‘Everyone they could send’ seemed an exaggeration, because Malargos had only sent five thousand men. But the five thousand were Ruthgar’s best, and they were outfitted better than any of the other contingents. In addition, Eirene had sent desperately needed supplies. Not only black powder (most precious since Atash had fallen), but also good muskets and, most valuable of all, ten thousand sets of mirror armor.
Ten thousand!
Karris had thought all her entreaties to Eirene Malargos had fallen on deaf ears, but all the while the woman had been stockpiling and commissioning gear whose cost must have bankrupted even her. And Eirene had done it all silently, so that it might be kept secret from the White King.
The rest of Sun Day Eve passed in a blur of preparation: Kip was frantic with his Mirror preparations, too distracted to even talk to her; Andross was entirely absent except for when he popped in and demanded some of her smartest luxiats; Zymun had constant demands (not in person, as she refused to see him, but his messengers sought her out everywhere). The last couldn’t be ignored entirely: there were forty drafters who needed to be Freed tonight, before dawn of Sun Day. Normally, she’d postpone the ceremony entirely, but these drafters were unable to fight and were fearful of what the arrival of the bane would do to them.
Truth to tell, she was, too. No one wanted them to go rogue at such a time.
That meant Zymun would get to kill them. The sick little piece of trash. She arranged to have him flanked by the most intimidating Blackguards she could in order to hem in his most disgusting tendencies, armed with strict orders on how to handle him if he got out of line with his somber duties. She also had to make sure he wasn’t armed or accompanied by his Lightguard cronies.
If Karris hadn’t had so much else to do, maybe she could have done better, but she—and the poor broken drafters who would be Freed—were simply going to have to make do.
In the afternoon, Koios’s armada was spotted. It was, indeed, as large as Kip had claimed. The Parian fleet that Karris had hoped might save the Chromeria went out to fight them. By attacking with half of his skimmers, the Parian admiral attempted to goad the armada into raising the bane once more. Once those were raised, the armada would lose all mobility.
But Koios didn’t take the bait, and the admiral wasn’t willing to commit (and thereby lose) all of the skimmers in order to make the prize too tempting to ignore, so the battle devolved into a largely conventional one. Worse, not only did Koios have more ships, but the Parian admiral had emptied his fleet of drafters, lest they be immobilized by the bane as well. The Parians’ superior cannons were matched and finally overmatched by the Blood Robes’ superior magic.
The sea battle lasted the entire afternoon, but the White King’s fleet was too large, his wights too numerous, and though his barges behind the front ranks were ungainly, the Parian fleet wasn’t able to reach them.
The Parians broke off after taking heavy losses. They’d inflicted too few in return.
By evening, in a wide ring on the horizon, the White King’s fleet had encircled the entirety of the Jaspers. They were besieged.
Orholam, she thought as she watched the sun descend, this is Your fight. Without You in this, we die.
As the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, she watched for the green flash.
But there was none.
Chapter 97
Teia woke to the sound of a man weeping in the darkness.
“That fucking bitch! Why’d she have to call me that? This is all her fault. This is some witchery. This is . . . goddam.”
Sharp.
A weight of dread settled on Teia’s chest. She was trapped in black-as-hell darkness with a paryl wight. Her arms were bound in front, hugging herself, elaborate knots under her fingers, and she was wearing . . . a dress?
She did not want to think about how she came to be wearing a dress.
“It’s the darkness,” she said aloud. She didn’t know why she didn’t spend minutes faking sleep while she checked the knots and tried to escape. Maybe because Sharp had always been so masterful with knots. Maybe she had some compassion for the sick, broken wretch.
Or maybe she was just giving up.
“Huh?” Sharp barked. “What are you on about?” He sounded angry, embarrassed.
Perfect.
“We’re sensitive to darkness, just like we’re sensitive to light. A black mood is literal for us.” No one had told Teia about that part, though she should’ve figured it out long ago. Sharp hadn’t told her, and just as obviously, the effect was exaggerated even further for a paryl drafter who went wight.
Something flared, shielded by Sharp’s body, and then a flame took—in a special, single-spectrum lantern. The room was illuminated in a monochrome, either red or green.
If that was green, Teia was not going to do well. Sharp, turned wild when he was already feeling like this?
But no. She was certain it wasn’t green. She could feel it now.
Finally, at the end of her life, finally she could tell the difference between green and red. She couldn’t see the difference, but she could feel it: finally she could do consciously what she’d done in that terrible Order ceremony so long ago.
Not that it did her any good. It was red light. Big deal. She couldn’t draft it, couldn’t use it against Sharp in any way.
“No, no,” he said at the light. “That’s almost worse. Elijah ben-Zoheth. Damn that Seer.” He strode toward Teia and snatched up a black bag from a table, but he didn’t pull it over her head. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. But ever since she called me that . . . The Separated One. The Cutoff.” He scrubbed his fingers through his hair angrily. “I wanted you to be the one, Teia. You’re the only one who could understand me, you know? You know, you’d be my disciple, and you’d look up to me, and you’d ask me things. You’d rely on me. And, and as you got more and more experienced, our relationship would change. We’d become partners, with a profound respect between us, and have a thousand adventures, and then one day you’d look at me, and you would still see all this”—he gestured awkwardly toward his face—his teeth, Teia realized—“but you wouldn’t care. You wouldn’t care that I’m older, and I’d say, ‘No, no, no you have to find someone your own age,’ but you’d set yourself to winning me over and . . .”
Red light. It was definitely, definitely red light.
Wait. What was he talking about?
“Ridiculous, huh?” He looked up at her face just as her first shock had worn away to be replaced with revulsion.
He saw her expression, and his own darkened instantly.
Ah, shit, Teia. A little pretending would’ve gone a long way right there.
“Yeah, I know,” he said hoarsely. “Stupid. Instead we gotta do it this way.”
“How’d you find me?” Teia said quickly.
“You really gonna try to stall me?”
“You did kidnap me a second time. If that wasn’t to talk over our little contest, why would you do that?”
“No, it wasn’t that. More the loneliness. So maybe sort of? But more for . . . another reason. A darker one.” He scowled at the candle. Reds were not known for their deviousness. He threw the bag over her head, and then she heard the flare of a candle again. A normal one, apparently, because he sighed. “Oh, that’s much better. Don’t know why it’s affecting me so bad these days.”