The Blood Mirror

For beauty isn’t passive; beauty acts upon its beholder, moving and changing him. Line up ten paintings of different women by the same artist and ten men might agree which subject is the most beautiful. But let those men and women mingle for an evening, and duels might be fought over the same question, with no one lying in either case, and each convinced of the rightness of his judgment.

Corvan had lost two wives, but it was the loss of this third that would destroy him. The Broken Eye had sent one of its murderous Shadows for her. Something about the cloaks the assassins wore disrupted even Seers’ vision. But she had been able to track her own presences and absences to figure out all the futures down which she died, though not how.

It is Orholam’s will, she would say. Orholam would provide for him after she was gone, she would say.

Words strangled in his throat, he turned away from her. “I have not your faith,” he said.

“Not like this, please,” she said, preempting him. “Let’s not spend our last night in those conversations.”

She was right. One didn’t have to be a Seer to see how such talk would end with angry words and angry tears. This night was too precious.

The yellow luxin tattoo on her forehead gleamed softly, and he felt calmed.

“Using all your tricks on me again?” he said gruffly.

“Tricks? I prefer to think of them as my charms,” she said, grinning. “And yes… before the night is over, all of them.”

The yellow eye tattoo was a cunning piece of art that seemed to be a Seers Island secret, but the real cunning of it was that the Third Eye wasn’t only a yellow drafter. She was also an orange, and the Seers had no absolute prescriptions against the use of hexes.

Invisible behind the bright distraction of the gleaming yellow eye, she drew mood-changing hexes. No one could help but glance repeatedly at that yellow eye, so no one could help but be affected by the hexes there, hidden in plain sight. They’d been married before she told him of it. The Chromeria had a bad habit of executing hex casters.

“Your scouts from Blood Forest get back yet?” she asked.

He lifted his eyebrows. “You want to spend our last night talking about the war?”

“It’s your calling,” she said, as if it were simple. “And when we talk about it, I feel I’m helping you and the world, and I feel closer to you than at any time other than when we make love.”

“I hope I wasn’t presumptuous to expect—”

“That’s next,” she said. “I’m greedy. I want to be with you in every way tonight.”

It was surreal to talk so lightly about her death. But she was right. She usually was.

“A number of scouts have come back, actually,” he said. “Piracy is rampant across the entire sea. Some new pirate queen named Pasha Mimi has got the Aborneans paying her to keep the Narrows open while they build their own fleet. She, naturally, is using the fortune they’re paying her to build her own fleet. My scouts looking for the White King seizing bane all came up empty, but it’s a big sea. They do report many superviolet bane storms, but it could be because so much sub-red is being used elsewhere in the world with so few superviolet drafters to balance that. The storms could be natural.”

Of course, neither of them believed that. Aliviana had become the superviolet goddess, Ferrilux.

“I’m sorry, dearest,” she said. “You saved her life and helped her win her freedom. How she uses it…”

As if there were any meaningful choices after you bound yourself to dark forces.

“I should have raised her better. Told her more,” Corvan said. “But… not tonight. Let’s not… Not tonight.” He forced a smile and set that grief aside that he might focus on this brief blessing before it too turned to grief. “What about Ironfist?”

“He either is or will soon be on his way to the Chromeria with a heart full of rage. For him and those who love him most, I see only sorrow now.”

Corvan fell silent. Their last night together, and he was picking at these future scabs. But he couldn’t help it.

“Dazen?” he asked, hopefully. As if she wouldn’t have told him right away.

“I tried again. I still couldn’t See him, Corvan.”

So either he was wearing a shimmercloak all day every day, or he was hidden from her sight by some magic they’d never encountered—which was possible with the enemies he had! Possible, but not likely.

Or he was dead.

“One chance in five, you said?” For Aliviana, he meant.

“She’s a Danavis. They’re a tough breed.” She squeezed his hand.

There was nothing more to say on that. “Has Kip seen the trap?” he asked.

“No. He’s still marching in the wrong direction. He may save the city.”

“And lose the war. Dammit. It’s like he read all my books for nothing,” Corvan said.

“Not everyone can be the best general of their time,” she said.

“By definition I suppose there can only be one.”

His wife, his daughter, his best friend, and his ward—it was as if Orholam was determined to take every light out of his life.

“I have something to ask,” the Third Eye said. “Will you give this note to Karris?”

“Of course. What’s it about?”

“Locusts,” his wife said.

He raised his eyebrows, but she said nothing as he tucked it away. She didn’t always intend him to understand. “Very well, then,” he said.

“I just left things… I was unfair to her, I think.”

“I’ll tell her so,” he said. They stood for a time, watching the sunset and the sea. She made the sign of the seven, and, unbeliever though he was, he made it, too, tapping heart and eyes and hands: what you believe, what you behold, how you behave—each leading inexorably to the next.

“Now make love to me, and then go.” She smiled as if to soften the apparent command. “You have much to do tonight elsewhere. I’ll be fine until morning without you.”

And then he understood. She thought the assassin was already in the room. She was telling the Shadow that Corvan would be gone soon, that she would be alone and vulnerable, if only he would wait.

Corvan blew out a long breath, trying to get a hold of himself. She’d told him that if he tried to kill this Shadow, he would die. Period. She had told him the greatest gift he could give her this night was his total attention.