For a moment, Teia wondered if she was hallucinating the whole thing. First, she was invisible. Second, Ironfist was the utter opposite of invisible—and yet, no one else seemed to have seen him.
She stepped in, and the lift shot upward.
The Parian heaved a sigh of relief. “Haven’t cut it that close since Cwellar—or is that next? Oh, no, that’s next. Actually—that’s right now!” He pulled the brake and turned to Teia. They were only a few floors up. “Give it a hundred and four count from right . . . now. Then go as fast as possible. Blackguard immediately on the left is an Order agent. Has orders not to let Harrdun make it alive to the audience chamber. Or he’ll be on the right if you run late.”
He turned to Ironfist, who was slumped against the wall. “You. You’ll have to choose between vengeance and life.”
“For whom?” Ironfist growled.
“No time.”
“Wait,” Teia said. “Who are you?”
“No time!”
The little man ducked out of the lift, cups and canteens clanking.
Teia threw her hands up. How was he—
She poked her head out into the hall, but he was gone. Not around the corner, the corners were too far away. He was just gone.
She stepped back into the lift. With Ironfist. Not Commander Ironfist, she remembered now. How had she forgotten? King Ironfist. Who’d last seen her when she was assassinating his sister, as he begged her to stop.
Shhhhiiitt.
“You’re not gonna ask?” he said, his voice deep and cloudy with pain. He waved to the blood drenching his once-white-and-either-green-or-red garb—it was certainly red by now.
“The Order?” she asked hopefully.
“No.”
“Orholam have mercy.” Cruxer.
“Not much, He doesn’t. But I . . . I can’t blame this on Him.”
Teia’s heart froze. “Did he . . . ?”
“He’s dead.”
No. She wasn’t going to believe it. She wasn’t going to think about it. “The Order,” she said, suddenly finding some fire. “You know things about the Order.”
“Enough to know they’ll ask your soul and then stab you in the back.” He looked at her with lidded eyes, exhausted from pain and blood loss and whatever ordeal he’d been through, but also hard and bitter. “But then, you know that.”
“I’m infiltrating the Order for Karris. She’s trying to stop them once and for all.”
“You can’t stop them.” He tried to laugh. Coughed instead. “Look at me.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I’m convinced they’ve half the immortals of hell protecting them. How else does Cruxer find me just then?”
“Don’t talk about him—don’t! Don’t! We’re running out of time. I have to stop them, or it’s all for nothing!”
“Ha. That’s what I said, too. The execution. Can’t be more than a few minutes from now. Hope they don’t go ahead without me. Don’t you see? It was all to get him.” He blinked his eyes, swayed.
Huh? “No, you are not dying now. Who? Him who?”
“My uncle. He’s the Old Man of the Desert. Kept himself secret all these years, but a secret’s a weakness, see? Only way to get him was . . . this. He sent you to kill my sister. After everything I did for him. His own niece.”
Ironfist sagged, and Teia braced him, feeling tiny against his big form. “No, no, no. You stay with me! I can’t do this without you.”
“You killed her. My sister. I begged you not to. I begged.”
“Yes, and I’d do it again. She was gonna kill you. But I’m sorry. I’m sorry you lost someone you loved so much, but she needed to die. She was already gone by the time you were in that room with her. She was gonna get everyone killed.”
Ironfist blew out a little breath, and his eyes softened. “I know,” he whispered. “Oh God. Cruxer. Teia, I—”
“Don’t. I can’t talk about—Who is he? What’s the Old Man’s name?” Teia pressed.
Orholam’s balls, how many seconds had passed? They had to go!
“I gave everything for this. Only I can do it. Can’t trust anyone. That’s not the plan.”
Teia threw back her hood. “Trust me! Commander, please. Let me be the plan!”
He looked at her and she felt those eyes that she’d looked up to for so long weighing her, seeing her now, not only as an adult but as someone he approved of.
“Amalu Anazâr Tlanu,” Ironfist said. “Amalu Anazâr is the Old Man of the Desert.” He breathed a deep sigh as if stepping out from under a weight that had been crushing him for years.
“Wait, wait, there’s no one named that who’s got access to upper levels of the Prism’s Tower. He’s got some disguise, some other name?”
But Ironfist’s eyes had drifted shut. He leaned more heavily on Teia.
“No! Don’t you die on me!”
Eyes still closed, he said, “Easy, nunk. Just resting my eyes a bit before this last part. You lose the count already?”
“What?”
“Almost time,” he said. He opened his eyes and there was something of the old Ironfist mettle in there. “I gotta get to that audience chamber and make sure nothing else goes to shit.”
“Are you—”
“Grinwoody,” he said.
It crashed around her ears like a pagan temple collapsing. Grinwoody? Grinwoody, Andross Guile’s right hand. All the secrets of the world passed through that man’s fingers. Another Order master assassin, this one dressed in the invisibility cloak of slavery.
Teia, a former slave herself, hadn’t seen it. Hadn’t thought to look there first.
She drew herself up. “I’ll get you past the assassin or assassins at the door, but then I gotta hand you off. I’ve got work to do. What’s that count at?” Teia asked.
“One hundred one.”
“I knew you’d know,” she said, making sure she was filled with paryl and clouds of it hissing from her fingers. She threw the brake, and they shot upward.
She glanced over at her old commander. “You look terrible.”
“I’ve felt better, too,” he said as the floors blurred past. With one hand, he took off a necklace and shoved it into a pocket. “Hood back on, kid.”
Oh, shit! Teia scrambled to pull her hood back into place, a process made awkward by the long knives in her hands. “Who was that guy?” Teia asked as if she weren’t flustered.
“Karris’s kopi seller, maybe? She loves that damned stuff.”
“Hey, watch it,” Teia said. “A Blackguard guards his tongue.”
They both chuckled at that, though Ironfist broke off immediately in pain.
“Six in the foyer at an event like this?” Teia asked. She was standing to his left to put herself between him and the threat.
He grunted. “I’d have more, but there’s a war on. Could mean more.” As if it took supreme effort, Ironfist levered himself off the wall to stand with his feet wide. “By the way,” he said, unhooking the heavy chain that ran from the wrist manacle to a hook on his left bicep, “you’re still just the backup plan.”