The Burning White (73 page)

Cruxer steered their circle in close to the ship that they’d hit with the hullwrecker, hoping that the other ships would be reticent to fire up on their own comrades.

As they came out of that second circle, though, Winsen shouted a curse. He pointed back in toward the great dragon-ship. “Breaker!”

Kip ignored him.

“Breaker! Kip! For Orholam’s sake, man—”

Kip glanced up, trying to narrow his eyes so that he wouldn’t be blinded. He caught only a terror of skimmers streaming toward them—the White King had skimmers now?—no, they were sea chariots pulled by some kind of sea animals. Sharks? And sharks untethered and great swarms of razor wings clouding the sky.

But Kip said nothing. He jumped toward the rudder and cut so hard that all of them were nearly thrown off their feet and into the water.

Before they could even cry out in protest, the water exploded beside them in a flash of dark skin and immense presence as the black whale breached fully into the air, sharks snapping behind it, some of them launching into the air as well.

It was only the vast discipline ingrained in the Blackguard that kept them on their reeds, kept them moving. Razor wings hit the waves all around them, some exploding, some trying to slash their bodies.

The black whale came down on the stern of the ship Ben-hadad had bombed. Waves and flotsam exploded from the dying ship, a cacophony of screams and water and small explosions from the razor wings and dying men and animals.

Kip slewed the command skimmer back and forth as he nearly lost his feet, not so much in evasive moves as merely trying to regain his own balance, but when he came out of the tight arc, there seemed to be a gap—a trough of clear water.

He aimed the skimmer down into the trough and then up the other side.

The skimmer bottomed out in the trough, sliced into the following wave, then shot into the air, over crushed hull and lumber and dying men.

They didn’t clear it completely, but the garbage they landed on yielded to the skimmer’s foils and weight and speed.

Ahead of them, the black whale breached again, this time with only a single shark after it. Then it dove before it reached the second circle of ships.

It didn’t matter. The outer circle was looser, and the first ship one of them had bombed was half sunk. Kip and the Mighty shot out into the open sea and safety.

He shot flares into the open sky—a retreat, in an old Chromeria code.

The Chromeria’s fleet didn’t heed it. Not that he could see.

There was nothing he could do.

They had tried. But that didn’t make him feel like any less a coward as they fled.

“There were hundreds of drafters on that dragon-ship,” Cruxer said. “We’re good. Maybe we’re each worth ten of them, but . . .”

“Not a hundred of them, each, not at once,” Winsen said.

“I’ve shit myself before,” Big Leo said. “But I’ve never run away.”

“You didn’t run away,” Ferkudi said. “None of us did. I mean, except Breaker. He was steering. He gave the orders. So I guess he ran away, but the rest of us—”

“Ferk. Shut it,” Cruxer said.

“They’re gonna die back there, aren’t they?” Ferkudi asked. “All those Chromeria drafters and sailors and soldiers. I mean, is there any possible way they might—”

“Ferk!” Cruxer said.

They skimmed in silence, and Kip wondered if at last he was the Breaker in truth. He had broken the Mighty’s streak of victories; he had broken their foundational myth that they were invincible. In so doing had he broken the Mighty itself?

They were no longer heroes of lore, legends in the making, indomitable, unstoppable, unflappable, brave and just and right and true and forever.

Maybe they’d always just been boys who’d had some lucky fights.

Several minutes later, when the Mighty were so distant Kip didn’t think they would know the outcome of this battle one way or the other, a sound like the earth shaking reached them, and mist exploded into the distant skies.

Big Leo said, “I feel like I just got in a fight with my big brother and he grabbed my fists and started hitting me in the face with them, chanting, ‘Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself.’ ”

Then a tugging sickness hit all of them, and even this far away they lost half their speed all at once. It was the call of a master to his slaves, certain of obedience.

The bane had surfaced.

Kip couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it, couldn’t witness it—and yet he knew that hundreds upon hundreds of their allies had just perished. Maybe their friends had been on those ships. He hadn’t stopped the White King. He hadn’t saved his friends.

He’d failed, and he couldn’t think of any way that he could do anything but fail again when the bane reached the Jaspers.

