling us shit and calling it fruit. Then, if it still comes to taking down the regent, it might help to have a little royalty on our side.”

“Valyn is royalty as well,” Talal pointed out.

Laith snorted. “Valyn’s a traitor, same as the two of us.”

* * *

Watching Adare from the tree line through a long lens was one thing; getting close enough to her to talk quite another. A young soldier on horseback met Valyn’s sister on the road, bowed, face pressed against the pommel of his saddle, straightened up when she waved a hand, talked with her a moment, then bowed again before leading her forward.

Valyn glanced over at the other riders. Just behind his sister rode two soldiers, one, a young warrior with a bronze helm and a stern face that might have been chipped from marble, the other a grizzled Aedolian, hand on the pommel of his broadblade, eyes scanning the surrounding terrain. At Adare’s side rode an old woman and an even older man, both gray-haired and stooped in the shoulders. Valyn didn’t recognize any of them, but they were making straight for the tents of the army encampment.

“Bunking with the troops,” Talal observed. “Good for morale.”

“Not exactly ‘with the troops,’” Laith noted after a pause.

Adare was threading her way through the tents, aiming for the large pavilion at the very center. Her pavilion, Valyn realized, an uneasiness settling in his gut. Not the kenarang’s.

“Shit,” he muttered. “It would have been easier to get at her in town.”

“We’re not going to be fighting our way into the middle of an encamped Annurian field army,” Talal agreed.

Valyn chewed on the problem as Adare approached her pavilion, pointed at something, then kicked her horse into motion once more. The soldiers bowed as she passed, and Adare nodded back, dismounting before a different tent, one half the size of her own, but still large compared with all the rest. Even in the gathering dark, Valyn could see just fine, but seeing the camp didn’t make it any easier to penetrate. He could watch Adare all he wanted; what he needed was to get close enough to talk.

“Who wants to play dress-up?” Laith asked. “I figure a cook could get into her tent. Or a cleaning slave. Or a whore.”

Valyn shook his head. “You don’t know the Aedolians,” he replied. “They won’t just wave through anyone with a porcelain platter. Those bastards check everyone who enters. Even if I ditch my swords, I’m not sure I’ll pass as a cook. Or a whore.”

“If we had a bird,” Laith observed tartly, “you could just drop through the ’Kent-kissing roof.”

“We don’t have a bird,” Valyn replied.

“Getting into the camp itself shouldn’t be hard,” Talal said. “We’ve got the armor we stripped off that messenger.”

Valyn considered the idea for a moment. It was bold, but then, most good plans were bold. He had an Annurian horse, Annurian armor, Annurian accent. On the other hand, his burned-out eyes were immediately recognizable. There was no way to know how much communication had taken place between il Tornja and the Eyrie, no way to know what lies the kenarang had fed his sister, no way to know whether or not the guards around Adare’s tent even knew what he looked like. There were scores of questions and precious few answers.

“I could get past the other pickets easily enough,” Valyn said slowly. “It’s dark, and men at those posts are just normal legionaries.” He shook his head. “The Aedolians are the problem. If il Tornja is half the strategist everyone says, he’ll be guarding against us, which means the Aedolians will be guarding against us. They’ll know what I look like, which means they’ll know what you look like, too.”

“I’ll tell you,” Laith grumbled, “I’m getting pretty sick of the fucking Aedolian Guard. If they’re not off in the ’Shael-spawned mountains trying to murder the Emperor, they’re swarming all over the two people on this continent that we need to get close to.” He turned to glare at Valyn, as though the whole thing were his fault. “When do they go away? Or do they wipe your ass every time you take a shit?”

Valyn was about to snap out a sharp retort when he paused. “No,” he replied after a moment, raising the long lens to his eye once more, “they don’t.”

“Don’t go away?”

“Don’t wipe your ass. At least, they didn’t when I was a kid. Back in the Dawn Palace they would station themselves outside the privy chamber. They never came in.”

Talal pursed his lips. “I see where you’re headed with this, but we’re not in the Dawn Palace. Whatever latrine Adare uses will be ringed with Aedolians, same as her tent. You’ll have as much trouble getting into one as the other.”

