“Or Zymun?” Andross asked quickly, as if he were merely gathering information.
“Ha! How much of a fool do you think I am?” Ironfist barked. “No. I’m not here to solve Guile problems. I’m here to be one. You decide. I’ll be back at midnight to see the deed done. If you don’t, we join the White King.”
Without another word, without a look back, Ironfist and his retinue strode from the hall, their footsteps echoing loudly in the utter silence of hundreds of noblemen and women who could only stare at one another in wide-eyed fear.
Andross had thought he was so smart. Andross had been so sure Ironfist would do the rational thing, the thing Andross would do. But Ironfist wasn’t rational; he was grieving; he was furious, and he was hell-bent on revenge.
Ironfist was sounding a death knell that couldn’t be unrung. The satrapies would die—if not tomorrow, then next year. After this, even if Paria and the Chromeria together defeated the White King, this blood Ironfist demanded would be answered with blood. But Karris couldn’t blame him. Not in the least. Ironfist hated injustice; it was something she’d always admired about him. And she and Andross had murdered his people first.
And now it was going to bring them all to ruin.
Chapter 87
Kip looked around the open top of the Prism’s Tower and tried to enjoy the sunshine, tried to breathe. It was a beautiful day, and the view was peerless, but he couldn’t help but look to the horizon, as if the White King’s armada would appear at any moment. He went to the edge, where the great cables he and the Mighty had once slid down to safety had been repaired and once again concealed.
It actually might be a good way to get messengers from the Chromeria out to every corner of the Jaspers as quickly as possible. They had signal mirrors for many messages, but he’d have to mention the option to Corvan.
Kip sighed. He was just trying to take his mind off the tightness in his chest.
Big Leo was standing watch, impassive, and it reminded Kip of the last time they’d been alone.
What had Big Leo said to him? That every time he tried to be someone else, he failed, and when he was only himself, he succeeded?
Kip looked down at his arm. I’m not Gavin Guile. I’m not Andross Guile. I’m the fucking Turtle-Bear.
He had to figure out the Mirrors himself.
That would have been a lot more comforting if he’d figured out anything at all, but even finding the mechanism on the roof by which Prisms balanced had taken him an embarrassingly long time. A multifaceted crystal hung there, and one could address it standing, or actually strap into a raised frame.
Huh, that was strange.
Kip eventually figured out the leather belts and the locks and strapped himself in. He released the pins, and the huge crystal swung down hard toward his face. He jerked back against the belt with a squawk as it banged to a stop a thumb’s breadth from his forehead.
“You all right there?” Big Leo asked sardonically.
Kip cleared his throat. “C’mon, that didn’t make you nervous at all?”
Big Leo just stared at him.
“As you were,” Kip said.
Tentatively, he rested his face against the crystal. He could see through the lowest clear layers as the rest pressed against his skin. He reached his will into it.
Nothing. No, not quite nothing. It felt like he’d put on a yoke that hadn’t been hitched to a plow. The leads were there, just untethered.
“Get me out of here,” he told Big Leo.
“That was quick,” Big Leo said.
“Well, I am a genius of magic,” Kip said.
Big Leo looked at him flatly. “But seriously.”
“We need to go downstairs,” Kip said. At least, that’s where he hoped the answers were. “I’m blaming this all on you if it doesn’t work.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Big Leo said.
Wiseass.
They made their way past checkpoints again. On the way up, they’d been staffed by Blackguards Kip and Big Leo hardly had known. But apparently they’d gone and gotten others.
Their welcome was warmer than Kip had expected. The Lightguards had had all the time in the world to paint Kip and the Mighty as murderous traitors. At the very least, the Mighty had left the Blackguard at a time when they’d really needed good people.
Instead, he saw Gill Greyling waiting for them.
“Gill!” Kip said. “They made you a trainer? Those poor nunks!”
The man flashed a huge smile. “I get along with the slow and clumsy.” Kip laughed as they embraced.
“Where’s Gav?” Kip asked.
He felt it instantly. Every face fell.
“No!” Kip said. But he saw the truth of it on Gill’s face. “How?”
“We’d been out looking for your father. Gav had been pushing it for a while, drafting too much. We got ambushed by some wights. He saved two of his brothers in the fighting, but blew his halos.”
“He make it back here?”
“Yeah. The White herself took care of him for the end.”
Kip muttered a curse.
“You should go see her, Lord Guile,” Gill said. He called him Lord Guile, not Breaker.
“Yeah, I know,” Kip said. He supposed Gill thought Breaker was his Blackguard name, and though it was forgivable under the circumstances, Kip had still abandoned the Blackguard.
“Promise me.”
Kip squirmed. It wasn’t like Gill not to let things go. “Look, we didn’t leave things so—”
“She’s got one son she can’t abide and one that she loves but drove away. Promise me.”
“I’m not really her son. She made that very clear—”
“Gav spent his dying breaths making her see what kind of a cockroach Zymun is. She gets it now. But if you make my brother’s sacrifice moot, you’re turning your back on us. Or have you already done that?”
Kip swore under his breath. “Come on! Don’t be—fine! I’ll do it. I gotta go handle some trivial life-and-death stuff first. Let’s do this again, though. It was fun.”
He pushed through them, but stopped before the lift and turned. He cursed again. “Gill. Trainer. I’m sorry. About . . .”
“I know,” Gill said.
Moments later, Kip and Big Leo stepped off the lift at the tall, wide-open level that housed all the tower’s mirrors. Dozens of mirror slaves were hard at work prepping for Sun Day. It was the biggest day of the year for them. Not only were there all the festivities and parades to prepare for, many of which required special lenses and tight coordination, but they went on all day long, on the day of the year with the most intense sunlight.
Mistakes in coordinating the mirrors not only were deemed harbingers of bad luck, but they could also send errant burning hot rays into the crowds of pilgrims. Small smudges on the mirrors could turn them into a smoking ruin. Untrained or sick staff could fall to their deaths with the rigors of the long, long day. Thus, today was filled with everything from checking the health of the slaves here and on the Thousand Stars throughout the Jaspers, to checking and filling the cleaning solutions for the mirrors themselves, to drilling the star-keepers on hitting their sequences during the parades.
Kip had served with the mirror slaves before; it was a favorite punishment for nunks, and the slaves had laughed at the nunks’ sweating and bumbling, saying that day was nothing compared to Sun Day.