The black prism l-1 Read online

  "A thief and an attempted assassin. Thank you for your service in foiling the attack, Lord Prism." King Garadul motioned one of his men toward Kip. "I think that tree should support a noose. Will you be staying for the execution, Gavin?"

  So this is where it ends. This is the cost of my sins.

  "There was no attempt on your life, King Garadul. We both know that. The boy didn't even draft. I was merely disciplining him as a Chromeria student for considering drafting without permission. You have the box, and you've already murdered the supposed thief, his mother. A harsh punishment to be sure, but this is your satrapy-er, 'kingdom.' It's obvious he knew nothing of it except that his mother gave it to him. Whatever claim you have to him pales in comparison to mine."

  "He's my subject, and therefore mine to do with as I will."

  Only one card left. Gavin said, "You asked earlier why I came to this boiling latrine you call a country. Kip is the reason. My claim to him is greater than yours. He's my bastard."

  Rask Garadul's eyes went stony, and Gavin knew he had won. No man would publicly claim a dishonor if it weren't true. He also knew from that look, before the man even spoke, that he was going to have to kill Rask Garadul. But not today.

  "Your time is finished," Rask Garadul said. "Yours and the Chromeria's. You're done. Light cannot be chained. Know this, Prism: We will take back what you've stolen. The horrors of your reign are almost at an end. And when it ends, I will be there. This I swear."

  Chapter 18

  Karris floated the punt downstream until she rounded a corner and disappeared from sight. She didn't think the soldiers had seen her leave, so she beached the punt on the opposite side of the river and found a hill from which she could see Gavin. She climbed the hill on her hands and knees. There were several trees and bushes and long grasses between them. Ideal. What wasn't ideal was the distance. One hundred and twenty paces. She was a great shot, but the bow she'd brought was a simple recurve, not a longbow. Good and portable, very accurate to seventy paces. One twenty was a different question. She shuttled the mental abacus. She should be accurate within four feet, and she could shoot rapidly. If Satrap Garadul stood still, she could shoot four arrows within a few seconds, correcting for her mistakes. Good enough. At least, better than any of her other options. She scooted back from the top of the hill and strung her bow, checked the fletching and trueness of her arrows, and crawled back into position, hidden and deadly.

  When Gavin and the satrap talked for a few minutes, Karris relaxed. In conversation, Gavin could tie anyone in knots except maybe the White. Though Gavin was standing amid piles of Rask Garadul's dead, now it was probably just a matter of how much the satrap would pay Gavin for troubling him.

  Making sure she could still see Gavin and that her weapons were close, Karris opened her pack. The White had told her not to read her orders until she'd left for Tyrea, so Karris had put the orders in the bottom of her pack, beneath a change of clothes, spare spectacles, cooking implements, a few flares and grenadoes-thank Orholam those hadn't ignited when she fell during the fight, but they were worth the risk. She pulled out the folded note. As sensitive orders always were, it was made of the thinnest paper possible, the outer folds covered with scribbles so the translucent paper couldn't simply be held up to the light to read what was within. The seal had a simple spell trigger: anyone who simply broke the seal would bring two luxin contact points together, and there would be a small but instant fire. It wasn't foolproof, of course: any careful drafter could disarm it, or any non-drafter could simply cut around the seal, but sometimes simple precautions worked where more elaborate schemes did not.

  Karris checked on Gavin. Still talking. Good.

  Drafting a bit of green from the grass she was sitting on, she unhooked the trap on the seal. Gavin had told her not to believe what was on this note, which had been written by the White herself. So who was more likely to lie to her? Gavin, ten times out of ten. The thought made her sick to her stomach. No, she was getting ahead of herself. She almost put the note away-she could deal with this later.

  But her orders had to do with Tyrea, maybe even with Satrap Garadul, and the satrap was standing in her sight. The orders could be to kill him-or to make sure no one else did. She had to know right now.

  She opened the note. The White's script was a little shaky, but still expressive and elegant. Karris translated the thin code automatically. "Inasmuch as purple may be the new color, we'd all be gratified to know the new fashions." Infiltrate and ascertain the satrap's intentions. The Seven Satrapies and the Chromeria are nervous about the new satrap and what he wants.

