“I don’t know,” Kegellen replied tersely. Wrapped in a dress of exquisite red silk, her fingers flashing with rings, the flesh of her neck wobbling as she moved, the woman didn’t look like a soldier. She would have been as out of place on the Islands as some doe-eyed priestess of Eira, and yet there was something about her voice, about the way she carried herself, something about her conviction and determination as she guided them through the narrow passages, that reminded Valyn of his Kettral trainers. She was dangerous, this one, despite all appearances. The only question was, dangerous to whom?
“You could have been followed,” Kegellen continued.
Valyn shook his head curtly. “We weren’t.”
“Then you could have been spotted when you arrived. Even the back entrance is watched, although I’ll admit I didn’t realize the army had taken an interest in my humble home.”
Adare glanced back the way they had come, as though she expected to find soldiers racing down the corridor after them. “Our faces were hidden,” she said. “Both of them.”
Kegellen shrugged and kept moving. “It matters less how they knew than what they will do next.”
Valyn took a deep breath, sifting the scents of moldy stone and fine perfume, confusion and fear. He could smell the urgency on Kegellen, the bright tang of her haste, but there seemed to be no deceit. If she was lying, she knew how to hide it even from his senses, and besides, if the woman’s goal was to hand them over to the Army of the North, she could have done so without warning them, without the whole charade of escaping through the corridors.
“Il Tornja,” Kaden said. “He’s here. This is his work.”
Valyn turned to stare at his brother. The others were obviously frightened by the mention of the kenarang, but it seemed like a long time since he himself had felt frightened. Instead, he felt … eager. If Kaden was right, if Ran il Tornja was in the city somehow, it meant another chance, a final opportunity to put right what had gone wrong on that tower in Andt-Kyl all those months ago.
“That’s impossible,” Adare objected. “You said il Tornja was in the Ancaz … what? A week ago? A little more? Unless he used the-”
Kaden shook his head, cutting her off. “He didn’t. The kenta are too risky for him. He can’t bring his soldiers through the gates, which means he would have to travel alone, and it’s too easy for the Ishien to guard the island hubs. Too easy for them to set an ambush.”
“I thought the Ishien were dead,” Adare protested. “That he killed them.”
“Not all of them. It only takes one man with a flatbow to guard the whole island.”
Kegellen reeked of curiosity, but she kept quiet, letting them talk as she swept along ahead.
“The leach,” Triste suggested. “Maybe the leach helped him get back.”
Valyn frowned, considering the map inside his mind. “No one saw him during the days you were at Rassambur.”
Kaden shook his head. “It’s possible he left for Annur the moment Pyrre rescued us.”
“Why?” Triste demanded. “Why would he do that? How would he know?”
“The same way he’s known everything else,” Adare said bleakly. “The same way he knew the moment you escaped from the Spear. The same way he knew where to find you.” She stared into the darkness as they moved down the corridor, as though waiting for the kenarang himself to step from the shadows. “He’s been playing this game a long time, and he’s better at it than we are.”
“He knows where we have to go to perform the obviate,” Kaden said. “And he has the ak’hanath.”
Adare nodded. “The one thing brings him to Annur, the second to Kegellen’s mansion.”
As they spoke, Valyn traced the path on his mental map, calculating the various rates of travel. “He’s only on foot from the Ancaz to Mo’ir. From there, all the travel is on river, lake, and canal. He can keep moving all day, all night, and the current’s in his favor. He could be here by now. Him and the leach and those ’Kent-kissing ak’hanath.”
A grim silence settled over them as they walked. Valyn had lost all sense of direction in the twisting corridors, but Kegellen continued to forge ahead, choosing a path at every fork without pausing to think.
“They will have a difficult time following,” she pointed out. “My basement is … complex, even without the gates and the guards.”
“They’re not following,” Kaden replied. “Not all of them, at least.” He pointed up at the vaulted ceiling of the stone corridor. “Most of them will be up there, on the streets, tracking us.”
Kegellen raised an eyebrow. “That would be impressive. And inconvenient.”
“Where will this let us out?” Adare asked.
“We’ve been moving east, toward your command center on the wall. The tunnels won’t get anywhere close to all the way there, but they’ll get us clear of whatever cordon the army set up around my home.”
“We need to get to the Spear,” Kaden said.
Adare shook her head. “No good. I already told you-it’s packed with il Tornja’s soldiers. Has been since they showed up in the city days ago.”
“Kettral,” Valyn said. “We get a bird to fly us to the top.”
Kaden nodded. “Good.”
“Where are the Kettral?” Kegellen asked.
“In a square just south of the wall,” Valyn replied.
“That’s unfortunate,” the woman said. “You’ll need to cover at least two miles in the streets above.”
“So we’ll cover two miles,” Adare said. “We can stay ahead of these bastards for a couple miles.”
The words were bold, but Valyn could smell the uncertainty on her.
“No,” Kaden said. “The ak’hanath are tracking Triste. Maybe Triste and me both. That means that if we split up, Adare will have a chance to get to the Kettral while we’re here, in Kegellen’s cellar, undercover.”
“All right,” Adare said slowly. “And when I get the Kettral, what then?”
Valyn tried to figure the timing in his head. Two miles, through crowded streets. Adare was in sturdy boots, but she had nothing like the Kettral or Shin training. The whole thing ought to take about twenty minutes, but Adare was tougher than she seemed. The glare in her burning eyes said she could make the run faster, that she would make the run faster. “We count heartbeats,” he said. “One thousand heartbeats from when Adare emerges. That’s the timing. She gets to Gwenna, gives her our location. When we come out, if everything hasn’t gone straight to shit, she should be overhead, ready for the grab.”
Adare shook her head. “I thought things already had gone to shit. I thought that’s why we were fleeing through this tunnel.”
“I think you’ll look back on this tunnel fondly as soon as you’re aboveground,” Valyn said.
“You go with her,” Kaden said. “She’ll need your protection up there.”
Valyn shook his head. “Not a chance. Adare is expendable. You’re not.”
“We need her to get to the Kettral,” Kaden insisted. “There’s nothing you can do if the army catches up with us and we have no bird.”
“Of course there is,” Valyn replied. “I can kill them.”
* * *
Gwenna had spent the better part of the morning trying to figure out just what in the fine fuck was going on. The Urghul were encamped beyond the desolation Adare had made of the northern third of Annur, and though they’d arrived only the day before, the horsemen were already busy trying to clear a path through the still-smoldering rubble. Of Balendin himself, there was no sign, which was more than worrisome, but instead of flying patrols north of the wall to scout the enemy position, she and the rest of the Kettral were trying to figure out what had happened to the ’Kent-kissing Emperor.
“Valyn.” That was the Flea’s assessment. “He has the ability to do it, and the reason.”