The Blood Mirror

“But that’s beside the point,” Antonius said. “Tisis, Eirene ordered me to come here and take you home. By force if necessary. Come home, Sissy. Your family needs you. Your sister needs you.”

“Home,” Tisis said quietly, nostalgic. “I can’t tell you how much I miss the terraced gardens of Jaks Hill…”

Tisis had a home, and a place. Not just sleeping in the woods, arguing with a boy and in constant danger. An honored place as heir to a vast fortune. Her sister Eirene was the real power in Ruthgar. Surely there would be important, fulfilling work for a woman like Tisis there.

It made him feel the gulf between them again. He had no home. Twice an orphan. Flames and death had taken everything except the Mighty from him.

Then Kip was struck by the thought that perhaps last night had not been the perfect time to have his first big fight with his bride. With one more word, she could destroy them all.

“I miss Eirene. I miss the mansion,” Tisis said. “My old rooms. I miss our people. The smell in the air. The festivals, the races. But I have no home but at my husband’s side.”

Oh, good. She doesn’t want me and all my friends and allies dead.

“So you’re here by choice? Truly? The slave Verity said so, but Eirene didn’t trust a slave with such a claim.”

Why would you name a slave Verity and then not trust her? Mercifully, Kip didn’t say it aloud. But then, his holding his tongue twice in a row meant he was probably due for a blunder anytime.

Antonius went on. “You can tell me the truth. Kip can’t hurt you now, and, if necessary, we can do this in such a way that Andross Guile never hears about it.”

There was only one way that could happen.

Balls! This smiling boy was threatening a massacre. Kip heard something quite like a growl from Conn Arthur.

Tisis was right about one thing: Antonius was an idealist. If he thought he would simply leave this parley to go order their massacre, he was going to find his head separated from his ass in short order.

Tisis said, “Cousin, I am not only here by choice, but by design, as my letters should have confirmed. This marriage was my idea, and it may well be the smartest thing I’ve ever come up with. Eirene intends to imprison Kip, when he can serve the Seven Satrapies and our house both instead. When he can help save Blood Forest and Ruthgar.”

“The Guiles unseated you,” Antonius said. “You were the Green. You’ve simply forgiven them that?”

Through which Kip heard: Eirene hasn’t.

Again Kip was struck with a thought: maybe he had all this capacity to be struck with thoughts because he wasn’t speaking. He hadn’t said anything at all. He, Kip Guile, leader of the Mighty, Slayer of Kings and Gods—fine, singular for each, so far—but he, the Breaker, possibly Diakoptês, possibly Luíseach, possibly Lightbringer, was just standing dumb and listening to his (furious-at-him) wife do all the talking. His life was a child’s racing boat, bobbing in the stream, suddenly swallowed by the rapids, utterly out of his reach.

“Forgive them?! I thank them for it!” Tisis said. “Cousin, can you imagine me outmaneuvering the Golden Spider Andross Guile on the Spectrum? Or, failing that, convincing his lickspittles and lackeys to do something contrary to his will?”

Antonius paused. He’d obviously never thought about what being on the Spectrum entailed. “Perhaps not.”

“By marrying Kip, I’ve utterly guaranteed the only thing that Eirene could hope I might gain from any number of years on the Spectrum: timely help from the Guiles—and, through them, all the Seven Satrapies.”

“He is a good man, a good commander?” Antonius asked as if Kip weren’t there, and as if it were one question.

“He’s barely arrived here and look,” Tisis said. The fog was clearing, and the extent of Kip’s forces was obvious now.

Antonius studied the forces for what seemed the first time. “He’s united the Cwn y Wawr and the Ghosts?”

That was answered with a nearly simultaneous grunts of assent from Conn Arthur and Derwyn Aleph. They mirrored each other’s displeased looks at each other.

“And won a battle freeing the Cwn y Wawr from slavery and sinking numerous barges full of supplies for the Blood Robes,” Tisis said, offhand.

Antonius Malargos was quiet for some time. Kip thought of saying something to sway him, but Tisis motioned subtly to be silent.

Yes, dear.

The young man finally said, “Lady Eirene is considering… a treaty of nonaggression with the White King.”

“What?!” Tisis demanded.

Derwyn Aleph bristled, but her hand motioned for his silence, and he said nothing.

Antonius went on. “Eirene said you and this Guile fighting the Blood Robes might—how’d she say it? ‘Preclude the option of peace for us and all of Ruthgar.’”

Tisis was taken aback. “Does she think we can simply trade with that monster?”

“I know not what she thinks, nor could I likely understand all the machinations in her mind if she explained them. Your sister has a genius for such things. I don’t like peace with those creatures, either, but my trust in her has never been misplaced. And she has given me orders. She won’t tolerate anything less than total obedience in this. Not with your life in the balance. You are all she loves.”

“I love her most dearly, too,” Tisis said. “But sometimes we are called to obey higher things. My sister is a merchant queen, not a queen in truth, much less a warrior queen. Eirene’s brilliant, but she thinks others will be rational as well. You remember when you wanted to give your pony to the luxiats to sell to feed the poor?”

He brightened at the memory. “She told me if I wanted to help, I should have her sell the pony. She’d take a small commission, then invest the profits in one of her businesses. In five years, I could buy a better pony and still give twice the amount of money to the poor—who would surely still be poor.”

“She thinks the White King is like her. He’s not. He’s like us. There’s no negotiating the best deal with someone who plans to kill you and take everything.”

Kip moved to speak again, but Tisis gripped his hand: No!

“She called me a zealot that day, for trying to obey what I understood Orholam to be telling me,” Antonius said, with a woundedness unhealed by the passing years. “She didn’t understand me at all. Despite all her smarts.”