“The difference is,” Valyn said, pointing to the soldiers below who had begun digging a hole a dozen paces from Adare’s tent, “that I’m not going to have to get inside. I’m going to start inside.”

* * *

By the time Valyn had threaded his way past the outer sentries, picketed his horse with the other animals, then talked his way through the inner guard, he was sweating, despite the cool night breeze. Fortunately, just about everyone in the camp looked half dead on their feet-they were resting now, but evidently il Tornja had been pushing them even harder than Valyn realized-and the guardsmen waved him through with little more than a glance at his Annurian armor and a few cursory questions. It seemed a crude sort of vigilance, but effective enough in its rough way. Even after being waved through, Valyn had to remind himself to walk slowly, to emulate the weary plodding of the other legionaries, to look at the muddied ground before him instead of glancing over his shoulder.

They’re exhausted, he reminded himself, and you’re just one more soldier among thousands. And it’s night.

He offered up a small prayer of thanks to Hull for the darkness. Though he could see quite clearly, the night hid his face and his eyes from the Annurians. Now that he was past the picket, no one was likely to challenge him unless he approached the Aedolians around Adare’s pavilion. By the time he reached her tent, he had grown almost accustomed to his near-invisibility, and paused for a moment outside the pools of light cast by the torches to size up her guard.

Had he been optimistic enough to hope that the Aedolians might slacken their vigilance while surrounded by more than twenty legions, he would have been disappointed. A pair of men in full plate flanked the doorway while eight more surrounded the tent, two at each corner, back to back, facing out into the night: a double diamond. The position was simple, but nearly impenetrable-double sight lines, redundant postings, physical contact between pairs.… There were ways to break it, and Valyn had studied them, but each required multiple attackers and ranged weapons. With his full Wing he could probably get inside, but the odds of emerging again were pretty long. And il Tornja’s pavilion was likely to be the same. The thought made his palms start sweating all over again, and with an effort he shoved it aside.

Do what you came to do, he reminded himself. The kenarang’s time will come.

He stepped away from the torchlight and walked back into the chaos of the camp, stealing glances at the soldiers as he passed. He recognized insignia from the Thirty-third Legion, the Fourth, and the Twelfth, plus a few he couldn’t quite recall. The composition of a field army tended to be somewhat fluid. Legions rotated in and out, and the individual men comprising the Army of the North would vary considerably over the course of a decade or so.

He circled around Adare’s latrine to approach from the opposite direction. Standard legion procedure placed the long lines of latrines on the camp’s perimeter, but then, standard legion procedure didn’t account for a princess in the midst of so many military men. Adare’s presence had forced the camp commander to improvise on the established pattern, setting aside a small patch of earth for her personal use, surrounding it with a rough tent, and conscripting two weary soldiers from their normal duties to dig a deep hole for his sister’s safety and comfort.

It was the weariness of the men that Valyn was counting on as he approached.

“All right, assholes,” he said, stepping inside the canvas flap, “go eat your fucking chow.”

The nearest legionary, a young man with a wine-stain birthmark across half his face, looked up with a scowl.

“And just who in the fuck are you?”

Valyn snorted. “You need a formal introduction? If you want to keep digging, by all means.…” He gestured toward the hole, then turned toward the tent’s entrance.

“Hold up, friend,” called the other. He was older than the first, and leaned on his shovel. The meager lamplight flickered off his sunburned scalp. “What’ya want?”

Valyn turned back, raised an eyebrow. “What I want is a nice sweet girl to suck my cock as I fall into a deep sleep, but what I get is Captain Donavic, may Ananshael bugger him bloody, sending me over here to spell you two lucky horsefuckers.”

“Who’s Captain Donavic?” demanded the younger man.

“Who fucking cares, Hellem?” said the older, climbing out of the hole and scrubbing ineffectually at the dirt on his clothes with a weary hand. “This fella here’s good enough to offer to finish our work.…”

“Hardly our ’Kent-kissing work,” the younger soldier spat. “If the Sons of Fucking Flame are so excited about the new Emperor, why aren’t they digging her latrine?”

Valyn clamped down on his shock, even as the older man made a shhing motion with his hand.

“She’s not their Emperor, Hellem. She is the Emperor. One of the captains hears you talking like this, you’ll be lucky if you spend a week in the stocks.”

