The Blood Mirror

Oh, I see.

Did no one—no one?—remember her love for color?

If only someone would bring her something red, or green, or black, she would grant their petition immediately, regardless.

But Karris wasn’t a woman anymore. To become the Iron White was to become a symbol. If her greatest sacrifice in this war was giving up her preferred fashions, she should really wake each day with a heart full of gratitude. She could only hope that someday the inner woman resembled these trappings.

“There he is,” Gill Greyling said, lens up to his eye. “But what the hell is that?”

He handed the monocular off to his brother.

“Don’t know. But it’s moving fast,” Gav said.

“He wouldn’t reveal that they have skimmers like this,” Karris said. I don’t think. “Not for free.”

When the ship got close, she saw that it was shaped like a chariot, and that thick lines disappeared into the waves before it. Six dorsal fins like jagged teeth bit the waves.

As they entered the shallows, Karris caught sight of a hammer-shaped head and an eye streaming blood or glowing from within with some demonic light.

It took everything she had not to step farther away from the waves. A rational part of her whispered, ‘They’re simply will-cast sharks,’ probably with red luxin. But her stomach didn’t hear that, her weak knees couldn’t hear it, her tight throat wouldn’t.

Iron White, Karris. Iron White. She painted on ambivalence and hoped it could fool the brother who’d known her so well.

Heedless of the sharks, six bodyguards clad all in white hopped from the chariot and waded ashore. They even wore white veils of precious silk, and bore ataghans and punch daggers and krises. There were no muskets that she could see.

In turning back to their old gods, were the pagans turning back to old technologies as well? Orholam, let it be so.

Upon reaching the shore, the bodyguards turned and cast blue luxin to make a bridge. The White King walked to shore without even dampening his boots, leaving only a hunchbacked charioteer behind.

They stood nearly a hundred paces from each other, a man in white and a woman in white, across the white sands, under Orholam’s white, hot eye. Karris drew her pistols and handed them off. She drew her bich’hwa and her ataghan and handed them off as well. Last, she took her green and red spectacles off their necklaces and gave them away.

The White King handed off a scepter that could serve as a mace, and a simple hunting knife. He started across the sand without hesitation.

Of course, either of them could be hiding another weapon. But they were drafters. They both were weapons, against which the only defense possible was vigilance. Karris walked toward him.

When she’d been captured by King Garadul, her brother had appeared in the vast carapace of luxin armor he’d created for himself. But this man didn’t so much as shine in the sun. There were no luxin angles reflecting light, no winking blues or flashing yellows.

He was smaller than she remembered, barely even taller than she was. But then she saw his face. Somehow she’d forgotten, the scouring of time a mercy.

The burn scars. Orholam. Her beloved brother’s face looked as if someone had given a wax poppet to a cruel child. His face had been melted. One eye was lower than the other. A thick knot of tissue had fused his cheek to his neck, and then been cut.

He looked far, far worse than when she’d met with him in Tyrea. It couldn’t all be the lighting, but neither did these look like fresh scars. He’d been burnt then, but not misshapen.

She composed herself against the pity and despair. She had to be sharp and cold for this. She was the White, and her office settled over her like a blanket of snow, covering the cracks in her armor.

“Koios,” she said, choosing to let some warmth seep through her tone. She was happy to see him. She was happy to have a chance to end this war, slight though it might be.

“You’ve come a long way since last we met,” he said, gesturing to her robes. Even his voice had changed from when he’d been young. Husky, damaged by the smoke, changed by that damned fire that had changed everything else.

“As have you,” she said.

“You mean this?” he asked, pointing to his face. “It was hexes, before, to minimize your horror, I hoped. I have since become… more comfortable in my own skin. Or what’s left of it, I should say.” He smiled as if it were some unfunny joke.

“I was referring to the lands you’ve conquered and the untold misery you’ve spread for scores of thousands,” Karris said.

“We’ve freed four of the nine kingdoms of old,” he said, barely hearing her. “But there is so much to be rebuilt. So much that was destroyed through ignorance and greed.”

It was as if they were speaking different languages. He saw himself as a builder?

“This is hopeless, then, isn’t it? There is no bridge across this chasm,” she said.

He smirked, and it was his old lips, unscarred; his old expression, and an old memory. “I had forgotten how intuitive you are, sister. You wrapped yourself in the blue virtues, but you understand with your heart first. Always did.”

“And does that make my judgments suspect?” she asked, coolly.

“On the contrary. I think you’ve grasped the crux of the matter. There can be no peace between us, only pauses to rearm.”

“Is that what you’re seeking? An armistice?” Karris asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Effective immediately. My armies have advanced as far as Azuria in Blood Forest. We’ll give the city back as a sign of goodwill. In the north, we’ve crossed the Great River. We’ll fall back to the west bank. The truce lasts until spring. It will give everyone a chance to harvest the fall and winter crops—lest everyone starve.”

“My generals tell me Azuria is indefensible. You’re giving me what I could take with little effort.”

“And yet you have not taken it,” Koios said. “Perhaps you are spread thinner than you would like to admit.”

He was right, although the real reason they’d not taken the city was that the question arose, what then? Her armies were needed elsewhere, and the Chromeria and Satrap Briun Willow Bough of Blood Forest were concentrating on keeping Green Haven free. Instead she said, “If we both rearm, it only guarantees that the next war will be even bloodier.”