The Blood Mirror

“No, Brother Tawleb,” Karris said. She shook her head sadly.

But his words rode right over hers. “—that anyone so near to me should harbor such bile in his heart, and I not notice it. But if you’re going to try to say that—”

“Enough!” She held up a hand, and he finally stopped.

What was happening? Teia looked at her commanders for a hint about what to do, but they simply seemed ready for anything. Watch Captain Blunt looked at her and threw his eyebrows up.

Oh shit. With paryl, despite the pain of widening her eyes so far in this bright noon light, Teia double-checked Tawleb for a weapon.

Oh many shits. She’d missed it earlier. He had a dagger, held tight under his armpit with cloth, so no straps had stood out to her. Why would a High Luxiat arm himself? Should she do something now? Do you tackle a High Luxiat for being armed? He’d made no move with it.

She made the hand sign for ‘knife’ and tapped her armpit. The watch captain and the commander and Stump caught it.

Teia missed some bit of Karris’s saying this wasn’t a court, but that the High Magisterium had met and discussed some kind of evidence. Karris produced some papers, asking Tawleb to explain them.

He stepped close to examine the papers. This would be the moment he would attack, if he was going to. Teia saw the commander tensing, about to give the order to take him down regardless rather than risk it, but then Karris gave a very subtle wave-off.

Of course she knew the Blackguard hand signs, and she’d caught them going around even as she spoke. She knew.

The commander gestured a stop.

“These are worthless!” High Luxiat Tawleb said, and Teia knew then that he wasn’t going to attack. “Forgeries. You’re trying to become a tyrant, Karris Guile. You’re putting the Spectrum above the Magisterium. You’re a heretic, an apostate, a pagan whore.”

Gasps went though the crowd. Murmurs, a frisson of danger. What did he say? Did he really just—

Karris held her hand up as—of all people—Carver Black moved forward to strike High Luxiat Tawleb to silence him. She said, “No, please, High Lord Black, I’ll strike him myself if need be. And I will, if, on this day of truth, he tells one more lie—”

“A lie?! Which?! That you’re a heretic or that you’re a whore—”

Teia had seen Karris train. She had fought with her and against her. The speed with which Karris moved shouldn’t have been surprising.

It was.

Despite her huge amazing dress, she kicked—kicked—Tawleb. Not in the knee, or the gut. She kicked this man who towered over her in the side of the head. He went down instantly, and by the time everyone’s gaze had bounced from the blur that was Karris to the big man bouncing off the wood at her feet, Karris was composed again, standing calmly, straightening her dress, as if nothing had happened.

Balls! Guarding this woman is either going to be really, really easy, or really, really hard.

“Brother Tawleb,” Karris said, “stand forth and accept Orholam’s judgment. The High Magisterium has voted, and the Spectrum has adjudicated the penalty. You are guilty of treason. Your penalty is death.”

He stood, shakily, and Teia and the others were twice as alert now. But again Karris waved them off.

“If you repent, and tell us of others involved in this and any other murders, you may have a private execution by the method of your choice tomorrow. If not, the time is—”

He spat on her. Or tried.

Fast as a serpent strike, Karris blocked his spit with a gloved palm.

“I have no master! I did it for all of us! All of you! You ignoramuses! I did it to save you from the Guiles’ tyranny and apostasy!” He turned to Quentin. “You incompetent! You failed me! I was going to give you everything!”

Karris gave a signal that the Blackguard was on duty to defend her once more, and a bare moment later, Tawleb scrambled to draw his dagger. It was tucked too deep for him to draw it quickly enough, especially given that they knew it was there.

The others had him down practically before Teia moved. She’d been trying to enervate his joints with paryl as Murder Sharp had done so often to her, but she was too slow, and she ended up doing nothing—standing still while her brothers worked. Dammit!

They hauled him away and bound his hands and feet, and blindfolded him.

The great metal legs of a frame had been folded out of the wall itself. A great mirror as tall as a man, like those at the tops of the seven towers, dangled from chains between them, resting for the moment on the platform. But this mirror also had shackles, themselves mirrored, and a head brace.

Fighting weakly, High Luxiat Tawleb was dragged toward the mirror. His palms were pierced briefly with hellstone to make sure he hadn’t packed any luxin—though the man wasn’t a drafter, it was customary.

Teia had been briefed on what would happen, and what to do. And she still didn’t want to think of it.

High Luxiats Selene and Amazzal went to Tawleb, who was held on his knees. Selene spoke quiet words, expelling him from the Magisterium and excommunicating him from the faith. She was followed by an equally sorrowful Amazzal, who offered to shrive him and hear his repentance, if he desired.

Tawleb spat at him.

The tower soldiers bound him to the mirror, his head held immobile, still blindfolded and gagged. Teia helped pull the chains to lift mirror and man into place.

“Orholam is merciful,” High Luxiat Selene announced to the crowd. “And his justice tarries, but it will not be held back forever. May we all walk rightly, that we may stand before the Lord of Light unashamed and unafraid. Let us seek never to deserve the hard light of Orholam’s glare.”

Across the surface of the oceanic crowd, lights winked like the sun on the waves of Sapphire Bay as everyone from the lowest slave cook to the High Luxiats drew forth mirrors. Hand mirrors, cosmetics mirrors, signal mirrors; from expensive glass mirrors with tin-mercury backings crusted with rubies down to pieces of polished copper or bronze. Some Atashian nobles who’d lost lands and children in the war had bought hundreds of mirrors to hand out to those who couldn’t afford them: a voluntary war tax they paid to support the execution of traitors and heretics and murderers and spies.

Above and around the platform, mirrors unfolded like the petals of deadly flowers opening, answering the call of the sun above. In front of a number of the mirrors, white sheets unfurled, covering them, and in front of the condemned, a black sheet unrolled, blocking him from view.