Hellem shook his head, but lowered his voice. “Ain’t right,” he spat. “I’d follow the kenarang straight up Ananshael’s arsehole, but this thing, the way he’s going along with her … It ain’t right.”

“I don’t recall them asking us,” the older soldier said. “We signed on to march and to fight, not to do the figuring about politics and palaces. I’ll tell you what we do: we obey. If the general says double-time, we kick it in the ass, and if he says dig a latrine, we dig a latrine.” He paused wearily, glancing up at Valyn. “Unless, of course, there’s someone else good enough to finish the job for us.”

“Good enough?” Valyn demanded, trying to keep up the ruse even as he struggled to make sense of what he’d heard. “I’d let you bastards dig till the sun came up, I had my way, but then fucking Donavic would have me in the stocks all night, which is even worse than pushing a shovel so her royal majesty can shit her royal little shits in her own royal little hole.”

The young soldier shrugged, then tossed his shovel onto the earth beside the hole. “You coulda come earlier,” he grumbled, then pushed past Valyn and out the tent flap.

“What spiny rodent crawled up his asshole and died?” Valyn asked the remaining legionary as the canvas fell back into place.

“Don’t mind him,” the man replied, handing Valyn his own shovel. “Hellem just joined up. Thought the legions were all about big swords and doe-eyed girls in every town.…” He trailed off as he got a good look at Valyn’s eyes for the first time.

Valyn shifted his grip on the shovel. He didn’t want to hurt the old soldier, but one shout and the entire camp would be on him. Worse, if he failed here, it would mean all the earlier deaths-Blackfeather Finn, the messengers he’d killed-would be pointless, useless. It was a perverse sort of logic that argued for hurting the living in the name of the dead, but unless he was willing to give himself up, there was no way around it. With the flat of the shovel he could knock the man unconscious without killing him. Valyn planted his feet.

“Something happen to your eyes?” the man asked finally. There was curiosity in the words, but no nervousness. Valyn inhaled slowly; the air inside the tent was close, still, rich with freshly turned earth, but there was no stink of fear.

He relaxed slightly.

“Just the way Bedisa made ’em,” he replied, forcing a shrug. “By day they’re just brown, but they look darker at night.”

The soldier considered him a moment longer, then clapped him on the shoulder. “None of my business. I thank you for the relief in here.” He gestured toward the hole. “Truth is, there’s not much left to dig-maybe another few feet. After that, it’s just a matter of making it pretty.”

“Never heard of a pretty latrine,” Valyn said, turning toward the hole.

“I never heard of a princess coming along on a forced march,” the soldier replied. “Thanks again, friend.”

“Don’t thank me,” Valyn said. “Just save my ass if you see some Urghul trying to stick me with a spear.”

The soldier was still chuckling as the canvas flap fell shut behind him.

Emperor, Valyn thought grimly. He’d expected to travel all the way to Annur, to find il Tornja on the Unhewn Throne and Adare shoved to the side, baffled and grief-stricken, provided she was still alive. Clearly he had underestimated his sister. Here she was in the middle of an army on the march, evidently leading that army, not to mention an entirely separate contingent of the Sons of Flame. That was one mystery solved, at least, though how Adare had come to command the loyalty of the religious order, he had no idea. According to Long Fist, she had murdered their Chief Priest.

He blew out a long, slow breath. He had hoped to find a willing if frightened ally in Adare. Instead, she had the full support of the Intarrans and Ran il Tornja both. She wasn’t weeping for their father; she had replaced him. There was no way to be sure what it all meant, but he’d be shipped to ’Shael if it looked good.

With an effort, Valyn turned his attention to the task before him. The latrine had to look right, or Adare would refuse it, and so for the next hour he dug furiously, tamping down the earth around the hole, piling the stones neatly to the side, then arranging the elaborate wooden seat over the hole. The seat weighed half as much as Valyn himself. It was a ludicrous thing to bring on a campaign, and yet there it was, a concession to the tenderness of Adare’s royal behind.