“I’m coming to the end of things, Quentin, I can feel it,” Teia said.

“With the Order?” he asked, his voice low. He never forgot to be circumspect, even here in his own room. His room, it turned out, even had a secret exit into a seldom-used hallway. There were, Teia’d found, several old, dusty, and baggy cloaks of various colors and qualities hanging near the exit. Some White long ago had used this room probably not only for assignations but also as a staging area to go out incognito, probably to meet spies.

“No,” she said. “I mean, sort of. With them, but not only with them. I feel like—I think maybe Orholam’s letting me know that I’m going to die.”

“It has been known to happen,” he said, contemplative. “If so it’s either a mercy, to tell one to repent, or it’s a grace, to allow one to take care of unfinished business. Do you feel you have unfinished business?”

She shrugged. Funny that he didn’t think she needed to repent. “I mean, taking down the bad guys and finding my father, but not really like spiritually or whatnot.”

She wasn’t sure if that was true, but Quentin was a luxiat, and sometimes he went full-on luxiat on her. It was all right. She was glad he had something that worked for him, and he wasn’t obnoxious about it.

He didn’t say anything else. He was getting good at waiting silently. He’d joked once that the wisest luxiat is a silent luxiat. Finally, he said, “No one touches you, do they?”

It was heading toward night, and the sunset through the windows gave the wood in this chamber a ruddy glow. She’d always liked the light in Quentin’s room. In this orangey, warm chamber, with his many books and the simple, well-burnished beauty of his hardwood shelves (and, perhaps, Quentin’s company), there was no loneliness, only solitude.

“Hadn’t thought about it,” she said.

“I avoided touch for the longest time,” he said. “I told myself I was just that way. Naturally averse to touch. It wasn’t that. It was shame. It was worse after I murdered Lucia, of course, but I’d had it even before then. I’m trying to unlearn some things, Adrasteia, things that stand in the way of my mission. No one touches the destitute, the broken poor. It’s been part of my work now to give them that connection, as valuable as the food and clothes I give them, I think. Of course, you minister to the body first, then the heart, and last, if you can, the soul. I think in this I’ve served you very poorly. Because you have enough to eat and are dressed well, and because you ask me smart questions, I’ve somehow missed your poverty.”

“ ‘Poverty’? Ha. I’ve seen poverty. This ain’t that.” She motioned around herself vaguely: as if to say, ‘Look at this room, these good clothes, all the privileges of my new station, the very nice meal a slave brought to Quentin’s chamber only minutes ago.’

“You’re a soldier with no brothers in arms, and you do heartbreaking work that no one can understand—not even those few you can tell about it.
I
don’t understand; not even Karris can. You endure a poverty of heart. But poverty’s lie to you is the same. Poverty tells you that you don’t matter.”

Teia felt suddenly naked. “Well, shit, Quentin.”

“It wasn’t a condemnation of you. The opposite, in fact.”

“I do so think I matter,” she said, but even she could hear the defensiveness in her voice. She wouldn’t sound defensive if he were simply mistaken, would she?

“Adrasteia, you think that what you
do
matters. The mission matters. But outside of your mission, you believe you have no importance. That’s a lie. A lie that’s made you very good, very focused. Now the thing that you believed gave you your only significance is drawing to a close, so you’re terrified. Of course you are. It’s understandable, but it’s not a premonition of death.”

“I could die at any moment,” she said. Sharp was hunting her, even now.

“That’s true, but it’s true of us all,” he said.

“A little
more
true for me,” she said.

“A point I’ll concede,” he said. “Though if Sharp catches you, they’ll kill me, too.”

“They what?” She’d never even thought of it.

“They’ll kill anyone you spent much time with, trying to find your handler.”

“How did I not think of that?” She felt a sudden nausea, but it was too late now. Even if she cut off all contact with Quentin today, they’d kill him regardless. She’d been seen with him and the Mighty before. It was how the Order worked. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I swear I’ll do my best not to let that happen.”

“You’d do your best regardless, and I’ll die when Orholam allows it, and no sooner. I’m glad to aid you, and honored to call you friend.”

“Friend?” she asked.

