“Oh, that’s a very subtle lesson, High Lord Promachos,” Kip said. “I won’t forget who’s who here. I guarantee it.”
Andross lifted the bottom of the box out and revealed two decks. “Look through these while I tell you the stakes.”
“I’m not going to like this, am I?” Kip asked, accidentally saying it aloud.
“That depends,” Andross said. “How’s your marriage?”
Kip’s heart went cold. “What kind of question is that?”
“You disobeyed me when you went to Blood Forest,” Andross said. “My direct order. Did you think I was going to let that slide?”
Kip shuddered, and he wasn’t rightly sure if it was from disgust or rage or fear.
“If I went to Rath, Eirene Malargos would have put me in a cage,” Kip said. “Metaphorically if not literally. She’d never have let me leave the palace.”
“Much may be accomplished from a single building, if it’s the right one,” Andross said. “I should know.”
Kip realized the old man had practically ruled the world from the Prism’s Tower, so he couldn’t exactly contradict that. “Only if one’s already established the right contacts out in the world. I’m a young man, not an old one. I don’t have the web you do. What I did was far more valuable to you anyway.”
“At this point, the outcome is less the issue than your obedience is.”
“You’re upset because I showed you that you were wrong,” Kip said. “You’re so far removed from every human emotion, you have no idea what loyalty even looks like. I could be the king of Blood Forest right now if I hadn’t decided to come here and save your ass, old man. You want me to leave? I’ll go.”
“You seem to think I’d give you that option.”
“You seem to think I couldn’t take it.”
Andross sighed. Then he lifted the pistols from his lap. He cocked them. One stayed close to his body, a backup, out of reach. The other he extended over the table, the blade under the barrel reaching like an accusing finger. Kip didn’t move back, and Andross tapped that dagger point against his forehead. “Kip, you didn’t come here to save me, and those you came to save can’t leave with you, so we both know you’re not going anywhere. It isn’t in you to run from a fight, not even one you think you’ll lose. You leaving was always a bluff, and I’ve called it.”
It was true.
“You’re an asshole.”
Andross chuckled as if it were a compliment. “A man who’ll never risk being seen as an asshole is a man who doesn’t believe in anything.”
“You only believe in yourself,” Kip shot back.
“No,” Andross said. “Not for a long while now.” He set the pistols down on the table between them. He spun one so it pointed toward him.
Kip realized he might mean a couple different things by it, but he didn’t care to guess. “So what do you believe in?”
Andross took a sip of his whiskey. “I believe I’ll finish the game.”
Kip threw his hands up. “Always the game!”
Andross opened a drawer and pulled out two zigarros. He trimmed one with the dagger pistol’s blade. He looked toward the window and sighed like a cat soaking up the sun, and then touched a sub-red-infused thumb to set the zigarro alight as he puffed at it. He offered the other to Kip, who accepted. He trimmed and lit his own, only then noticing that Andross was glancing at his luxin-reactive Turtle-Bear tattoo as he did so.
Orholam! Was everything Andross did about gathering intelligence?
“Look at us, Kip. While others scurry about like ants whose home has been stepped on, we smoke and drink and play cards and decide the fate of the world. What happens to our world for the next century turns on the next twenty minutes here in this room, and none of those below even know it. Doesn’t it make you feel like a god?”
“I don’t want to feel like a god,” Kip said. But he wasn’t sure that was true. He’d told Tisis he was going to die, and he believed it. But he didn’t want to die.
He sipped the whiskey, and even he could tell that it was very smooth. It almost didn’t taste like chewing on peat. He sucked on the zigarro, and couldn’t tell much about it except that blowing smoke was itself actually kind of satisfying. “What are the stakes?” he asked, defeated.
“If you win,” Andross said, “I’ll make you Prism. And I’ll protect you from Zymun, who’s plotting to kill you. There are caveats, though. Not even I can do such a thing instantly. The Spectrum would find its spine and rebel if I forced such a thing through with no notice at all, and we can’t afford that now. But Zymun will be dealt with, and you’d be Prism-elect for the next year. But you’ll have the full force of my powers protecting you during that time. I swear that, should you win this next game, you’ll be the next Prism.”
Janus Borig had told Kip he wasn’t going to be the next Prism. But she was a Mirror, not a Seer, right?
But Zymun being dealt with? Kip having the authority to be able to defend these islands, without interference?
Maybe Janus had meant Kip would die before he became Prism.
“That’s a . . . tempting prize,” Kip said. “I’m guessing you have some truly odious stakes you wish me to offer in return.” His chest was tight. He knew this old spider.
“So suspicious, dear grandson.” Andross puffed on his zigarro, the ash glowing red with each puff like the evil eye winking at him.
“And . . . ?” Kip said. “What are your stakes?”
“King Ironfist will arrive very soon. He has a young cousin whom he’s going to make the Nuqaba. Maybe already has. She’s eighteen, maybe nineteen years old. Devout, though everyone knows her dear older cuz will be directing her every move.”
“King Who?” Kip interrupted.
Andross looked genuinely shocked for a moment. Then a big, toothy-cat grin spread on his face. In the least convincing voice he could probably manage, he said, “Oh, Kip, I’m so sorry. Do you really not know? Have you not heard about it from every tongue in the city? Your old commander’s turned traitor.”
“Sure. Right. No, he hasn’t. Now, what were you saying?”
“This actually depends on you accepting the reality of the situation,” Andross said, growing serious.
“I don’t see what you gain from that kind of lie,” Kip said. “I can check on it in no time, and we’ve both got things to do.”
Andross said, “Not a lie.”
“Ironfist wouldn’t betray the Chromeria. His brother died for me.”
“ Yes—because of me, as he sees it. And then his insane, treasonous, drug-addled sister the Nuqaba died under mysterious circumstances—which he also blames the Chromeria for.”
Rightly, Kip guessed. And just like that, he believed it. He’d changed since he’d left the Chromeria, why wouldn’t Ironfist? Andross had stripped him of his position, and then tried to murder him? Oh God. “So he’s declared himself king?” Kip asked.
“There are places in this world where one is either at the top or dead. Perhaps he believed Paria was one of those. Regardless, we need to bring Paria back into the fold. For the war, and for all the other wars that will follow if we don’t.”