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"Oh, seriously," Liv said.

Kip sighed and jumped so high he thought he was going to touch his head on the canopy. As he landed, he heard a loud crack.

He threw his hands out looking for something to grab, his heart seizing up. He was about to throw himself at the handrail when he saw Liv's face.

She laughed and covered her mouth. "I am so sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have. It's kind of a tradition for new students, and the Prism wanted me to give you the whole experience." Kip looked at her hands. They seemed to be clenched around something invisible. He tightened his eyes, and sure enough, she had a bar of superviolet luxin snapped in her hands.

Kip chuckled. It only sounded a little forced. "Give me the traditional mop, would you? I think I left a traditional puddle."

She laughed. "Thanks for being a good sport. If it makes you feel better, I almost fainted when my magister did it with our whole class. Come on, it's just a little farther now."

They walked together around the spindly circle, then turned toward the yellow tower. The yellow tower had been at the back right when Kip had entered the Great Yard, so he hadn't really seen it. Now it loomed both above and below.

"I think my eyes are full," Kip said.

"What?"

"I've seen too many amazing things today. Either this is just not as impressive, or I've lost my ability to be amazed, because to me, this looks like a plain yellow tower. No flames, no jewels, no twisty movement." The tower was luminous, but otherwise it looked like cloudy yellow glass, translucent, but not transparent. Maybe it was hard to see because the sun was going down beside the tower.

Liv smiled. He didn't know how he'd forgotten her dimples. "The yellow is amazing because it's made entirely of yellow luxin."

"And the others aren't," Kip said, not understanding. He blinked. "I mean, they're not made of their own colored luxin?"

"No, no, no. The others have magical facades built over traditional building materials. The yellow is made entirely of yellow."

From his admittedly brief instruction with the Prism, Kip thought that yellow was used like magical lanolin or something-it nourished other luxin, but otherwise degraded back into light easily. "Uh, I thought yellow was kind of a bad choice for a building material, being unstable and all." Kip was just remembering why he had been keeping his mouth shut. The more he talked with Liv, the more natural it would be for him to talk about home. And the more unnatural for him not to say anything about home. The moment they went there, he was going to have to tell Liv her father was dead, and the pleasant ease of being in her company would be shattered. She would go from this bright, glowing, dimpled young woman to a bereaved orphan.

"It is a bad choice," Liv said. "That's why this is so amazing." She pulled him toward the tower's entrance. Suddenly Kip didn't know if he wanted to leave the solidity of the blue-yellow spindles.

Sure, a minute ago, I was worried to step out on these, and now I don't want to leave.

"Yellow is usually the least stable luxin. It shimmers right back into light at the least movement, like water boiling away in a moment. That's why they call it brightwater. But do you remember when that harper played a few years ago back in Rekton, and he stopped between every song to retune his harp?"

Kip nodded. "It didn't seem to make any difference to me." Dangerous ground, talking about anything back home, but if he could keep her talking until he collapsed from exhaustion, he might avoid telling her the news for one more day.

Liv said, "The thing was, he could tell when his harp was even a fraction out of tune. No one else could, though. There are people who can do that with light. To make luxin of any color, you have to hit the right note within the color or the luxin won't form. If you are only approximately on pitch, the luxin is much more likely to fail. You can cover some mistakes with more will, but you need someone really special to do work like this."

"Does this have something to do with superchromats?" Kip asked. He felt like he was finally starting to put together some pieces.

"Yes." She seemed surprised that he'd heard of that. "You're not really going to stand out there all night, are you?"

"Oh." Kip followed her into the tower.

"Superchromats can see finer gradations in colors than most people."

"Are you one?" Kip asked.

"Mmm-hmm. About half of all women are."

"But not that many men."

"There are only ten male superchromats in the entire Chromeria."

Ah, thus Mistress Hag calling Kip a freak. "That doesn't seem fair," Kip said.

"What does fair have to do with it? Because you're blue-eyed you'll be able to draft more than I can. It's not a matter of fair."