  There was a curlicue on the last "s" to let her know the formal code was ended, but the note continued. "I also have news of a fifteen-year-old boy in a town called Rekton. His mother claims he is G's. If you have the chance, find out. I'd love to meet them." Gavin had a bastard in Rekton. Bring mother and son to the Chromeria.

  Karris looked toward Gavin in time to see him draft a cudgel and crack it over the back of the boy's head. It would have been either funny or alarming, except that she felt like she'd been hit the same way. She watched, dumbfounded, as Gavin threw up a luxin wall, quenched an attack, and kept talking-cool to the end.

  She was so stunned, she didn't pick up the bow, didn't draw. This was Rekton. That boy could draft. It was too much of a coincidence. She had been the one who insisted Gavin turn the flying contraption here. She felt a chill. For them to be here now was nothing less than Orholam's hand moving. Karris knew Orholam didn't care about her. She wasn't important enough. So what was this? A test for Gavin?

  Fifteen years old. Son of a bitch. That child had been conceived while she and Gavin were betrothed.

  Gavin picked up the boy, straining-the boy was both tall and chubby-and threw him over a shoulder. Then he walked toward the river, as if he didn't have a care in the world. The man really was walking away from a satrap, leaving thirty of the satrap's bodyguards dead. As always, Gavin was audacious, unstoppable, unflappable. The ordinary rules just didn't apply to him.

  Never had.

  For a single, perilous moment, Karris was sixteen again, with everything she had known, everyone she had loved torn away. She'd wept that day, wept until she realized no one was going to comfort her. She'd drafted red to take comfort from its heat and fury. She'd drafted so much red it had almost killed her. Today, she didn't even need to draft. The fury was there in a heartbeat. "Don't believe what's in your orders," Gavin had said. Of course he had. The liar. The son of a bitch.

  That was why the White had told her not to open her orders immediately. She'd wanted Karris to cool off before she had to face Gavin. To not cause problems.

  Nice to see that the two most important people in her life were both manipulating her.

  Gavin drafted a scull onto the river and set the boy down. He didn't hurry, merely let the current take him, not so much as turning. It must have been a near thing, then. He was treating Satrap Garadul like he was a dog and eye contact might provoke him. Being treated like a dog, well, Karris knew all about that, didn't she?

  She found herself on her feet, striding back toward the river. Her spectacles had mysteriously found their perch on her nose. If Satrap Garadul weren't just two hundred paces away, Karris thought she'd have hurled a fireball at Gavin's head. He rounded the corner on the punt and saw the look on her face.

  He blanched. And, for once, said nothing.

  Karris stood on the bank of the river, trembling as he floated nearer and nearer.

  Gavin didn't ask if she'd read her orders, he could tell. "Get in," he said. "If you have that black cloak, cover yourself. Better that they don't get a good look at you."

  "Go to hell. I'll make my own way," Karris said.

  He extended a hand and blasted a fist-size hole in her punt with a bullet of green luxin. "Get in!" he commanded. "King Garadul's coming any minute."

  "King?" She drafted green luxin to cover the hole. It was petty and dumb, and curse Gavin for ma
king her seem unreasonable. She hated him. She hated him with a passion that made all the world fade. Just let the horsemen come on her now.

  "He's rejected the Chromeria, the Prism, the Seven Satrapies, Orholam himself. He's set himself up as a king." Gavin swept a hand toward her punt. Hundreds of tiny fingerling missiles flew from his hand and stuck quivering in the wood along the entire length and breadth of the punt, and then they burst all at once. Woodchip shrapnel and sawdust sprayed over both of them. Gavin said, "Slap me and be done with it, but get your ass in the boat."

  He was right. Karris got in. This was not the time. She rummaged through her pack for the cloak and threw it on, pulling up the hood despite the heat. The boy was still unconscious. Gavin didn't wait, as soon as she was in, he drafted the oars and straps. They hit the water, and the scull sped forward almost immediately. Karris looked back and wasn't much surprised to see a dozen horsemen crest a hill, coming after them.

