“Child,” High Luxiat Amazzal repeated. He was looking at Karris.

Now everyone was looking at Karris.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Please come forward.”

She blinked, trying to remember what he’d been preaching about. She had no idea. Surely he didn’t know, did he? Was he going to shame her publicly? For simply not paying attention? Surely not.

She stood and moved forward with all the grace she could muster.

The High Luxiat gestured her to stand in a place off to his left, but as Karris was walking, she saw a muscle twitch in Andross Guile’s jaw. A wave of relief swept over her. She didn’t know what was happening, but if Andross was angry about it, she wasn’t about to be shamed. She took her spot, and finally, finally started thinking.

“Ismene Crassos,” the High Luxiat said. A middle-aged noblewoman stood from one of the other front seats and walked up to a place beside Karris. From the row behind her, her horse-faced cousin Aglaia beamed with pride.

One by one, the High Luxiat said the names of those seated in the front row, and each came to stand in line. “Eva Golden Briar. Naftalie Delara.”

Next would be Jason Jorvis, then Akensis Azmith, and Croesos Ptolos last.

Karris knew them all. Some from her time as a discipula, others only by reputation. All were drafters. Each was from either a prominent family or a formerly prominent one. Even she counted as the latter, she supposed. But she shouldn’t be here with these people.

And before the last name was even announced, Karris knew why they were here. She almost gasped aloud, though if she’d been paying attention to the ceremony, it would have been obvious. But what was she doing here?

If she had been putting together the lists, every seat was acceptable but hers. Drafters from the most important families among the satrapies that were still standing, with a special concentration on Ruthgar and Paria. Karris’s seat should have been held by a Malargos, but with Tisis gone, it had reverted to Lord Spreading Oak, who was as weak a blue drafter as one could be and still pass the test. It was why he’d survived into old age—he never drafted. Didn’t see the need.

They weren’t here for a sermon.

“Lords and ladies,” High Luxiat Amazzal said, “I present you with the cream of the Seven Satrapies. I present you with your finest, the seven candidates from whom Orholam will choose a new White.”

The room broke out into applause, but it was a fierce, competitive applause. There were factions here.

They were here to select a new White. The pool was selected by the High Luxiats, but the White was selected by Orholam himself, in a casting of lots.

But Karris? What—

‘There isn’t always a grand design,’ the White had said. It was exactly the kind of wordplay she loved. It seemed a denial, but it wasn’t one, was it? That there isn’t always a grand design doesn’t mean that there isn’t a grand design this time.

The White had been a discipula with Bran Spreading Oak, ages and ages ago. They were good friends. Bran deserved a seat at the front but could be overlooked because he was so old. If he were made the White, he would only last a year or two, surely. Thus he became a nullity in Andross Guile’s plan, whatever that plan was. But by Bran’s waiting until the ceremony was under way to vacate his seat and give it to Karris, there was nothing Andross Guile could do about it.

Then, moments later, they’d been locked in here. Not even slaves were allowed to come or go.

The White had arranged for Karris to be here.

All her tutelage was for this. The dozens of minor missions in years past. The possible suicide mission in Tyrea. The slow takeover of the White’s spy network. Those tests that Karris had seen as so harsh, so unnecessary, were harsh and unnecessary—for any position less than the White. Which meant that the White had wanted Karris to be her successor—no, that thought was too grandiose, too arrogant, too presumptuous.

And yet here she stood.

The White had wanted Karris to be the next White.

Perhaps Karris wasn’t the White’s only choice, though. Five of the seven standing here might be the White.

But as Karris looked around, she was pretty sure that wasn’t the case. That was Andross Guile’s kind of strategy: buy everyone, so whoever wins, you win. The White gambled differently; she put all her money on the long odds. Orea Pullawr had wanted Karris to be the next White.

Karris’s eyes started leaking. She couldn’t stop it. That irascible old woman had even apologized for it beforehand.

The White had been teaching Karris to take over, all this time. And Karris had never seen it? That didn’t bode well for how good of a White she would be, did it?

We all have our blind spots, but pity her whose blind spot is a person. Karris had had two—the White, whom she’d underestimated but loved, and Gavin, whom she’d underestimated and come to love when she stopped underestimating him. It was by Orholam’s grace alone that both of her blind spots had been good to her.

Karris had only one chance in seven to fulfill the White’s wishes. And suddenly, she wanted it with half her heart.

No one sane could want to be the White. But Karris could want Andross Guile’s puppet not to be the White. If she was the only stumbling block in his way, so be it.

If it be your will, Orholam, use me.

But how could she do it? Had the White been trusting Orholam to take Karris the rest of the way?

And there it was again. A distant sound that made Karris’s ears perk up. The first had been louder, but it had been buried under the rattling of the chains. A musket shot. There were multiple shots, muffled by the thick doors and thick stone, coming from another floor, perhaps? Or was she hearing the shots through the window? Was someone out on a balcony several floors down celebrating Sun Day?

It was, of course, forbidden to celebrate in such a way, but that didn’t stop many people on Big Jasper. It did, however, usually stop people within the Chromeria itself. Karris looked over at the Black, who was seated in the second row, but Carver Black didn’t appear to have heard the shots, or he was a better pretender than she’d ever guessed.

Andross on the other hand … Andross was the ultimate in pretense, in misdirection. Karris stared at him, though he shared the dais with her, and staring was obvious. What did she care? It wasn’t like they could take away her candidacy because she was socially awkward.

And then she saw it. She didn’t know why this should be the first time. She’d seen Gavin operate a thousand times a thousand—but Gavin had always been a special case. Now she saw power for what it meant to her. To her, it meant not just operating outside the social norms—she always had—it meant flouting them. It meant staring at a man past the time it was acceptable to stare, and instead of feeling awkward, making everyone else feel it. That mastery, that freedom at the expense of others, was intoxicating.

For one who had always had an affinity for the blue virtues of order and harmony and setting a plate exactly according to some point-book written by some long-dead prince of the punctilious pompacio, power was a revelation. Power, not for others, but for her.

And the heart of intoxication is toxic.

Andross Guile looked back at her calmly. He didn’t seem angry. It was a feeling, an intuition, rather than any hint of expression. He had an air of expectation. And an expectation, for Andross Guile, was an expectation of victory. He was patient because he was going to win.