ritual itself was too important to be interrupted for a Blackguard’s Freeing.
The people who’d put you in the place where you needed to die in order to serve them would hold the knife.
And all you asked for all your suffering and sacrifice was a steady hand on the knife and a steady look in the eye. You asked them to affirm the meaning not just of your death but of your whole life, of the oath of service you’d given and that you were upholding even after breaking the halo, when everything in you screamed to break troth. You asked them to have the basic decency to honor your sacrifice.
How could you become the White, and look into the eyes of a good man who was dying for you, and
blink
?
The Iron White, they called her.
It was a bitter taste in Teia’s mouth. A mock.
Teia felt the darkness all around her like dead, cold fingers touching her cheek; cold, wormy breath blowing down on her hood, wheezing. But as she drafted paryl now, she couldn’t say any more that the darkness was merely a cloak around her than you could say the air was merely around you once you breathed it in.
She opened herself to darkness and it took her. It gave her power, but it changed her, too.
Darkness tore the hem of its robe, and that flapping hem became a fluttering raven that took a perch on her pallid heart.
The winsome, goofy smile of Gav Greyling was no more. And nevermore would be.
Teia would give Karris her report. Not today. But eventually. Teia would do her duty. She always did. The monsters she fought were still monsters. Her friends still her friends. Her commanders still, unfortunately, her commanders. Doubts are for old warriors, not young ones.
But on a personal level? Fuck you, Karris.
You’re making everything you put me through, everything you made me do, be for nothing. Now you’ve given me a dead friend. Why would I give you a live husband?
You took my Gavin. Why should I give you yours?
Teia waited until morning. As the Iron White slept in her soft bed, Adrasteia’s mind never wavered, her determination never faltered, her focus never flagged, her will never failed. Witness to weakness, she was implacable.
When the morning shift came in, she slipped out the door and got to work.
Chapter 9
Kip was following Tisis through the verdant vibrancy of the forest. The air was thick as hot soup, the ground spongy underfoot with mosses and fanning ferns, but there was no trail. The clouds broke overhead with the kind of downpour that could last a few minutes or all morning. Kip was drenched in warm sky spit within seconds.
It was kind of miserable being out here, actually. And a total relief.
His Nightbringers only nominally controlled this land, not even a league from Greenwall. It should be safe—aside from the snakes. They had scouts farther out, after all, and this was in the direction least likely for them to be attacked by Daragh the Coward’s bandits, or any unlikely sneak attack from Koios. Cruxer was still nervous, of course. But this had to be secret, so only Kip, Cruxer, Ferkudi, and Tisis had slipped away.
“What’s your read on this?” Tisis asked.
“This?” Kip asked. They’d already agreed he couldn’t make a decision until he learned more. That was the whole point of actually hiking out here rather than just sending orders. “You mean . . .”
“Daragh,” she said, gesturing to the scroll case at her belt as if doing so again.
Oh, that. He’d missed it in the rain and with staring at his footing. Daragh the Coward wanted to meet with Kip.
Kip first suspected he was trying to gain time to spread his forces out to shut down supply or reinforcement, but Daragh had asked to meet in person, in neutral territory.
As if there were any such thing.
They’d sent a message back saying that if Daragh didn’t trust Kip would honor a flag of truce, then he obviously wouldn’t trust any deal he might make with Kip, so a meeting was pointless. Thus Daragh could meet him in the city or not at
The people who’d put you in the place where you needed to die in order to serve them would hold the knife.
And all you asked for all your suffering and sacrifice was a steady hand on the knife and a steady look in the eye. You asked them to affirm the meaning not just of your death but of your whole life, of the oath of service you’d given and that you were upholding even after breaking the halo, when everything in you screamed to break troth. You asked them to have the basic decency to honor your sacrifice.
How could you become the White, and look into the eyes of a good man who was dying for you, and
blink
?
The Iron White, they called her.
It was a bitter taste in Teia’s mouth. A mock.
Teia felt the darkness all around her like dead, cold fingers touching her cheek; cold, wormy breath blowing down on her hood, wheezing. But as she drafted paryl now, she couldn’t say any more that the darkness was merely a cloak around her than you could say the air was merely around you once you breathed it in.
She opened herself to darkness and it took her. It gave her power, but it changed her, too.
Darkness tore the hem of its robe, and that flapping hem became a fluttering raven that took a perch on her pallid heart.
The winsome, goofy smile of Gav Greyling was no more. And nevermore would be.
Teia would give Karris her report. Not today. But eventually. Teia would do her duty. She always did. The monsters she fought were still monsters. Her friends still her friends. Her commanders still, unfortunately, her commanders. Doubts are for old warriors, not young ones.
But on a personal level? Fuck you, Karris.
You’re making everything you put me through, everything you made me do, be for nothing. Now you’ve given me a dead friend. Why would I give you a live husband?
You took my Gavin. Why should I give you yours?
Teia waited until morning. As the Iron White slept in her soft bed, Adrasteia’s mind never wavered, her determination never faltered, her focus never flagged, her will never failed. Witness to weakness, she was implacable.
When the morning shift came in, she slipped out the door and got to work.
Chapter 9
Kip was following Tisis through the verdant vibrancy of the forest. The air was thick as hot soup, the ground spongy underfoot with mosses and fanning ferns, but there was no trail. The clouds broke overhead with the kind of downpour that could last a few minutes or all morning. Kip was drenched in warm sky spit within seconds.
It was kind of miserable being out here, actually. And a total relief.
His Nightbringers only nominally controlled this land, not even a league from Greenwall. It should be safe—aside from the snakes. They had scouts farther out, after all, and this was in the direction least likely for them to be attacked by Daragh the Coward’s bandits, or any unlikely sneak attack from Koios. Cruxer was still nervous, of course. But this had to be secret, so only Kip, Cruxer, Ferkudi, and Tisis had slipped away.
“What’s your read on this?” Tisis asked.
“This?” Kip asked. They’d already agreed he couldn’t make a decision until he learned more. That was the whole point of actually hiking out here rather than just sending orders. “You mean . . .”
“Daragh,” she said, gesturing to the scroll case at her belt as if doing so again.
Oh, that. He’d missed it in the rain and with staring at his footing. Daragh the Coward wanted to meet with Kip.
Kip first suspected he was trying to gain time to spread his forces out to shut down supply or reinforcement, but Daragh had asked to meet in person, in neutral territory.
As if there were any such thing.
They’d sent a message back saying that if Daragh didn’t trust Kip would honor a flag of truce, then he obviously wouldn’t trust any deal he might make with Kip, so a meeting was pointless. Thus Daragh could meet him in the city or not at
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