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reminded herself.
    He had peeled away one mask, that was all. This hunger and savagery was just one more face beneath all the other faces, a better, subtler act, one she wanted to believe. She could understand the brutal slashing and biting for power. She could control it. The truth of il Tornja, however, was no simple animal snarl. It was something else, something older and worse waiting beneath all the faces, something awful and inhuman, unfathomable as the space between the light of the stars.
    Fear crept over her skin, raising the fine hairs on her arm. With an effort, she suppressed a shudder, forced herself to meet his eyes.
    â€œAnd when it’s over?” she asked.
    â€œOnce Meshkent is defeated and the Urghul are driven back…” He smiled wider, pushed back until his chair was balancing on two legs, poised between falling and falling. “Well, then we can look into—how should we say it? The long-term viability of the republican experiment…”
    â€œAnd by look into, ” Adare said flatly, “you mean kill everyone who doesn’t want me back.”
    â€œWell…” He spread his hands. “We could kill a few at a time until the others recall the golden glory of Malkeenian rule.”
    Adare shook her head. “It feels wrong. The great emperors of Annur, the ones who presided over a peaceful empire, punished treachery and rewarded those who stayed loyal. I’ve read the Chronicles. Now you want me to turn a blind eye to the treason and idiocy of this ’Kent-kissing council?”
    The kenarang smiled. “I’m in the Chronicles, Adare. I wrote two of them. The great emperors of Annur were great because they did what they needed to do. Whatever they needed to do. Of course, you’ll be putting your own life on the line.…”
    Adare waved a dismissive hand. He was right enough about the risks. It would be easy to arrive in Annur, present herself to the council, then be hauled off promptly to her own execution. The thought made her palms sweat, but there was no point dwelling on it. She’d visited the front, traveled to villages just after Urghul raids, seen the bodies carved open; the corpses spitted on stakes; the charred remains of men, and women, and children, some still sprawled over makeshift altars, others tossed into haphazard piles—the horrifying remnants of what the Urghul called worship.
    Annur—imperial, republican, it hardly mattered—all of Annur was teetering at the edge of a bloody abyss, and she was the Emperor. She had taken that title, had demanded it, not so she could primp atop an uncomfortable throne to the flattery of courtiers, but because she’d believed she could do a good job, a better job, certainly, than the man who had murdered her father. She’d taken the title because she thought she could make life better for the millions inside the empire, protect them, bring peace and prosperity.
    And so far, she’d failed.
    It didn’t matter that Kaden had made an even worse hash of things. It didn’t matter that she was the first emperor in centuries to face a barbarian invasion. It didn’t matter that even her father had failed to predict the chaos that enveloped them all. She had taken the title; it was her job to set things right, to mend the rents dividing Annur. Kaden’s council might have her torn limb from limb if she returned, but they might not. If she returned, there was a chance—and the chance to save Annur, to save the people of Annur, to push back the barbarians and restore some measure of peace, of order, was worth the possibility of her own bloodless head decorating a stake.
    â€œThere is something else,” il Tornja added. “Something you will discover when you reach the city.” He paused. “Your brother has made a friend.”
    â€œWe do that,” Adare replied. “Humans. We form attachments, develop feelings for people, that sort of