The Broken Eye by Brent Weeks

bribery, and you always took the direct path, relying on authority and hierarchy. But then, when I would prepare myself to cut you loose, you’d do something brilliant that showed me you were capable of thinking for yourself. You simply like to have others give the orders. So I put you in a situation where there was a vital task, but no direction on how to accomplish it. I knew you might die, and I’d have carried your death heavily for misjudging you. Instead you passed, and now I’ve gained something even better than me trusting you.”
    Karris scowled. “And that is?”
    “You trust yourself. A little more, at least.”
    Karris shook her head. “Then why take me out of my position? I understand Andross Guile wanting to take away something I love, but you? Why wouldn’t you fight for me?” And there it was again, the hot tears threatening. Her throat tightened.
    The White blinked, and her face transformed in a moment with an intensity that breathed fresh youth into her face. “You listen to me, Karris Guile. I will never stop fighting for you!” She sat back, and looked abruptly old once more. “I grow cold in this rain. Take me inside. But before we go, I have a new assignment for you, Karris Guile. One befitting your new status.”
    “My new status? As a widow? As a former Blackguard?”
    “As a woman with no work and ample time on her hands.”
    It was a slap in the face. Karris’s anger flared. “Am I to knit sweaters and darn socks, High Lady?”
    “I’ve lost my mobility. It makes it far too easy to track with whom I meet. You, Karris, are to manage my spies.”

Chapter 10
    Teia didn’t cross the Lily’s Stem to the Chromeria until she saw a group of young Blackguards heading back. They were from her ship. Had she really been gone so short a time that the other nunks were only reaching the bridge now? She checked the alleys again, and despite the rain, put on her darkened spectacles again for a moment. She opened her eyes wide, wider, until her eyes were all pupil. She looked left and right and deeper into the intersection. She looked behind herself, deeper into the alley, searching for any sign of paryl, or of the assassin. Nothing.
    She grabbed her spectacles and tucked them into a pocket and hurried into the main stream of traffic ever flowing across the bridge, past the Chromeria’s guards, standing in mirrored armor in the usually empty sentry boxes. The war. The war was real now, and they were prepared for an attack. Here. Surreal.
    “Is it true?” one of the guards asked the Blackguards. “Is the Prism dead?”
    “Lost,” one of them said.
    “Lost? What? Like he’s a penny? Lost at sea ain’t just lost. I heard you combed the shores for days, looking for him. Ain’t you lot supposed to keep him from being lost?”
    One of the Blackguard nunks, Ferkudi, snarled and leapt at the guard. But the others pulled him back and toward the tower.
    “You lot let our Prism die!” the guard shouted. “What good are you if you let a Prism drown on your watch? None of you even jumped after him?”
    Ferkudi cursed, and Cruxer got right in the guard’s face. He said something Teia couldn’t hear, but made no move. The guard said nothing more, but he had tears streaking down his face.
    These people loved Gavin. They barely knew him, and they weep.
    No, maybe that wasn’t right. They didn’t know him personally, but Gavin had been everywhere visible for longer than Teia had been alive. And he’d been a good Prism. The rumors had to be flying everywhere on the Jaspers, with the official word being so pitifully incomplete—not a position at all, really. ‘Lost.’
    ‘Lost.’ Not a word you want to toss around lightly at the beginning of a war whose two battles had both been … setbacks for the Chromeria.
    Gavin had been nigh unto a god to these people, and they’d lost two battles despite having him fight on their side. How would they do without him?
    It had been a question the Blackguards