He was nodding, but he had a blank look.
“That’s the whole point of an oath,” she said. How could a man of intelligence not see this immediately? “All liars weaken themselves, but breaking an oath would break me. Besides,” she said, “we’ll give each other plenty of space.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“When you win, King Koios, because of the way”—‘the stupid way,’ she didn’t say; she had to speak truth, but she didn’t have to speak all the truth all the time—“you’ve chosen to wipe out most of your warriors and all the Chromeria’s, you’ll be very, very weak for a decade or two. Stronger than everyone else, however, so your weakness won’t matter. Unless . . .”
“Unless?” His eyebrows knit.
“You’ve heard the Everdark Gates are open? It’s true. And I can tell you that the Angari wave-tamers have been truly fascinated this past year by what’s happening in their seas, and by what’s happening here. They’re hungry for new lands to conquer, and they believe that the Gates’ failure is a sign of favor from their gods.”
“I’ll happily fight their gods with my own.”
“Then you’ll die happily. The first wave they’re amassing is three times the size of all your armies together, I should say. And I mean your armies now, before all the losses you’ll take with this island siege you have planned. Nor are they lacking for magic of their own. I’m no Gaspar Estratega, but I believe they would defeat you even if your forces and the Chromeria’s fought united against them. However, you needn’t fight at all. I can close the Everdark Gates again. And the Angari are seafaring people, whose gods are sea gods. They have tamed creatures that are much like our own sea demons. But because they love only the sea, if the Gates are shut, they will not attempt an attack through the mountains and the deserts that have kept them from our lands for so long.”
“You’ll save me from a threat that isn’t even real?” The condescending smile crept back onto his face.
“Send your people, then,” she said. “Confirm it for yourself. Time draws short, but perhaps you have time if you’ve duplicated the skimmers by now? No? Sad. But I assure you, if we don’t have an agreement before you invade the Jaspers, I’ll fight for Kip. I’ll have to. Because afterward you won’t need me, and I won’t be able to challenge you.”
“How rational of you,” he said.
“Was that supposed to be an insult?”
“I hope you’ve also come up with some good reasons why I shouldn’t kill you now, bringing a threat like that here. Or have you forgotten so much about fury?”
She was bored of this conversation. He treated her like a moron while acting like one himself half the time.
“Do you need a list of my threats?” she asked. “Backup plans? Dead man’s switches? I have such things. But if I do list them, you’ll be fretting on them for the next hundred years. Me putting such things into words gives them substance, turns them into worries—worms that will chew into the bulwarks of our peace, weakening them with every passing year. It’s a poor option. Instead, I would like today to be the last time we think of each other as adversaries. Let us instead become distant allies, brought together for a short period to sort out our mutual concerns and then happily parting to do what we will with our own distant lands.”
“So let’s run this hypothetical,” he said. “We make an alliance. A partnership, as you said. I need you now not to join Kip, and perhaps even to shut the Everdark Gates. And let’s say I accept that because of your nature, I can trust you forever. But I will grow in power far more than you will, and I will close my vulnerabilities in time. Why would you trust me to keep my oaths?”
“Because I bring you a gift. Will-crafting. We’ve both done it in this room this very day. Do you know why the Chromeria forbids will-crafting in all but the most rudimentary forms?”
“They have an especial delight in forbidding things. I’ve given up caring why.”
“You shouldn’t have. An oath binds one’s will to a word, but a drafter can bind her will to something more permanent.”
She saw his eyes light up. He was a smart man. If an oath could be magically binding, and anchored to something permanent, any drafter he could force to take an oath of fealty to him would be unable to break that oath—ever.
“This works with gods?” he asked.
“You won’t be as good at doing it as I am,” she said honestly. “And your gods will have a very long time to work against it. You’ll still have to kill them, after a time. Yes, of course I know you plan to do that. Mortals, however? I wouldn’t say it’s permanent, but if it takes them a hundred years to unwind a spell and most of them don’t live half so long, that’s a distinction without a difference, isn’t it? That is why the Chromeria abandoned an entire branch of magical study. It was one of the first pieces of lore the Chromeria erased. True slavery to the gods, for life.”
“That is a handsome gift,” he said. “And now that you’ve given me the lead, perhaps that’s all I require of you.”
A threat. Again. “It will likely take you a hundred years to find a superviolet who can do what I’ve already done, though maybe you’ll get very lucky and it will only take you ten. But these next ten years are when you’ll be most vulnerable. If you can live ten years, you’ll likely live forever. So I know you might kill me out of pique today, but I’m gambling that you’ll take the deal where we both win, both in the short term and in the long.”
“What do you want?” he asked.
“You can have all the lands of the Seven Satrapies. The nine kingdoms, whatever you wish to call them. You may also have all of the Cerulean Sea. The Everdark Gates, however, will belong to neither of us. A no-man’s-land. Everything within them is yours; everything outside them is mine. No people, no magic, not so much as a rowboat or letter or child is to be sent from one realm to the other. We’ll have mirrors set up on either side to message each other in case of emergencies. Otherwise, nothing. If you wish, have your wars among your humans. Let there be peace between the gods.”
Chapter 12
Kip had just done the most brilliant and cynical thing of his entire political career: he’d listened to his wife.
Yesterday, in the privy council chamber, they’d met with the six remaining Divines. With many, many words, the Divines communicated their chagrin at the assassination attempt and commitment to find those responsible. They wished—they said—to help Kip and his marvelous companions in any way possible; therefore, he must understand that this particular refusal wasn’t personal and this particular request was in fact impossible and this small change Kip requested was one they were quite willing to accommodate but would mortally offend some other important group (and that group’s support was necessary for the following list of reasons).
Yesterday, for many long minutes, Kip had actually listened to them. They knew what they were talking about, after all. They had run this city for generations. He’d adjourned the meeting with the thought that it was, frankly, just damned hard to govern a city.