Kip frowned. "So you've got to be a superchromat to make yellow stay?"

"Short answer? Yes. In truth, even superchromacy has degrees to it. You took that superchromacy test and there were maybe a hundred blocks with fine gradations? Imagine there were a thousand blocks, with the gradations of color that much finer. To make solid yellow that will stay, you'd have to pass that test-and then have the control to draft yellow in that tight, tight spectrum. The result, though, is the strongest of any luxin."

"Can you do it?" Kip asked.

"No."

"Uh, that was probably a rude question, huh?" Kip asked, wrinkling his face.

"I'm the last person here who's going to hold the minutiae of tower etiquette against you."

"Which is a yes."

"Yes," she said, smiling. Why were dimples so beautiful, anyway? "I still can't believe you're the Prism's… nephew, Kip."

"You're not the only one," Kip said. So Gavin had been right. They all did pause before they said nephew. He guessed it should have felt better than hearing that he was a bastard all the time. It didn't.

They got on another lift and went down. Apparently there was some sort of order of precedence for who got what rooms. When they got into Liv's room, Kip was surprised. It was not only large, but it was a suite of rooms-and facing the sunset. This had to be the kind of room most drafters would kill for.

"I just moved here," Liv said apologetically. "I'm a bichrome. Barely. I'm sure you're exhausted. You can sleep in my bed."

Kip looked at her, flabbergasted, sure that she wasn't saying what he thought she was saying, trying not to let his expression say anything at all.

"I'll sleep in the next room, silly. These new carpets are so thick I can sleep on them like a Parian."

Kip swallowed. "No, I didn't think you were-I mean, I was just-um, I was thinking I shouldn't take your bed. I should sleep in the next room."

"You're my guest, and you've got to be exhausted. I insist."

"I'm, uh, I don't want to get your bed all dirty. I'm sweaty and gross. From the testing." Kip was looking at her bed. It was beautiful. Everything here was beautiful. At least they'd been treating her well.

"The Thresher does that to people. I'll get you a basin and you can sponge off a little before you pass out, but really, I insist."

Liv disappeared into the next room. Kip felt a lump growing in his throat. He hadn't said anything so far about her father, but he could practically feel the subject growing between them. Liv came back in the room with steaming hot water, a sponge, and a thick towel. She set them down and then sat in a chair, facing away from Kip.

"You don't mind if I sit here and chat while you wash, do you?" she asked. "I won't turn around, swear."

"Uh." Of course he minded. She'd turn around when he was half naked and run screaming from the room, for Orholam's sake. It was one thing for someone to know you were rotund, but it was something else entirely for them to see your fat rolls. At the same time, he was her guest and she hadn't asked anything else of him. And he'd been rude.

"So, Kip… how's my father? You haven't said anything about home."

For a long moment, Kip couldn't say anything. Just start talking, Kip. Once you start, you'll be able to tell her everything.

"You're sighing," Liv said. "Is something wrong?"

"You know how the satrap would send messengers to Rekton every year asking for levies?"

"Yes?" Liv said her voice rising more with concern than asking a question.

"You can turn around, I'm not naked."

She turned.

"When Satrap Garadul's son Rask took power, he declared himself king. He sent another messenger. The town sent that one away empty-handed too, so he decided to make an example of us." Kip heaved a deep breath. "They killed everyone, Liv. I'm the only one who got away."

"My father? What about my father?"

"He was trying to save people. But Liv, they completely surrounded the town. No one got out."

"You got out." She didn't believe him; he could see it on her face.

"I was lucky."

"My father is one of the most talented drafters of his generation. Don't tell me that you made it out and he didn't."

"They had drafters and Mirrormen, Liv. I watched the Delclara family get run down. All of them. The whole town was on fire. I watched Ram and Isa and Sanson die. I watched my mother die."

"I don't care about your drug-addled mother. I'm talking about my father! Don't you tell me he's dead. He's not, damn you. He's not!"

