Chapter 59
Ah, the trouble one botched assassination can cause.
“The empire is broken, Gavin,” the Nuqaba said. Odd for her to start there. After her abrupt entrance and accusation, she and Eirene Malargos had withdrawn together. Apparently they’d come up with a plan, but only the Nuqaba was here now.
“How’s your husband?” Gavin asked. “Well, I hope?”
Her eyes flashed. Through circumstances Gavin had never heard a satisfactory explanation for, Haruru had married Iz?l-Udad, the head of the family that had tried to have her mother assassinated. Iz?l-Udad was now a cripple. It was widely rumored that the Nuqaba had pushed him down a flight of marble stairs during a drunken fight, leaving the man with shattered knees that even the most skilled chirurgeons couldn’t fix. The truth, Gavin’s spies had told him long ago, was that the man had beaten Haruru fiercely and often. One night, she had drugged him, drafted orange luxin on the stairs so that he would slip, and then crushed his knees with a hammer while he was helpless. He’d woken with no memory of the incident, or was so fearful that he claimed no memory of it, and because of the political pressures at the time, they’d stayed together. He was confined to a chair, and it was said she did not make his life easy.
Gavin had seen portraits of her as a younger woman many times, not least of which was the masterpiece in Ironfist’s room, and she had looked quite beautiful, though artists were apt to gloss over flaws for powerful patrons. Despite the years since she’d sat for that painting, she was still a striking figure. Perhaps more so now, in the fullness of her power. She wore an immaculately folded and doubtless colorful haik, if Gavin had been able to see the colors. Shiny metal—gold?—fibulae in sunbursts at each shoulder. Coral necklace and coral earrings, not through pierced earlobes, but hanging over the ears instead, in the traditional Parian style. Reedy muscles and heavy eyes, full lips and few curves, despite three children.
“Such a pleasant surprise to see you here,” Gavin said. As if that covered the half of it.
She laughed aloud. “Do you know, the seed crystal tells me that you actually are happy to see me. You’re a complicated man, aren’t you, Gavin Guile?”
He blinked. “What’s this about a seed crystal?” You never knew. Sometimes you just ask, and people will tell you what you want to know.
She studied the crystal. “A genuine question. Really? Really?”
She laughed again.
Gavin quirked an eyebrow. For the last two hours, his mind had been spinning like a mill with the gears uncoupled, whizzing furiously, accomplishing nothing.
“Do you remember the mosaic on the left-hand wall, as you enter my library?” she asked.
By ‘my library’ she meant the Library of Az?lay. The building itself was more than eight hundred years old, and probably built on top of a library that had been there at least two hundred more. The mosaic was of King Zedekiah, skin depicted in onyx, the scroll-spear of wisdom in his right hand and whatever had been in his left hand long ago chiseled out by thieves. The kings and queens and satraps who followed had never found two scholars who agreed on what had been lost—a scepter? scales of justice? a sword?—or they would have restored it long ago. King Zedekiah, Gavin remembered, wore a crown with seven stars. One for each color, naturally. The red and blue and green, most likely ruby and sapphire and emerald, had been picked out at whatever time the left-hand mosaic tiles had been stolen, but those had been easier to replace.
Though it was a famous place, and he knew much about it, Gavin had never been there. He had never visited her. And he had never taken her to his bed, made Orholam only knew what promises, and then left her without a word—unlike his older brother, the real Gavin.
Thanks for that, brother.
“The crown?” Gavin said, dubious. “Surely metaphorical.”
“King Zedekiah was one of the nine kings.”
“I’ve heard that speculation before,” Gavin said. “You think—”
“Not speculation. You think I support scholars for the warm feelings I get for my charity?”
“Never that,” Gavin said. He smirked to try to take the edge off. It didn’t work.
Her expression darkened. “They confirmed it for me. Along with some other fascinating tidbits.”
“Pray tell,” Gavin said.
She looked down at what she’d said was the orange seed crystal. “Mostly sarcastic, but interested, too. You hoping I’ll slip up? You want to battle with me, Gavin?”
“Seems like that trinket is doing more than telling you yes or no on whether I’m telling the truth,” Gavin said.
“King Zedekiah was holding a sword in his hand. All diamonds, except for a helix of obsidian up the spine, wrapping around seven jewels. Ah, I don’t need the seed crystal to tell me you’re familiar with the blade.” She walked up close to the bars. She had a terrible walk. Heavy and direct, like a man trudging under the weight of a pack, no sway to her slender hips at all.
But then she was at the bars, and the scent of her perfume wafted over him. Lemon and jasmine and balsam and amber. It reminded him of Karris’s scent, a brief flash of the paradise that was having her hair drape over his face, skin to skin.