  But it was a hopeless pursuit. The land along the river wasn't smooth, and Gavin's scull was fast. Gavin and Karris said nothing, not even when the scull entered a long section of rapids. Karris helped widen the platform with flexible red luxin and stiffer green, giving it a wide and high lip. Gavin drafted slick orange onto the bottom of it so when they did hit rocks, they slid right over them.

  Within half an hour, they were certainly safe. Still Karris said nothing. How many times could one man hurt you this badly? She couldn't even look at him. She was furious with herself. He'd seemed so different after the war. His breaking their betrothal had left her with nothing. She'd left for a year, and he'd seemed overjoyed when she came back. He'd respected her distance, never said anything when she had a few affairs to try to purge him from her mind. That had somehow made her more furious. But eventually, she'd been drawn back to the mystery of him, and slowly won over by this man who seemed so completely changed by the war.

  How many men come back from war better?

  None, apparently.

  And how many women come back smarter?

  Not this one.

  The river was joined by another tributary and widened considerably and Karris's place at the prow, looking out for rocks, became unnecessary. It was a beautiful day. She took off the cloak and felt the sun's rays-Orholam's caress, her mother had told her when she was a little girl. Right.

  "They say there are bandits on this river who rob anyone who comes through," Gavin said lightly. "So maybe we'll find someone for you to kill."

  "I don't want to kill someone," Karris said quietly, not meeting his gaze.

  "Oh, you had that look in your eye-"

  She looked up and smiled sweetly. "Not someone. I want to kill you."

  Chapter 19

  "Ah." Gavin cleared his throat.

  The boy twitched, and then sat bolt upright. Maybe hearing "I want to kill you" wasn't the best way to be awakened after your village had been massacred. Gavin raised an eyebrow at Karris. You really need to do this now?

  She huffed out a breath and turned away while the boy rubbed his head and moaned. The boy squinted at her, but she kept her back to him. She busied herself unstringing her bow and stowing it. The boy turned his royal blue eyes to Gavin. Interesting, with his light brown skin and kinky hair. Blue eyes were blue because they were the deepest, and thus the most light-sensitive and best light-collecting. It was far from the only criterion, but people with blue eyes were disproportionately represented among the most powerful drafters. More light to use, more power to burn.

  Right now, those deep eyes were narrowed in pain. Apparently Gavin's swat had left the boy with a nice headache.

  "You saved me," Kip said.

  Gavin nodded.

  "Who are you?" the boy asked.

  Straight to the gut, huh? Karris turned to see what Gavin would say. She folded her arms.

  Gavin stopped rowing. "This is Lady Karris White Oak, who, despite the sometimes humorously juxtaposed conjunctions of name and skin color and title, is a member of the Blackguard." Karris's look of fury didn't shift in the slightest. Apparently the old jokes still weren't funny. "And I…" He'd introduced Karris first to give himself a moment to think. It hadn't worked. Five years and five purposes left, Gavin. This might be your last chance.

  The boy had been unconscious when Gavin had claimed his patrimony. He didn't know. He didn't have to know. Better for him not to know, in many ways. But better still for him not to hear it from Karris first, in a burst of rage. This boy was not his son, but without Gavin and Dazen's war-the Prisms' War or the False Prism's War, depending on which side you'd fought-none of the children of Rekton or a hundred other villages would be fatherless now. Gavin fantasized again for a moment about telling Karris everything she didn't know, and letting the chips fall where they may. But Karris wouldn't believe a partial truth and couldn't handle it whole.

  At least this lie would give an orphan a father. It would give a child who'd lost everything one thing back. Gavin shouldn't care, but he did.

  "I'm Prism Gavin Guile. I'm… you're my natural son."

  The boy looked at him like he didn't understand what Gavin had said.

  "Perfect," Karris said. "Why don't you just drop everything on him at once? Why don't you think, Gavin? I swear you're as impulsive as Dazen ever was."

  Impulsive? Pot, meet kettle. Gavin ignored Karris, looking only at the boy. He'd just admitted to cheating on her years ago, lying to her about it afterward, and then-just an hour ago-lying to her again. She was doing cold rage, and it didn't fit her. Hot rage was more her style.

  The boy glanced at her, confused by her anger, then glanced back. He was still squinting, though Gavin couldn't tell how much of that was from his headache from being cracked across the back of the head, how much might be lightsickness from drafting, and how much was confusion from his rapidly changing situation.

  "You're what?" Kip asked.

  "You're my natural son." It was too hard, for some reason, to say, "I'm your father."

  "And you come now?" Kip asked, sick despair painting his face. "Why didn't you come yesterday? You could have saved everyone!"

  "I didn't know you existed until this morning. And we came as fast as humanly possible." Faster, really. "If your town hadn't been on fire, we wouldn't have known to come."

  "You didn't know about me? How could you not know?" Kip asked plaintively.

  "Enough!" Gavin roared. "I'm here now! I saved your life, probably at the cost of a war that will make ten thousand more orphans. What more do you want?"

  Kip withered, shrank in on himself.

  "Unbelievable. You bully," Karris said. "You're given a son, and the first thing you do is scream at him. You're a brave man, Gavin Guile."

  The unfairness of it all made Gavin's fists curl. Justice and injustice and the insanity of this life he'd chosen boiled over. "You want to lecture me about bravery? Is this the woman who ran away from a noble house to become a guard? Trying to get yourself killed through work or using too much magic isn't bravery, Karris; it's cowardice. What do you want from me? You want me to bring back your dead brothers?"

  Karris slapped him. "Don't," she said. "Don't you ever-"

  "Talk about your brothers? Your brothers were vipers. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when Dazen killed them. The best thing he ever did was kill them, and the best thing they ever did was die."

  Karris's eyes went red, and luxin curled through her skin in an instant. Gavin felt a stab of fear-not for himself. He could stop whatever she threw his way. But every time a person drafted huge quantities, they hastened their own death. And they granted their color more sway over them. When he'd first met Karris, her jade green eyes had only the smallest ruby stars in them. Now, even at rest, when she wasn't drafting, those ruby stars dominated the green.

  But Karris didn't attack. She said, "I'm a slow learner, but I finally got it. You've betrayed me for the last time, Gavin." She nearly spat his name. "I-"

  "You damn stubborn woman! I love you, Karris. I've always
loved you."

  It was like the wind went out of her sails for a few heartbeats. Red luxin drained from her fingertips. Then, when Gavin was just starting to hope, she said, "You dare? You unbelievable-you-you-Gavin Guile, you've brought me nothing but misery and death. We're finished!" She grabbed her bag and jumped off the boat.

  Gavin was too startled to say anything. He watched as Karris swam to shore and then dragged herself and her bag out of the water. She could travel to Garriston without him, of course, and she'd still arrive earlier than her contact had expected. There were, of course, bandits to worry about, and a woman traveling alone would make a prime target.

  If the bandits got careless because of that fact, they'd be lucky to survive. But everyone had to sleep sometime. Karris was being rash, but nothing Gavin could say would make any difference. Not for a long while. This was why the White had tried to arrange it so he wouldn't be present when she found out about his bastard. He could go after her, but it would be useless. With her temper, he would only make things worse.

  Five purposes, and I didn't even spit out the whole truth.

  Kip was huddled to one side of the boat, trying to be small. He glanced up and met Gavin's eyes for a moment. "What are you staring at?" Gavin demanded.

  Chapter 20

  Though she had never drafted a drop of blue, Karris had always had an affinity for what were called the blue virtues. She liked having a plan. She liked order, structure, hierarchy. Even as a child, she enjoyed learning etiquette. Sitting at a Parian formal dinner and knowing the exact function of every tiny spoon and shell cracker, knowing how many times to flick the excess water from your fingers after washing in the water bowl between the first and second course, and knowing where exactly to set your three-tined urum to let the table slaves know you were finished eating brought her something akin to peace. Placing your goblet halfway over the lateral divisor meant you wanted exactly half a glass more wine. On the vertical meant you'd like to switch from white to red. Sign and countersign. The luxiat's call and the congregation's response. She loved dance and could perform most of the dances of the Seven Satrapies. She loved music and could play the gemshorn or accompany herself on the psantria while she sang. But nothing she'd learned was helping her now. There was no structure, no hierarchy, no order to direct her.