The Blinding Knife

Chapter 79

“Good evening,” Gavin greeted the Blackguards at the door to his rooms. He didn’t recognize either man. They were young, maybe eighteen. They looked like children-and when eighteen-year-old men look like children to you, it’s a sure sign that you’re getting old.

What did you do when you were eighteen, Gavin?

Too much. But that was a distraction. Here were two Blackguards he didn’t know, despite knowing all the Blackguards. Two Blackguards, alone with him. This was how assassination attempts began. He’d been warned.

The men saluted him. “Lord Prism.”

“What’re your names?” Gavin asked.

“Gill and Gavin Greyling, sir,” the elder said.

Brothers, of course. He should have picked it up. “ Gavin? ” he asked the younger.

The boy beamed. “Yes, sir, named after-”

“After our mother saw that he was a bit ill-favored, my lord,” Gill said dryly.

“Hey!” Gavin Greyling said.

Gavin laughed. Of the two, Gavin was definitely the more handsome.

The younger Greyling looked relieved that the Prism had laughed. “I’m sorry my brother is horrifying, my lord. It is a real honor to serve you. A lifelong dream, my lord.”

“An honor to have you in my service, Gavin, and even you, Gill. You two just raised?” A Blackguard, named after him. Good Orholam. He was getting old. And going blind to prove it. His chest tightened. He hadn’t had the heart to go straight down to the back entrance to the tunnels after meeting with his father. He’d told himself that this would allow him to check the alarm first from his room. That it would give him warning if he’d been betrayed.

Really, he just didn’t have the strength to go down there right now and face his brother-alive or dead.

“Yes, my lord,” Gill said.

“Doesn’t the commander usually have a veteran accompany the newly raised?” Gavin asked.

Gill flinched. “Yes, sir. With the personnel we lost at Garriston, it’s been hard to cover all the shifts.”

Gavin looked at each man in turn, widened his eyes momentarily to see how hot each looked. Both were pretty warm, nervous. Of course, with no baseline, and it being the first time they’d talked to him, that told him little.

Besides, now that he thought about it, he thought he did remember seeing these boys train. Gill was quite a hand with stabbing spears, if Gavin remembered correctly. And what kind of assassin would risk antagonizing the target by teasing him? Perhaps a very subtle one, but not likely one who was eighteen years old.

He bade them good night and stepped into his rooms. “Marissia?” he called. It was late, she might have gone to her bed in the little side room-more a closet, really. But she didn’t answer. Which she wouldn’t, if she’d betrayed him.

Behind him, Gavin Greyling was closing the doors. “Um, she left about half an hour ago, sir.” She often worked late into the night when he returned from trips, giving him the most up-to-date reports the next morning and arranging the most pressing business on his schedule. And if she was loyal, she’d been doing everything she could to investigate her “failure.” Yes, that was Marissia. That was the heart of the woman, dutifully looking to correct any error, even when it meant she’d forget that when he came home, he wanted her here. She didn’t have betrayal in her.

“Ah.” Shit.

“Is there anything we can do, my lord?” Gavin Greyling asked.

Gavin leveled a bemused gaze on the boy and said, “I have been traveling for the past four months with a woman I find incredibly seductive but whom I can never have. So no, I’m afraid that the duty I have for my room slave to perform is not one I would ask of you.”

Gill started laughing. It took his brother longer.

“Are you talking about Watch Commander Ka-Ow!” he said as Gill slammed the butt of his spear onto his foot.

Gavin Greyling looked at his brother, peeved, and then blanched. “Oh. Oh. Um. I’m sorry, sir. Would you like one of us to go summon her? Her the room slave, I mean, my lord. Not her the watch commander… Although I suppose… Ahem.”

Even though they were offering, Gavin knew he wasn’t supposed to treat the Blackguard as his fetch-and-carry boys. It would, quite possibly, get these young men into trouble for having volunteered it. No, he’d spent the time talking with them to gain some rapport and to make sure they weren’t assassins. He wasn’t going to throw away that rapport just for his complaining loins.

