The room was lit an eerie orange-red from testing lanterns the magisters used to teach discipulae.
But she barely noticed the wave of feeling that hit her with the light when her nostrils were assailed with a familiar smell. Blood.
Teia could see a woman’s body crumpled behind a workbench to her left, and from behind a desk to her right, a pool of blood spread out.
Ben-hadad. No!
Teia jumped—backward. She threw her hood back up and snapped the cowl shut over her face, going fully invisible again. Pulling a long dagger under the cloak, she drew in as much paryl as she could hold and sucked in a breath, then froze.
Nothing.
Was that a moan from behind the heavy desk? Ben-hadad?
She shot a puff of paryl smoke around the corner of the door into the room. The paryl itself would be an attack—and visible to Sharp, if he were here, if he were looking. But there was no sudden violence. Her clouds of paryl didn’t billow around any shape.
If he were in the room, her first move would be vital, and she couldn’t stand at the open door forever. So Teia shot little darts of paryl into every corner of the room, even at the ceiling above the big desk, into the curtains at the window—anywhere large enough to conceal a man.
Nothing.
Only then did Teia turn to look at the woman lying on the ground. Magister Kadah. Teia’s paryl had gone into her chest, where Teia could feel that the woman’s heart was still.
Another moan from behind the desk. Ben!
The orange desire for connection and the red compassion overwhelmed her. Ben-hadad! No, please tell me I didn’t get you killed! I can save you! Teia rushed over to her friend.
At her steps, a scintillant shimmering something concealed in the shadow of the desk itself uncurled. Something smashed across her face.
Her nose fountained blood as she staggered backward.
She saw Ben-hadad first. He lay on the ground, eyes wide, gagged, limbs bound but seemingly unharmed. Crouching over him was Murder Sharp, somehow out of control of his shimmercloak, contiguous patches of it invisible and then flaring colors intermittently.
She was already slashing blindly with her dagger before the first gush of her blood hit the floor. But she felt pinches in both her knees.
Nerveless, her legs buckled under her and she tumbled across the floor. Her elbow went numb.
Before she could think, she felt a hand grabbing her hair. She saw Murder Sharp raising a sap in his other hand. “Ah, Teia,” he said. “I’ve missed you so much.”
His voice was all warm honey, but in his eyes she saw something that made her blood run cold: paryl crystals like purply shrapnel had exploded through the whites of his eyes. Murder Sharp had broken the halo.
He hugged her briefly. “You’re the only one who understands,” he said. “But I should really kill you.”
Then, as he sat back up to sit on her stomach, he slapped her face. Not softly, but it wasn’t hard enough to wound her.
But it did scatter all the paryl she’d been drawing in.
“None of that,” he said, and his voice was softly scolding, as if she were a naughty lover. Her stomach knotted in fear. He’d lost some of his faculties, it seemed, but none of the ones that mattered. He knew exactly how and when she might be dangerous. He was only losing his inhibitions.
That was not good news.
“Nice trap, huh?” he said, pointing to the orange-and-red training light. “Only forgot how susceptible I am to these myself. Seems like it’s gotten worse recently.” He pointed at Ben beside her on the floor, his eyes rolling with rage, tears of helplessness streaming from his eyes. “But you see how kind I’m being to you, Adrasteia? I let your friend live. I never do that.”
He sighed. Stood, and turned out the lights to plunge the room into total darkness.
His voice took on a tone as black as the room. “I wish I could let you live, too.”
His weird, uncontrolled shimmering pulsed in the darkness, and she saw him illuminated for an instant, raising the sap high his hand, and then he swung it sharply into her temple.
Chapter 96
It had been a long night, and Karris’s initial elation at being alive to greet the dawn had long since faded to fear.
King Ironfist had stayed on his feet for only a few moments after he’d been brought into the audience chamber, clearly conscious through heroic effort of will alone. He’d ordered a stop to Karris’s execution and ordered the deployment of all his troops under High General Danavis’s leadership. Then he’d searched the crowd as if looking for some face, while begging Karris to come aside to hear something private. She went to him instantly, but he’d finally succumbed to his wounds.
He hadn’t stirred since.
Naturally, the Chromeria’s best physickers were with him, and his own Tafok Amagez, and Blackguards. There had been some chaos at the lift, apparently a Blackguard had attempted to assassinate him? The Tafok Amagez didn’t trust the Blackguards (understandably enough, Karris thought, though of course the Blackguards were in full denial mode) or the physickers, and the Blackguards didn’t trust the Tafok Amagez or the physickers, and the physickers wanted everyone to get the hell away from their patient.
Karris had no idea what the private thing Ironfist had hoped to tell her had to do with, and now there was no getting Ironfist away from the Tafok Amagez. After an attempt on their king’s life, they weren’t going to allow anyone near him until he was conscious and safe.
It was a fight she wished she had time for. She didn’t.
Sun Day Eve dawned with thousands of Corvan Danavis’s and King Ironfist’s warriors disembarking and carrying supplies to their respective stations. High General Danavis was in his element, orchestrating a million details with ease and efficiency. There were a thousand logjams and bottlenecks that could happen with deploying so many troops and supplies, and with Danavis in charge, people simply were given orders and went, and when they arrived, they found the supplies they needed arriving at the same time, or already there, or arriving immediately after them.
It was a level of technical virtuosity that people didn’t even see: of course black powder, wadding, flints or match cord, bullets, and ramrods will arrive in the same place as a thousand muskets, they thought. Of course that place would be centrally located to where the men who were trained in their use and needed them could get them in an orderly and timely fashion. But with what Karris and her luxiats had been doing in the last month to prepare the islands’ defenses, she knew now how hard all of this was, and she simply stood back in awe.
But not in rest. She had her own details to oversee.
Not least of which was the fleet visible with the morning sun. At first everyone had assumed they were seeing the vanguard of the White King’s fleet, coming in from the west.
But this fleet was alone, and small, not followed by an armada—and flying the flags of Ruthgar and the Malargos clan.
Karris took a skimmer out to them to divine their intentions: Eirene Malargos hadn’t come herself (smart, in case we all die, Karris thought), but Karris learned that her luxiats had prevailed upon Eirene to send everyone they could spare.
And by ‘her luxiats’ they meant Karris’s luxiats, Karris soon realized, for three of the young men who’d been so convincing to Eirene Malargos had been part of Karris’s little group of faithful scholars.