If she could attack him instead, either at sea or, even better, with his ships still in port, the Seven Satrapies might end this war without even more devastation.
Corvan might be the key to everything.
“He says these requests aren’t meant as an opening to begin negotiations,” Anjali Gates said. “If you give him less than what he asks, he’ll be able to tell you what successes you can hope for from his campaign, but he believes that striking hard and as quickly as possible will be the only hope for the Seven Satrapies to avoid collapse next spring. He plans to sail away from here to begin his attack only a day or two after Sun Day, and asks that as soon as his ships are seen on the horizon arriving, we allow no more ships to exit our ports.”
“He still hopes to surprise the White King,” Karris said. “It’s worth a try.” She knew her brother surely had many spies on both Big and Little Jasper, and one of them at least would try to sail to tell him about the arrival of unexpected forces.
But with her small fleet of skimmers, her people could overtake and stop any ship of spies. Surprising the White King was actually quite possible.
Apologizing again for her earlier gaffe, Karris dismissed the woman, and ushered in the next senior diplomat. This one to report the Ruthgari situation: Eirene Malargos was playing her cards close, stalling real action, but Karris’s spies had learned that her allies—and allies they seemed, still—had discovered the secret of how to make their own skimmers, albeit of a seemingly more rudimentary design than the Chromeria’s own.
Of course they had. It was easier for friends to spy on you than enemies, she supposed. Eirene had ships staffed and provisioned, ready to sail, but was still summoning troops. She could delay Karris’s call to serve for as long as she wanted with that excuse. You can always wait for more troops, if you’re as rich as a Malargos.
If Eirene were being honest with Karris, then she’d had no word from Kip’s forces up the river since about the last time Karris herself had heard from them. Eirene suspected bandits were seizing supplies going up the river and had intercepted messengers, so she had long since dispatched messengers overland to Kip. But she’d had no word back yet. Dammit.
The scouts searching the seas for King Ironfist had found nothing. Dammit again.
On Karris’s hunch, the Chromeria’s small fleet was patrolling between the Jaspers and the Ruthgari coast, but the next messenger reported nothing new from their scouts—which could actually be good news.
The next reported a similar blank for those searching for the pirates who yearly preyed on the pilgrims who sailed for the Chromeria to celebrate Sun Day.
Karris had hoped to sink every last pirate with her skimmers, though it was early yet for the pirates to hunt so close to the Chromeria. Usually they started their piracy at the farther ports as pilgrims embarked. The Blackguards had gone to those coastal cities, sending their own personnel to hunt pirates as well as they were able to, because they didn’t trust anyone else with the skimmers except Karris’s and Andross’s messengers.
Maybe Karris could send the Blackguards out en masse when the pirates came closer, and deal them a blow they’d never forget.
Maybe the pirate kings’ and queen’s fleets had tangled with Iron-fist’s, and they’d done one another such damage that none of them would come this year!
Right, Karris, and maybe the heavens will open up and shower down warriors to save the day! And chocolate. That’d be nice. Maybe a hot cup of kopi?
What Karris really needed was someone to serve her as she and Marissia had served the old White. She needed someone to recruit and manage her spies. She should choose Anjali Gates for the job: the woman was eminently capable, sharp, diligent, and exact, and willing to do excellent work without getting public recognition.
The last was a rarity on the Jaspers.
But Karris had delegated off so many duties already, only to add dozens more in taking over the drafters’ war training and in quietly bolstering the islands’ defenses, from refortifying walls that had had stones stolen from them for other construction over the years, to drilling the cannon crews of all the towers on overlapping fire and their supply chains for shot and powder if they ran out, to hiring the smiths to cast weapons and armor, to drilling free militias, even spurring on their training by offering prizes in archery competitions and melees.
None of it had been as cheap as she’d promised Andross, but he hadn’t stopped her. Without ever saying a word of why, he acquiesced often now. It was almost as if he respected her a little, now. Almost.
He hadn’t even demanded she stop meeting with her pet luxiats (as he called them). He seemed more amused that it had so infuriated some of the High Luxiats—and, she guessed, kept them busy being angry at her rather than at him.
She should summon Ambassador Gates and give her the job now. She knew she should.
But with all she’d passed off to other hands, the control of information was one thing she couldn’t bear to give to anyone. Not now, not when the Order had people everywhere.
In peacetime, you might worry about a spy enriching a family unjustly or using their illicit knowledge to claim estates or negotiate or end trade agreements or even marriages. In wartime, though, a well-placed spy meant death for thousands. It could mean the death of the Seven Satrapies.
There was a knock at the door. Ugh, another meeting.
All this is what you were preparing me for, Orea, Karris thought, by putting me in charge of the spies. After my long tutelage everywhere else, you taught me to handle secrets and those who keep them. You taught me to judge whom to trust and how to trust someone halfway or three-quarters, rather than trusting fully or not at all, like I used to.
Thank you, Orea. Thank you.
Another knock.
“Send them in,” Karris told her Blackguards.
One more meeting, she promised herself, then I’m getting the hell out of here to go to that little kopi shop myself.
Chapter 53
“YOU . . .”
The sound rose from a pitch so low Teia felt it first in her chest, but maybe that was only her anxious dreams. She rolled over. The closet was so small, no one could open it without the door pushing into her hip. This was as safe a place to sleep as anything got for her.
“HAVE.” The voice had risen now, like a sea demon emerging from thalassic depths. Monstrous and raw, it was basso profundo deep, as if it had taken until now to find a cadence intelligible to her.
“MY CLOAK!”
The voice was a volcano rending the earth beneath her and vomiting fire past her face, the heat alone pummeling her into mute submission, agog, falling backward to tremble on uncertain ground.
“You cannot hide for long, thief. I will find you and take what is mine, and I will teach you what eternity means. I will snatch you from this time to a place where we can be uninterrupted for decades of torture, and then I’ll bring you back, to your own family, your own home. You will betray your own father for one hour’s cessation of pain, and then I will take you again, until you have broken yourself, and you beg to torture by your own hand them whom once you loved. I will flay you, I will tear off your fingernails, I will grind your bones to spike shards and make you dance as they pierce your skin. I will impale you from anus to broken teeth on the axle of my war chariot before I ride into battle. But no matter what pain you come to know, you will heal every time I allow you nightmarish sleep. You will not die. I, who am the Lord of Flies, will never let you more than glimpse that bourne.”