The Black Prism Read online

  Gavin wondered sometimes, if that ever happened, would Karris be the last to try to kill him, or the first?

  “Karris?” the White said. “There’s a ship waiting for you, heading for Tyrea. Take this. You can read it once you set sail. When you can, scull the rest of the way. Time is of the essence.” She handed Karris a folded note. It wasn’t even sealed. Either the White trusted Karris not to even open it before her ship sailed, or she knew she’d read it immediately whether it was sealed or not. Gavin thought he knew Karris well, and he didn’t know which she’d do.

  Karris took the note and bowed deeply to the White, never even glancing at Gavin. Then she turned and left. Gavin couldn’t help but watch her go, her figure svelte, graceful, powerful, but he kept his glance brief. The White would notice regardless, but if he stared, she’d probably say something.

  She waved her hand as Karris disappeared down the stairs, and the rest of the Blackguard withdrew from earshot.

  “So, Gavin,” she said, folding her arms. “A son. Explain.”

  Chapter 6

  Green Bridge was less than a league upstream from Rekton. Kip’s body screamed at him to quit running, but every time he slowed his pace, he imagined the soldiers coming up the opposite side of the river. He had to get there first.

  About twelve nightmares of enslavement and death later, he did. Isabel and Ramir and Sanson were relaxing against the bridge, fishing. Isabel was bundled against the cold, watching while Sanson tried to tease out rainbow trout and Ram told him how he was doing it wrong. They all looked at Kip as he bent over, puffing. No sight of soldiers anywhere.

  “Gotta go,” Kip said in between breaths. “Soldiers coming.”

  “Oh, no, oh, no! Not soldiers!” Ram said in mock panic.

  Sanson jumped to his feet, thinking Ramir was serious. Sanson was bucktoothed and gullible, good-natured, always the last to get a joke and the most likely to be the butt of it.

  “Relax, Sanson. I’m joking,” Ramir said, punching Sanson’s shoulder, too hard.

  When they’d first heard about the recruiters demanding levies, it had taken them about a second to conclude that if one of them were pressed into King Garadul’s service, it would be Ram. At sixteen, he was a year older than the rest of them, and the only one who seemed remotely like a soldier.

  “I’m not,” Kip said, still bent over, hands on his knees, breathing hard.

  Still uncertain, Sanson said, “My ma said the alcaldesa had a big fight with the king’s man. She said the alcaldesa told him to stick those orders in his ear.”

  “If I know the alcaldesa, she didn’t say ear,” Isa said. She grinned wickedly, and Sanson and Ram laughed. They just weren’t getting it.

  Kip saw Isa look at Ram—just a quick glance, looking for his approval. As she found it, Kip saw her pleasure double, and he felt sick in his stomach. Again.

  “What’s going on, Kip?” she asked. Big brown eyes, full lips, full curves, flawless skin. It was impossible to talk to her and not be aware of her beauty. Prettier even than Liv, really, and infinitely more here.

  Kip tried to find words. People are coming to kill us, and I’m worried about some girl who doesn’t even like me.

  From Green Bridge, it was three or four hundred paces to the nearest orange grove. There was precious little cover between the bridge and the trees.

  “There are—” Kip started, but Ram ran right over his words.

  “If they conscript me, I’m going to volunteer to become a battle drafter,” Ram said. “It’s dangerous, I know, but if I have to leave everything I love here, I’m going to make something of myself.” He looked into the distance, off to a grand future. Kip wanted to punch him in his handsome, heroic face.

  “Why don’t you and Sanson run off?” Ram asked. “You know, hide from the big bad army? Isa and I want to say goodbye.”

  “Why can’t you say goodbye with us here?” Sanson asked.

  Isa blushed.

  Ram’s eyes flashed. “Seriously, you two, don’t be assholes, huh?” he said, pretending to be joking.

  “Ram, listen,” Kip said. “The army is coming to make an example of us. We need to leave. Right. Now. Master Danavis said they’d seize the bridge.” In fact, Green Bridge itself was a relic from the last army that came through. It was all green luxin—the most durable luxin: when sealed, it broke down more slowly than any other kind. They said that when Gavin Guile had led his army through here on his way to crush his evil brother Dazen Guile’s army, Gavin Guile, the Prism himself, had drafted this bridge. By himself. In seconds. The army had pushed through without slowing, though its foragers had stolen all the food and livestock still in town. All the men in the town had been pressed into service on one side or the other.

  It was why they had all grown up without fathers. No one in Rekton should treat an army passing through as a light matter. Not even the children.

