Teia paused. Then she went.
Chapter 89
In all her years as a young noblewoman, then as a Blackguard, and then as the White, Karris had never heard the audience chamber so quiet. The courtiers filed out in silence. The Blackguards cleared the room in silence.
Now she and Andross stood in silence.
She stood at the great windows, watching the sun go down. A summer squall, disappointingly small, was blowing in off the horizon.
When she’d been in this room before, there had always been a buzz of voices, chattering and tittering as this or that noble tried to prove himself a wit through his whispered observations. Even as a Blackguard clearing the chamber of threats—or more often, simply collecting forgotten bags or scarves and the like—there had always been the small talk of work. Since she’d become White, moments of silence had become treasures.
But not moments shared with Andross.
The sun set. There was no green flash after the last sliver of sun disappeared, no divine promise that it would all work out.
Andross stood at a window, looking out on the futile drizzle of the late-spring rain, lightning illuminating his figure inconsistently, even the rumble of thunder seeming somehow impotent.
For the first time in a year or more, Karris was reminded that he was indeed an old man, ancient for a drafter.
“I didn’t even think it worth mentioning that he might demand the price in blood,” Andross said. Karris didn’t know if it was even meant for her ears, he said it so low. “He shouldn’t have been able to seize power at all. Satrapah Tilleli Azmith was there, ready to rule. Messages had been sent. She knew the danger Haruru was creating. She was going to return Paria to its loyal course. What are the odds she’d have a stroke the same night?”
“Zero,” Karris said.
“Excuse me?” Andross asked. Then, sharper, “What did you say?”
“I had her killed. She was the Nuqaba’s spymaster. I found out that you’d ordered the Nuqaba murdered, and I judged Azmith an even greater threat.”
He looked at her with those tired eyes, and she couldn’t tell if the brief flicker of life in them was surprise that she’d learned of his own contract, that she was capable of ordering a murder herself, or surprise that she would admit it.
Then Andross snorted. “Of course you did. And you used some goddam amateur to do the deed. My assassin does his job professionally—then yours comes along and bungles everything mine was accomplishing. Of course Azmith was the spymaster! That’s how I knew she was practical enough to deal with.”
Karris wasn’t about to tell him that his assassin not only wasn’t a man but was also the same assassin as hers.
But still, how could I have sent Teia into that?
I didn’t, though. She was already being sent. I was just trying to take advantage of a bad situation and turn it into an opportunity. I was trying to be someone other than who I am, and I’ve reaped . . . this.
Andross had murdered the Nuqaba; it was his fault that Ironfist was furious. But Karris had murdered Azmith; it was her fault that Ironfist had become king.
“There was a moment there,” Andross said, “when Ironfist demanded blood, and I swear I saw relief on your face.”
“Relief?” Karris said. “You think I’d choose blood over marriage? Especially this marriage? Ironfist has been my dear friend for many years, and in case you hadn’t noticed, is quite a handsome and powerful man. If I cannot have my Gavin, I could hardly hope for a better marriage.”
Andross narrowed his eyes at her for a long moment, then said grudgingly, “I suppose so.”
“It should be you,” she said, “who dies.”
He laughed. Waited. Then chuckled. “That’s all you’re going to say? You’re not even going to make a case for it? Tell me how old I am, maybe? How I’ve ‘lived my life already’? Surely you can dig deep and find some reason why the actual promachos is less important than a White.”
“You know all the reasons I could bring up, but there’s only one that matters.”
“Oh?” Genuine curiosity filled his face. He stood up straighter, and something of Gavin Guile appeared in him.
Karris said, “You should volunteer to die because you love Kip. I know you do. I know there’s something more than avarice and power in you.”
At that very moment, there was a crack of thunder and lightning, the faint sizzle from the antennae above the tower as it was hit.
Andross laughed immediately. Immediately he laughed. “Love? Kip?” He laughed again.
That goddam lightning. A surge of hatred at this old man had coursed through her as fast as the lightning strike, but it had also been illuminated by that lightning striking at exactly the wrong moment: she doubted her words for a moment even as she said them—and he saw it.
“You didn’t leave things so well with Kip, did you?” he asked.
She had no answer for him. But he caught the guilt in her eyes.
He said, “I’m the promachos. This is a matter of war. I could simply choose. I could make my life easier for once and choose that you die. But I won’t do that. That’d make things too easy for you. When you were young, your choices ruined my family, and you’ve pretended ever since then that they weren’t your choices at all. Now it’s your family on the line, your boy, and your choice. I choose this much: Ironfist won’t have my blood. So. You’re the hard-ass; you’re the Iron White. You choose who dies. This is your fault, so as I recall you telling me once with such great glee, ‘You shit the bed, you clean it up.’ ”
Chapter 90
It was time. It was all for this.
Ironfist had demanded apartments in the Prism’s Tower befitting his high status and bullied an underchatelaine until he was moved to the one with the secret exit he’d discovered years ago.
The execution was scheduled for midnight. He guessed that tonight’s outing might take an hour. Maybe even two. But there was no way he was going to cut it too close, so he was giving himself four hours. A king didn’t have to explain himself to anyone, so he’d simply retired to his rooms early.
His own guards outside his door had been joined by a pair of Blackguards that he didn’t even recognize.
Things had changed a lot in his absence. After the loss of so many Blackguards at Brightwater Wall, he’d sped up the training of replacements himself, but he couldn’t imagine that two nunks who’d been made full Blackguards in a year’s time could possibly be up to the high standards he’d maintained for so many years.
It irked him to think of poorly trained men and women in his beloved ’guard, but that was outrage that belonged to another life. Besides, it had been under his leadership that a single cannon shell had taken out so much of the Blackguard.
One shell, one lucky shot, had obliterated several hundred years’ worth of training and magical excellence and more than a million danars in recruitment and training and contract costs.
Ironfist hated guns. Hated how they could render moot so many thousands of hours of training. But tonight he checked his own carefully. He carried a fine Parian flintlock, as excellent as any Ilytian work, or so the smith had insisted. Ironfist double-checked the black powder and frizzen plate, and twisted the cockjaw screw a bit on the flint so it was held tighter. He put the pistol carefully in its holster bag and drew his ataghan. He checked the forward-curving blade and that its fit in the scabbard wasn’t too sticky.