Pyrre was nodding. “How far north of the White do you think we need to fly to avoid these unsavory friends of yours?”
Kaden shook his head slowly, something hardening inside him. He didn’t know what was going on in Annur, and neither did anyone else. It was tempting to return, to believe that the people would hail his arrival, but that was the dream and the delusion. His foes had killed his father, had very nearly destroyed his entire family, and the only certainty remaining was that someone was hunting him, guessing at his movements, tracking.
He thought back to the early spring, to the long cold day he had spent tracking a lost goat through the peaks, inhabiting its mind, feeling for its actions, following its decisions until he ran it down. I will not be that goat; I will not be hunted. If the Shin had taught him anything, it was patience.
“The rest of you should fly west. Go to Annur to try to see what’s happening there as quickly as possible.”
“The rest of you?” Pyrre asked with a raised eyebrow.
Kaden took a deep breath. “I am going to visit the Ishien. Tan and I both.”
The older monk’s face hardened, but it was Valyn who spoke.
“And just who in ’Shael’s name are the fucking Ishien?”
“A branch of the Shin,” Kaden replied. “One that studies the Csestriim. One that hunts the Csestriim. If the Csestriim are involved in this, they might know something.”
“No,” Tan said finally. “The Ishien and the Shin parted ways long ago. You are expecting quiet monks and hours of contemplation, but the Ishien are a harder order. A more dangerous order.”
“More dangerous than the ak’hanath?” Kaden asked. “More dangerous than a contingent of Aedolian Guards come to kill me in my sleep?” He paused. “More dangerous than the Csestriim?”
“I don’t know shit about the Ishien,” Valyn interjected, “but I’m not letting you wander off without protection. You’re tougher than I’d expected, but you still need my Wing for cover.”
Tan shook his head. “You do not know what you ask for.”
“I am not asking,” Kaden replied, stiffening his voice. “Valyn, I need your Wing back in the capital and soon, to sort out what happened there before the trail goes cold.”
“Then we’ll go visit the Ishien first, and then we’ll all go to the capital.”
Kaden opened his mouth to try to explain it once more, then closed it. Perhaps he could convince his umial and the others, and perhaps he could not—that was beside the point. He never asked for his eyes, but they burned just the same.
“Tan and I are going,” he said once more. “The rest of you are returning to Annur. There is no more to the matter unless you would disobey your Emperor.”
Pyrre chuckled and opened her mouth to speak. For a moment Kaden thought he’d made a fool of himself. They were thousands of leagues from the Dawn Palace, lost in a labyrinth of mountains, fleeing from the people he had been born to command. Why should a Skullsworn, a renegade monk, and a Kettral Wing leader listen to him, a boy with one robe to his name?
Then, all in one motion, Valyn stood. Kaden rose stiffly to his feet as well, in time to see his brother touch a hand to his blades before kneeling and placing his knuckles to his forehead.
“It will be as you say, Your Radiance. I will make the birds ready at once.”
When Valyn finally raised those black eyes, Kaden could see nothing in them, not even his own reflection.