The Burning White (148 page)

“Oh, that’s a little tight,” Karris said.

“We just have to hold that until I finish this leg,” Rhoda said. But she didn’t work ten or fifteen times down Karris’s left leg as she had on the right. Instead she wrapped it up with the scarf and secured it to the table, as she had done with both wrists and her other leg.

Eyes still closed, Karris said, “I guess I can see why people who really like the feeling of vulnerability might—”

“Aha, see this tension in your neck?” Rhoda said, her fingers massaging Karris’s jaw. “Open.”

Karris opened her mouth. “Rhoda, I think I’m done with this. I’d like—”

Something was stuffed into her mouth, and when Karris tried to spit it out, her eyes flying open, there was no red for her to draft, no green, and then thick strong fingers jabbed deep into the pressure points behind Karris’s ears.

Before she could scream, a gag so thick it held her jaw open and tongue down was secured across her face.

Rhoda scrubbed her hands through her wild hair. Her face was tracked with tears.

Karris bucked against the bonds, but they only tightened. She tried to scream, but almost no sound emerged, certainly nothing that would alarm the Blackguards outside the door, who were used to being banished from the room and chided for investigating any little moan of pain.

Visibly summoning her courage, Rhoda put one hand behind Karris’s head and one under her chin, preparing to snap her neck. Then she stopped. “He told me not to talk to you. But you have to know. I don’t
want
to do this. Everyone spies on the Jaspers. I thought he was just another noble, except he paid more than anyone. And when he saw I could keep my mouth shut, he paid more still. And then I got invited to the parties for the people he trusted . . . I thought it was all wild parties and free thinkers and free spirits, you know? The Order? I thought they were just people who wouldn’t be held down by stupid rules. It was all way before you became the White. I never meant you any harm. I mean, I never thought they’d really turn any of that stuff into action. They were all talk. I want you to know, I love you, Karris. I didn’t go to their party, and I told him no. Told him I was out. I promised him my silence, and I told him I wouldn’t do it. That I was done.”

No. Please, Orholam, no!

Rhoda’s face contorted with grief. “He killed my mother for that! And now he’s holding my brother. The only family I’ve got left. He’ll kill him if I don’t do this. I’m sorry. I’ll die for this. But it’s what I have to do.”

Rhoda took a deep breath and stepped forward, putting her hand on Karris’s chin. Then there was a sound like someone’s back being slapped, and hot light flashed from within Rhoda’s chest, bright enough it shone through her clothes. It burned in flashes up and down her spine, making her neck glow.

Flash-boiled from the inside, her eyes went cloudy gray an instant before she collapsed out of sight as if boneless.

A godawful sound of cooking gases hissing out of the entry wound filled Karris’s ears. Then the smell of horribly burnt meat and viscera filled the room.

“Too bad,” Andross Guile said, his face appearing over Karris. He settled the towel primly back in place over her nakedness where it had fallen away in her struggles. “I’d really hoped she would talk more.”

He loosed her feet, then her hands, and then, as she took out the gag for herself, he opened a robe for her, turning his gaze aside.

It gave her a moment to collect herself. At first she wanted to hit him or throw something, maybe not at him maybe right at his damn head, what did he think he was doing here, did he think she gave two shits about getting dressed when she’d just—Okay, fine, she did care a little about getting dressed, what did she even ask first? What the hell he’d done to her friend? Could he not have stepped in a little tiny bit earlier? She’d almost had her damn fool neck snapped!

“How long were you there?” Karris asked, despite herself.

“I had a suspicion she was the last of them, and you were the most likely target for Grinwoody’s wrath.”

“What?! Why would
I
be his target?”

“Because I told him you were responsible for destroying the Order.”

Her jaw dropped. “You set me
as bait
?”

He didn’t bother to answer. “I was hoping she’d say if there were any others left, but you heard her; she’s the kind who kept her mouth shut.”

The door exploded open so suddenly Karris almost flipped, and Blackguards were suddenly all over the room. They’d smelled the burning and heard a man’s voice.