As he settled it in place, it occurred to him just how different their two experiences of the world must have been. While Valyn and Kaden had followed divergent paths, both of them had been trained, tested, and tempered by people and institutions utterly indifferent to their birth. Adare, on the other hand, quite obviously lived the pampered life of Annurian nobility. The thought kindled an unexpected anger inside him-he had seen his friends murdered, been forced, himself, to murder and treachery, all in service of the empire, all to avenge his father and protect his brother. Meanwhile, what had Adare been doing? Lounging in a private pavilion while footsore soldiers dug her privy.

He’d expected her to help change the newly imposed order, and suddenly it turned out that she was the newly imposed fucking order. It was even possible, he realized, a chill prickling his skin, that she’d been a part of the original plot. The sister he remembered from growing up hadn’t seemed the scheming, murderous sort, but then, change had come for them all.

He shoved aside his suspicions and misgivings. There was no point speculating when he’d have the information that he needed within a few hours. He stowed the shovel at the base of one of the tent walls, then checked over the space a final time. He couldn’t be sure exactly how it was supposed to look, but there weren’t too many moving pieces to arrange. If he’d missed a detail, the blame would land on the soldiers he had relieved.

He nodded to himself, then stood on the wooden seat, reached up with his belt knife, and cut a slit in the canvas overhead. Careful not to tear the cloth further, he reached through, took hold of the tent’s center pole, and slipped out through the roof into the night. The canvas sagged a bit, but it was guyed out tightly, and as long as he distributed his weight it seemed willing to hold him up. He checked over his shoulder. The roof of the tent obscured him from the paths immediately to the sides. He could see soldiers going about their business farther out, but the night was dark, he wore his blacks, and, as he looked over the camp, it began to rain, light at first, then heavy. It would make for cold, miserable waiting, but it knocked visibility down to a few paces at best-a good trade. He tucked his chin in his blacks and waited.

The Aedolians came first, lanterns held before them, the light shining off their wet, gleaming armor. It was the type of error the Kettral were trained to exploit: holding the lantern high meant that the flame would blot any night vision the guardsmen had managed to preserve. In an attempt to illuminate the shadows, they were destroying any ability they had to see what those shadows held. Valyn lay still, watching them approach, then looking down into the tent as they stepped inside, covering the rest of the hole with his body to avoid any leakage.

One guard glanced in the privy while the other prodded the shovel where it lay beneath the canvas walls.

“Left their tools,” he observed.

The other shrugged. “Makes no difference to me.”

Neither noticed Valyn. Typical Aedolians, Valyn thought. They could spend all night standing at attention in the driving rain outside Adare’s tent, but when checking the privy neither of them thought to look up. After surveying the tiny space one last time, both men exited, presumably to take up their guard. Valyn was left alone with the drumming of the cold rain on the canvas.

It must have been near midnight when Adare finally stepped into the tent, cursing under her breath as she pushed back the sodden canvas, then wringing the rain from her hair. Valyn himself was soaked to the skin and shivering, but he forced the discomfort out of his mind, focusing instead on his sister.

She was both taller and thinner than she had appeared through the long lens, and up close Valyn could see the exhaustion scrawled across her face. She tried ineffectually to brush off her golden robe, then gave up with an exasperated sigh, letting the rain puddle on the floor as she stripped it off. To Valyn’s surprise, she was wearing legion wool and leather beneath-higher quality, to be sure, than what was issued to the soldiers, but far more practical than the dress and jewels he had expected.

“Stubborn, ’Kent-kissing fools,” she muttered, shaking her head and fumbling with the button on her breeches as she crossed to the privy, evidently still incensed by an earlier conversation. “We’ll have the local population at our throats before we even get to the Urghul.…”

Valyn shifted on the canvas slowly, sliding his head and shoulders through the hole.

Water sluiced through as he changed position, splattering the inside of the tent. Adare looked up, scowl on her face, and Valyn dropped, flipping in midair to land on his feet. She had just opened her mouth to scream when he clamped an arm across her throat, cutting off the cry and air alike. She started to thrash, but he buckled her legs with a quick knee and she folded to the damp dirt.

“I’m Valyn,” he hissed into her ear. The rain on the canvas roof was loud enough to drown out anything but a shout, but he wasn’t taking any chances. “Adare, it’s Valyn. Your brother.”

