And knowing that she was always laid up for a few days at least after a birth, she quite practically moved on to her stack of must-read letters.
Another from her satrap, Briun Willow Bough, telling her things she already knew. Urgent, help immediately, you serve for such a time as this, et cetera. What did he think Arys was doing here, anyway? At the end, the letter asked if she needed to be replaced because she was too pregnant. Arys saw red. Too pregnant? That upjumped son of a carter was questioning her? She’d rip his squinty right eye out, pound it flat with a meat hammer, pan fry and feed it to that slobbering stupid piece of—
She breathed slowly. Easy, Ary.
The sub-red was close, always close these days. Two more years, Arys. You can make two more years if you’re careful.
She put that letter down in a different stack. She’d have to answer that when she was no longer furious. Sometimes she hated her work. She caught a glimpse of her lover stirring in her mirror.
The work did have its perquisites, though, she supposed.
With her unfashionable red-red straight hair and freckles, many other women of thirty-five years would find it difficult to procure lovers. She did what she could to darken her skin and hide the freckles and the worry-lines, and few would guess that she’d had twelve children (though, honestly, most would guess she’d had one or two), but even dressed well, Arys’s beauty was not the type of beauty that was celebrated at the Chromeria. Her blue eyes were her best feature—everyone loved blue eyes. But she’d had a lover—in her younger days, before she figured out how to pick men who knew the proper use for their tongues—who, immediately after they’d made love, had told her that her freckles were a tragedy. That otherwise she would be a beauty men would praise to the stars.
She’d been young, and not so good with her impulses as now. She’d grabbed his stones and tried to rip them off. She’d broken all of her nails, but his scrotum had torn in her hand. And then he’d beaten her fiercely.
It was easy to forget when you had so much power that sometimes the only power that mattered was the power of muscles.
It had taken her a minute to even remember she could draft while being battered and thrown against the wall by that screaming, terrified, furious man, holding his torn scrotum in one hand and making a fist with the other. And then, drafting at long last, she’d burnt him to a husk. She’d lost the baby she was pregnant with at the time, and had never known if it was from the beating or from the huge amounts of heat that she’d drafted. Either would have been sufficient, she supposed.
She was at peace with her relative good looks now. Power made up for it. Pretty men and boys sought her out. Mostly, though, she preferred those who were not too pretty, but were instead strong enough to bring good blood to the Greenveil family, either drafters, or intelligent, or charismatic—they had to have some excellence, when she was looking for a father. Her current lover was probably a short-termer, though. Elijah was terribly interesting with his amber eyes, and wonderfully willful, a skilled lover, intelligent, and there was something oddly dangerous about him. But she wasn’t sure she wanted him to be the father of child fourteen. She doubted she would keep him for another six months. But in the meantime, she planned to enjoy herself.
Drafting a little sub-red, she inhaled deeply. The sub-red blew on the coals of her lust.
“Elijah?” she said.
He sat up on the bed. He was exactly what she liked at this point in her life. Lean and muscular, with some interesting scars on his arms and chest, he kept his orangey-red hair cut close to his skull, his freckles were faded on his face and arms, his skin was ruddy, and he had beautifully white teeth. He looked at her—pregnant as she was—with undisguised desire. Having a man who would worship your body when you were hugely pregnant and awkward was perhaps the greatest luxury a woman could have.
But as she stood to go to him, she felt the familiar tightening in her belly. She hesitated. She’d been having practice labor pains for months, and she wanted to be sure.
Elijah stood and walked over to her, naked. “Is it time?” he asked. He held her from behind, kissing her neck and cupping her swollen breasts in his hands.
She couldn’t breathe for a moment. Her stomach felt as tight as a drum.
“Yes,” she said finally, pushing his hands away. “I have to prepare myself. If there’s time between cramps, I may need you again. Get dressed.”
“Do you need me to summon your slaves?” Elijah asked.
She hesitated. The pain passed. “Not yet. It may be hours yet. Maybe you can put on that cloak of yours and nothing underneath,” she said. Truth was, she couldn’t imagine making love now that she’d actually started labor. But if it was false labor, she wanted him here. She could fuck out her frustration.
If she were honest with herself, she wanted him here regardless. If there was one thing she regretted about not having married just one man, it was in a few times like this, where she wanted someone to love her and worry about her and try to protect her foolishly from things he couldn’t protect her from. She wanted to tell Elijah she needed him for that, but she couldn’t.
She sat at her mirror, drew out her kohls, powders, paints in grease to withstand the sweat that would be her lot for the next hours. The Greenveils were from the deep forest, and they kept the old ways in this. New lands and new titles were well and good, but he who loses the center of his circle is lost. Like the pygmies from whom they were long ago descended, the Greenveil women prepared for childbirth as for battle. Arys was a good hand with the paints. Before she’d risen so high that it was unseemly for her to help other women with their makeup, she’d done it often. She missed it.
For her first few children, she’d planned elaborately what her paint would look like, believing it would be an omen for how the child’s spirit would turn out. She’d given up on that, and drew as the whim took her when she sat. She bound her long red hair back in simple braids, and applied the nine black dots across her forehead symmetrically around what would become a drawing of a fire crystal, then she connected the dots with yellow paints, making wings sweeping out toward her temples. An inverted triangle under one eye, a tear under the other. She had barely touched the rouge to her lips when the next cramp hit her, taking her breath, sending lightning through her belly to her back.
She paused, eyes closed, for a full minute. Then, though the pain hadn’t passed, she continued with her rouge. Lips full and red, exaggerated. Lines of gold paint to emphasize her cheekbones. The contraction eased and she worked more quickly. Thorns.
How could one forget this pain? How could anyone want to go through this more than once?
Arys drew black thorns on the back of each hand, down the fronts of her thighs, in the center of her chest, bracketing her breasts, bracketing her swollen belly.
It wasn’t good enough for the perfectionist in her, but as the next contraction hit, Arys decided it was good enough. She reached for her bell.
And Elijah trapped her be-thorned hand.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I could ask the same,” he said. “Nine points on your forehead? For nine gods you never knew?”
There was something odd in his amber eyes. His smile was a little too big, and so white. “Elijah, this is not the time,” she said.
“Oh, Arys, but this is exactly the time. I need you to listen closely to me for a very few minutes, and then make the most important decision of your life.” He lifted her hand from the bell. “Would you like me to help you with your paint? I’ve got quite a delicate hand for this sort of thing.”
“No!” she said. “Take your hands off me or I’ll scream.”
“If you scream, you and your baby both will die.”
He said the words in such a pleasantly neutral voice that she couldn’t believe she’d heard him correctly. She froze.
“I seduced you so that I could be here at this very moment, Arys Greenveil. My name isn’t Elijah, it’s Murder Sharp, of the Order of t
he Broken Eye. But I do some sidework, too. And when I can satisfy two factions at once…” He smiled. “I’m a very special kind of drafter. I can kill you without leaving a trace. And I can get away with it. Childbirth is so very dangerous, isn’t it? Especially for an older woman like you. And before you try anything, please know that I can kill you very, very quickly and silently. If you say anything, you’ll die. Your death would please one of my employers more than the other, but it would upset me greatly. Nonetheless, all are free in the light. Light cannot be chained, nor can the will of any drafter.”
The contraction eased enough for her to take another breath, and she felt utter dread. He’d betrayed her! Made her look a fool. Her fury gathered, and the sub-red that had become part of her, body and mind, blew on those flames.
Elijah slapped her. Not hard enough to leave a mark for long, but hard enough to stun her. “Think of your child, you fool,” he said. “I haven’t even told you the deal yet. Listen.”
A sudden contraction seemed to tear her in half. She couldn’t have spoken if she wanted to.
