The Blood Mirror

by Brent Weeks

  It fell, but the floor didn’t open beneath Gavin. Andross must not have reset the trap correctly.

  Gavin pulled himself up to his knees, but his father saw him move and kicked. Gavin tried to block the kick, but he was too weak. Andross’s foot smashed into his stomach, and another fist caught Gavin across the jaw.

  He fell to the ground, and Andross stepped on his neck.

  “Some trap,” the old man said. Still holding Gavin down, Andross reached in front of him, where Gavin had spat out the hellstone fragment and the broken tooth he’d kept secreted in his mouth.

  Gavin tried to scramble away, but Andross pinned him harder, exerting so much pressure Gavin thought his vertebrae would crack. Gavin caught the barest glimpse of Andross’s pinprick-tight pupils.

  He was drafting. He threw out a hand, and sent something beyond normal vision into Gavin’s old trap. Gavin said, “But you can’t draft superviolet.”

  “Can’t I? It seems you know as little about me as I once knew about you.” With a light kick to Gavin’s temple to stun him once more, Andross said, “I think it’s time you learn something else you didn’t know. Take a look at what’s waiting for you below.”

  His brother’s rotting corpse was below. Orholam, no. Gavin had thought his father would surely give his brother the burial he himself hadn’t.

  “No, please…”

  The floor gave way, and Gavin tumbled into the yellow hell.

  Chapter 39

  The subtlety of the problem was its beauty. Kip sat in the soft light of the incipient dawn teasing slender threads of yellow light for his project. It would be some time before the Ghosts had enough light to reach them, and watching the river change as night pulled back its covers and shivered into dawn was precious to him as last night had been precious.

  He looked at the yellow cords in his hands. Something about having the peaceful light before him and having something to occupy his hands left no space for other thoughts, and sometimes thinking was the enemy.

  After Tisis had pleased him last night, he’d begun to learn the mysteries of her body in turn. Joyful discoveries for an attentive novitiate. But after several rounds of delight, Tisis had sworn her body was relaxed enough to attempt intromission again.

  Her Jade Gate was still firmly closed. Something in her wouldn’t allow him inside, and a tiny part of him couldn’t help but wonder if her body was betraying her words as lies that she really did want this marriage.

  Maybe that was unfair of him.

  It had certainly been unwise to say it out loud.

  A magical, nearly perfect night had ended in tears and a turned back.

  Eventually he’d pulled her to him, and she let him hold her against his big form, but neither had said another word.

  The problem in his hands this morning was ever so much simpler. When he’d been lost and delirious the last time he’d been in Blood Forest, he’d drafted a small length of chain from solid yellow. He’d begun by drafting each tiny link one at a time. It would have taken him several years to make a mail coat that way.

  If he lived long enough to finish it, it would make something lighter and much, much stronger than iron or steel. He still wasn’t sure if it would stop a musket ball, though.

  That uncertainty, and that he would have to spend weeks to draft a large-enough section of mail even to run an inconclusive test against a musket ball, had made him lose interest.

  Tisis had been up for a while. He could hear her moving around the tent, getting dressed and ready for the day. She paused now, just inside. Gathering her courage? Kip wondered if they were going to start the day with a fight.

  He glanced back down at his project as she stepped out. She stretched with a pleased sound and made a quick sign of the seven to the sun as it first peeked over the horizon, illuminating the river and her blonde hair in its ponytail. She met Kip’s eye and smiled.

  She came over and sat next to him, her hip touching his.

  So… not a fight. Thank Orholam.

  “What’re you working on?” Tisis asked, a smile in her voice.

  “Just something to keep my hands busy.”

  “Something to keep your hands busy?”

  “Little project. Was thinking of making a mail coat with it at first. But it’d take me six months at least. I’m not sure it makes sense to plan that long term.”

  She put her hand on his thigh and blew out a breath. “Kip, I wanted to say sorry for last night. I was a brat.”