But he was brought back instantly as she spoke. “Haven’t you ever wondered why so much of your approved history starts only four hundred years ago?”
“That was when Lucidonius came. No empire likes to laud that which came before it.” Gavin shrugged. “Simple exercise in maintaining power. Bury the past until you’re sure it’s dead.”
“Another truth wrapped around a lie. You’re hoping I’ll be frustrated and explain why you’re wrong.”
Sometimes Gavin wondered how well he would have ruled if he hadn’t had the handicap of maintaining his fa?ade. He’d had to keep the Nuqaba at arm’s length throughout his time as Prism because he didn’t know the full details of her tryst with his brother, and she was said to be one of the strongest intuitive thinkers in the Seven Satrapies. He’d feared that she would take one look at him and declare him a fraud.
Luckily, her religious duties had kept her tied to her own country, and its great distance from the Chromeria had been enough excuse for Gavin to avoid going there. But now here he was, her prisoner, and she had a means of knowing whenever he told a lie.
“So then, why do you think the empire is doomed?” Gavin asked.
“Because Eirene and I are deciding whether we’ll join the Color Prince or stay with your father and the Seven—pardon—Five Satrapies.”
It took Gavin’s breath away. Treason. Treason, discussed as if they were discussing who could give a better price for alligator leather.
“You see, Gavin, the Spectrum has become so insular that they’ve forgotten they exist for us, not the other way around. When’s the last time any member of the Spectrum even traveled to their home satrapy? Six years ago. And that was prompted by one of Delara Orange’s cousins dying young, with two wills and four bastards.”
Gavin said nothing, but it was more than his breath that was gone. It was his spirit, limp as a wind-starved sail. Why would she tell him her planned treason, and tell him so bluntly?
Because there was, quite simply, nothing he could do to affect what she did. Ultimately, she was saying, all of Gavin’s power rested on his magical power. This was her vengeance.
No, it was only the beginning of her vengeance. She would dismantle all he’d accomplished in his time as Prism.
“You see,” she said, “the Spectrum was so busy hobbling you that they ignored every other threat. Think what you could have accomplished if the empire had been an empire in truth. Ilyta could be a center of smithing that would enrich everyone. Instead it’s ten thousand pirates, two hundred smiths, and a few hundred thousand people in poverty. Did I say Five Satrapies? Four. And think about Tyrea. Well, surely you know what a wasteland Tyrea is. Totally unnecessary. If a man as strong as you couldn’t unite this empire, then this empire is too weak to stand.”
“So you’ve made your decision?” he asked.
She smiled almost shyly. “I’ve made mine. The Color Prince thinks he can control us. You see this?” She held up the jewel. It was a six-pointed star, with black tips on each point, both the color—orange, he assumed—and the black somehow throbbing with life. She had it contained in a tiny glass box, and the box on a chain.
“The seed crystal?” Gavin asked.
“Didn’t you find them when you destroyed the other bane?”
Gavin shook his head. “Is this a cruel joke?” The term ‘seed crystal’ didn’t bode well.
She shook her head. “All that work. All those lives. Wasted. The bane will reform if you don’t seize the seed crystal. Within months. They look for a host; a drafter to whom they give enormous power. And for some reason, this man, this Color Prince thinks he can then control all of them. But so long as I hold this, rather than it holding me, I don’t need to find out. He thinks an orange drafter must, by her very nature, desire to become a goddess. But I’m smart enough to choose freedom. Freedom from the Chromeria. Freedom from him, as well. But I won’t leave without Ruthgar. To get the terms we want—that we need—it will take both of us.”
“So my hopes reside with Eirene Malargos? Comforting.”
“I could force her hand, you know. Your father has offered to buy you.”
“He has?” Father knew. He knew Gavin was here. That solved some problems. And made more, naturally.
“Ah, so you think he knows you’re here? No. He’s merely offered a general bounty—er, reward. You hurt me, Gavin. And for that I’m going to hurt you.”
Going there would be disaster if that trinket really did what she said it did. “Tell me about the orange seed crystal,” he said.
But she wasn’t about to let him control the conversation. “You turned my brothers against me. You made them abandon me.”
“You’re angry about that? Not the other?” Gavin asked.
“You thought I’d been pining after you for sixteen years? You took my virginity, not my wits.”
Gavin was left speechless. He’d known she was furious with his brother Gavin. He’d figured Gavin had deserved it, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you could ask in a letter. ‘Are you still angry that I left you behind?’ That ‘I’ could be a bitter thing to write, at times.
“You stole Hanishu and Harrdun.” She wouldn’t call them Ironfist and Tremblefist. “To be Blackguards! Slaves. Disgusting. And they left me to do it. They thought you were more important than I. And you let them go. What are they to you but more bodies to be spent in your protection? Nothing. If you had a thumb’s worth of generosity in you, you would have sent them back. You left me at my home, seventeen years old, in charge of a tribe shocked and devastated by our enemies. I had to marry the man who’d had my mother assassinated. I spent ten years digging myself out of the hole you put me in.”