But it was close. He shook his head.

The doors closed behind him and he shuffled toward the painting. He was exhausted, and there was a ball of despair swelling in his stomach. He looked at the painting closely, examined the hidden hinge, saw no sign of tampering. The frame of the painting needed a new coat of paint, though. The oils on his fingers had worn one edge smooth. He would have to disguise that. He pulled the frame open.

The panel under which sat the liquid yellow luxin was undisturbed, inert until the alarm injected air into it to make it glow faintly. The alarm hadn’t gone off.

He drafted superviolet and reached deeper, pushed the superviolet into the hellstone panel, felt the brush of the filaments he’d left there, so thin they’d tear at the slightest touch-so thin they’d tell him if anyone had tampered with this. He felt the mechanism. It was undisturbed.

For one wild moment, he thought that it was all a mistake. Dazen was still in the blue prison! Nothing had gone wrong! He’d merely panicked because he’d lost blue. Because he’d had a bad dream about Dazen escaping-which he’d been fearing for sixteen years, so that was no wonder, in the aftermath of losing blue.

Except that the Third Eye had said his brother had broken out of blue, too.

But fortune-tellers are often wrong, right?

Not her.

Gavin drafted deeper down to the chute. It had moved over. It had moved to green.

So Dazen had broken out of blue, but he was still stuck in green. The blue alarm had failed, but eventually Dazen had gotten food. He’d been getting blue bread in the green prison, but he hadn’t broken out. Either the green had made him too wild to think clearly enough or the blue bread when illuminated by green light had been too spectrally close to give him usable luxin. He was in green and he was alive.

Dazen could never be counted out, but it wasn’t a catastrophe. Not yet.

The enormous weight didn’t quite lift from Gavin’s shoulders, but it shifted to a more comfortable position. This one emergency, at least, could wait until the morning. He wasn’t ready to face Dazen, not after this day. He’d rest, and gather his wits, and then face his brother. Tomorrow.

He walked to his desk, took the folded shimmercloaks and the deck box, and tucked them in a closet. More problems for tomorrow. There were always more problems for tomorrow. He went to his bed, stripping off his clothes. He threw them willy-nilly, suddenly peeved. Where was Marissia, anyway? What does one have a room slave for, if not for some damned companionship once in a while? Schedules could wait. He wanted her here. He cursed, feeling peevish and petty.

Truth was, he was angry at Karris for being so damned intractable. And he missed Marissia, and not only for her admirable bed skills. He didn’t want to sleep alone tonight. He wanted to hold her body, to feel the soft comfort of her curves. To wake and embrace her and then sleep again. He wanted to take her in the bath in the morning, and then have her comb his hair, anoint him with oils, dress him, and send him off to conquer the world again with a clear head.

Instead, she was off doing whatever it was she did when she wasn’t serving him.

That was ungracious, unfair. Most of the time that Marissia spent away from this room was to serve him. He crawled under the covers and thought dark thoughts for a few more seconds, then surrendered to sleep.

In the middle of the night, Gavin must have gotten hot and thrown the covers off, because he felt cold. Foggy-headed, he reached a hand to pull the blankets back on him, but then he felt the sweep of long hair over his thigh, and then a kiss. She took his hands and tucked them firmly at his sides, telling him not to interfere.

Oh, Marissia, if a man could fall in love with a slave…

Marissia pleasured him like she did everything: efficiently and well. She’d done this before when he’d come back from trips and she’d been out when he got back, or even just when she’d sensed that he was hungry for the pleasures of the flesh. She would wake him rapidly and pleasantly, and then ride him to a quick climax. It was like providing a meal on the march: she satisfied his hunger as quickly as possible, and interfered as little as possible with the business at hand. In this case, his sleep. Funny woman, but Gavin wouldn’t trade her for the world.

