Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(173)

“Let me go first. Once I know it’s safe, I’ll motion you through.”

The hole Pater had torn in the canvas wasn’t quite big enough for Kaden’s larger shoulders. He set the candlestick down and tugged gingerly at the fabric. It tore easily, but the harsh ripping sound made him wince. Pater had said Ut was out front—how much could he hear?

Kaden waited, straining his ears for the crunch of boots on gravel or the dull clank of armor. He could hear nothing but the sound of blood in his ears. Slowly, he eased his head through the rip.

The courtyard was empty and the night calm, the moon climbing her quiet path through the stars overhead, casting shadows beneath the junipers. Kaden listened again and then, with a gulp, levered himself out through the gap. For a horrible moment the canvas tightened around his torso and he thought he was stuck, but a strong tug freed him and he stood up in the cool night air, trembling.

Shame filled him. Pater had run all the way back here without a thought for his own safety and all he, Kaden i’Sanlitun hui’Malkeenian, twenty-fourth of his line and Emperor of Annur, could do was peer uselessly into the night. Ruthlessly, methodically, he identified his fear, compartmentalized it, and put it to the side. Fear is sand, he reminded himself. Nothing more. Steadied slightly, he put his head back in through the flap.

Triste and Pater crouched just inside the canvas, staring at him wide-eyed. Kaden nodded urgently and Triste grabbed the boy by the back of his robe, thrusting him at the opening with surprising strength. Pater squirmed through in a flash and crouched beside him in the dark. Kaden put his hand through to motion the girl to follow, then froze. Across from the pavilion, pressed close to the wall of the dormitory, something moved in the shadow.

He shoved his hand back through the canvas, frantically trying to keep Triste inside. His fingers met with the smooth skin of her chest, and she paused. He could feel her heart pounding beneath her rib cage, a frenzied counterpoint to his own, but she kept still as Kaden peered into the darkness.

A thin strip of shadow hemmed the back of the pavilion, and he tried to will himself into it more deeply. Pater crouched motionless at his side. They could run. He and Pater had run these paths every day for years—no armored soldier would be able to keep pace with them. But running would mean leaving Triste, and in a flash, he understood the subtlety of the plot. Triste was the bait and the distraction all rolled into one. She was the excuse to separate Kaden from the rest of the monks, the trump card that would ensure he left the dormitory, and the guarantee that when the men came to kill him, he would be distracted.

She could even be part of the plot, Kaden realized after a moment. He hastily recalled the saama’an of her face as she told her story. There was terror there, and regret, and even anger, but no halting or deception. Unless he had badly miscalculated, she was as much a victim of Adiv’s schemes as he was, and he didn’t want to contemplate what would become of her if they left her behind.

As he racked his brain for another option, the figure in the shadows across from him took form. Kaden’s body tightened, then sagged in relief as he recognized Tan’s solid shape. His umial stepped into the moonlight, beckoned to them urgently, then stepped back. Kaden closed his hand around the front of Triste’s dress and hauled her through. As soon as she gained her feet, they raced across the moonlit space, hunched over as though cringing from the blow of some great hammer. They reached the shadow of the dormitory just as a cry went up from inside the stone building—a befuddled yell twisted abruptly into a scream of terror, then silence.

Kaden looked back for Pater, but the boy, already tired from his sprint from the Talon and slowed by his shorter legs, hadn’t even made it halfway across the square. At the bloody shout from above, he had dropped to the ground, a dark huddled mound in the vast expanse of silvery moonlight. Kaden silently cursed himself for not taking the boy in his other hand when he ran.

Immediately, other cries inside the dormitory filled the terrible silence left by the first, followed shortly by the sounds of flight and struggle. The rough voices of soldiers called out to one another, cursing their victims, and then the men poured into the square, making for the front of the tent, the steel of their drawn swords flickering with cold menace.

As the men disappeared, Pater stared longingly at the gulf separating him from the others, then back at the shadow of the tent. A deep hole opened in Kaden’s stomach.

“No,” he hissed, “over here!” but Pater was already scurrying back to the dubious safety of the pavilion. Kaden could hear Ut curse inside the tent, then begin barking orders. “Pater!” he called again, letting go of Triste for the first time in order to run back for the boy. Tan stopped him with an iron grasp on his wrist just as Ut’s broadsword swept a long gash in the canvas, and the man stepped through.