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Tallu put me to bed, but I couldn’t sleep, and he refused to leave me, even under Asahi’s watchful gaze. I didn’t have the heart to ask Asahi what he thought of his father’s death. He may have hated the man, but he had seen what I did to him.

General Saxu gave reports. His voice was steady when he announced that all of Kacha’s men had been killed. I didn’t sit up or look at his face, keeping my eyes closed.

Then came the announcement that some of Saxu’s men had decided to stay with the goblins. They couldn’t give up the powers the animalia had gifted them.

“Do you want me to have them killed as well?” Saxu asked.

This time his voice did waver, although he ended steadily. The men—his men—had been with him for years. They had survived the fall of the Mountainside Palace, the horror of the Tavornai forests, and a grim march through the desert that no imperial had ever lived through before.

“No. We will use it as part of our negotiations with the goblins.” Tallu stood, and I heard him move. When he next spoke, I could tell from his voice that he was facing the window. “We will begin the negotiations as soon as we can.”

“Do you intend to install Lord Mutali as governor?” General Saxu asked. “As General Namati will be of Tavornai?”

General Saxu hesitated only a moment before Namati’s name. He must have understood it was only a fiction that Namati would rule Tavornai according to imperial wishes. Tallu had given Namati the elven nation, and in return, Namati would hand it over to the elves.

Tavornai was no longer under imperial control.

“That was not the agreement we reached. For helping in the attack against Bemishu, for ending the life of the last general who rose up against me, I will fulfill my promise. No imperial soldier will ever cross into the Ariphadeus with the intention of conquering it.” Tallu paused, waiting, as though he wanted to know what General Saxu was going to do with the information.

Saxu said nothing. I readied myself. I could kill him with ice blades. No, no, no, Ox’s voice interrupted. Kill him with strength.

Cunning. You do not need to kill him when you could poison him, Fox whispered in my ear.

Strategy. You have control of the Dogs and he only has his men. You can win against him in strategy. Owl’s voice silenced the others.

I twitched, pressing my face into the pillow that smelled like someone else, like neither me nor Tallu. I clenched my jaw. I could kill him with my blades of ice and all the years of training I had gone through.

“Arrange a meeting with the goblin council,” Tallu ordered. “Tell them that all interested parties need to attend. I know they have no king, and the council we dealt with does not control all of the Ariphadeus, so whichever tribes are sending a representative must do so quickly or they will have no voice in the negotiations.”

Tallu’s command was firm, and I wondered what he had seen on Saxu’s face. Perhaps I would not need to kill him after all. The new joints in my hand ached.

The meeting was arranged in a week, and Tallu kept me at his side, barely letting me alone long enough to bathe or dress. This was convenient because I took every opportunity to heal him, to undo the damage all the days of being apart had wreaked on his body. He gained back muscle and strength, and I had the feeling that since my kidnapping he had been surviving on rage and retribution instead of food and water.

Nohe said nothing, her gaze sympathetic, and I reveled in the lack of questions. She and the rest of our servants arrived a few days after we took over the estate, and since they had been in charge, things had changed for the better, although I still tensed any time a soldier approached Tallu.

Asahi said nothing. He had never spoken much to begin with, but now he was a ghost wearing his mask. Sagam looked drawn, and I didn’t dare ask either of them whether they could forgive me for killing Kacha.

I got my answer anyway when Tallu was pulled away by his servants for a fitting. The meeting was in two days and his servants had been adjusting the clothing they had found in the estate, creating something worthy of an emperor.

Which left me in a corner of the room, watching Tallu be positioned like clay, my eyes hungry for him. He was real. He was here in the room with me, unlike the voices that whispered in my ears.

You can rule them all with whispers and cunning, Fox said.

No, only with strength, Ox thundered. I didn’t wince. I couldn’t wince and give away what was happening in my head.

A hunter must be clever and swift, and you can be neither with brute force, Crane counseled.

It must be strategy. What is yours? You sit here all day doing nothing. You must move. You must decide how you will get what you want. Owl’s disdain was harder to bear.

“Prince Airón,” Asahi said, and I was so used to ignoring anything that wasn’t Tallu’s voice that I almost ignored him.

After a heartbeat too long, I turned my head and looked at him. Asahi dipped his chin, then turned to face me. He dropped to his knees in front of me, bowing his head in a way that exposed his neck. I could cut off his head with a single slice.

Asahi did not fully prostrate himself on the floor, but remained like that, on his knees with his neck exposed, when he knew how deadly I was even without a blade. Sagam wasn’t in the room and I wondered if he knew what his beloved was offering me.

“I failed you again,” Asahi said. “I knew my father. I knew what General Kacha was capable of and I should have known that he would do this. If I could take the blow for you⁠—”

“We thought he was dead,” I interrupted because as much as some moments I felt like the torture was still happening and others like it was very far away, I couldn’t stand the idea of Asahi suffering it instead of me.