Teia hadn’t written anything to them about Ironfist being in the Order; she didn’t dare trust any messenger, and they’d had no secret code together anyway. But she’d figured for sure Kip would have heard about Ironfist declaring himself a king! If he hadn’t, or hadn’t had a chance to pass it along, then Teia was about to become the bearer of worse news than she’d even imagined. The Chromeria was so connected to the events of the wider world that she’d forgotten how long it could take for the deeper parts of the satrapies to hear about events elsewhere. In war, picking out the reliable from the rumors made it twice as hard.
“What’s wrong with Ironfist?!” Cruxer demanded.
“He’s in the Order of the Broken Eye,” Teia said.
Tisis went still with shock, but Cruxer laughed. “Ha, Teia, this isn’t the time to make jokes. Orholam’s balls, you scared me! But seriously that’s not funny. What is wrong?”
Then he processed the horror on her face.
She said, “What did Kip tell you about why I stayed on the Jaspers?”
Cruxer glanced at Tisis, then back to Teia. “He said there was some threat to Karris that only you could help with. You can see threats with paryl no one else can. You thought Orholam was calling you to stay here.”
Who would have thought that a man nicknamed ‘the Lip’ could keep his closed so well? But as much as Teia usually would have thanked Kip for that carefulness, now it just meant she had to march further out of the shadows to tell them the whole truth. “That’s . . . all true. But it’s not all the truth. Cruxer, I’ve been infiltrating the Order of the Broken Eye for Karris, trying to get the information to destroy them from the inside.”
“You?” He grinned, but with a hint of desperation, as if he felt his disbelief crumbling. “Come on. Like some kind of spy?”
“And an assassin.” It felt like a sinkhole had opened in her gut and it was swallowing all the world.
“A what?” He smirked, cocking his head. But his eyebrows were drawing down, and upturned corners of his mouth collapsed down around bared teeth.
“The White ordered me to do everything I had to in order to get in as deep as I could.”
“And?”
“So when the Order sent me to kill the Nuqaba, I did. She was Iron-fist’s sister.”
“Teia, what the hell?”
It all had to come out. Disastrous as she’d always known it would be.
Shame rolled over her at what she’d become, but she stabbed deep, lancing the boil. “Ironfist was there, Crux. As I killed her. That bitch had chained him to the wall. She was delusional, high, totally . . . murderous. She was gonna kill him. Her own brother. But—but he begged me to stop. Begged me not to kill her. Told me how he was in the Order himself, how this had to be a mistake.”
“Well, well, surely—he was lying to save her, right? I mean, that’s his sister, and he, he wouldn’t want you to become an assassin, Teia. He’s a good man. Honorable. He’d only lie to save you and her, you know that! That’s the kind of man he is.”
“He didn’t know the assassin was me, Crux. Not at first. He couldn’t see me, but he knew it was the Order coming for her. He was calling out names of . . . of the other Shadows that he knew personally. He knew way too much for it to be a lie. He said he’d joined them when he was a boy, asking them for vengeance on his mother’s killer. He was appealing to an Order assassin like . . . like we were on the same side. I couldn’t believe it, either. But it’s true.”
“No,” Cruxer said, and his face contorted.
Teia could have stabbed Cruxer in the back herself and not seen such a look of profound betrayal.
“Cruxer,” Tisis said softly. She moved toward him tentatively.
“He was with them all along?” Cruxer asked.
He saw all the confirmation he needed in Teia’s face.
“I have to go see him,” Cruxer said. “This is horseshit.”
“Cruxer, you can’t,” Teia said. “If you say anything, it’ll get me killed. The Order will find out I’m a mole, and, and—Cruxer, you don’t know what I’ve done to take these bastards down.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“No!” she shouted suddenly. “You don’t tell me what doesn’t matter! You listen to me. You shut up and listen.”
His lips curled into a snarl. “Make me, assassin.”
She buckled. “Cruxer, you can’t.”
“I won’t give away your dirty secrets,” Cruxer said. “What do you think I am?”
“Cruxer, you can’t. He’s . . . he’s got the orange bane. Or seed crystal or whatever. At least, his sister did. I’m sure he took it when he became king. I don’t know what it does to people.”
He stared at her for a moment. “Goodbye, Teia. Tisis.”
“Commander, I forbid you to go,” Tisis said. Her voice was reluctant but firm.
He shook his head. “The Order tried to kill your husband once already. You really don’t want me there with him?”
“Cruxer . . .” Tisis said, pleading.
The commander said, “Breaker will seek Ironfist out the moment he hears he’s at the Chromeria. I have to go tell him.”
“Someone else—”
“This is a matter of defense, and that’s my domain. My apologies, Lady Guile.” He bowed sharply and was out the door before either of them could gather any other arguments.
The expression on Tisis’s face reflected the same dread Teia was feeling.
“Can you catch up with him?” Tisis asked.
Teia would have to sneak, while Cruxer could simply ride. “No,” she said. “But I’ll try.” She drew her hood back on.
“One moment,” Tisis said. She walked back toward her desk and opened a drawer. “I know we may not get another chance—well, ever, so . . . For reasons that don’t matter right now, Kip thought he couldn’t give this to you himself. But he made it for you, and I want you to have it.”
She pulled out a length of faintly luminous fine yellow chain with spearheads on either end. A rope-spear of woven yellow luxin?
Teia held it in her hands, baffled. “He made this?” The chain was so finely woven it was as supple as rope, but with yellow links. It would be virtually unbreakable.
“He was working on some magic to make it less visible or more visible—even glowing if you wanted it to—but I don’t know how far he got with that. You’ll have to ask him.”
Teia wanted to study it, wanted to test the weight and the magic, but instead she wrapped the weapon expertly around her waist in a quick-releasing knot. “I . . .” What could she say to this woman, for whom she’d only had evil thoughts?
“Should go,” Tisis said. “We’ll speak again.” There was a little drop-off in her voice though, as if she was consciously holding back ‘I hope, if we live.’
Teia turned. She didn’t know how to do this. And there was work summoning her that she did know how to do.
As Teia closed her hood around her face, and began to shimmer out of visibility, Tisis said, “One more thing. He gave it a name. He called it ‘Sorry.’ ”