“The what?”
“The reason I’m still alive. But never mind. If you make it two days, you’ll live. But your vision’s fucked. Permanently. You have only two options. Open your eyes to widest paryl or tighten them to superviolet, then keep them in whichever position you choose, if you can. That lacrimae sanguinis does something to the muscles regardless. If you tighten your eyes, which is what the scholar I read recommended, your pupils will stay as pinpricks permanently. Your vision will always be dim, and incredibly nearsighted, and you’ll never draft paryl again. But if you widen your eyes to paryl, you’ll only ever see in paryl. You’ll lose all the other colors, and you’ll have to wear the darkest lenses at all times and even wrap your eyes with cloth or you’ll risk even normal light blinding you forever—even in the paryl spectrum.”
“I already went to paryl,” Teia breathed.
“Huh. That’s that, then. At least you can draft.”
“At least I can draft?!” she said, rage bubbling in her voice.
“You’ll most likely die before the night’s out, so it’s no matter.”
“You’re a real bastard,” she said. “And I can’t even move, so go to hell.”
“I’m the promachos. And I’ve got orders for you. Enough chitchat.”
“You’re not hearing me,” Teia said. “I can barely even breathe. I can’t go do anything for you!”
“Sure you can. You just need the right motivation. A goddess has just seized the mirror array. I can’t get to her unseen, which means I can’t stop her. But you can. I’m not sure what she’s planning up there. It’ll be ruin for us if she still controls the array tomorrow morning, but I don’t know what she can accomplish with it at night. What I do know is that if the enemy wants something—”
“You deny it,” Teia interrupted. “I know. Kip is my friend, remember?”
“Was,” Andross said bluntly. “Kip’s dead. I watched him die from my window. In between bouts of vomiting, that is.”
The wind went out of Teia’s aching lungs. “You can’t be . . .”
“Someone put him up on Orholam’s Glare. He was trying to take control of the Prism’s mirror array from there. I would’ve said such a thing was impossible, but he almost did it. Until the Ferrilux stopped him. She killed him. So you need motivation? How ’bout vengeance?”
* * *
It took them a few minutes to make it to the Prism’s and White’s level of the tower. There were no Blackguards anywhere.
They made quite the pair, walking arm in arm, supporting each other as they staggered down the eerily empty halls: Teia, with Kip’s chain-spear, Sorry, around her waist and one of Felia Guile’s long silk scarves wound several times around her head and tied tight over the dark spectacles she was wearing, layer on layer meant to protect her eyes; and the trembling Promachos Andross Guile, who’d stripped off his puke-encrusted tunic but hadn’t realized he still had stray vomitus in his beard.
She wasn’t gonna tell him, either.
Several minutes ago, after assuring her she’d be able to draft a small amount without any problems despite the lacrimae sanguinis, he’d seemed pleasantly surprised when she’d done just that—and hadn’t keeled over dead.
He hadn’t known. Not for sure.
As they climbed the stairs to the door leading out to the rooftop, Andross said, “If she becomes aware of your presence, you’re dead, you understand? I can silence the hinges of this door if you can’t, but she may well have set up some additional safeguards, if not traps—”
Then everything went black.
Not just dark. Everything went the black of the grave. Teia wondered for a moment if some light source had triggered the lacrimae sanguinis and this was death, this was her brain blowing out and darkness closing over her forever.
And then light returned. Albeit only the light of paryl cast from Teia’s own hand. She heard her own gasping breaths echoed by Andross’s. He’d been as scared shitless as she was. “What was that?” she asked.
He didn’t answer for a moment. Then he said, “That was black luxin. An incredible amount—it means she’ll be weak. Quick! Go!”
Teia staggered up the stairs at a half jog. There was no door. It lay in fragments.
The report of a musket made her drop to the ground, though if it had been on target, it would have been way too late.
Teia tried to roll, but merely flopped, her body too weak to do what her mind commanded. She struggled to rise.
The mirror array was empty, but the harness still swung on its hinges. She heard the clang of a dropped musket as she finally stood.
A moment later, so belatedly she couldn’t believe she was still alive, she finally remembered and went invisible. She must be in worse shape than she thought.
But it didn’t matter. Aliviana Danavis was staggering around the tower, face and arms encrusted with superviolet, some of it bleeding where it connected with her skin.
“Gavin Guile!” the woman cried. “He makes the very immortals tremble! What has he done? How could he—? So much . . . so much black. I’ve never . . . Ahh!”
She flung a hundred daggers of superviolet toward the open door, as if the feat were an afterthought. They rattled into the stones behind where Teia had been standing moments before like an iron rain.
Teia ran toward her.
She had no weapons. She had no weapons! She hadn’t drawn the chain-spear off her waist. What was she thinking?
But the Ferrilux seemed to be collecting her wits already. “Yes, yes, you’re right. Of course you’re right. I—What? Who’s coming? No, you mayn’t take control! I know your—”
And then Teia crashed into her—and shoved hard, launching her off the rooftop.
Teia stepped to the edge, and as she passed out of sight, Aliviana still seemed to be falling fast—but using only paryl as she was, Teia couldn’t see all the way to the ground.
Moments later, she heard the crunch of a footstep behind her.
“Well, color me less than impressed.”
“Is she dead?” Teia asked. “I can’t see that far.”
“I can’t see her body from this angle,” Andross said. “And if you think I’m going to lean out really far for you . . .”
“I’m not gonna murder you!” Teia said.
“And I’m not gonna bet on you. Made that mistake once.”
“Yeah, fuck you. That was me as the bet, not you betting on me.”
“Fair point. I’ll let the disrespect pass unpunished for that and your . . . reasonably good service here. The job’s done, or done enough. One hopes, anyway. I never believe an enemy dead when I can’t see the body myself. But you may go. Crawl back in your hole and die, or try to live. You seem like you could be useful. If you live, I’ll have work for you in the days to come.”
She turned, her heart falling. If she lived, now she was to be Andross Guile’s assassin?
Was there really no way out?
“Oh,” Andross interrupted. “Before you go. Help me get strapped in, would you? I have to see if I can figure out what the Ferrilux was trying to do.”