Liv left the room in a whirlwind and slammed the door behind her.

Kip stared at the door, his shoulders slumped, tears that he didn't even understand in his eyes.

Well, that went well.

Chapter 47

Seven years, seven great purposes, Gavin.

Gavin held his right hand out and counted up from his thumb, drafting each color in turn: thumb to pinky, to ring finger, to middle finger, to index finger, back to middle, to ring, to pinky. A seven count, each color in turn, from sub-red to superviolet, feeling the little thread of emotion from each.

For Orholam's sake, I'm the Prism. I am the whole man. Master of all colors. In my prime. Stronger than any Prism in living memory. Maybe the strongest for hundreds of years. Most Prisms only lived seven years after their ascension. Only four had made it to twenty-one years. Always in multiples of seven-of course, they could be killed or die of natural causes too, but none burned out except on the multiple years. Gavin had made it to sixteen, so he had at least five years left. In fact, if any Prism could make it past twenty-one years, he would be the one to do it. He felt strong. He felt stronger and more in control of his colors than he had in his whole life.

Of course, it could all be an illusion. He'd been exceptional in other ways; perhaps he'd pitch over and die tomorrow.

He felt that familiar tightness in his chest again at the thought. He wasn't afraid of death, but he was afraid of dying before he accomplished his purposes.

He stood outside his father's apartments in the Prism's Tower. His father's slave-Gavin knew the man's name was Grinwoody, though it was rude to use a slave's name if they didn't reveal it to you themselves-was waiting, holding the door open. It was a door into darkness of more than one kind. There was sharp pain in Gavin's chest. It was hard to breathe.

Andross Guile didn't know Gavin wasn't Gavin. He didn't know his elder son was rotting under the Chromeria. He thought Dazen was dead, and he'd never seemed concerned about it, much less sorry. Traitors were to be dismissed and never spoken of.

"Lord Prism?" the slave asked.

Gavin shook the last tendrils of luxin from his fingers, the waft of resinous smells a small comfort.

Andross Guile's room was kept completely dark. Thick velvet drapes had been hung over the windows, then the whole wall hung with more of the same in layers. An entry chamber had been erected around the entrance so that light from the hallway wouldn't come in with his few visitors. Gavin drew in superviolet light and then stepped into the entry.

Grinwoody pulled the door shut behind them. Gavin drew a little ball of superviolet into his hand, drafted imperfectly so it would be unstable. The instability caused it to slowly disintegrate back into light of its own spectrum. For a superviolet drafter, it was like carrying a torch whose light was invisible to everyone else. Neither Grinwoody nor Andross was a superviolet, so Gavin could have as much of the eerie violet light as he wanted.

As Gavin watched, Grinwoody pushed a heavy pillow in front of the slight crack at the bottom of the door behind them. The man paused, letting his eyes become used to the darkness. He wasn't a drafter, so he couldn't directly control his eyes. In darkness, it took a dull-a non-drafter-half an hour or more to reach full sensitivity to light. Most drafters naturally could do it in ten minutes, just from spending so much time attuned to light. A few could reach full light sensitivity in seconds. But Grinwoody wasn't trying to see. He had obviously memorized the layout of the room years ago; he was simply making sure he wasn't allowing any light into High Master Guile's chamber. Finally, satisfied, he opened the door.

Gavin was glad to be holding superviolet. Like all drafters, he'd been taught not to rely on colors to change his moods. Like most, he failed often. It was a particular temptation for polychromes. There was a color for every feeling, or to counteract every feeling. Like right now. Using the superviolet spectrum was attended by a sense of remove or alienation or otherness. Sometimes it seemed ironic or cynical. Always it was like looking down at himself from above.

You're the Prism, and you're afraid of an old man.

In the superviolet light of his torch, Gavin saw his father sitting in a high-backed padded chair turned toward a covered, boarded-up window. Andross Guile had been a tall, powerfully built man. Now his weight had dropped from his broad shoulders to form a little ball in his paunch. He wasn't corpulent; it was just that what weight he had was in his gut. His arms and legs had grown thin from years spent hardly moving from that chair, his skin loose and spotted already at sixty-five.