She went still. Then, just as he was about to relax his grip, she lunged forward, clawing at his arm with renewed fury. Grimly, he tightened his grip.

“I’ll knock you out if I have to,” he said. “Stop struggling. I’m not here to hurt you. I need to talk.”

Once again her muscles went slack.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he went on. “I needed to talk to you, and this was the only way.”

He eased up a little more. This time she didn’t try to break free.

“What about riding into the camp and asking for me?” she demanded. Her voice was low, but rough with both fear and anger. “The Kettral teach you how to ask?”

“Not really, no. Besides, il Tornja controls the camp. I wouldn’t make it ten paces inside the perimeter before someone clapped me in irons.”

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“No, I don’t. Not about this army, or the fact that you’re marching at the head of it. That’s why I came to you. Now, can I let you go? If I wanted to hurt you, you’d be hurt.”

It came out more roughly than he’d intended, but Adare hesitated, then nodded.

Valyn loosed his grip and she yanked free, rounding on him, eyes blazing. He could almost feel the heat. Adare opened her mouth as though to scream, and he tensed, ready to seize her once more. When she spoke, however, her voice was quiet but wire-tight.

“So you really have turned traitor. I didn’t want to believe it.”

He shook his head wearily. “That’s what they told you. It’s not true.”

“Really?” She cocked her head to one side. “Why don’t you tell me the truth?”

Valyn glanced toward the door of the tent. He had no idea how much time Adare habitually spent in the privy, but sooner or later the Aedolians outside would start to wonder. Probably sooner.

“We don’t have time,” he said. “I escaped the Islands to go after Kaden.”

“To kill him.”

“To protect him. Micijah Ut and Tarik Adiv were already there. They’d murdered the monks and were hours away from doing the same to Kaden.”

“And you saved him.”

He nodded.

Adare spread her hands. “So where is he?”

“Elsewhere,” Valyn replied. “Trying to figure out the same thing I am: who killed our father.” He watched her reaction, trying to read her face as she licked her lips, glanced toward the door, then locked eyes with him once more. He could smell her raw nerves, but also something else, something deeper. Defiance? Resolve?

“Ran il Tornja,” she said finally. “The kenarang killed Father.”

His heart lunged in his chest like a dumb beast. Fury ached in his veins. In the days since Balendin first named il Tornja a murderer, Valyn had felt the rage growing like a sick plant inside him, but his doubt had checked that rage, stunted it. It was impossible to trust the leach. Balendin was a liar. Valyn had repeated the words over and over to himself as they crossed the steppe, then the river, then the deep forests around the Thousand Lakes. Balendin lies. Wait until you know the full truth. Balendin lies.

And now, like a blade to the face, here was the truth. For a moment he stood motionless, awash in the full flood of his anger, ready, almost, to burst from the tent, cut down the Aedolians, and go hunting for the kenarang in the midst of the army itself. Slowly, slowly, he brought himself under control. He would kill Ran il Tornja, but he needed more information to do it right, to be sure.

“So,” he said slowly, voice ragged, “Long Fist and Balendin weren’t lying after all.” He shook his head. “What are you doing here, with him? What is the whole ’Shael-spawned Army of the North doing here? Why are people calling you Emperor?”

She ignored the questions. “You were with Long Fist?”

“He’s the one that warned me about il Tornja. I had to hear it from the fucking Urghul.”

“No,” Adare said, shaking her head. “No, you’ve got it wrong. The situation is more complicated than you realize.”

“What’s to get wrong?” Valyn demanded. “The kenarang murdered our father. A military coup. Seems pretty straightforward to me.”

“Ran killed him,” Adare snapped, “because Sanlitun was killing the empire, or letting it die, at any rate. Your friend Long Fist has been plotting an invasion and now he’s invading. That’s why the army is here.” She glared at him. “Or didn’t he tell you that part when you were chatting over a cup of ta?”

Valyn opened his mouth to retort, then stopped himself. He had expected Adare to either confirm or dispute Long Fist’s claim; the idea that she might do both at the same time had not occurred to him. His mind traveled back to that enormous camp north of the White River, to the tens of thousands of horsemen massed within miles of the Annurian border. The shaman had claimed it was a defensive force, but he could have lied.

