“Enough of this,” she whispered.

“We must go quietly,” Kestrel reminded her. “We need to get to the emperor’s room without waking the entire house. We can’t fight them all.”

Risha snorted. “I can.”

The princess’s impatience wore thin. The next time they encountered Valorian guards—again, a pair of them—she let a Dacran soldier shoot one of them with a crossbow, but pulled the other Valorian out of the quarrel’s path at the same time that her other hand came down on the woman’s mouth.

Risha touched her knife to the fragile skin beneath the woman’s wide eye. “Stay silent,” Risha whispered, “and you’ll keep your eyes. Lead us to the emperor’s suite.”

The soldier led them to a broad door made of tiger maple, the wood smooth in the Herrani style, with little carving other than the rippled doorjamb. An oil lamp glowed in the hallway’s sconce, its stained glass casting a jeweled light over the wood’s natural stripes.

“Here?” Kestrel asked. Light glowed through the door’s keyhole.

The woman nodded.

Risha killed her. The body slumped. Blood welled up to Kestrel’s boots. She made herself remember the girl’s lost shoe, the Bite and Sting set, Arin’s scar, the way he heard the god of death because he believed he had no one else, the small houses in the wheatfields, the baring of her back to the cold tundra air, the way she had hoped that the nighttime drug would make her forget.

“Open the door,” she whispered.

One of the Dacran men, selected by Roshar for his skill at this, knelt and unfolded a leather-wrapped set of tools, then he inserted two of them—long and thin, like knitting needles—into the keyhole. He poked, then levered the tools until they heard the soft clunk of the lock’s tumblers releasing.

He eased the door open—softly, as if his hand were no more than a small gust of wind.

Risha first, and Kestrel behind her, they entered the suite’s antechamber.

They were attacked by the emperor’s personal guard, who had been waiting as they’d listened to the clicking of the picked lock.

Arin set the army into formation on the western road. He made the vanguard’s ranks broad, running across the road and the bordering wet earth, all the way up to the trees. Behind the vanguard, the center ranks were confined to the road.

Roshar’s horse flicked its tail, shifting. The prince eyed the forest. “Those trees turn this place into something resembling a ravine. We won’t have much room to maneuver.”

“Neither will they.”

The morning light was sheer and fresh, as pale as the flesh of a lemon. Arin imagined squeezing it down his throat. It would taste like how he felt: stingingly alive.

Kestrel couldn’t count them, couldn’t see how the guards carved open the bodies of the Dacran soldiers, couldn’t fathom Risha’s speed, the way the princess had shoved Kestrel against a wall, creating a halo of safety around her. The snick of Risha’s knife against a windpipe. Her swivel and dance. Unerring strike. Counter. Bodies thumped to the floor.

“Hold,” someone called. “I want to see.”

The Valorians pulled back. Risha’s knife flicked blood as it arced through the air. She had no intention of obeying the voice. Kestrel caught her arm. The princess spun, her face frustrated, as if she’d been listening to a voice whose last words had been lost in the interruption.

The emperor stood at the threshold where the antechamber flowed into the rest of the suite, his posture light and easy. For a moment, there was no sound but the rain on the roof. “You,” he said wonderingly as his gaze found Risha.

Then Kestrel.

His eyes widened in delight. “And you.”

He laughed.

The day blazed. The sun seemed to soar into the sky, all the way to its height.

Arin waited.

Nothing.

Waited.

Nothing.

He touched the hard leather shell of his armor. Hidden beneath it: his chest. His lungs. Skin. A speckled yellow feather tucked inside his tunic pocket, right above his heart.

Forget the feather, death said. You are the road.

The sun.

The sky.

The horse beneath you.

Comforted, Arin said, The gods used to walk among us.

True, said death.

Why did you leave?

Ah, sweet child, it was your people who left us.

“Lady Kestrel, you look like a dirty little savage. What are you doing here?”

She tried to speak.

“Did you hope to murder me in my sleep?”

Her throat was too dry.