“Is it such a high bar to clear?” he asked.

“No, it’s not that. I suppose . . . I mean, you
have
been a friend to me, far better than I deserve.”

“Oh, I disagree,” he said.

“And I’ve been no friend to you,” Teia said. “Our entire relationship is based on me taking.”

He shrugged. “I don’t see it that way.”

“I didn’t tell you what happened,” she said. “With Aglaia.”

Ah. Maybe she did have unfinished business.

“I took the lack of an answer as an answer.”

So he thought she’d succumbed, that she’d tortured that evil bitch. “I didn’t torture her. I didn’t even speak to her.”

“Did you kill her hard or easy?”

“Quick. I’m not sure there is
easy
. But it was instant. It was your words that inspired me, if you must know. Sort of.”

Quentin took in a big breath. His eyes softened. “Well, then! I’m so proud of you, Adrasteia. Doing the right—”

“Don’t be,” she interrupted. “I didn’t do the right thing. It was what you said about repentance. Or, actually, damnation.”

“Hmm?”

“I was afraid if I tortured her, she might repent. Orholam is merciful, and I wanted to be sure I sent her straight to hell. I wanted her to suffer, but I could only spare a few minutes in that room, nervous of being interrupted. I wanted her to suffer forever, burn forever in whatever hell there is for her kind. I killed her fast so she wouldn’t have any second chance to avoid that hell, if hell there is. So tell me, Quentin, tell me that I’m kind and good. Tell me that I
deserve
a friend.”

A lump rose in her throat and she swallowed hard on it.

The compassion in his eyes didn’t even waver. He shook his head. “I’m a
murderer
, Adrasteia. I killed an innocent! You expect me to reject you because you killed a bad woman too eagerly?”

Teia furrowed her brow. “Hadn’t really thought of it that way.”

“Even my hypocrisy knows
some
bounds,” he said with a grin. “Besides,” he said, “it doesn’t work. Some people think they can force Orholam’s hand. You know, like they can enjoy their sins for their whole life, then make a deathbed confession. That kind of thing. As if the Giver of Justice, the creator of the very concept, could be so easily fooled or manipulated. Do you think that you could, by plucking Aglaia out of time at this moment or that, really change her soul’s destination? Do you think you’re so powerful? Really? That matter is between her and Orholam. You have many powers, but that’s not one of them! Granted,
trying
to send someone to hell is a serious matter. But you’re not her judge. Being her executioner is quite enough weight for you to bear.”

“You make it sound as if it all makes sense,” Teia said. “As if it all works out.”

“It does.”

“All evidence to the contrary?”

“I never said we get to see it all work out.”

“Then maybe it’s time for us to finish that other discussion,” Teia said. “Because I think I have an answer,” Teia said. “You said when we approach the big questions, we need to know if we’re approaching them rationally or emotionally. But the truth is we always approach them emotionally. There’s always one answer we want. Though which answer that is varies from person to person.”

“You’re certain you’re ready to talk about evil now?”

“Seems like
before
I do my best to kill people might be better for it than afterward.”

He answered that with silence, and she actually took the time to think about it. Ready, really? She was and she wasn’t. And her heart needed the words now, like a thirsty tongue needs water, even if it be a trickle licked off a stone and not a full glass.

“Ready enough to hear. Maybe not to accept,” she admitted.

“Then you know your own heart better than most,” Quentin said.

“Very well, then. I’m a smart man, but often not a wise one, which can make for an impoverished theology or at least a poor application of it. But here’s the best I’ve got. Why is there evil if Orholam loves us and has the power to stop it? My answer is that we are the apprentice painters, working under the master’s watchful eye. He is a good master, and He has sworn not to make our work meaningless. Every smudge and every blot and every unsteady line we draw will remain. The master will soften a line or turn the darkest graffiti to chiaroscuro, but never will He take the palette knife to gouge out an imperfect piece of the work, for if He erased the imperfections made by our hands, where would He stop erasing?
Everything
we paint we paint imperfectly.”

“Then the whole scheme is shit. He should paint it all Himself, were He not too lazy,” Teia said. She wasn’t doing a good job of listening, though, and she knew it.