“Because you were gone! Why? If you were here, you’d have seen. You’d…”
Ironfist, his head still trapped pointing away from her, only sighed. “When… when mother died, I swore vengeance on her killers. I thought it was my fault she’d died. And then I’d foolishly killed the man who held the blade, so we couldn’t be sure who’d ordered it. I know it may seem obvious in retrospect, but mother had many enemies, and not just enemies of our family. There were old rivals and bitter former friends. She was… apparently not an easy woman to get along with.”
“What are you talking about? Mother was beloved. Everyone loved her,” the Nuqaba said. She filled a golden chalice—though this simply with wine as far as Teia could tell.
“No, she wasn’t. You were too young, you don’t remember what she was like, Haruru. You were her baby, her only surviving daughter. She was difficult, but we loved her.”
“And you sure showed it!” she sneered. “Giving away everything she’d worked for to go to the Chromeria.”
A big breath, then, “I went to the Chromeria at the command of the Order of the Broken Eye,” Ironfist said.
Teia saw the shock on the Nuqaba’s face mirror her own. Ironfist? The Order? Ironfist was in the Order?
Ironfist was everything Teia had ever hoped to be. He was her patron Blackguard, for Orholam’s sake. Resolute, loyal, comfortable in command, supreme in competence, unrivaled in confidence. Hearing from his own lips that he was a spy and therefore a traitor, that he was actually part of the Order whereas she herself only pretended to work for it, was like taking your wedding ring in shame to a shop to pawn it, and then hearing the gold ring was brass over lead, that all the precious stones were nothing but colored glass.
Teia was so shocked, she almost lost her grip on paryl and became visible.
“Impossible,” the Nuqaba said.
Teia had told Iron fist everything: not just about Aglaia’s blackmail, but also about the Order. So why wasn’t she dead? Had he not told the Old Man? Why?
“You remember our uncle? He… was able to point me to the right people. I went to them and asked that mother’s murderers be killed. All of them.”
“What?”
“Of course, I didn’t know who those murderers were, or how many there were, and we had very little money then. I couldn’t pay the Order, so they took my service instead. It was too much for me, at first, to swear allegiance to such filth. But then I thought, who has a better claim on my fealty: a distant Orholam or my own family? So I went back three days later, and told them if they would not only avenge mother, but also protect you, I would join them. They said they were not bodyguards, but they would foil any assassination attempts against you they heard of, and would do their best to guard your life. They found and left the evidence for you to find that mother’s killer was in the Gatu tribe. My first test of fealty was to enroll in the Chromeria instead of hunting down the murderer myself. I didn’t know it until he was dying, but Hanishu followed me to the Chromeria because he found out about my oath to the Order. He hoped to save my soul.”
“This isn’t true,” the Nuqaba said. “You were never a liar before. What have those Guiles done to you?”
“Sister, the Order has killed fourteen men for me. But they weren’t above keeping me in the dark. I didn’t know your husband was such a monster. They told me that only four years ago. The captain who helped you? Yattuy? He worked for them… us.”
“Lies. Lies. I did this.”
“Takama Tanebdatt. Tatbirt of the Ishelhiyen. Tadêfi of the coast. Ultra Sinigurt. Aghilas the spearman. Yuba Winitran. Sifax Winitran. Isil Gwafa. Azrur Badis. Idus Aziki. Izem of the Tlaganu. Usem Yuften. Ziri the Stranger. Udad Red. In return, I gave the Order information. It never seemed to really matter, what I told them. It was just family politics, right? Until this war—”
“I don’t care about that!” she said. But obviously now the intoxicants were fully upon her, and she was struggling for clarity. “Those are all the people who stood between me and becoming Nuqaba. You’re claiming you killed them all?”
“I—they were all people who planned to kill you. Once others figured out that opposing you meant risking assassination, those who could be deterred by fear were deterred, and those who were more ambitious went straight to trying to kill you first. It wasn’t what I intended—”
“You’re saying you handed me this seat? That I am Nuqaba only because of you?!”
Teia saw his chest rise and fall in a silent sigh. “You never wondered why all those people died or disappeared? Your enemies certainly did!”
She was silent.
“What? You really thought that you were so lucky? So ‘blessed’ that everyone in your way fell dead at your feet? Dear Orholam, sister, how arrogant have you become?!”
He couldn’t see her face or he probably would have stopped talking, because after her initial shock was the briefest flash of embarrassment like lightning in a distant cloud, and then the thunder of her rage rolled.
Teia started drafting, and she was only lucky that the Nuqaba went to a side cupboard first. Dripping wet, the Nuqaba threw open a drawer and grabbed for something. She swayed, missed, and rummaged. Her hand emerged with a short, sharp knife.
She was so furious she didn’t even speak. She rushed toward Ironfist with murderous intent. Teia tried to make the Nuqaba’s arm go dead with paryl, but she missed the nerve as the woman moved.
At the last moment, Teia abandoned her magical efforts and chopped her hand down across the Nuqaba’s extending wrist. The knife clanged on the floor, nearly striking Ironfist’s leg on the way down.
Teia jerked her arm back within the confines of the master cloak as the Nuqaba rubbed her wrist, baffled.
She looked at Ironfist as if he’d done it somehow, and then she pounced after the knife, dignity forgotten.
This time Teia didn’t go after the nerve in the arm, she went for the spine. She’d had far more practice with this. Many slaves’ worth, Orholam forgive her.
It still took her until the Nuqaba had recovered the knife and stepped again toward Ironfist, undeterred.
“And now,” the Nuqaba said, “you mother—” She raised the knife as Teia got the right grip.
Teia squeezed hard, and the Nuqaba dropped boneless. Teia caught her, but lost the paryl.