  I wish more people would be a brat that way! was probably not the right thing to say. But she wasn’t talking about the first part of the night and he knew it. “I’m sorry, too,” Kip said.

  “No, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. Thanks for pulling me back to you. I needed that,” she said.

  The rest of the camp was stirring now, and not a few people were already hard at work at morning chores, but, taking their cue from Winsen, who stood guarding Kip and Tisis from a good distance, the others didn’t approach.

  “I know we didn’t exactly choose this,” Kip said. “I mean, we did, but it was a pretty constrained choice. But we’re in this together. I had a great time last night—the best time. You were, just, wow.”

  “But,” she said glumly.

  “Yeah. I want us to stop trying the other thing.”

  “The normal thing, you mean?” she asked bitterly.

  He wondered how much they were being careful not to say it straight out because they were outside where someone might just overhear, and how much they were just embarrassed. Who fails at having sex?

  “Everything is great for us except that. Why can’t we just have fun and put that aside?” Kip said. “It’s just not—”

  “You know damn well why,” she said quietly. “The contract isn’t valid. I mean, at this point I’ve already lied to my sister, which has only worked because I haven’t had to see her face-to-face. She’ll know, Kip.”

  “We’re not going to see her,” he said. “Not until all this is over.”

  “Kip, political marriages get split up all the time. And that’s when they’re valid in the first place. I’m not really safely in your family until I have a baby and your grandfather decides it looks like a Guile. You think that old man wouldn’t be happy to cast me off like a cheap whore again?”

  Again.

  She cursed under her breath. Neither of them wanted to remember Kip walking in on her stroking Andross Guile under his covers. It had been a scene Andross had set up on purpose to humiliate both of them—and precipitate this marriage, though Tisis still didn’t know that part.

  Orholam. No wonder she was tense, if she had to get past her memories of that every time she was with Kip.

  “Forget that,” Kip said. “Forget him. For now. Our vengeance on him is being happy with each other. We’ll figure something out about all that other stuff later. For now, we keep doing everything that brings us joy—and that’s a lot!—and we stop doing the one thing that brings us misery.”

  “You want to give up,” she said.

  “Is it giving up when you stop doing something that hurts us?”

  She scowled at first, but then squeezed his leg. “You said ‘us.’”

  “How many ways do I need to tell you we’re in this together?” Kip asked.

  She put her head on his shoulder. “I want you to know it’s not just for the contract and my sister, or for fear that you’ll drop me later. I want to make love with you. You know that, right?”

  “I know,” Kip said. But he hadn’t, not really. Didn’t, still. She was being honest, and he trusted her, but he still didn’t believe her, somehow. They weren’t just a boy and a girl, trying to figure something out. They never would be.

  But then, if they were just a boy and a girl, Kip never could have caught so much as the eye of a girl this beautiful, so he probably should never complain ever, ever again, so long as he lived.

  But she’d said that word, that word that demands response. Though she’d said on
ly ‘make love,’ and that could be part of a phrase, meaningless. It hadn’t been entirely meaningless. Had it? Was that a question? A test. It was still there, prickly as a caltrop for him to step on: ‘love.’

  He’d said, Let’s have fun.

  She’d said, Let’s make love.

  Shit.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said softly. “And gracious. I really appreciate you, and I’m really coming to… care for you. Deeply.” Orholam, that sounded so lame. He shouldn’t have said anything at all. “I’m sorry, that’s… all wrong.”

  “Teia?” she asked, and hurt echoed harsh and deep into a cave of longing. “You still think of her.” It wasn’t quite a question.

  “Sometimes,” he said. “But I don’t dwell on it.”

  She sat up and held his face in her hands. “You’re a man who feels deeply. It’s one of your best qualities. I can’t hold that against you.”

  “But you do. A little,” he said.

  “A little,” she admitted. “I’m getting over that slowly, too.” She took a deep breath, and Kip saw something flit through her eyes.