Having roused him with admirable dispatch, Marissia crawled up Gavin’s body. He reached for her breasts, but she grabbed his hands and pushed them above his head. Marissia’s breasts got so tender some months that she didn’t like Gavin to even touch them. She’d allow it if he insisted, of course-she served for his pleasure-but Gavin didn’t want to insist tonight. Not when she was being so solicitous.

She quietly moaned as she lowered herself onto him a little at a time, and the pleasure of it almost blotted out all thought for Gavin, but he opened his eyes. Marissia rarely moaned. The room was dark. Gavin could of course change that, but pleasure blotted out will. It had been so long.

When she settled fully on him, though, even without hands, without sight, he knew this wasn’t Marissia. As he came out of his stupor, it became more and more obvious. He knew Marissia’s body, how she moved, the smell of her arousal and the smell of her perfume, and this was not That perfume. As his succubus began to rock her hips rhythmically, Gavin was entranced by the competing soporifics of pleasure and memory.

Karris almost never wore perfume. Only one day a year, and then only when she couldn’t get out of it. She only wore perfume to the Luxlords’ Ball. This perfume.

Orholam have mercy. That was how she’d gotten into his room. The Blackguards knew they weren’t supposed to allow anyone in, but they wouldn’t stop Karris. Especially not after Gavin had told them that… Ooh.

The very thought that it was Karris brought Gavin fully awake, inflamed him. His succubus was a little awkward, like she didn’t really know what she was doing. Karris had only had two lovers that he’d heard about, and neither of them for long. She hadn’t had all that much practice. Still, in most things she was more coordinated than this.

Gavin brought his hands to the softness of her hips to help guide her. Karris! After sixteen Soft? Karris’s hips? A woman could be incredibly fit and still carry a little softness on her hips, of course, but…

She was moaning louder now, and her vocalizations almost covered the sound of voices outside Gavin’s door. He stopped guiding her, but she only ground against him harder.

The door opened and a woman bearing a lantern walked in.

“Watch Captain,” one of the Greylings protested, “I really think you-”

The light from the lantern showed Karris standing at the foot of Gavin’s bed. The same light threw his succubus into shadow. Nor did the woman atop Gavin stop, grinding lascivious hips against him for several long, deliberate seconds after she must have become aware there were others in the room.

Karris flung the lever that opened the brightwater panels on the walls, flooding the room with light.

For one second, Gavin saw nothing as the light blinded him. Then, as his eyes adjusted, the young woman atop him was illuminated fully: Ana Jorvis, the student from the superviolets’ class. Ana, the little temptress who’d tried to sneak into his bed before.

“You mind?” Ana demanded, looking over her shoulder. She was unashamed of her nudity before both Karris and the young Blackguards. Unabashed at being interrupted in coitus. Even proud. Defiant. Haughty.

But Gavin had no thought for her. He was staring at Karris, who looked suddenly dead. Her hair hung around her shoulders, not just loose, but carefully combed and curled. The rouge on her cheeks was the only thing that livened her pallid pallor. Her lips, too, were rouged. Karris never wore makeup. She was wearing a fine cloak that he’d never seen before, and where it was open as her hand held the lantern, Gavin saw lace.

A lace chemise. Karris. Midnight. His bed chamber. She had been planning “I said, do you mind? My lord and I are occupied,” Ana said. She took one of Gavin’s hands from where it sat limp on her hip and pressed it to her full breast. The breast she hadn’t let him touch earlier-lest he realize who she was.

Karris bolted.

Gavin flung Ana off with a curse and ran after Karris, going right past the aghast Greyling brothers. “Karris!”

He heard the sound of glass shattering just as he got into the hall and saw that Karris had dropped her lantern in her haste. Its reservoir smashed and oil coated the hallway. Gavin stopped.