“Even if Long Fist is attacking,” he said slowly, “how does an Urghul threat justify treason and murder?”

“Sweet Intarra’s light, Valyn,” Adare spat, “you think I didn’t struggle with that question? You think it hasn’t been at me like a knife stuck in my ribs every ’Kent-kissing day?” Her body was rigid, almost trembling. She looked like she might lash out at him or start sobbing. Maybe both. “I loved our father, loved him more than you ever did, off playing soldier on your tropical islands. I’m the one who talked to him about taxation, military levies, canal rights, the price of a fucking bushel of rice. I’m the one who actually knew him. I’m the one who had to see him put in the ’Kent-kissing ground, and now you presume to arrive in the middle of the night, a knife to my back, and lecture me about our father, about what we owe to his memory.” Her teeth were bare, as though she were going to rip out his throat, but her voice, when she spoke again, was quiet, tight as a bowstring. “Il Tornja tried to convince our father of the danger, but he failed. Father was a good emperor in peacetime. He was a great emperor, but he underestimated the military threat.”

“It was the kenarang’s job to demonstrate that threat, to guard against it.”

Adare shook her head. “Father wouldn’t let him. He said any troop movement to the north was provocation.” She stabbed a finger into his chest. “Look, the murder of the Emperor is treason. I will grieve for him the rest of my life, more than you will ever fucking understand, but our father was only one man, Valyn. How many more people will die if Annur falls to the Urghul? Your horse-riding friends are probably across the river right now, hammering south through the Lakeland. That territory is basically undefended because our father left it undefended.”

“It’s still a military coup,” Valyn replied. “There were other ways to handle the problem. Ways that didn’t involve murder and treason. Il Tornja went after me, too, Adare. He went after Kaden. It wasn’t just about protecting Annur-he’s trying to annihilate the entire Malkeenian line.” He paused, eyeing her. “Except for you, evidently.”

Adare hesitated, face twisted with confusion. For the first time, Valyn smelled doubt on her, heavy as forest rot after a week of rain. “That wasn’t him,” she said finally. “He told me he didn’t go after the two of you.”

“Oh, he told you. It must be the truth. Somehow the First Shield of the Aedolian Guard and the Mizran Councillor crossed half of Vash with a contingent of soldiers, all with the express purpose of murdering the new emperor, and somehow the kenarang-regent, the man who already admitted to murdering the last emperor, had nothing to do with it?”

Adare took a deep breath, then straightened her spine. “Even if he did, it doesn’t matter.”

Valyn gaped. “It doesn’t matter? Tell me how it doesn’t fucking matter, Adare! When men come for you in the night, when people paid by the kenarang kill people you love to get at you, when they tear apart your entire world, why don’t you tell me then how it doesn’t matter.”

“I didn’t mean-”

He cut her off. “I know what you mean: it’s best for Annur; we need the kenarang; sacrifice for the greater good.” He spat into the packed dirt. “Fuck that. Fuck that. Il Tornja might be telling the truth and he might be lying. I don’t give a shit. He murdered our father. He murdered Ha Lin-indirectly, but he killed her all the same-”

“Ha Lin?” she asked.

“Never mind,” Valyn said grimly, reining in his rage. “He’s guilty. And I’m going to see him dead.”

Adare’s lips tightened. “You can’t.”

“Because of what?” Valyn demanded. “Because of this?” He waved a hand at the wide camp beyond the walls of the tent. “I spent ten years, Adare, ten years learning to get past this. Here I am, talking to you, right now. I can get to il Tornja. I can get to him, and I can put a knife into his heart.”

“I don’t mean the army,” she said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he deserves to die, but you can’t do it now. Maybe you haven’t been paying attention, but there is a battle coming, and whatever Long Fist tells you, it is not a fight Annur went looking for. He is not just another tribal chief, Valyn. For the first time ever the Urghul are united, united and right on our border. Long Fist did that. He systematically crushed everyone who opposed him, and a lot of Urghul opposed him, at least at first. He is coming, bringing with him his blood worship, his human sacrifice … he is coming with close to a million warriors, and someone needs to stop him.”

She stared at him, panting. Rain hammered at the roof of the tent.