“Join the fucking queue,” Gavin said. “War is hard. People die. You got dealt such a raw hand that you rose to become the Nuqaba. Your brothers would be ashamed of what you’ve become.”
Her eyes went cold. “Well, at last some fire. I wondered if that man was dead. You’ve become a schemer, Gavin Guile, but at least you have some passion left.”
“Your brothers did what they thought was their duty. I compelled nothing. I won’t deny that I wanted Ironfist to stay. He’s one of the smartest, most capable commanders I’ve ever met, and having him on my side is a huge advantage. What Prism would willingly give up such a strong right hand? And Tremblefist didn’t want to stay in Paria. Couldn’t. Of course he went where Ironfist went, but he, too, has been exemplary. His quiet competence inspires all the Blackguards.”
“He should have turned to me. After … after Aghbalu.”
“To his little sister? To understand a killing rage? Rather than to his big brother, who’d been a veteran of war?”
“I’m his sister! He shouldn’t have turned to you!”
“It wasn’t to me.” Well, the seed crystal would tell her that was true, at least. But she wasn’t even looking at it.
“It was you.”
“Fine, then. I gave him what you never could,” Gavin said. His sins might be manifold and worthy of death, but this wasn’t one of them. “I gave him trust, when he didn’t trust himself. A sister’s trust means nothing in such a case. No fault of yours. He needed something that he would have to earn. The trust of a man who had no reason to love him? That brought him back. He is not that which you knew as a little girl. He’ll never be that. What was done to him, and what he did, changed that forever. When I look at him, I don’t look for the man who’s gone. You would. That’s why he’s never gone back.”
“This,” she said, “this is what I hate about you, Gavin. After all I’ve been through, after all I’ve suffered, in five minutes you make it sound trivial. You turn it around so that somehow it’s my fault. Like I should thank you for taking my brothers from me. Like all this devastation has just been in my own head. I’m the Nuqaba. I’m a master of orange luxin. I’m the nearest thing to a queen these satrapies have known in centuries, and you make me feel a stupid little girl.”
She reached into the folds of her haik and produced a small matchlock pistol. Working the match cord free, she walked over to one of the small lanterns in the cellar. She rested the pistol on a shelf, lifted the lantern hood, and lit the match cord. “If you died in Eirene’s custody,” she said, “your father would hold her accountable. Her protestations that I’d killed you would seem weak lies, evasions.” She took up the pistol, cocked the hammer, and affixed the match cord. “Eirene would be furious with me, of course, but she wouldn’t risk putting herself in reach of Andross Guile’s vengeance. She’d join me.”
The Nuqaba leveled the pistol at Gavin’s face. Stepped forward so she was certain she wouldn’t hit the bars.
She winked at him, grinning, and he almost grinned back. Then he realized she’d winked closing her right eye. She was giving him the evil eye: judging him with Cursed Accuser, while the right eye of Orholam, Blessed Redeemer, was closed.
Gavin flicked his eyes ever so briefly up over her shoulder, toward the door, and twitched his lips in a fraction-of-a-second grin.
The Nuqaba glanced at the door. Gavin lunged. He slammed against the bars, extending one arm, jamming a shoulder as far through as he could. His hand slapped against her hand and pistol, for the barest instant, he had it in his grip, and then, without his third and fourth fingers, he couldn’t hold on to it. The pistol flew out of her hand and smacked into the wall, discharging.
The rapid whine of ricochets filled the cellar.
After the roar, for a long moment, they stood staring at each other. Gavin pulled his shoulder back through the bars, and felt himself, to see if he’d been hit. He hadn’t, but his two stumps of fingers were bleeding again. Damn. He’d had to attack with his left hand, but his instincts hadn’t adjusted to the loss of his fingers.
He looked to the Nuqaba to see if she’d been hit. Her eyes were wide. Her arm was bleeding. She took a handkerchief and dabbed her forearm. Just a scratch. She looked relieved.
In moments, a flood of guards burst into the room, drawn by the shot. Parians in blue vests, armed to the teeth, drafters all, the Nuqaba’s personal guard, the Tafok Amagez. Then a few Malargos house guards. Gavin raised his hands to show he was no threat.
“It’s fine,” the Nuqaba said. “I’m well. You may go. There’s no threat here. Just a little accident. Why is my…”
She looked down and lifted a bit of her haik from over her thigh. There was a small hole in the fabric. But Gavin’s eyes were drawn lower, where blood was pooling around her feet. A lot of blood. Like an artery had been cut.
She wobbled, her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed.