The contraction eased enough for her to take another breath, and she felt utter dread. He’d betrayed her! Made her look a fool. Her fury gathered, and the sub-red that had become part of her, body and mind, blew on those flames.

Elijah slapped her. Not hard enough to leave a mark for long, but hard enough to stun her. “Think of your child, you fool,” he said. “I haven’t even told you the deal yet. Listen.”

A sudden contraction seemed to tear her in half. She couldn’t have spoken if she wanted to.

“I need your vote, and your silence. When the Spectrum next meets, they will take up the matter of voting to make Andross Guile the promachos. You will vote for him. In return, when it is time, Andross will help make one of your sons or daughters a Color, and he will send help immediately for your family and your country against the Color Prince. It’s a generous offer. There will be no counter. He also buys your silence about this visit. If you ever break this silence, I will personally kill all of your children, your sisters, and your brother. I will be a plague that sweeps through your house. In fact, that will be the excuse we use for so many deaths in one family—a plague.”

By the time the pain passed, Arys had recovered her wits. “Why would you do this? Are you not working with the heretics?”

“The Order of the Broken Eye is … practical. You should admire that. If working for Andross Guile helps us for now, why should we not? But killing a Color is something the Order loves.”

“Help me stand,” she said. “I need to walk to the birthing stall.” She reached up. Suddenly, one of her arms dropped, swinging dead to her side and slamming into her chair.

“You don’t need to go there yet. I’m not so ignorant. Nor should you be ignorant of my power. That is the smallest fraction of it,” Murder said. He made a flicking gesture, and her arm began tingling, feeling slowly suffusing the flesh once more. “By the way, it’s a boy. Do you want me to stop his heart? Is that what you need to be convinced?”

“You monster.”

“War makes monsters of us all, and Lucidonius started this war, not us.”

“Go to hell.”

“That’s your answer? That’s your vote?” Murder asked.

“You wouldn’t kill the baby. I’ve looked into your eyes as we made love. I’ve seen your soul, Elijah.” She couldn’t have been so wrong about him, could she? She’d looked to him for his body, his flattery, his willfulness, and his quick tongue. And she’d barely looked at him at all, past that. He’d been a diversion. She began to ease open the drawer with her knee.

“Elijah was my name, once,” he said. He sounded wistful. “I gave it up when I took the blinkers off my eyes to see the glories of a world unchained. I liked it when you said my name. I still do. Arys,” he said, his tone sharp suddenly, “I know you’ve got a pistol in that drawer. I unloaded it.”

She stopped moving.

“I enjoyed my time with you far more than I thought I would, High Lady Greenveil. You’re beautiful and intelligent and wilder than any woman I’ve had in years. You can say no to Andross Guile, because to hell with him, right? I understand. I’ve wanted to say it a time or three myself. If you say no but keep your silence about me, I’ll let the baby live. And I’ll make your passing as painless as possible.”

“I could lie.”

“There are six of your children on Big Jasper. Do you think you can get them off the island without Andross knowing what ship they’re on? Because if you lie, they die first. Then I go to Green Haven and work through your circle. It will not disappear altogether; my reach is not so great, nor my time infinite. But a plague can undo an entire life’s work in days.”

“You’re that kind of butcher?”

“I am a holy warrior. I do not always enjoy my orders, but I always obey them.” His voice was low, but filled with conviction.

“I should have seen it,” she said. When she’d been young, she’d looked into each of the many who tried to woo her with a paranoid focus. In recent years, she hadn’t paid as much attention. Too much sub-red, too long with fading looks.

He didn’t answer, didn’t tell her that he was very good at what he did. Of course he was. They would have only sent the best.

“Lunna Green?” she asked suddenly. The Color had died inexplicably a few months ago.

He nodded, acknowledging it was his work.

“Who was that for? Guile or your order or both?”

He shook his head. “You don’t need to know.”

“Help me to the birthing stall,” she said. She would die squatting, as many a woman in her line had done before her.

“You need not my help nor any man’s,” Elijah said.

It was true. Her last gasp of hope—using some martial art against him—was ridiculous in her pregnant state anyway. Better not to lose her dignity.

Dignity. I think about dignity, on my way to the birthing stalls? I am getting old. She looked at Elijah as he donned his gray cloak. He pulled a golden choker attached to chains within the cloak out of a pocket along the neck and fastened it tight against his skin.

“That your idea of freedom?” she asked.

“I serve in chains that others may live without them,” Elijah said. But he wasn’t her Elijah anymore.

“One day, in your perfect world?” she asked.

“One day,” he agreed.

She stood, on her own. “You’ll wait until after the babe is born?”

“I will.” He paused, suddenly awkward for the first time. “I’m afraid I’ll also need one of your teeth. I’ll wait until after, though. I just thought you, you should know. Your third molar on the left is quite beautiful.”

“I suppose I shan’t be needing it,” she said, genuinely puzzled.

He seemed relieved that she didn’t panic or insult him.

“How do you intend to stay hid— Oh,” she said as he closed his cloak and, after a shimmery wave passed through his cloak, disappeared, every part of him becoming identical to the wall behind him except for his bright bright amber eyes, which appeared to hang in space. She opened her eyes to sub-red, and there he stood. Clever, some mist walker’s cloak out of story. So that was how he intended to be in the room where no men were allowed. That was how he intended to know if she complied.

Some small part of her was outraged that her murderer should watch her in such intimate moments, moments meant only to be shared among women. But that part of her was small, and tired. She hurt, and it was enough that the hurting would end. Not just the hurting of pregnancy, but the hurt of healing again, of cracked nipples and sleepless nights—the Greenveils kept the old ways, and took care of their own, no nursemaids, no surrendering the pleasures and pains of parenting to another. Family roots must be nourished first if they are to bear much fruit later. She hurt from the drafting, and the wanting to draft. Every pregnancy, she had more trouble stopping, and she felt sub-red’s grip redouble on her when she went back to it. She didn’t know how much longer she’d make. She’d told herself two years. She’d been flattering herself.

But cowardice and treason was impossible. Another contraction came upon her, and when it passed, she knew she was willing for there to be an end. She had one more fight left in her. One last, precious fight, but not a fight to kill. She would war with her flesh to push one more child to the light, and then she would lay down her burdens and trust the circle she’d grown to take care of its own.