The next minutes were filled with the predictable—scouring for other assassins, moving Karris and Andross to a secure room, (eventually) getting Karris fully dressed again (thank you!), and surely taking care of the body. Andross seemed irritated by the whole rigmarole, but he played along.

Sometime later, they continued. “Are you going to send someone to save Rhoda’s brother?” Karris asked.

“Of course not. I’ll not do her a good turn in return for her treachery. But I will send my best men to find her brother, so we can kill the Order people holding him. If our people save him as an ancillary cost . . .” Andross shrugged. “Sometimes one must do good in order to obtain what one desires.”

Karris shook her head. “Wow. You know, once in a while, I think there’s some things you can’t admit about yourself, High Lord. You like secrets, so I’m gonna tell you this one.”

“It won’t be a secret if you tell me,” Andross said as if utterly disinterested, but she didn’t believe it; if he really didn’t want to hear what she was about to say, he’d have interrupted her to talk about something else.

“Oh, I trust you to keep it quiet,” she said. “It’s this: I think there’s a sliver of kindness growing in you. You better watch out for that.”

He looked at her critically, nonplussed. “Look at you. Full of hope. Naïve despite all evidence and experience to the contrary. Making people feel better about themselves wherever you go. Leaving them eager to be with you, and follow you. You do make an excellent White.”

Karris held her breath, and when he moved to speak, she interrupted. “And I’m going to choose to believe, right now, that the next words out of your mouth are
not
going to be a clever put-down that undercuts everything you just said.”

He grinned wolfishly, eyes glittering. “Of course not,” he said after a moment.

She wondered if he’d changed his mind about what he was going to say next, but she couldn’t read anything except amusement in his deep eyes.

“You saved me,” she said.

“Mmm.”

“You didn’t have to. I’m one of the few who can stand in your way now, and I’ve showed I will if I think it necessary. You could’ve waited at the door and listened from there. You could’ve had people seize Rhoda and interrogate her after she killed me. Then you could’ve installed your own White. It would make your life a lot easier. The assassination of a White? It would have prompted the Spectrum to give you every remaining power that you don’t already have. And don’t tell me it didn’t occur to you.”

Andross sniffed. He motioned to his new body man, whom Karris didn’t recognize. The slave set down what looked like a ledger book on a side table. “Your wedding present.”

He hadn’t answered her question at all. What? Now? A book?

With a polite tone and wearing her most pleasant diplomatic expression, she said, “You’re too kind. A book. Is it hollowed out for the asp hidden inside?” She scrunched up her face. “Shit! Sorry.”

But he seemed to inflate with immense pleasure. “Aha. The triumph of experience over hope. So it happens even for our peerless White,” Andross said.

Karris tried again. “What is it?”

“The genealogy of the family Guile.”

“A . . . genealogy?” she asked, arching her eyebrows. Gee, I’ll have to crack that open while I eat my sawdust sweetmeats.

“You’re young. I know you’ve no interest in it now. But someday you might. And the answer is the same,” he said.

“The answer?” she asked, baffled.

“To both questions.”

“Sorry . . . both?”

“ ‘Why would I give you this boring old book?’ and ‘Why did I save you at such cost to myself?’ ”

She opened her mouth, closed it. “Yes. Those would’ve been my two questions . . . when they occurred to me about an hour from now. So . . . why?”

He studied her, and his eyes seemed to soften. “Because you’re family.”

Then he left.

“Darling,” Karris said with a note in her voice like he’d just come back from the bathroom and he’d forgotten to tuck something away.

“Yes?” Dazen asked, double-checking his clothes. They’d decided to process forward together. Different satrapies had different traditions on such things, and he’d been nervous that he (being so recently thought dead) might actually get more applause and cheering than she did. Probably a silly fear. And Karris wouldn’t have cared if he had. But hell, they
were
already married, and they were a team, so they were walking together.

“Your
hand
?” she said.

He lifted his right hand.

“The other one. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? What is
that
?”

He looked down at his left hand and wiggled his fingers. “Just think of it as a bit of, uh, cosmetics. Surely today of all days, you’re not going to object to a little harmless hex-casting, are you?” he asked.

