The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade, #1)

by Seth Dickinson

You are my queen, or you are not. I swore an oath. When you doubt yourself, you doubt me. Do you doubt me?”

(Baru saw the patterns of death and understood their reason without the need for thought. This was her gift, her savantry.)

Fuck them, Baru thought. Fuck them. They can all burn. I will destroy myself if I choose. On this one day I will not deny what I am.

Baru, you fool. You arrogant, callous monster. You should have stopped this. Somehow.

She could have found some way to betray her own betrayal. She was the key, after all, not the exhausted Wolf or the gathered rebel dukes; ultimately she was the vital weapon.

“You can weep, if you need to,” Apparitor said. “I wept when I earned my own exaltation. I wept for what I had betrayed.”

How could you let this happen? she asks herself. How could you let it be, knowing who you were, what role you were to play? You could have turned away, and spared yourself. But she did not. She never could have.

“You owe me nothing. I swore to die for you.”

Tain Hu does not flinch. “What secrets could I know about Baru Fisher? What truth did you ever give me?” She laughs quietly. “You were wise. You trusted only yourself.” “There was one,” Baru says, her voice terrible to her own ears, burdened with the memory of crimes more beautiful and dear than rebellion or treachery.

I did not think you a fool, Baru Fisher, but of course I did not think myself a fool either, and yet I was.”

“He told me none of this. He told me he expected you to execute me without a second thought. But you taught me to listen to myself when I sensed a lie.”

But I will not be bound as you are. I will walk among your council and you will tremble at what you have unleashed.

Good-bye, she thinks. Good-bye, kuye lam. I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood.