“I don’t know what you’ve been told, but they’re clearly mistaken about that,” Teia said.

“It was an illustration, not an attempt to embarrass you,” Karris said. “How you and Kip feel toward each other only becomes my concern if you threaten his marriage to my very tenuous ally in Ruthgar. What I was trying to say—”

“Daelos. It was Daelos, wasn’t it? That little crippled piece of shit. You interviewed him like three times.”

“Peace,” Karris said. “What I meant to say is that I long ago burnt through all my hatred for her. In fact… we were close to becoming friends. She disappeared too soon for that. But enough. Enough of all that. The question now is what to do about this. Whether we can stop it. Whether we should.”

“Whether we should?” Teia asked, at first happy not to be talking about Kip. She shot another paranoid look around. They were still alone. This was the whole reason they’d met. “Andross Guile has hired the Order to kill the Nuqaba! I mean, I know you’re mad at her, but—”

“Mad? Mad?! Because she kidnapped and blinded my husband, the Emperor of the Seven Satrapies himself? You think that makes me merely angry?” Karris asked.

Teia walked a circuit around the rim of the tower, streaming paryl down over the edge to make certain there were no climbers on the outside who might overhear them. Again. Then she said, “I’m not saying she doesn’t deserve death, but you’re the one who was just talking about using dirty weapons when they’re the only weapons you have. The Nuqaba is a bitch, but she’s the bitch who runs Paria. Paria.”

Paria had a satrapah, of course. One of the Azmith family. The damned Azmiths, who included General Caul Azmith, who’d led the Seven Satrapies army to the disasters at Ox Ford and Raven Rock, and Akensis Azmith, who’d been nominated to be the White before he tried to kill Karris. Shamed on the one hand, aggrieved on the other, they were like a mad dog you didn’t want to get too close to. They might cower, or attack for no reason.

But even Teia knew that Paria’s satrapah was a figurehead. The Nuqaba was in charge, in charge of the satrapy that two out of every three Blackguards and the best soldiers in the world came from.

But Karris knows all that. Right?

Teia realized how foolish it was for her to lecture the White about this, but she couldn’t help saying, “If I fail as I attempt to kill the Nuqaba—hell, even if I succeed but get caught or found out—Paria will turn against you. Even if you and Andross aren’t deposed and executed for sending an assassin, you’d lose Paria.”

There was no hope of winning the war without Paria.

Quietly, Karris said, “We may have already lost them.”

“What?” Teia asked.

“The messenger you’ll be accompanying for this mission is taking an ultimatum to the Nuqaba. Ever since the Battle of Ox Ford, they’ve contributed nothing to the war effort. They lost ten thousand men there, which is grievous, but compares not at all with the thirty-five thousand the Ruthgari lost. But since then, they’ve been saying they’re still mobilizing, and we know they are. But they won’t move. Cowardice or caution or treason, they aren’t coming. Apparently, Andross expects her to say no to our ultimatum, or to stall again. So Andross wants to kill her so someone more amenable can take over.”

“Or maybe he’s upset that she imprisoned and blinded his son?” Teia ventured.

Karris looked at Teia, and thought about it. “More likely someone moving against one of his own offends his ego. Regardless, it’s not a bad move. He probably would even expect me to be pleased if she turned up conveniently dead. I don’t know that he has anyone in place behind her, though. The Nuqaba conducted a purge recently. I think it may have wiped out some of Andross’s spies and agents over there. Now that I could see him being upset about.” Karris pursed her lips. “So that’s why he’d order it. But why would the Order take the job?”

“Anything that destabilizes the major powers is a net positive for the Order,” Teia said. “They want to institute some kind of new world on the ashes of the Seven Satrapies.”

“That might be enough reason,” Karris said. “And I suppose an erratic figure like the Nuqaba is no fun for them, either. Who knows but that they lost people in the purges as well. And perhaps the Old Man of the Desert is more motivated by passions like revenge than our icy promachos.”

Karris looked up toward the fading sun in what might have been prayer. “What if… what if I have you intentionally fail… or what if you frame someone for the deed instead? Who? How? Hmm… Or I could just prevent you from going at all, but that might tip my hand…” She crossed her arms under her breasts and scrunched her shoulders against a sudden cold wind. “What would Orea do? Something gentler, no doubt. Something clever and even kind. Of course, it’s her fault I have all these Azmiths to deal with in the first place. In this world of bloody-minded men, is there not a smarter way? Must the Iron sometimes be a blade?”

She was quiet for a long time. Then, finally, Karris straightened her back and turned to Teia. “It won’t be enough to kill the Nuqaba. You’ll also need to kill her master of spies, Satrapah Tilleli Azmith.”

“Am I to be your official assassin, then?” Teia asked. She couldn’t keep the grief out of her voice.

“You have a problem with that?” Karris asked coolly.

“High Lady… I had a chance to murder… two men I find loathsome, and it would have stopped much trouble. I didn’t because I felt Orholam tell me that I’m not an assassin; I’m a soldier. I’m a Blackguard. Not a knife in a darkness, a shield.”

“You train much with a shield?” Karris asked.

“A little. Trainer Fisk said he’d rather I was in the enemy’s shield wall than his own.” He’d actually said he’d use Teia as a scout instead, even if he had to go one man short.

Trainer Fisk, of course, had hurled insults at all of them while they practiced. But a single day of charging at another line from a mere twenty paces, each side equipped only with shields, had convinced Teia not only that Fisk was right, but that no amount of training could help her overcome her limitations. Many of the men in the lines were twice her weight; some were three times her weight. Charging full speed into them? She got flattened, every time. And holding up a shield for several hours? She couldn’t have done that with both hands, even while not fighting.