"Son, so good of you to come visit. An old man grows lonely."

"I'm sorry, father. The White keeps me very busy."

"You shouldn't be so supine with that wheeled wench. You should arrange for the hag to join the Freeing this year."

Gavin let that pass without comment. It was an old argument. The White said the same things about Andross, minus the derogation. Gavin sat beside his father and studied him in the eerie superviolet light of his torch.

Despite the absolute darkness of the room, Andross Guile wore blackened spectacles molded tight around his eye sockets. Gavin couldn't imagine living in utter darkness. He hadn't even done that to his brother. Andross Guile had been a yellow to sub-red polychrome. Like so many other drafters during the False Prism's War, he'd pushed himself to his absolute limit. And beyond. He'd fought, of course, for his eldest son. Using too much magic, he'd finally destroyed his body's defenses against it. But after the war, when so many drafters had taken the Freeing, Andross had instead withdrawn to these rooms. When Gavin had first come to visit Andross here, there had been blue filters set on the windows. With his own power at the opposite end of the spectrum, Andross had felt safe with blue light. Since then, the chirurgeons had told him he needed complete darkness if he was to keep fighting the colors. If he was taking such extreme precautions, he must be very close to the brink indeed.

"I hear you're trying to start a war," Andross said.

"I rarely try without succeeding, I'm afraid," Gavin said. He didn't bother marveling that his father already knew. Of course Andross Guile knew. The man owned the loyalty or the fear of half of the most powerful women and men in the tower.

"How?"

"I received a letter that I had a natural son in Tyrea. When I arrived, the town was burning. I stumbled across some Mirrormen about to murder a child and I stopped them."

"Killed them."

"Yes. The child turned out to be my natural son, and the men turned out to be Rask Garadul's. He was making an example of the town for refusing to send levies. He claimed a special interest in the boy, but I'm not sure if that was just because he thought it would hurt me."

"A special interest? I thought he was there to punish the village."

"He said Kip had stolen something from him."

"And had he?"

"The boy claimed his mother had given him a jewelry case just before dying from injuries she took during the attack. He didn't steal it, though."

"But you have the dagger? Is it the white luxin?"

A chill shot down Gavin's spine. He'd thought the worst part of this interview would be his father picking through the details of affairs that Gavin hadn't actually had and thus couldn't remember. A white luxin dagger? White luxin wasn't possible, and for Andross Guile to speak about it like this meant he thought that it was. Or knew that it was. That he'd seen such a thing, and that he thought Gavin should know what he was talking about.

His brother had mentioned a dagger too. Gavin's chest tightened.

If he wasn't very careful, he was going to ruin his disguise. This was why he avoided his father as much as possible. Andross Guile was one of the few people who would know exactly which memories Gavin would have and which Dazen would have. Others who knew had been alienated or killed during the war. The feeble excuse that the severity of the brothers' fight to the death had made Gavin forget things would only go so far. Andross, in particular, might forgive him for misremembering things that happened in the run-up to the final battle, but surely Gavin would remember things that had happened years earlier, wouldn't he?

"I didn't see the dagger," Gavin said. "It was in a box. It didn't even occur to me it might be the white luxin." White luxin was impossible. Gavin would know. He'd tried to make the mythic material himself-and as a Prism, he would be the one who was able to do it if it could be done at all.

"Idiot boy, I don't know why I always favored you. Dazen was smarter by half, but I always took your side, didn't I?"

Gavin looked at the ground and nodded. The first kind word he'd heard from his father about himself in years, and it was delivered as a rebuke.

"Are you nodding your head or shaking it? In case you'd forgotten, I'm blind," Andross said bitterly. "Never mind. I understand your own secrecy in hunting the dagger-even my spies haven't heard of you bumbling about, so bravo for that-but when you stumbled across a suspicious dagger that some halfpenny king wanted badly, that didn't send shivers up the back of your neck?"

