The Blood Mirror

Momentarily, Teia was kind of impressed with her own lying.

“Not many Blackguards would let us take their weapons. Your lot tend to hold that privilege pretty fierce,” the older man said. It was a singular right: Blackguards were allowed weapons in the presence of satraps and diplomats and Colors and the Prism himself. It set them apart from everyone else, not least the tower guards like these men.

Teia quirked a grin. “Eh, if you ask me tomorrow when I’m a real Blackguard, I might not give them up so easy!”

They laughed together, and Teia put her weapons on the table.

The old man moved to unlock the door. “I’d not get in arm’s reach of that false prophet. I know you have training and all, but madness gives ’em strength. The young luxiat mostly sits there and cries. But madness… You never know. Last one’s the drafter, watch them vipers. No offense. Oh. Shoes.”

“Shoes?” she asked.

“You have to take off your boots. Put on these.”

Teia hadn’t noticed, but there were slippers of various sizes on a mat. She stepped into the appropriately sized pair.

The door opened onto the strangest prison Teia had ever imagined. All the surfaces were lined with mirror. Orange lux torches provided a single dim spectrum of soft light.

The older soldier accompanied her down the shimmery hall. Even the floor was mirrored, the slippers polishing the pounded silver with every step. They approached the first door and the soldier handed Teia a mirror mounted on a handle. He demonstrated how she should use the mirror to peek around the corner to see any threat. Then, after she’d put the spectacles on, he handed her a tiny knife with an oversize handle. The blade wasn’t even as long as her little finger was wide.

“Hellstone,” he said to her puzzled look. “If they somehow draft. Drains out their luxin without killing ’em. Works on you, too, though, so don’t let ’em take it from you. Oh, and if they capture you, our orders are to go in with muskets firing. We don’t try to recover hostages. They know it. It’s not a bluff. We’ve done it before.”

“Great. Thanks.”

He left and she heard the door being barred behind her.

She opened the window inset in the door of the first cell. She extended the mirror, and was surprised that she knew the man therein. She closed the window. It was the Color Prince’s prophet, the spy handler she and the Mighty had surveilled months ago. He’d tried to kill Big Leo. It wouldn’t bother her to see him executed or to leave a paryl tag on him for assassination. Good option, maybe.

She walked down the mirrored hall farther, little slippers scuffing a floor that really should have been cleaner. Men. It was as if they were physically blind to messes unless you pointed them out specifically: Is this floor clean? Yessir. Do you see this dirt? Yessir. Did you see it before when you just told me it was clean? No, sir.

Teia opened the next cell’s window, peered in with the little angled mirror, and paused. The young man inside had his head down, ignoring the sound of the opening window. He was a disheveled mess, but there was something familiar about him, too.

Orholam have mercy.

“Quentin?” Teia asked.

He froze up, and it was an admission of guilt. A moment later, his head snapped up. “No,” he said. “No, no.”

“Quentin, what are you doing here?” Teia asked. She unlocked his door and stepped inside. Teia was petite, though stronger than many would guess, now. But if there was one man from whom she had nothing to fear, it was Quentin. He was skinny to the point that it was painful to look at him. He so often forgot to eat while studying, he probably weighed less than she did. He was a brilliant mind, though, a polymath who mastered subjects within months that took others a full career. He read scrolls and books within hours, and remembered nearly everything he read.

His was the kind of scholarly mind that came along once in a generation, if it was a great generation.

“Quentin, what’s going on?” she asked. His cell was a cube with mirror walls and floor and a luminous orange ceiling that gave a sickly hue to the boy’s skin.

He looked at her with such shame that she thought he was going to throw up. “They found me,” he said. “They never gave up.”

“Who? What?” she asked.

“I didn’t even know her name when I did it,” he said.

“What?”

“It was supposed to be Kip,” he said. “I didn’t know him or any of you then. It was before I’d met you.”

“Quentin, what the hell are you talking about?”

“But I knew. When he gave me the orders to do it, I knew it was wrong.”

“What did you do, Quentin?”

He looked up at her as if he couldn’t believe she didn’t already know. “I tried to kill Kip. Lucia stepped in the line of fire. I didn’t mean to hit her… But I did try to murder him, so it doesn’t really count as an accident, does it?”

“No,” Teia said, aghast. Quentin had become their friend. Twitchy, nervous, and scared a lot, but they’d written that off to his having the lopsided brain of a genius.

“It was why I swore an oath to Kip that I’d never lie to him. I was hoping he’d ask, one day. But he never did, and then he left, and I thought—I thought maybe Orholam had forgiven me. But then the Blackguards came. They’d never given up on finding who’d killed her. I was hoping they wouldn’t take me alive.”

“You? You shot Lucia?” Teia had barely seen the hooded figure raise the musket. In her dreams, it had always been some monster. Someone eminently capable. Some assassin whose bullet had been intercepted through Orholam’s will alone. Not a scared kid. Never Quentin.

“It was pathetic how easily they turned me. A little bit of threatening, a little bit of bribery. That’s all it took. I knew it was wrong, Teia. They’re going to execute me, and I deserve it.”

“Who sent you?” The orange light in here was making Teia feel as slippery as the Old Man of the Desert himself.

“High Luxiat Tawleb. I told the White as much. But he’s sworn it’s a lie, of course. And what is my word against his? I’ve no evidence.”

It was true; Teia could tell. There was no guile in Quentin’s voice or gaze.

Teia hadn’t been friends with Lucia. She could tell early on that Lucia wasn’t going to make the cut to become a Blackguard. Why make friends with someone who wasn’t going to be around long?