“There’s nothing to forgive,” Kip said. “You cared for me more than anyone. And I, the son of your enemy. The man who cost you everything.”
“That’s . . . not . . . It’s far more complicated than that. And not at all clean. I’m afraid I shall lose whatever respect you have for me.”
“Never,” Kip said. “Master Danavis . . . I mean, High General Satrap Danavis, I’ve been in impossible positions now myself. Sometimes men do things in the heat of a moment, but I judge men by what they do day after day.”
The cloud didn’t move from Corvan’s visage, though, only darkened.
“We need to talk about your daughter, too,” Kip said. “But not here. Someplace absolutely secure.”
Corvan shook his head as if it weren’t necessary. “I met with her briefly some time ago. I know what’s she’s decided. I can guess where she’ll be tomorrow.” Corvan’s jaw tightened, and his brow furrowed against his grief.
“I’m so sorry,” Kip said.
“Me, too,” Corvan said, his face not moving a whit.
The lift had taken forever, but finally a free one came and they got on.
“We’ll talk more,” Kip said. “But you . . . you think your soldiers are going to make it to join in the defense?”
“Yes,” Corvan said.
“Which means you agree with me that Ironfist is going to relent. Your wife tell you that? I knew in my heart he couldn’t be a traitor. Not really.”
“Kip, she didn’t tell me that. She said . . . she said someone’s going to die before Ironfist’s people join us. Someone who could avoid it, but almost certainly won’t. Someone who doesn’t deserve to die.”
Kip blinked. “Could be a training accident, then. Someone disembarking from the ships, slipping or something.”
“Could be,” Corvan said, but his eyes were pained.
The lift stopped, but he didn’t open the doors.
Corvan looked down at his feet. “In the Prisms’ War, I found purpose and friendship and status, and at its end, I lost all those, and my best friend, and my wife, and I . . . I did things. I got lost for a long time, Kip. I wish I’d been better to you. A lot better. You deserved more.”
“We’ve work to do,” Kip said. “We’ll talk later. Oh, one last thing!” He leaned close to Corvan and whispered in his ear, even then cupping his hand over his mouth so his lips couldn’t be read, even though they were alone in the lift. “As satrap, you’re entitled to Blackguard protection. Refuse it. You understand?”
The Blackguard had been infiltrated by the Order. If they were going to make a move, just before or during a battle was exactly when the Order would do it.
Corvan understood. He held on to Kip’s forearms for a moment. “I don’t know that He cares. I’m not sure that He even exists, but may Orholam guard you, son.”
“And may He bring you light in your long night, sir,” Kip said.
Then they parted ways, and Kip wondered if it was the last time he’d ever see the man.
Chapter 86
Commander Ironfist had been a legendary figure before he left the Jaspers. Striding victoriously into Karris’s audience chamber, every eye upon him, King Ironfist was utterly terrifying.
In accord with Parian customs since the time of Lucidonius, the old Commander Ironfist had dressed modestly, wearing long-sleeved tunics and a carefully folded ghotra to cover his hair. That modesty was a centuries-old antidote to the more-ancient-still flamboyance of the pagan Parians who had come before them. In the Paria of old, the kings and queens had preferred to delight the eye and boggle the mind.
King Ironfist joined the ancient kings now, and he certainly overawed all who saw him. His hair—uncovered—was twisted with gold dust and glue, into a great free crown of jumbled curls around his head. On one eyelid, cribbing from the Nuqaba, was painted the ancient Parian rune for Justice. On the other was Mercy. He wore an eye patch, flipped up now, which could be lowered to cover the one or the other.
On the patch was stitched a fiery orb, an orange eye aflame. His tunic was as tight as a Blackguard tunic, sleeveless, revealing biceps that looked like they could shake the pillars of heaven. But instead of modest black, this tunic was all bold checks of gold and white, brilliant as the sun itself, belted with white leather around a slim waist that emphasized the enormous breadth of his shoulders.
On his left wrist, he wore a manacle and a cruel heavy chain. According to the tale, it was the chain he’d literally torn from a rock wall trying to save his sister, the Nuqaba, from being assassinated. He wore a necessarily broad gold bicep band with a hook by his elbow, from which he suspended the end of the chain so that it was held tight along his forearm.
Ironfist was a king who’d broken chains. Now he used his chains to make war.
At his heels, sniffing the air like wolves first catching the scent of a sheep pen, were two enormous war hounds, a terrible midnight and a smaller albino.
But more frightening than the vestments or the hard tattoos or the new scars or the uncharacteristic showiness of his garb or even the damn-near horse-sized dogs was the look of dull rage in his eyes.
Karris had known angry men. Habitually angry men were always dangerous, but unfocused, undisciplined. You had to keep an eye on them the same way Karris would keep her eye on those hounds, but when such men attacked, it was usually with more ferocity than skill.
For her entire tenure in the Blackguard, Karris had also known dangerous men. Such men would use force when necessary, coolly, passionlessly, and with great skill.
But when a dangerous man got angry, you could be in for something else altogether.
Ironfist’s quiet brother, Tremblefist, had gone into a battle rage once, and thereby earned himself a Name. It had taken the blood of five hundred to quench the Butcher of Aghbalu’s rage. Ironfist was his brother’s equal with a blade, and far more experienced than that young man had been.
Karris had never wanted to see Ironfist truly angry. She had prayed she never would.
Today, her prayer had been denied.
“High Lady!” Ironfist boomed, coming forward on quick steps. Two warriors flanked him, draped in bold colors, a man with a bocote-wood lion helm with lion’s teeth and a woman with claw scars on her face and wearing a baboon helm. Each was as tall and lean as the hellstone-tipped spears they carried. Drafters, and if Ironfist had deemed them fit to accompany him before his old command, they were surely formidable warriors indeed.
Not one of the twelve Blackguards attending Karris wasn’t sweating.
Ironfist motioned to his Tafok Amagez to stay back—right at the point where the Blackguard were about to challenge them to stop. He knew. He knew everything about the Blackguard’s defenses, every seam, every weakness. If anyone could take apart the Blackguard, it was Ironfist.
He said, “How you’ve changed since you came under my tutelage when I was a new trainer, and you that scrawny noble girl hoping to find a purpose in the Blackguard.”
She said nothing. Let him set the landscape of this discussion. She owed him that much.
Besides, if she didn’t hear him out, she wouldn’t know where to put pressure and where to yield so fast his weight carried him off his feet.