“ ‘Harmless’?” she whispered loudly. “You can’t go out there with a hex-crafted fake
hand
.”

“Honey . . .” he said. And he gave her the most innocently charming Dazen Guile smile she’d ever seen. Or at least he hoped it was. “I just didn’t want anything about
me
to distract anyone from
you
.”

She actually blushed, and straightened her dress. It was a gorgeous something with lots of details that he couldn’t really notice except for the fact that they united together beautifully to heighten his eagerness to take it off her.

Then she looked back at him sharply. “Wait . . . the tooth, too? You did not!”

He gave a lopsided grin to bare his dogtooth. “Go on, try to guess. Denture or hex?”

“
Honey
! I am
the White
,” she whispered, looking around at the various attendants who were trying to give them a few private moments before they went out together. “You can’ t—”

“Relax,” he said. “C’mon, it’s what I said last night, and that worked out, didn’t it?”

She shook her head, blushing again. “I am gonna make you pay for that. And this.”

“I look forward to it,” he said. He looked at the shut great doors, with the Blackguards ready to open them at their signal. “Shall we?”

“No, wait,” she said. “I have something for you.”

“Hmm?”

“A wedding gift.”

“A wedding gift? Well, now I feel like the louse,” Dazen said.

“Don’t worry. At first I planned to give you something truly awful, like make you Nuqaba,” she said.

“Endless rituals and bumping into the people who burned out my eye in the first place? I’m not sure how happy I could’ve pretended to be about that.”

“Yeah, I thought it might be too awkward. Too many Guiles at the top as it is,” she said.

“High Lord, High Lady,” a steward said. “Whenever you’re ready. Or . . . the musicians can loop this song another fifteen times, as you will.”

“Oooh, I love the sassy ones,” Dazen said.

“But . . . now I’m lousing this up because I’m pressured,” Karris said. “Anyway, it did make me think of your eye patch. And your eye. All you’ve given for these satrapies. I couldn’t stop thinking of that Parian metaphor about the evil eye and justice and mercy. And I can’t stop thinking how you had that harsh kind of retributive justice burned out of you. You gave up the evil eye. You have no condemnation to give. And I thought there’s something beautiful in that.

“And I don’t want people to look away from your eye patch because you’ve been wounded. I want them to see it and be reminded of what you sacrificed for them.” She took out a white silk eye patch with subtle embroidery, white on white. “I’m having others made. Jeweled ones nearly as prismatic as your eyes used to be. Different expressions. I figured I can play dress-up with you every day.” She looked up at him, nervous. “I’m kidding. I mean, I am having some made, but you don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it. You don’t have to wear any of them if you don’t like.”

“I love it.” He took off his black eye patch and closed his eye, ducking his head while she put the white eye patch in place.

“Ready?” she asked.

The great doors opened. They processed forward together, but the cheers and the music and the voices were all hushed to Dazen’s ears. These first days with her had been full of such wonder he could hardly believe it. He felt like he was continually being reminded of things he adored about her that he’d somehow forgotten in the time they’d been apart. He felt so united, so whole.

They’d wanted to stay up late last night, just talking—so they did. Talking, connected, they wanted to make love—so they did. Resting safe in each other’s arms, they wanted to tell each other everything, so they did.

In these first days, conflicts seemed but trifles easily overcome, and all the demands on their time were somehow met, and only heightened their joy of reunion at the end of the day.

They weren’t children; they knew this was a special time and a fleeting one, but there was nothing cynical in that recognition, nor at all resigned to eventual stagnation: they were, simply, in the first great thaw of spring, and they were enjoying the warmth of the sun, without demanding that it never rain or snow again.

The ceremony went on, with more speakers and more prayers than Dazen would have liked (one of the trifling conflicts), and he kept stealing glances at her as if to memorize every detail of her irrepressible smile.

Then they faced each other, held each other’s hands, and renewed their vows.

As they finished, he said, “Do you mind if I maybe show off a little?”

“Dazen Guile,” she said. “If I was bothered by you showing off, I wouldn’t have married you. Twice.”