“My presence itself is an insult? And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” Teia asked.

“I’m trying to help you gauge and define your own scope of actions here. This isn’t my assignment alone. It’s ours.”

“You really think we can reel them back in?” Teia asked. She hadn’t meant to ask a real question. She knew what she had to do here.

“I think diplomacy may resolve all conflicts between parties of goodwill.”

“That last bit is the part that bites you in the ass, isn’t it?”

“Rather, it’s the part that bites you in the ass, my young Blackguard friend. For where there’s no goodwill, my job ends.”

Teia had thought for a moment that they were very different indeed. Anjali the happy talker, traveling through the satrapies, her words bringing life and peace wherever she went, soothing conflict and finding outcomes acceptable to all parties; Teia the shield that came down on stiff necks.

But perhaps they were simply two different horses, pulling the same chariot of state. Anjali, at the front, saw different scenery wherever she went. Teia, pulling behind her, saw only horses’ asses and different kinds of road.

They passed under the very shadow of the lighthouse, the reedsmen artfully guiding their small craft between the hundreds of ships going in and out of the port. They headed straight into the small beach, threw cloths over the skimmer so as to keep its secrets from the curious, and then threw down a plank.

Teia put on blue spectacles and trotted down the plank first. People began pushing closer on the crowded beach to get a look at them, so Teia threw her cloak back off her shoulders to reveal the sword and pistols at her belt and the rope spear wrapped around her waist, its long blade hanging down one thigh like another sword.

The crowd backed off, but Teia and Anjali didn’t even make it off the beach before they were stopped by a detachment of port guards. Evidently, the oddity that was the skimmer speeding across the waves had elicited some alarm.

Anjali Gates did all the talking, declaring them to be a delegation from the Chromeria and demanding the skimmer and their men be unmolested while they themselves should be accompanied to the satrapah’s palace. While the diplomat spoke, Teia did her best to look imposing without being threatening. It was doubly hard with her feet sunk into the sand while the port guards stood on the paving stones of the street just above them. Teia felt about as tall as Caelia Green.

No wonder Buskin had worn those shoes. Teia would give her second-favorite rope spear right now to be a little taller.

In short order, though, they found themselves being escorted through the streets. Teia wished that they could take their time in the city instead. Steep cobbled streets led up to a plateau where the majority of the city rested, and ivy adorned every building. Where the ivies or wisteria had torn apart stone or lumber, the people had simply rebuilt around them rather than trimming them back, even building supports to prop up ancient vines. Every window was a riot of flowering plants as well. The pastel paints were fresh and bright.

And the people, ah, the people.

Azûlay was as cosmopolitan as any of the other great cities of the Seven Satrapies, but here the many skin tones of the satrapies’ ethnicities were painted on a background of many Parians. It made Teia feel oddly at home, and she realized only slowly that it was because she didn’t feel odd. In Big Jasper she hadn’t stood out, simply because everyone stood out. But this was different. Homey.

She wasn’t able to enjoy it or explore any of the little alleys, though—each one adorned with murals, it seemed—or visit the little kopi counters or the kitchens wafting heavenly smells into the street. A great wide ribbon of less steep grand boulevard switchbacked up the great hill so wagons could make their way to and from the port, but the guards took them straight up, sometimes climbing steep stairs, muscling aside burnous-clad crowds when necessary.

Some kind of palace guards joined them halfway up, and at the doors of the palace grounds, four of the Nuqaba’s personal guard, the drafting Tafok Amagez, fell in around them. Dressed in white and black with blue vests the color of the sky, the Sun Guards claimed their genesis from Lucidonius’s first followers and personal guard, but the only thing relevant about them for Teia was that these were the men who’d helped blind Gavin and tried to kill Karris and Ironfist and Essel and Ben-hadad. They had killed Hezik. He’d been a jovial braggart, and Teia hadn’t known him well—but he was her brother, and she would never forgive his killers.

Karris had sneered about the Tafok Amagez’s magical abilities, calling them blunt drafters who lacked all subtlety. But no one had criticized their fighting abilities, and Teia saw that they held themselves like professionals.

Teia realized that if she hadn’t come as an assassin, her role here would be entirely ornamental. If the Parians decided to kill her, she would be lucky if she took down even one before they got her. So she pulled her cloak back around herself.

It’s a bad idea to poke a lion in a cage.

These lions weren’t caged.

When they entered the grand doors of the palace itself, Teia almost missed a step. Soaring ceilings, white marble, black marble, flying staircases, stained-glass-filled clerestories, jewels and onyx and a giant statue that seemed to be made entirely of obsidian and gold standing on powerful legs, wearing what Teia thought was called a toga, reaching toward the sky—the sun?—with yearning, and with determination in his clenched jaw.

Anjali Gates saw Teia’s astonishment. “At the midwinter feasts, the pyroturges remove the pinnacle cap of the dome and lower an incendiary. All night long, he reaches for a burning sun, and these stained glass windows shine light out for leagues for everyone to see all through the year’s longest night. Inside, there is one hell of an all-night party.” She smiled at a memory. “He is known as ‘handross Orh’olam. The Seeker after the Lord of Light. Or perhaps the Striver after Orholam. Or, less popularly, He Who Strives with Orholam.”

“‘With’ as in ‘with,’ or ‘with’ as in ‘against’?” Teia asked.

“Indeed.”

“I think I lost you there,” Teia said as they ascended a staircase with no railing or visible supports.

“The grammar allows for either interpretation, but these are a pious people. It is best not to note aloud that while their people were the first to fight with Lucidonius, they were also the first to fight with Lucidonius.”