The still-burning wick tilted slowly, slowly, and before Gavin could draft, the hallway was alight. He smothered the flaring fire in seconds with great sheets of yellow. When he finally ran through, Karris had already gone down the lift. He hung out over the lift shaft, ignoring the Blackguards guarding it.

She’d stopped one level down, the Blackguard barracks.

“My lord!” the Blackguard Samite shouted.

“Don’t even try to stop-” Gavin snarled.

She held her hands up. Peace. She tossed him her cloak to cover himself. “Good luck, sir.”

Gavin tied the cloak around his waist and jumped into the lift shaft. He dropped down one level. He swung out of the shaft and stormed toward the women’s side of the Blackguard barracks. The door was closed.

“Karris!” he shouted.

But as he approached, a dozen Blackguards, most of them only half dressed, formed ranks seamlessly in front of the door. They made a wall in front of him.

“That’s far enough, my lord,” Tremblefist said, gently. He was one of the half-dressed ones, and even though he wasn’t quite as big as Ironfist, he was still bigger than Gavin. Enormous pectorals, shoulders broad enough to close the Everdark Gates.

“Out of my way!” Gavin shouted.

They said nothing, merely held ranks.

“Damn you all, you can’t stop me!”

“Yes we can,” Tremblefist said. “Now please, sir, leave. Leave before you shame your faithful servants any more than you already have. We’ve new men in our company. They can’t understand.”

Gavin screamed in frustration and stormed out.

The ride up one floor wasn’t enough to cool his rage. His young Blackguards watched him closely, aghast, but said nothing as he strode past them and back into his room.

Ana should have been on her knees, weeping and begging for forgiveness. Instead, she stood in artfully meretricious pose that Gavin recognized from a famous sculpture, the Maiden’s Gift. She’d even put on a fine silk shift identical to the statue’s: back turned, hair spilling over her shoulder, curves in an S, the side of one breast visible. It was so obviously staged that Gavin would have laughed if he weren’t so furious. Instead, it stoked the fires hotter.

“My lord,” she said. “Shall we continue? I’ve so many pleasures yet to share with you.”

Gavin’s self-restraint had one last gasp. He closed his eyes, ground his teeth. Finally said, “Do you have any idea… I only-I thought you were her!”

“What?! Her? She’s all muscly and gross. Karris is old enough to be my mother. I mean, if you want a sparring partner, I’m sure she’s wonderful, but a lover? Bedding her would be like fucking dust. That old bitch-”

A sound like an uncaged tiger tore its way out of Gavin’s throat. He hit the lever that dropped all the windows in his room open and was on top of Ana in an instant.

The night was moonlit, clouds being chased by buffeting winds.

“My lord, what are you doing?!” one of the Blackguards yelled, but Gavin didn’t even hear him. He grabbed a handful of the girl’s hair, walking her backward out into the cold night. “That bitch,” he screamed above the howling wind, “is the woman I love!” With an inhuman roar, he flung Ana from him. Flung her so hard that she hit the railing of the balcony and flipped right over it.

And fell.

She didn’t scream. She barely yelped, and Gavin barely heard it over the sound of wind.

Gavin’s heart stopped, and the wind stopped, but he didn’t hear her land. Maybe something had broken her fall? Maybe someone had saved her?

A fool’s hope, and Gavin knew it.

Rushing to the edge of his balcony, he looked over.

Orholam have mercy. Hundreds of feet below, Ana had landed headfirst. Her body had crumpled all the wrong ways. From here she looked like a grape popped between your fingers: all the skin gathered and juices everywhere.

“My lord…”

Gavin turned and saw his two young Blackguards. The looks on their faces told him that Ana wasn’t the only person who’d just fallen from heaven. He covered his face with his hands. He stepped back inside, and one of them, wide-eyed, closed the windows. Gavin sat on his bed, conscious for the first time of his near nakedness.

“Go tell who you have to tell,” Gavin said. “I’ll be here.”

Of course, he lied.