“I need your vote, and your silence. When the Spectrum next meets, they will take up the matter of voting to make Andross Guile the promachos. You will vote for him. In return, when it is time, Andross will help make one of your sons or daughters a Color, and he will send help immediately for your family and your country against the Color Prince. It’s a generous offer. There will be no counter. He also buys your silence about this visit. If you ever break this silence, I will personally kill all of your children, your sisters, and your brother. I will be a plague that sweeps through your house. In fact, that will be the excuse we use for so many deaths in one family—a plague.”
By the time the pain passed, Arys had recovered her wits. “Why would you do this? Are you not working with the heretics?”
“The Order of the Broken Eye is… practical. You should admire that. If working for Andross Guile helps us for now, why should we not? But killing a Color is something the Order loves.”
“Help me stand,” she said. “I need to walk to the birthing stall.” She reached up. Suddenly, one of her arms dropped, swinging dead to her side and slamming into her chair.
“You don’t need to go there yet. I’m not so ignorant. Nor should you be ignorant of my power. That is the smallest fraction of it,” Murder said. He made a flicking gesture, and her arm began tingling, feeling slowly suffusing the flesh once more. “By the way, it’s a boy. Do you want me to stop his heart? Is that what you need to be convinced?”
“You monster.”
“War makes monsters of us all, and Lucidonius started this war, not us.”
“Go to hell.”
“That’s your answer? That’s your vote?” Murder asked.
“You wouldn’t kill the baby. I’ve looked into your eyes as we made love. I’ve seen your soul, Elijah.” She couldn’t have been so wrong about him, could she? She’d looked to him for his body, his flattery, his willfulness, and his quick tongue. And she’d barely looked at him at all, past that. He’d been a diversion. She began to ease open the drawer with her knee.
“Elijah was my name, once,” he said. He sounded wistful. “I gave it up when I took the blinkers off my eyes to see the glories of a world unchained. I liked it when you said my name. I still do. Arys,” he said, his tone sharp suddenly, “I know you’ve got a pistol in that drawer. I unloaded it.”
She stopped moving.
“I enjoyed my time with you far more than I thought I would, High Lady Greenveil. You’re beautiful and intelligent and wilder than any woman I’ve had in years. You can say no to Andross Guile, because to hell with him, right? I understand. I’ve wanted to say it a time or three myself. If you say no but keep your silence about me, I’ll let the baby live. And I’ll make your passing as painless as possible.”
“I could lie.”
“There are six of your children on Big Jasper. Do you think you can get them off the island without Andross knowing what ship they’re on? Because if you lie, they die first. Then I go to Green Haven and work through your circle. It will not disappear altogether; my reach is not so great, nor my time infinite. But a plague can undo an entire life’s work in days.”
“You’re that kind of butcher?”
“I am a holy warrior. I do not always enjoy my orders, but I always obey them.” His voice was low, but filled with conviction.
“I should have seen it,” she said. When she’d been young, she’d looked into each of the many who tried to woo her with a paranoid focus. In recent years, she hadn’t paid as much attention. Too much sub-red, too long with fading looks.
He didn’t answer, didn’t tell her that he was very good at what he did. Of course he was. They would have only sent the best.
“Lunna Green?” she asked suddenly. The Color had died inexplicably a few months ago.
He nodded, acknowledging it was his work.
“Who was that for? Guile or your order or both?”
He shook his head. “You don’t need to know.”
“Help me to the birthing stall,” she said. She would die squatting, as many a woman in her line had done before her.
“You need not my help nor any man’s,” Elijah said.
It was true. Her last gasp of hope—using some martial art against him—was ridiculous in her pregnant state anyway. Better not to lose her dignity.
Dignity. I think about dignity, on my way to the birthing stalls? I am getting old. She looked at Elijah as he donned his gray cloak. He pulled a golden choker attached to chains within the cloak out of a pocket along the neck and fastened it tight against his skin.
“That your idea of freedom?” she asked.
“I serve in chains that others may live without them,” Elijah said. But he wasn’t her Elijah anymore.
“One day, in your perfect world?” she asked.
“One day,” he agreed.
She stood, on her own. “You’ll wait until after the babe is born?”
“I will.” He paused, suddenly awkward for the first time. “I’m afraid I’ll also need one of your teeth. I’ll wait until after, though. I just thought you, you should know. Your third molar on the left is quite beautiful.”
“I suppose I shan’t be needing it,” she said, genuinely puzzled.
He seemed relieved that she didn’t panic or insult him.
“How do you intend to stay hid—Oh,” she said as he closed his cloak and, after a shimmery wave passed through his cloak, disappeared, every part of him becoming identical to the wall behind him except for his bright bright amber eyes, which appeared to hang in space. She opened her eyes to sub-red, and there he stood. Clever, some mist walker’s cloak out of story. So that was how he intended to be in the room where no men were allowed. That was how he intended to know if she complied.
Some small part of her was outraged that her murderer should watch her in such intimate moments, moments meant only to be shared among women. But that part of her was small, and tired. She hurt, and it was enough that the hurting would end. Not just the hurting of pregnancy, but the hurt of healing again, of cracked nipples and sleepless nights—the Greenveils kept the old ways, and took care of their own, no nursemaids, no surrendering the pleasures and pains of parenting to another. Family roots must be nourished first if they are to bear much fruit later. She hurt from the drafting, and the wanting to draft. Every pregnancy, she had more trouble stopping, and she felt sub-red’s grip redouble on her when she went back to it. She didn’t know how much longer she’d make. She’d told herself two years. She’d been flattering herself.
But cowardice and treason was impossible. Another contraction came upon her, and when it passed, she knew she was willing for there to be an end. She had one more fight left in her. One last, precious fight, but not a fight to kill. She would war with her flesh to push one more child to the light, and then she would lay down her burdens and trust the circle she’d grown to take care of its own.
She reached for
the bell to summon her slaves. “May my curse live on you, Murder Sharp.”
“And my blessing on you, Arys. I will make it painless.”
“Tell Andross Guile to fuck himself,” she said. She rang the bell.
Chapter 32
Is this to be my life now? Meetings and spying and listening and posturing? The backstabbings that Karris had once had to worry about as a Blackguard had been literal ones. Here, you never saw the blood.
Though to be fair, a metaphorical backstabbing here could lead to the actual death of thousands, not just one. Hmm. That thought put a little extra urgency to the verbal fencing, didn’t it? Especially when Karris looked around the Spectrum’s chamber and wasn’t terribly impressed by what she saw.
Colors were supposed to be chosen by their satrap for their excellence and their piety. In truth, as with all positions of great power, it was far more complicated. Family loyalties, outright bribes, and even mistakes by the contending families could have led to a Klytos Blue being selected. And depending on the strength of the satrap or satrapah who appointed the Color, the Color might be a puppet, a representative, a delegate, or a loose cannon.
It hadn’t always been thus. The satraps had once been veritable kings, with the Spectrum having to wait weeks or months to vote on the simplest measures as the Colors waited for their satraps’ commands. Successive Whites and Prisms and Colors had worked together—united in this—to concentrate power here, at the Chromeria, and here, in this very room.
And still it bored Karris. Boredom was dangerous. A Blackguard knew that. Boredom made you sloppy, careless, and dead. You couldn’t get sloppy around Andross Guile. They were waiting for the arrival of a few of the Colors still. Andross had called the meeting. Karris studied the figure across the table.
There was something different about him. Something that had changed over the course of the last weeks. In her time as a Blackguard, Karris’s identification of potential threats had always been intuitive. Her training had taught her to translate those gut feelings—not just seeing a holistic threat, but realizing that the man was sweating, twitchy, not paying attention to what others around him were. Since the Battle of Ru, Karris had felt more and more that Andross Guile was a threat.