The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,171

woman worked for Karris, and was trying to make her paranoid.

Karris stopped the form and walked to a hook where her public-appropriate clothes hung, and patted herself with a towel. There were no servants here to fetch her things. Even Andross had come without a slave, leaving Grinwoody behind in an unusual display of respect: the promachos knew how the man’s presence infuriated the Blackguards.

Karris pulled the loose tunic over her head, then called over to Samite, who was leading the exercise, “I’ll make it up tonight. Twice as hard.”

Samite nodded sharply amid her own forms. Her own face was beaded with sweat, not from the exertion but from the concentration. Oddly, the loss of most of her hand sometimes threw off her balance, and she wouldn’t let herself falter.

Karris loved these people. They’d risked so much for her, in the past and now, too. They were helping her reconnect with herself, find her purpose.

And still Andross didn’t ask about what she thought they were missing that would cost them the war. Didn’t seem to care. Perhaps didn’t respect her enough to even remember, much less to ask.

Fine. Be that as it may, regardless of who he is, I am called to be who I am.

“I’m sorry, Promachos,” Karris said. “I was out of line. What may I do to make it up to you?”

His eyebrows twitched up. He took off his lightly tinted spectacles that he wore in the darker hours, and squinted at her, pulling a darker pair from his pocket as the sunlight dawned over the wall and onto the topside yard—the lower areas having been yielded to the many hundreds of less experienced drafters needing training in the martial arts. But as Andross squinted at her, the light struck his face full, and Karris thought she glimpsed a cornucopia of colors in them. Red and the sparking of sub-red, of course, but also orange, and yellow, a hint of green? But Karris was certain that Andross’s arc of colors only went from sub-red to yellow.

Odd, but maybe it was a reflection or natural coloration she’d never noticed. “It’s your son,” he said, putting on his dark spectacles. “You’re ignoring him. He’s come to me to complain about it.”

“I’m too busy,” Karris said. Zymun. Ugh.

“Yes, I see that.” He said it as if her work here was worthless play.

“I’ve invited him to join me here. And at other occasions. Events. Duties.”

“But never at dinners anymore,” Andross said. “Or to your solar. Or your study. Or anywhere alone. So he says.”

No games, Karris.

She took a deep breath. “He . . . touches me in ways he shouldn’t.”

“Ways he shouldn’t?”

“You wish me to be explicit?” Karris asked.

“I wouldn’t ask for clarification if I didn’t want it.”

“He touches me in ways that are sexual but that might be construed not to be. Kisses my lips, as a son might, maybe, but for too long, too softly. Wants to nuzzle my neck. Grazes my breasts. Wants to put his head in my lap. Trails his hands up and down my thigh, though I ask him to stop. Sniffs while he’s there, as if he expects me to be aroused by it.”

“That’s enough.” The disgust on Andross’s face was stark. Apparently some things were out of bounds even for him. Marvel of marvels.

“Then he begs me not to reject him. Tells me how much it hurts that his own mother would push him away. This, as he strokes the small of my back.”

“Enough. Enough!” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, then said quietly, “Shit.”

“You knew he was like this,” Karris said, heat rising in her.

“Lots of men bother the slave girls and pressure the servants. I’d hoped the endless stream of women happy to climb into his bed would sate his appetites.”

“His is not an appetite for sex.”

“Yes, thank you. I see that now.”

“I won’t allow him to be alone with me again,” Karris said.

“You’ll do what you damn well need to!” Andross said.

“I won’t let him be alone with me again,” Karris repeated calmly. “Nor any of my people. And if anyone is found willing to testify against him, he will be brought up on charges.”

“This is why you put out that missive to the servants?”

“You know about that?” Karris asked.

“I thought you were trying to find the rumors so that you could silence them before they cause us embarrassment.”

“Then you thought exactly the opposite of the truth,” Karris said.

“No one’s going to come forward,” Andross said. “They never do.