  “I wasn’t thinking about her last night while we were together,” he said. “Not at all. Not at all.”

  She expelled her breath and relief washed over her. “I didn’t want to ask. Thank you.”

  And she let him off the hook, just like that. She really was kinder than he deserved.

  “So if you’re not making a mail coat, what’s this going to be?” she asked, pointing to the length of lambent yellow luxin chain.

  “Well, the chain is easy enough if I’m not hooking every link to three or four others, so I thought I’d do something harder, more subtle.”

  “More subtle?” she asked.

  “I’m still going to have the chain as the core, but I’m trying to make, like… an articulated rope around it. See, rope spears are awesome because you can throw knots over your opponents’ hands and do grappling and all sorts of things, but the rope itself can obviously be cut by any blade if you’re not careful. A chain spear can’t be cut, but it’s much harder to throw loops and knots and whatnot. So I’m trying to get the best of both worlds.”

  “But you never trained with a rope spear, have you?”

  “No, no, it’s just something to keep my hands busy.”

  “Right,” she said suddenly. “That’s great. Oh, look, it’s the Ghosts. I’d better go prepare.” But she’d stiffened, and she suddenly stood and walked away. And Kip had the distinct feeling he’d loused up again.

  “What’d I do?” Kip asked Winsen.

  Winsen was squinting against the dawn like someone with a serious hangover. “I am asking myself the same question. But my answer is drink way, way too much wine.”

  Chapter 40

  As she’d arranged, Karris was still at her dawn prayers when Promachos Andross Guile arrived. She lay prostrate before the open window facing the sun, and felt the faint stirring of the wind as the inner door opened behind her.

  “Orholam,” she pleaded aloud, “I could try to hide my ignorance, but I won’t. I’m not going to act in darkness. Let it all stand before the light. Orholam, this is your empire; these are your people. You will have to fight for us, or we shall perish. Will you let your name be defamed upon the earth?”

  She stayed there prone for some time, praying. She’d arranged this, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t real, too. She needed to look like a zealot in order to accomplish what needed doing. It was the zealots in the Magisterium who could give her the most trouble if they allied against her. But by disarming them, she could also make unnecessary the calls for luxors. She had two luxors. She had no desire for there to be any more, by her hand or any other.

  But as she said the words for Andross Guile’s benefit—let him think her a little crazy, it might make him careful around her—she realized she meant them, too. She wasn’t fighting for herself. She didn’t want power for its own sake; she wanted only to save the Chromeria and the people of the Seven Satrapies. After that was accomplished she would happily step down.

  So it was only right that Orholam should take up his own fight. This war was his problem.

  Finally, when she felt emptied, when she felt heard, she stood.

  She hadn’t realized that Andross Guile had gotten down on his face next to her.

  “A prayer as fierce as you are,” Andross said, dusting his hands off.

  “My apologies for keeping you waiting,” she said.

  “One must know the order of one’s loyalties,” Andross said, as if understanding her perfectly.

  “But Orholam knows the heart. Our prayers are surely for our own reflection more than for his instruction, no?”

  “A point for the luxiats to debate, no doubt. Tea?” He gestured to her slave to close the doors to the balcony.

  It was a breach of etiquette for him to command her slaves, but a small one. He obviously thought she deserved it for keeping him waiting.

  “We have much to discuss, but before we get started—” Karris said. She chewed on her lower lip, thinking. “A number of months ago, I was ambushed on Big Jasper. I was beaten, efficiently and dispassionately. It was clearly intended to teach me a lesson. Maybe a man would have taken such a beating as intended. Once he realized he wasn’t being beaten to death, he might simply endure it. Perhaps. But a woman made to feel utterly helpless at the hands of half a dozen men?” She paused. “There are different fears. Lingering fears. Fears that can be crippling, if one doesn’t know her history.”

  “Perhaps that was the message instead? A beating is bad, but there are worse things possible?” Andross said innocently, as if just speculating, trying to find the answer with her.

  “If so,” she said, “that message was beyond ill considered, and had the opposite effect to what was intended. No one likes to feel helpless; I have a particular loathing for it. I made a foolish oath about what I would do when I found out who had done that to me. It involved flaying and honey and insects and castration. Not a fitting oath for the White to take.”

  “But then, you weren’t the White at the time,” he said, still so damnably innocent.

  “No indeed. Do you think a White is bound by oaths she made before she was the White?”

  “Hmm. Yes?—unless they interfere with her duties as the White. That oath and office supersedes all lower bonds,” Andross said.

  “I agree. It becomes tricky, though. You see, with all the intelligence apparatus available to me as the White, I’ve uncovered who ordered my beating.”

  “Indeed?” he asked. “A curious allocation of your resources, don’t you think? Still. I wish I had thought to have my own people look into that for you. What punishment may I help you inflict upon this malefactor?”

  She took a breath and looked away. “None. I forgive you.”

  “Me?! Beg your pardon?” He didn’t even sound that outraged. He wasn’t even trying.

  “I’ll seek no vengeance against you. I consider the matter closed.”

  Baffle Andross Guile.

  “In return for what? Me admitting something I obviously didn’t do?” Andross asked, but his expression had already betrayed him.

  “It would be nice—”

  “My dear, some people only know the language of blunt objects. I speak to such people in the language they understand. You, however, are not one of those.”

  She held up a hand. “I forgive you. Let it not stand between us. Clean slate.”

  “Generous of you,” he said sarcastically. “Should I forgive you in turn for seducing my sons and destroying the Seven Satrapies?”

  It was so unfair it almost took her breath. Andross Guile had been the one who ordered his younger son Dazen to seduce Karris, so that he wouldn’t have to marry off his elder son to her to seal their families’ alliance. It had worked, too. She and Dazen had fallen in love, but then the real Gavin couldn’t bear to see his younger brother so happy. What had happened next was Andross Guile’s fault more than anyone�
�s. And he blamed her? A fifteen-year-old girl at the time?

  She wanted to scratch his damn eyes out. But she’d learned something in the Archers about fighting those who were bigger and stronger. Things about accounting for the trajectory of the superior force. You never try to stop it. You redirect it instead.

  “Yes. Please do forgive me,” she said without a hint of sarcasm.

  He stopped, suddenly emotionless. He wasn’t often taken by surprise. “Oh, I don’t think I respected Orea enough,” he said finally.

  She wasn’t sure which he meant: that Orea had been brilliant in appointing Karris who was so surprisingly capable, or that it had been nice to deal with Orea and he hadn’t noticed how nice until he had to deal with her inferior.

  “A mistake I’m sure you’ll not make with her successor,” Karris said.

  He chuckled. “Oh, I already have. But not again, perhaps. I make many mistakes, but few of them twice.”

  “Well, now that we’ve gotten all that out of the way, the purpose of our meeting,” Karris said.

  “Yes. Pray tell.”

  Karris said, “I looked at the faces of all the High Luxiats and the Colors on the execution platform when that… thing happened. I saw bewilderment or fear on every face. Most hiding it, naturally. But one face looked almost…”

  She paused.

  Andross said, “Please don’t hold back on my account.”

  “Smug. Like he’d been proven right about something. Strange, don’t you think?”

  “That would be an odd expression for such a time,” Andross agreed. “And quite astute of you to look for it.” He sipped his tea.

  “I think you might find that my eye is on you more than you’d guess,” Karris said. Shit. That came out as a threat. “To see how I should act. To take your lead.”

  “To take my lead?” he asked, amused.

  She wanted to kill him. She wanted justice for Orea’s murder. She wanted to demand to know what he’d done with Marissia and the package of letters.

  But that was all a fantasy.

  Andross Guile was too dangerous to kill; he was also too valuable alive. When he wanted things done, he got them done. And diplomats who might start fights with anyone else would do anything in their power not to tangle with Andross Guile.