The Burning White (135 page)

Corvan swore aloud again, suddenly putting the pieces together.

Those Blood Robes had withdrawn to protect their bane from Kip’s Mighty. Kip’s men had been striking at the heart of the White King’s power and had needed the distraction Kip requested so they wouldn’t be overwhelmed.

But the messenger was a coward.

Corvan’s damned messenger might have gotten not just the Mighty but
everyone
killed.

Was it too late now?

Kip’s men might have saved Corvan’s forces here, but could he save them now?

What could serve as a suitable distraction?

Was that it? His wife, Polyhymnia, the Third Eye, had called him her Titan of the Great Fountain. He’d set up his defense here partly because of that.

But
that
plan couldn’t work because of the bane’s influence locking down red.

Magic rocked the isles again and again. Not only the loss of blue—there were reports of white?! Some even claimed to have felt black.

But even as detached as Corvan liked to think he was in the midst of issuing orders and hearing reports and dodging razor wings, he realized he couldn’t even comprehend everything that was happening elsewhere. There were at least two battles happening here simultaneously, probably three, all overlapping one another.

And he might be screwing up all of them.

Now, why weren’t these damned Blood Robes retreating with the coming night? Why?!

Then, suddenly, the black luxin returned in an enormous wave.

Dazen!

The wave scoured the islands, breaking the bane’s control of all the drafters, freeing them to do what they could.

The defenders and attackers were equally astonished, breaking from fighting for a few moments and then rejoining the fray. But even that didn’t make the Blood Robes flee.

And then the black wave was gone.

Corvan immediately deployed his drafters, but the sun was already so far down that they had little source. Some had mag torches, but those were rare and expensive—Corvan left it to the drafters themselves to decide if they needed to use them.

It allowed some pushback at key places, but there weren’t enough mag torches to fuel the defense.

Why the hell had Kip stopped sending light from the mirror array?! He hadn’t been answering the messages they’d flashed to him for a while now. And
now
was when they needed him on the mirror array most. These few minutes could make a real difference!

“Send messages to Kip again. Tell him if he’s got any more tricks, now would be a good time—”

“Sir, the superviolets say that the Ferrilux has seized the mirror array,” an attaché said.

“What?!” he demanded.

Ferrilux’s bane had been killed, but
she
had not. And she’d taken the array, which likely meant Kip was dead.

Dammit, Aliviana.

But he couldn’t think of her as his daughter. Not right now. And maybe it wasn’t her anymore. Maybe she wasn’t in control anymore. Maybe she was a victim, too.

So why would Ferrilux seize the mirrors as night came? Why put herself in such peril that she would try to take the mirrors even without her bane or her wights?

He looked out at the other bane once more. Each had some kind of central spire, a high point. He’d thought them mere lookouts, good areas from which the Blood Robes could see what was happening even behind Big Jasper’s walls.

And then he got it. The bane had brought lightwells, like great mag torches.

That was why Ferrilux wanted the mirror array.

The Blood Robes were bringing sources to the fight. With colors from each of the towers and the mirrors, the wights would be able to attack with magic, all night long, anywhere in the city.

Aside from the purely strategic disadvantage of fighting all those wights with no magic themselves, Corvan realized that in mere minutes his people were going to be fighting street to street against literal monsters in the dark.

The terror would be overwhelming.

“Sir! We’ve got more wights massing to attack. Hundreds at least!” an attaché shouted over the din.

“What colors? What colors, Lieutenant? And don’t you dare say all of ’em!”

“Sir . . .” Her face strained. “All of them.”

Andross Guile crawled across the stateroom floor, drool and vomit dripping down his chin.

White luxin. Goddam. Kip had drafted white luxin before the end. The little barnacle on Andross’s ass had had the audacity to try to control the mirror array from Orholam’s Glare itself. And that fire! It had confirmed one thing, anyway, Lord Dariush had been right: the Atashians’ Dragon and the other satrapies’ Lightbringer weren’t the same person.

Or maybe they were, and Kip had failed, and they were all doomed.

Andross threw up again, retching on an empty belly.

The slaves were gone. Not a one of his household had stood by him. He had treated them so well, and this is what he got?

When the spasms passed, he pulled himself to his feet. He was past the worst of it now. Two bites into his garlic-and-almond chicken before he’d stopped. Two distracted bites before he’d recognized the tastes weren’t
exactly
garlic and almond, and stopped, and forced himself to vomit. Not garlic and almond, but two poisons whose odors most resemble those: arsenic and cyanide.

He braced himself against the doorframe, and slowly, slowly checked his Ilytian pistol. There was a chance that an assassin might come and make sure the job was finished. Then, reassured, he opened the door.

No one was outside. All the Blackguards had abandoned their posts, either traitors or men and women who put their loyalty to Karris above their loyalty to anyone else on the Spectrum. Certainly Zymun had had no Blackguards attending him when he’d murdered Kip. Zymun was stupid, but he wasn’t that stupid.

Andross tottered across the hallway to Felia’s old chambers. Opened the door slowly, in case its occupant had been given a musket.

“Who’s there?!” a young woman called out.

“It is I.”

“Who the hell are you?” Teia demanded from the couch. Good, good. He would have been furious if they’d put the little runt in Felia’s bed.

“Andross Guile. Your promachos.”

“Is Grinwoody with you?”

“I’m alone,” he said, coming into the room.

Teia relaxed visibly, taking her finger off the trigger, but still resting it along the musket’s guard and still keeping the musket pointed in his general direction. Her head was wrapped in numerous layers of thick cloths, and he could see she was listening closely for any quick movement. “Where is he?” she asked. As if she had the right to ask questions of him—but he was too sick to fight right now.

“Gone.”

“How’d you know they brought me here?” she asked.

“They couldn’t keep you in the infirmary; it would be the first place the Order would look. And they didn’t know of any of the hidden rooms except those the Order obviously knew about already. That left them without many good options.”

“You just . . . know all of this?” Teia demanded. “You really do have people everywhere, don’t you?”

“In truth,” Andross admitted, “I heard them arguing about it outside my door.” He hoped to elicit a smile, but Teia was past charm.

“Grinwoody is the Old Man of the Desert,” she said.

“Really? Is he now?” The red in him flared up. “Now, that information would have been very valuable
before he poisoned my supper
.”

“He poisoned your—Oh shit! So that’s why you look like that.”

So she could see through her head wrappings?

All right, then. Actually, good.

“You’re a miserable failure, Adrasteia, but I’m going to give you another chance.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were supposed to kill the Order, right? Grinwoody got away. And you’ve missed all the fighting today. Good people have died. Friends.”

He could see her swallow. She wanted to ask, but didn’t.

“I can’t do anything,” she said. “I’m not here because I want to be. I drank lacrimae sanguinis. Had to, to get them all to drink it. I don’t even know if it wears off, but I’m weak as a puppy and—”

“It does.”

“What?”

“Wear off.”

“How would you know that?”

“I studied poisons quite a bit when I first got into politics—seemed a prudent defensive measure. Luckily, that was before I took on Grinwoody, else he’d have known about the mithridatism.”

“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.