“And Gavin, you’re sweet and all things wonderful, but… no, not ever. I almost did that once, and I’ve no interest in doing it again. The rules are there for a reason, and I’m going to obey them. Nothing personal.”
He didn’t look as if he understood, but she went past him and washed up in the Archers’ toilets as quickly as possible. Curse cramps, anyway. Maybe his big brother would explain it to him while she was gone.
When she came back, he’d put the rest of her clothes in the basket for the slaves. She was glad that she’d remembered to change the master cloak’s disguise so it looked like a Blackguard cloak now. After you were elevated, your nunk clothes were taken by the slaves, laundered, patched, and given to the next cohort. Teia didn’t even want to think about what she’d have had to go through if she’d let the master cloak get mixed with every other nunk cloak at the Chromeria.
But she hadn’t loused up, this time.
She threw on the cloak. She felt resplendent, proud.
“You look good,” Gill said. “You look like a Blackguard.”
They let her check her own weapons—a Blackguard always checked his own weapons.
“I didn’t mean anything like that,” Gavin said, awkwardly. “I was just trying to give you some more time to sleep.”
His face cleared. Rejection was hard for any man. Rejection and a loss of face together were too much for most.
“Oh, my mistake, then. I’m just so excited about finally being a Blackguard, I’ve got a hair trigger about anything that would make me mess up, I guess. Forgive me, brother?” she asked.
Why was it on a woman to tiptoe around the feelings of men…?
“Of course, sister,” he said, and all was well.
At least men usually made up for projecting their stupidity by being easily maneuvered.
They had to jog to make it to their posts on time, forming up outside the White’s apartments, and Watch Captain Tempus grimaced at them for cutting it close on this day of days. He was a wild-haired man, his roots gray. He had deep-black skin and intense blue eyes compounded with blue halos.
“On time is five minutes early,” he said.
“My fault, sir,” Gill said.
Gavin and Teia both looked at him. Gill really was a big brother. He would gibe Gavin constantly, but when it came time to take care of things, Gill was there every time.
Watch Captain Tempus handed Teia a velvet baggie no larger than a coin purse. “Dark eye caps,” he said. “So you don’t go blind using paryl out in the full sun.”
The hallway was crowded, not only with Blackguards, but also with slaves scrubbing at the stains on the floors and ceilings from the smoke, fire, bullets, and blood. Stonemasons and carpenters were making their own measurements and estimates with their own journeymen and apprentices and slaves, and the Chromeria’s slaves were trying to work among all that. Cleaning and repairing the highest floor of the Prism’s Tower wasn’t something that would be allowed to proceed at a slower but more efficient pace. Half a dozen Blackguards stood watching the workers at all times.
The violation of this area, the White’s very sanctum, the Blackguard’s home, had been taken as a personal affront. Teia was sure that she would be answering more questions about that in the near future, too.
Watch Captain Tempus led them past the Guards at the door. A knot of diplomats, room slaves, an anxious luxiat, and one-handed Trainer Samite stood around the White’s desk. As Teia’s squad came in, Karris declared, “Everything else will have to wait.” Her voice rose over the people crowded around her, though with her diminutive height, she did not.
“Tell Carver Black I’ll meet him in two hours, and to have as many of those reports as possible. Tell the Ruthgari ambassador I won’t see her until dinner. Assure her that I’m not putting her off on purpose. Have her seated with me to placate her. Clear everything out of the first two hours after noon, we’ll have some urgent demands for a meeting from the High Luxiats after the executions. Are we ready?”
The luxiat attending her blanched. “Surely you’re not presiding over the execution in that?”
Teia still couldn’t see Karris, so she didn’t see what he was talking about for a moment, but the room went absolutely still at his reproof of the White.
As the diplomats nervously shrank back to let Teia’s squad come forward, Teia saw what Karris was wearing, and she almost laughed aloud. Whoever was shocked by Karris’s choice of clothing had no idea who they were dealing with. She wore an outfit much like what she’d worn to Teia’s swearing in. White Blackguard blacks, tight fit around her athlete’s body, infused with luxin, and decorated with silver thread. She had even—whimsically?—denoted her rank on her left shoulder. A Parian zero, the stylized circle looking something like an eye.
Given that her clothes were white, the outfit did reveal her curves far more than identically cut blacks would have, but to Teia’s and the Blackguard’s eyes, it mostly revealed that Karris hadn’t let herself grow fat when she’d left her official Blackguard duties. Neither modest nor immodest, it was amodest, clothing indifferent to any man’s or woman’s sexual interpretation of it. Here was the body as power, as an implement of war sharp honed with use. Her clothing said, ‘Remember who I am and where I came from and how I intend to rule.’
It would take a soft, lustful man like a luxiat to see this body in harness for war first as a receptacle for his illicit desire.
“I just did something shocking,” Karris told him, “and worthy of complaint. But that thing was not what I’m choosing to wear. If you’re such a fool that you use your eyes when you ought to be using your ears, you’re too much a fool to advise me. You may dare correct the White, but do it for the right thing. Tell your superiors that I wish never to see your face again, and if I do, there will be consequences. For them. And for you. There are many souls beyond the Everdark Gates who crave a luxiat’s wisdom.”
“High Lady, I didn’t—” Sweat stood out instantly on his face.
Karris said, “In another time, I should delight in giving you a second chance. Lust, after all, is a sin of the body. But you have gone beyond lust all the way to the depths of pride in giving reproof to another for your own sin. Thus does the weakness of your body cloud the eye of your mind. Orholam shall forgive you if you repent truly, but I have no time for you while there are still holy men and women in the Magisterium with unclouded sight who might give me true counsel. Begone.”
He looked at her for only a moment, seeing iron there. Then he looked to the Blackguards, who hadn’t even stepped forward, but their eyes were walls against him. He looked to the other courtiers, and saw no aid from any of them. Some, doubtless, he had worked with for years.
He turned on his heel, back straight, and strode from the room, huffing.
Karris obviously dismissed him from her mind before he got to the door. She gestured for the courtiers to leave.
She walked toward the slaves’ nook and sat in a chair there, allowing her slaves to work on her hair while she spoke. “My brothers and sisters—my former brothers and sisters,” she said to the Blackguards. “I hope you will not find me impertinent in borrowing a semblance of your garb. I should have asked first. I recently fought in a dress, and it nearly cost me my life. We are at war, and I will not be helpless. I trust you to defend me, but in turn, you can trust me to be as little of a burden as possible.” A grin stole over her face. “Plus, it’s impossible to find anything else nearly as comfortable as the blacks.”
They shared her grin.