Now that was something Karris hadn’t known.

“Do you know what happens to a drafter who’s been flayed?” Andross asked.

Karris’s distaste must have shown on her face.

“Same thing that happens to any man. Incredible pain and flies and infection and fever and slow, horrendous, inevitable death—unless he crafts a luxin skin for himself. There was a law at the time that any man who turned wight forfeited all his family’s belongings. So Grissel Spreading Oak—yes, Bran’s older brother—flayed all seven of the Danavises he captured. When one broke and finally drafted skin for himself, Grissel killed all the ones older than him and took that one to a friendly luxiat. One bribe later, and the Spreading Oaks took four-fifths of the Danavis properties, and the Magisterium one-fifth.”

“Orholam have mercy,” Karris said. That was sweet Bran Spreading Oak’s brother?

“I know. I would have negotiated for at least half,” Andross said. But he smiled slyly. He knew what she meant. “Anyway, according to my sources, Corvan wasn’t even an officer when he joined Dazen. He’d fought for half a dozen mercenary companies since his brothers died. He was a brawler and an angry drunk, and every time he got promoted, he got fired again. When his people’s lives were on the line, he couldn’t stand incompetence, and he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He joined Dazen immediately, but the old guard wouldn’t give him so much as a squad. That is the problem of peacetime militaries: most of them train for peace, and they produce officers good at peacetime activities. Smiling sycophants mostly. Men who look good at balls, rather than men with balls.

“Dazen apparently saw Corvan lingering one day over the maps after his superiors left. He quizzed him, thinking he might be a spy—he was wrong, of course. For several months I had no spies at all in Dazen’s army, he inspired such devotion. Dazen was so impressed by Corvan’s answers, and how keenly he saw things, that he put Corvan in charge immediately. The audacity! And then they led together, Dazen bringing Corvan up to speed and Corvan showing a preternatural gift for strategy. They worked hand in glove. If he’d come in earlier, or if it weren’t me they opposed, bleeding off allies who might have joined them, they might have won the war. The only mistake they ever made was letting themselves be drawn into a full-scale battle at Sundered Rock. Of course, they say Corvan was deathly ill at the time. Hmm.”

“This is going somewhere,” Karris said.

“I’d intended to have Corvan take command of the Parian armies. Indeed, all of our armies. If he was willing to join Gavin after having fought against him, apparently his loyalty to the Guile line is strong. Or he simply likes fighting. Doesn’t matter to me. My son was right about Corvan; I’ll not be too obstinate to admit it.”

“This is all fascinating, and I’m not against Corvan leading our armies, at least not in principle. But we’re not finished talking about your assassinating one of the most important people in the Seven Satrapies behind my back.”

“Karris. Dear. I’ve done nothing but amplify your power. This ‘Iron White’ business might have seemed a whimsical affectation before. Now you will be feared.”

“Or you will be even more so. As much as this was a demonstration of my power, it was also a demonstration of yours. We both signed that ultimatum.”

“It isn’t either-or. We can be feared together, like Corvan and Dazen. Hand in glove.”

“With me as the glove,” Karris said. “And you the hand. I thought we wrote that letter together to show a united front. But really it was so your name would be attached to this.”

He didn’t deny it. “People need reminders. Just because there’s a new power in the game doesn’t mean all the old ones are gone. Besides, I did do all the work. I’m sharing my glory with you, not the other way around.”

“How did you do it?” Karris asked. She didn’t expect an answer, but it was a question she would ask if she were as in the dark as she was claiming to be.

“I’m not telling you that. I’m the promachos, and I go before us to fight in the ways I deem best. Now, your options are varied, but simple. You’ve yelled at me; you’ve questioned my sanity; you’ve made certain that I knew what I was risking; you’ve expressed how you wished I’d tell you things before I did them… and you’ve spilled my drink. Now you simply have to decide if you’re going to try to remove me from my offices, if you’re going to try to kill me, or if we’re going to get back to the delicate work of trying to save the satrapies. Because my plan worked, insofar as I could have predicted. Azmith’s death, however, leaves us with some very particular difficulties.”

He looked at her, questioning, waiting, and apparently not the least bit worried.

She’d been outflanked. Again. And this was what it was like to have Andross Guile as an ally. Damn him.

“So, can we move on now,” he said, “or are you going to ask the Blackguards to seize me? Will they, I wonder? Technically, they answer to the White… unless there’s a promachos appointed. Hmm. I know what a stickler like Commander Ironfist would have done, much as it might have pained him, but maybe Commander Fisk would be overwhelmed by his personal loyalty to you instead.”

What was she going to say to salvage her dignity? ‘Don’t do it again’? He’d do it again in a heartbeat.

“This was not the partnership I was looking for,” Karris said.

“That makes two of us. I would prefer you to be completely subservient,” Andross said.

Was that a hint of a smile?

Karris pursed her lips. “So where do we go from here?” She wondered which of them had been more wrong about Paria. Had she destroyed everything by killing Satrapah Azmith, or had she saved them from ruin by frustrating Andross Guile’s plans?

The intelligence she was getting from Azûlay was fragmentary and contradictory at best. Maybe the whole country would dissolve back into its tribes. And of Ironfist, she’d had no word at all.

Andross said, “Well, obviously, the first thing we need to do is send a letter. The tricky part is what to say, and for that, I was hoping your lighter touch might be helpful.”

“What do you mean? Whom are we sending the letter to?”

Andross smiled, superior again. “Why, to the only person who matters in Paria now, of course: King Ironfist.”