The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,109

killed his sister, but she had allowed it, and Teia wouldn’t have been serving the Order at all if Karris hadn’t allowed it. It was a fairly thin line between Karris and that particular blood guilt.

She took a deep breath. She should put her feelings aside now. She had to make plans. She had to take meetings. A full day awaited her.

At least, Karris hoped it did. She felt as if the earth had swallowed her, as if all her selfishness and shortsightedness was rearing up to strike her with poison condemnation.

She’d never done well alone, and now life had stripped away everyone from her. The burdens of her office meant that even amid those she loved, she was alone.

She took another breath, remembering a lovely day long ago when she’d gotten distracted and double-charged a musket in Blackguard drills. It had blown apart in another nunk’s hands, though luckily it hadn’t wounded him. Karris had gotten dressed down in front of everyone. Then she’d had a bruising quarrel with Samite, who hadn’t stood up for her.

She’d been hiding in her bunk having a cry when none other than Orea Pullawr had pulled the covers back.

Karris had wanted to curl up and die already, but then being found like that, by the White herself?

Orea had said, ‘Karris, isn’t it? Child, do you know what tears and kisses and fine underthings have in common?’

The question had baffled her so much she’d stopped crying.

‘They’re best enjoyed in bed.’

‘I was trying to—’ Karris began mumbling. Kisses and fine underclothes? What? Oh! ‘Well, the former, I mean!’

‘And doing so with such vigor that I thought you and a friend were enjoying the latter. But—’

‘What?!’ Karris asked again.

‘But,’ Orea Pullawr repeated, ‘I need a Blackguard, so put on your big-girl pants and save the tears for later. You’re on duty.’

And so I am.

Remembering Orea’s kindness helped a wan smile steal onto her face. It had been pure kindness, too. Karris had only realized much later that the ‘duty’ the White needed her for was some invented thing: the woman had obviously overheard Karris crying and came to distract her without shaming her.

And that had been how she’d begun her service to the older woman.

So. Duty now. Tears later.

She felt better.

But before she stood up, she leaned forward, feigning clearing a pebble from her shoe. She slid a hand along the underside of the bench. Not only was this bench a place she’d sat often when waiting for a Blackguard to get off duty (and these days to wait for the lift to arrive), but it was also outside the checkpoint on the White’s level of the tower. Both she and Teia had easy access to this place. It made an excellent dead drop.

There was a note there.

Aha!

Karris hadn’t seen the girl to get a report in person for a while. Any news had to mean good news in their secret war against the Order; if things went badly for her, Teia would simply disappear.

In her room a short while later, Karris opened the note and mentally decoded the brief message and the date it referred to.

Suddenly the air felt too thick to breathe.

Karris had only just—last night!—done what she’d sworn she would never do.

She’d finally accepted that Gavin was dead. She’d given up on him.

Worse, she’d admitted it to that old viper Andross, which committed her. She’d told him she would do anything to save her people. Many thousands of lives. The whole empire. She’d said she’d do anything, and she’d meant it.

If the terms for peace and an alliance against a mortal threat were so simple, how could she possibly refuse to marry Ironfist?

This was how.

The note read: “Gavin kidnapped by Order. In grave danger. But alive. I’m certain. —Teia”

Such short lines bringing such bright news shouldn’t have the power to tear a woman’s heart in two.

But they did.

No proof was offered. No evidence at all. Karris almost couldn’t believe it. Maybe she shouldn’t.

But she did.

And no one else would. She couldn’t even offer Teia’s word that Gavin was alive without betraying Teia’s mission and jeopardizing her very life. Even if Karris made the girl come before Andross Guile and swear it all in person, Andross wouldn’t believe her. Even if he believed her, he wouldn’t care. Andross Guile didn’t know anything about love; he loved only power. He didn’t care about honor; he cared about survival. If the cost to buy Ironfist’s army was Karris committing bigamy, Andross would say that that price—betraying