It rolled over Teia like a rushing quake-wave. She had to fight it, push back. “How did you…? Now?”
“We began work on it as soon as you tested into the Blackguard. We want all our people to choose us freely. It cannot always be so, but we always make the attempt. This was delivered while you were away at Ru. I’ve been meaning to send for you since. It’s been a busy time.”
“You were going to … all along?”
“In the scheme of things, Teia, it was a small thing for us, and we knew how big it might be for you.”
It took Teia’s breath. She would cry later, but in this moment, she could barely breathe, barely believe this dying woman’s goodness, her father’s steadfastness, her sisters’ lives veering so far to one side that Teia couldn’t even see them anymore from where she stood. Good done for people she would like as not never see again. In this moment of compassion, somehow, though, she felt more alone than she had in all her years training and thieving in shame, hiding who she was in more than just the disguises they taught her.
“She wasn’t the only one blackmailing me,” Teia blurted out. “There’s another. Worse.”
And she told them about Master Sharp. And about the spy, and the murder, and the flight, and Kip seeing her, and the theft of her papers, and their return. And when she was done speaking, then, finally, she felt free. She could take a full breath.
Oddly, the White looked, if anything, younger and more alive than ever. Her eyes lit with a readiness to fight. “Teia,” she said, “how brave are you?”
Ten minutes later, Commander Ironfist ushered Teia out the door, saying he would follow her in a moment.
When the door closed, he turned a skeptical eye to the White. “You planned that.”
“I hoped for it.”
“You knew about the other. This Murder Sharp.”
She didn’t admit it. “Kindness can break chains that cunning cannot.”
“Is that what you are? Kindness and cunning coiled?” he asked.
“Was not the caduceus once the White’s symbol?” she asked. Then her whimsy disappeared. “The Order of the Broken Eye, Harrdun. There have been pretenders before, but how many pretenders have had the shimmercloaks? We have a chance here.”
“To smash them?”
“Or bring them back into the fold. But yes, probably. Heresy is a horse that takes the bridle in its teeth and won’t submit to any hand unless it is beaten.”
“A strange idiom, from you who’d beat a man, but not a horse.”
“A horse can’t deserve it.”
“Well, I hope that narrow-shouldered filly can hold the weight you’ve saddled her with. She’ll be a warhorse, if.”
“If I don’t kill her first,” the White said grimly. “I know. One loses men and horses both to training. Is that reason not to train?”
“This isn’t training.”
She moved as if to quarrel further, then sat back in her wheeled chair. She took a chain from around her neck, produced a key she’d kept hidden beneath her neckline.
“The master key to all the restricted libraries. This is what you came for, isn’t it? You were scheduled to see me before the girl came back from Big Jasper. What is it you’re hunting?”
“A fantasy. A suspicion. Foolishness.”
“But I’ll know first, if you find something?”
He took the key from her and tucked it away. It was acquiescence.
“Be ware, Harrdun. My defenses are stretched thin.”
He walked to the door.
“Harrdun,” she said.
He stopped.
“The ghotra. You’re wearing it again.”
He grunted.
“It suits you.”
Chapter 24
Gavin dreamed after the storm, but knew this was no dream. It was memory. For a brief moment, he fought. No, not this. Orholam, have mercy on me, not—
It was his first Sun Day as Prism. He was in his own apartments atop what was now his tower. It was just after noon, and the dawn and noon rituals were finished. Now he had only to murder four hundred drafters.
There was a knock at his door, and his mother came in. Gavin had barely had time to get home, grab a quick meal, and bathe. His room slave Shala—a woman his mother’s age, whom his mother had appointed in place of the original Gavin’s room slave, apparently trying to keep her second son celibate for the rest of his days—had shaved his chest, and two of the High Luxiats, Daeron Utarkses and Camileas Malargos, had anointed his whole body with oil and myrrh. Having the sister of two men he’d betrayed lay hands on his naked body had not been an experience he was eager to repeat, for they’d anointed his entire body, and when choosing, who would you prefer to have oil your rod and stones: an old man, or an old woman who had reason to hate you, though she might not know it?