“Teia, get in here.”
Something about seeing him there stirred fury in Teia’s soul. He didn’t belong in that office. Didn’t deserve to even set foot there. She walked up to him, but didn’t go inside.
She stood at attention. She wouldn’t have minded Trainer Fisk—it was hard not to think of him that way, even though he’d been promoted months ago to watch captain. She’d liked him, even, for his gruff competence, until they’d figured out he danced to Andross Guile’s secret tune. He’d allowed the cheats that had nearly barred Kip from the Blackguard.
And now he was her commander.
“Yes, sir?” Teia asked stiffly. She didn’t want to be in an enclosed space with him if she could help it.
“What’s this?” Fisk demanded.
He had dark circles under his eyes, and his usual rigorous military bearing was slouched with fatigue. He was not tall, but he was a hard knot of muscle on muscle with a shaved head and short beard.
“Just tired, I guess, sir.”
“By order of the promachos, I’m acting commander of the Blackguard, Teia.”
She hesitated. “Congratulations on your… swift rise, sir.”
“I don’t like it, either,” he snarled. “I’m the one who demanded it be only ‘acting commander.’ He was my commander, too, nunk. And my friend.”
“Yes, sir.” Neutral, noncommittal. The flat acquiescence of a slave had its uses still.
“Who would you have put in before me?” he demanded.
Maybe he’d been right. This wasn’t the kind of conversation they should be having out in the open barracks. “Sir, I’m just a soldier, raised from a slave. I don’t question my betters.”
“Watch Captain Blademan was found dead this morning in East Bay. Sharks took too much out of him before his body could be recovered for us to even know how he died.”
Teia swallowed hard. Would the Order have done this? But why? Andross? So he could place Fisk as commander? The Color Prince, deliberately eliminating Blackguard leadership?
“I’d have picked him to be commander before me, even with his troubles,” Fisk said.
That was true. Teia was so accustomed to seeing plots everywhere that she was discounting the simple explanations out of hand. Blademan could have been killed in a tavern brawl. He’d been a man who ricocheted between long stretches of sobriety and short bouts of violent drunkenness—and when he got drunk, he’d earned his Blackguard name Blademan a dozen times over.
Teia ducked her head. “I’m sorry, sir, I know he was a friend.”
“And I’d have picked Karris before him, before all this. But none of us can fill Ironfist’s shoes, and he shouldn’t have been relieved of command.”
“I, I wasn’t saying—” Why was Fisk telling Teia this? They’d never been close. “Sir, can we talk about this later? I’m on my way—”
“You think I’m a traitor. We need to talk,” Fisk said. He moved out of the way of the office door. “Now.”
It was a gut punch. Teia’s expression and silence must have spoken for her. Might as well admit it and see where this went.
She stepped inside, and he closed the door after her.
She swallowed hard. When you’re short and light and not that strong, being penned in was the last thing you wanted if it came to a fight. “Not a traitor, sir. But compromised.”
“Why?”
In for a den, in for a danar. “You called Breaker ‘Kip the Lip.’ Only his grandfather called him that. And only privately. And then you rigged the rules.”
Fisk took a deep breath. He rubbed the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. “Not much rigging required.”
Teia couldn’t speak. Out of all the things she might have expected, a straight admission of guilt wasn’t on the list.
Fisk looked down. “I had… a relationship with another Blackguard. He found out.”
“He? Andross Guile?”
“Who else?”
“So Andross blackmailed you. For how long?”
“Just that one thing against Kip. Although he told me my failure at it meant I still owed him. But he didn’t threaten any further repercussions. He seemed to understand that Orholam himself must have wanted Breaker to get into the Blackguard. The promachos may be a horrible person, but he’s not irrational.”
“So is he still blackmailing you now? Is he blackmailing your lover?”
“No, and he can’t. I confessed everything to the White after…”
“After?”
“After Lytos died.”
Teia twitched. Lytos? Fisk’s relationship had been with a eunuch? How did that even work…?
Of course she knew of slaveholders forcing their eunuchs to serve them sexually, but otherwise a eunuch was assumed to be asexual. That was the point, wasn’t it? That a free eunuch might want a sexual relationship hadn’t even occurred to her—and it had to be a sexual relationship because Blackguards weren’t forbidden other relations, so they couldn’t be blackmailed with anything else. What sort of satisfaction would a eunuch get out of…
Then again, she didn’t have to understand the mechanics of the thing. She could see the emotion of it. “I’m… so sorry for your loss.”
The tightness around his eyes eased a little: he’d been worried she would mock him or think him a pervert for falling in love with a eunuch. “Anyway, none of that matters,” he said. “I stopped serving Andross after Lytos died and—”
“Lytos didn’t just die, though,” Teia objected. Winsen, peerless archer that he was, had feathered Lytos’s heart as Lytos had helped Buskin try to assassinate Kip. “Andross Guile tried to make you stop Breaker from joining the Blackguard. You failed. Did Andross send Lytos afterwards to kill Kip, to stop him once and for all?”
Fisk shook his head. “I don’t—I don’t think so. When I confronted the promachos, he said he not only hadn’t blackmailed Lytos, he’d never even talked to him. Andross Guile said that for him to ruin a eunuch’s relationship would be like an emperor stealing a gold ring from a beggar. Such a theft changed nothing for the emperor, but by whatever improbable means that beggar had gotten that gold ring, he’d never get another one in his life. Andross said it would show a meanness of spirit to ruin such happiness, no matter how puzzling he found it. The promachos is not a good man, Teia, but I believed him. I still do. He is ruthless, but he’s not cruel for its own sake. At the same time, I can certainly believe that someone else found out our secret and used it to blackmail Lytos into doing… what he almost did. Neither of us could have lived with having been expelled from the Blackguard.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Teia asked.
“Because you know what it is to love someone forbidden you.”
Teia went cold. Fisk? Fisk had been able to see how Teia felt—before she knew it herself? She moved to object, but he spoke over her.
“I’m telling you because you’re utterly loyal to Breaker, and you stayed behind anyway. I think you stayed behind on his orders. I think you stayed behind because you’re spying for him.”
“I’m not—”
“You stayed behind because you know Breaker is the Lightbringer.”
“Excuse me?” Teia said.
It took the wind out of Teia’s sails. Cruxer believed Breaker was the Lightbringer with the fervor of a prophet. She thought so, too, but she wasn’t worried about being part of history or something grand like that. She followed Kip because he was both great and good. That was enough for her.
And it had to be enough now, because more wasn’t an option now that Teats Tisis was scabbarding his sword. Plenty of men lusted after Tisis; she was tall, curvy, graceful, and rich, with exotic silky blond hair and exquisite taste. Teia wouldn’t have forgiven Kip for falling into bed with that creature, but she would have understood it.
But Kip had married her. A total fucking stranger. Ten minutes after he’d kissed Teia, too, stirring follies she’d never known.
Asshole.
Fisk said, “I want you to let him know that I’m on his side. If he needs the commander of the Blackguard, I’m here for him.”