“Whatever il Tornja has done,” she continued finally, “the man is a genius, beyond brilliant. The best general in ten generations. The soldiers will follow him anywhere, do anything for him.” She shook her head. “You think I’d leave him alive if he was just another power-hungry soldier? He murdered our father, Valyn, cut him down in cold blood. When I thought that Uinian was responsible, I saw the bastard burned to char in his own temple, and I would do it again, but we can’t. The Urghul are here. They have the numbers. They have the horses. They have the jump on us, and all we have is Ran il Tornja. I hate him, Valyn. Only the Lady of Light knows how much I hate him, but we need him. If we don’t have him, the Urghul win.”

Valyn stared. Whatever else she had done, Adare clearly believed what she was saying. Unfortunately, people held mistaken beliefs all the time. “There are other generals,” he said softly, trying to make her understand.

“Not like him,” Adare replied, voice hardening. She gestured beyond the walls of the tent. “Did you see the dam, what he’s doing with the dam?”

Valyn shook his head. “I don’t give a shit what he’s doing with the ’Kent-kissing dam.…”

“And that,” she said, “is why we need him. Because people like you and me don’t think the way he does. He’s been leading men, fighting battles for…” She hesitated, something that might have been fear passing across her face. “… a long time, Valyn. I can’t let you kill him. After we’ve stopped the Urghul, all right, but not before. Not now.”

“You can’t stop me, Adare.”

She nodded. “I can shout.”

“I can kill you.”

“You’re really threatening to murder your own unarmed sister?”

“I’m going to see this through.”

Adare blanched at something in his expression, but she held her ground. “If you kill me, you’ll fail. The Aedolians will find my body, they’ll know it was you, and they’ll double the guard around the kenarang. Triple it.”

Valyn hesitated. She had him there. Despite his bold declarations, getting to il Tornja was already going to be nearly impossible. Without the element of surprise, he’d have no chance.

“Listen,” Adare said, setting a hand on his arm for the first time. “Just wait. Let the army get north. Let us fight the battle with il Tornja. Then I’ll help you take him down.”

“Just a few minutes ago,” Valyn said, narrowing his eyes, “you were defending the man.”

“Just a few minutes ago,” Adare replied evenly, “I didn’t know the full depth of his treachery, didn’t know that he’d come after you and Kaden. I love Annur, but I loved our father, too. We need the kenarang now. We can use him. But we won’t always need him.”

Valyn weighed the words. He hadn’t expected his sister to be so ruthless and hardheaded, but her argument made sense, especially if Long Fist really was bringing that army over the Black. Killing the general would destroy morale, and putting an untested commander in charge could mean the difference between victory and defeat. He thought back to Long Fist, to the tracery of scar covering the shaman’s flesh, to the predatory look in his eye. Ran il Tornja wasn’t the only killer that needed watching, that much was sure. So much the better if the two destroyed each other.

“Where is he hoping to fight them?”

“The north end of the lake,” Adare said. “A small town called Andt-Kyl. That’s where the Urghul intend to cross the Black. Il Tornja says it’s the last chance to bottle them up before they get into the empire.”

Valyn shook his head. “You’ll never get there in time. It’s all bog and balsams out there. Nothing even resembling a road.”

“The kenarang knows what he’s doing, Valyn,” Adare said.

Valyn nodded slowly. “All right then. Andt-Kyl. He fights in Andt-Kyl, and when the fighting is over, he dies there.”

“You don’t need to go north,” Adare said. “You could wait here. Kill him when the army comes back south.”

Valyn shook his head. “No. Battles are baffling things. Units end up dead or out of place. People get lost. The best chance to take him down will be right after, in all the confusion.”

The insane thing was that the plan could actually work. The chaos just following the fight would give him as good a chance as any. Certainly it would be easier than killing him in the center of his own meticulously staked-out camp.

“Just make sure you wait for the end of the battle,” Adare insisted.

Valyn nodded. A few more days. Just a few more days until he put a blade in the kenarang’s back. He could wait a few more days.

He stepped up on the privy, ready to climb back through the canvas, then paused, turning to face Adare. Her eyes blazed.

“One more thing,” he said. “Kaden isn’t dead. The throne is his. And when this is all over, you’re going to give it back.”