"I was surrounded by thirty hostile drafters, Mirrormen, and an extremely put-out king. I had plenty of shivers."

Andross Guile waved his hand, like none of that was worth considering. "With no Blackguards guarding you, I suppose. Stubborn, fool boy. What was the box made of?"

"Rosewood, maybe?" Gavin said honestly.

"Rosewood." Andross Guile sighed deeply. "Alone it proves nothing, of course. But it tells you what you have to do."

"I was planning to rally the Seven Satrapies, speak to each directly, see if I could sway them," Gavin said. "The Spectrum, of course, will do nothing." He knew how this went. His father would announce what Gavin would do and run right over everything Gavin threw in his path. For Orholam's sake, I'm the Prism.

"And by the time you've done that, King Garadul will have taken Garriston. You were right in everything you told the Spectrum, though you drew the wrong lesson and the wrong course of action. Which is why you have me. If you'd spoken with me as soon as you returned, I'd have told you this. By withdrawing unilaterally and giving a jewel into Tyrean hands-"

"Hardly a jewel, father-"

"You dare interrupt! Come here."

Woodenly, Gavin sat across from his father. Andross Guile extended a hand and found Gavin's face. He traced Gavin's cheek almost gently. Then he drew his open hand back and cracked it across Gavin's cheek.

"I am your father, and you will give me the respect you owe me, understood?"

Gavin trembled, swallowed, mastered himself. "Understood, father."

Andross Guile's chin lifted as if he was sifting Gavin's tone for anything displeasing. Then, as if nothing had happened, he continued. "Garadul covets Garriston, so even if it's a tower of feces built on a plain of ordure, giving it to him is weakness. The right course would be to raze the city, enslave the inhabitants, and sow the fields with salt-and leave before he arrived. But you've destroyed that option with your incompetence. And once King Garadul holds Garriston with twenty thousand men, you'll find it a lot harder to take back than he's going to find it to take when only a thousand are holding it."

"The Ruthgari only have a thousand men holding Garriston?" Gavin asked. It was less than a skeleton crew. If he hadn't been in such a hurry when he sculled through Garriston, he surely would have noticed.

"Troubles with the Aborneans hiking the tariff to travel through the Narrows again. The Ruthgari are making a statement with a show of force. They pulled the ships and most of the soldiers from Garriston."

"That's moronic. They have to know Garadul is massing troops."

"I agree. I think the Ruthgari foreign minister has been suborned. She's smart, she must know what she's doing. Regardless, you must go to Garriston. Save the city, kill Rask Garadul, but even if you fail those, get that dagger. Everything rests on that."

What "everything"? Here was the problem with pretending to know secrets you didn't know. Secrets, especially big, dangerous secrets, tended to be referred to obliquely. Especially when the conspirators knew spies were frequently eavesdropping on them.

Maybe I should have taken my chances with claiming to have forgotten what the dagger was.

There had been a time when Dazen had known all of Gavin's secrets, even those that were supposed to be just between Gavin and their father. Dazen and Gavin hadn't just been brothers. They'd been best friends. Though Dazen was two years younger, Gavin treated him like an equal. Sevastian was younger; they made him stay home. Gavin and Dazen had the same friends. Together, they won and lost fistfights against the White Oak brothers. Gavin missed the simplicity of those fights. Two sides, lots of fists, and once one side started bleeding or crying, the fight was over.

But Gavin had changed on the day he turned thirteen. Dazen was not yet eleven at the time. Andross Guile had come in his dress robes, looming, impressive in red-gold brocade and red-gold chains around his neck. Even then, after having been a member of the Spectrum for a decade, Andross Guile had always been referred to as Andross Guile, never Andross Red. Everyone had always known which was the more important. Andross had taken Gavin away.

When Gavin came back the next morning, his eyes were swollen like he had been crying, though he angrily denied it when Dazen asked. Whatever had happened, Gavin was never the same. He was a man now, he told Dazen, and he refused to play with him. When the White Oak brothers tried to pick a fight, Gavin filled himself with such deep sub-red that the heat emanated from him in waves, and he quietly told the brothers that if they attacked him, the result would be on their own heads.

In that moment, Dazen knew Gavin really would have killed them, too.

From then on, Gavin had spoken to their father as a confidant. Dazen had been left to fall by the wayside. For a time, he'd played with Sevastian. Then Sevastian was taken too, and he'd been alone. Dazen had hoped when he turned thirteen he'd be welcomed back into their graces, but his father had barely acknowledged the date. When it came time for it to be divined whom Orholam had chosen to be his next Prism, all of Big Jasper and Little Jasper was a whirl of speculation, but Dazen knew his older brother was the one. How it happened didn't matter. Andross had been grooming Gavin to be Prism for his whole life.

And I was groomed to be nothing. A castoff to marry Karris White Oak or some other girl to deflect some other father's ambitions. Until Gavin tried to take even that from me.

The hardest part of maintaining his disguise was here-not in pretending to be Gavin, but in being reminded of all Gavin had had and that Dazen never would.

"So, go to Garriston, save it or burn it, kill Garadul, and get the dagger. Sounds simple enough." If Gavin did things right, that would fulfill one of his purposes, and set the stage for another.

Andross said, "I'll give you letters to the Ruthgari to make sure they'll obey you."

"You're going to make me the governor of Garriston?" Every time Gavin forgot how powerful his father was-even from this little room-Andross did something to remind him.

"Not officially. If you fail it would besmirch our name. But I'm making sure that the governor does whatever you tell him."

"But the Spectrum-"

"Can, on occasion, be ignored. It's so not easy to depose a Prism, you know. When you return, we'll talk about getting you married. It's time you start making heirs. You showing up with a bastard presses the issue."

"Father, I'm not-"

"If you crush one of the satraps, even a rebel one, you're going to need to buy off one of the others. It's time. You will obey me in this. We'll talk about the bastard problem later."

Chapter 48

Liv had gone to the light garden high in the yellow tower to think, but it seemed she couldn't walk ten paces without stumbling over some young couple kissing. As the sun went down, the light garden became spectacular-and a favorite of couples. Liv should have remembered. There was something particularly jarring in the sight of young lovers when she was feeling so isolated.

She left, her emotions tumbling over each other, sorry she'd been so rude to Kip, certain she was right that her father was still alive, and scared to death she was wrong. Lonely, scared of her future, and now-hit in the face with how easy everyone else seemed to find it to find someone who liked her-lonely for a boy. Any boy. Well, practically. Liv had been at the Chromeria for three years, and the best she'd done was have a few near-misses at relationships. Being Tyrean, being the daughter of a general on the losing side, and being poor had ended most interest before it began. The one boy she'd thought really cared for her had invited her to the Luxlords' Ball and then had stood her up and gone with another girl. Apparently it had been a prank. The next year she'd briefly become the object of a competition between some of the most popular boys. For two weeks, it was glorious to be the center of attention. She'd felt like she'd finally broken through, that people were finally accepting her. One of them invited her to the Luxlords' Ball.

Then she overheard one of the others talking about a wager they had to see who could swive her first. Her revenge had been swift and terrible. She'd promised the boy escorting her to the ball-the leader of the group, a young noble named Parshan Payam-her maidenhead if he helped her fulfill a naughty dream of hers. He'd practically drooled.

At the Luxlords' Ball, they'd met in a darkened nook just off the main hall. She'd convinced Parshan to remove all of his clothes first, despite the proximity of practically the entire Chromeria dancing, talking, and drinking mere paces away. Then, pausing from kissing him while his loathsome hands wandered over her body, she asked how much he was going to win for winning the contest.

"You know? You're not mad?" he asked.

"Why would I be mad?" she asked. "Close your eyes. I've got a surprise for you."

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16