“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.
Which mattered. This war wasn’t just going to fizzle out. Karris saw that now. The White King was making smart moves in his conquered lands, preparing to hold and keep them, to generate wealth that he could draw from to take all the satrapies.
Vengeance is yours, Orholam.
It’ll have to be.
“Promachos,” Karris said. “When you lock shields with the man next to you in a battle line, you don’t first ask his opinion on the Manichean dichotomy. I don’t intend to challenge your position or your power, so long as I feel we’re fighting on the same side. The Color Prince has gone from a regional problem to an existential crisis. I can’t fight you and him at the same time. But if I need to fight you before the satrapies can fight him, I’ll throw everything against you—and I will fight you until one of us is annihilated. I can’t do half measures, and I won’t accept them from you. So, war. Together. Are you in, or out?” And this was where it was important he see her as a zealot.