  “Do me a favor, Tubby. I’ll make it up to you,” Ram said.

  “If you go with the soldiers, you won’t be here to make it up to me,” Kip said. He wanted to kill Ram when he called him Tubby.

  An ugly look passed over Ram’s features. They’d fought before, and Ram won every time. But it was never easy. Kip could take a lot of punishment, and sometimes he went crazy. They both knew it. Ram said, “So do me a favor, huh?”

  “We have to go!” Kip nearly shouted. He didn’t know why he was surprised. It was no mistake they always called Ramir Ram. He picked a goal and went straight at it, bashing down anything in his path, never veering right or left. His goal today was to take Isabel’s maidenhead. That simple. No mere invading army was going to stop the stupid animal.

  “Fine. Come on, Isa, we’ll go to the orange grove,” Ram said. “And don’t think I’ll forget this, Kip.”

  Ram took her hand and pulled her into a walk. She went with him but turned, looking over her shoulder at Kip, as if expecting him to do something.

  But what could he do? They were actually going the right direction. If he went over there and punched Ram in the face, Ram would beat him bloody—and worse, they’d both be out in the open. If Kip followed on their heels, Ram might assume he was trying to start a fight even if he wasn’t, with the same result.

  Isabel was still looking at him. She was so beautiful it hurt.

  Kip could stay. Do nothing. Hide under the bridge.

  No!

  Kip cursed. Isa looked back as he emerged from Green Bridge’s shadow. Her eyes widened, and he thought he saw the shadow of a smile touch her lips. Real joy at seeing Kip pursue her and be a man, or just venal delight in being fought over? Then her gaze shifted up and left, to the opposite bank of the river. Surprised.

  There was a man’s yell from above, but over the hiss of the waters Kip couldn’t understand what he said. Ram stumbled as he reached the top of the riverbank. He didn’t catch himself. Instead, he dropped to his knees, tottered, and fell backward.

  It was only when Ram’s limp body rolled over that Kip saw the arrow sticking out of his back.

  Isa saw it too. She looked at whoever was on the bank, glanced at Kip, and then bolted in the other direction.

  “Kill her,” a man commanded in a loud clear voice, on the bridge directly above Kip. His voice was passionless.

  Kip felt sick, helpless. He’d wasted too much time. His mind refused what his eyes reported. Isa was running along the bank of the river, fast. She’d always been fast, but there was nowhere to hide, no cover from the arrow Kip knew was coming. His heart hammered in his chest, roared in his ears, and then, suddenly, its rate doubled, tripled.

  The barest shadow flicked at the corner of his eye: the arrow. Kip’s arm spasmed as if he himself had been struck. A flash of blue, barely visible, thin and reedy, darted from him into the air.

  The arrow splashed into the river, a good fifteen paces away from Isa. The archer cursed. Kip looked down at his hands. They were trembling—and blue. As achingly bright blue as the sky. He was so stunned he froze for a m
oment.

  He looked back to Isa, now more than a hundred paces away. There was the same flicker of a shadow as another arrow passed from the periphery of his vision to the center of it—right into Isa’s back. She pitched face first onto the rough stones of the riverbank, but as Kip watched, she got back up to her knees slowly, the arrow jutting from her lower back, hands and face streaming blood. She was almost to her feet when the next arrow thudded into her back. She dropped face first into the shallows of the river and moved no more.

  Kip stood there stupidly, disbelieving. His vision narrowed to the point where crimson life swirled from Isa’s back into the clear water of the river.

  Hoofbeats clopped loudly on the bridge above them. Kip’s mind churned.

  “Sir, the men are ready,” a man said above them. “But… sir, this is our own town.” Kip looked up. The green luxin of the bridge overhead was translucent, and he could see the shadows of the men—which meant that if he or Sanson moved, the soldiers might see them too.

  Silence, then, coldly, the same officer who had demanded Isa die said, “So we should let subjects choose when to obey their king? Perhaps obeying my orders should be optional, too?”

  “No, sir. It’s just…”

  “Are you finished?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then burn it down. Kill them all.”

  Chapter 7

  “You’re not even going to pretend that you don’t read my mail?” Gavin asked.

  The White barked a laugh. “Why insult your intelligence?”

  “I could think of half a dozen reasons, which means you could probably think of a hundred,” Gavin said.

  “You’re avoiding the question. Do you have a son?” Despite her dogged determination to get the answer—and Gavin knew she wouldn’t let him dodge this, artfully or not—she kept her voice down. She understood, better than anyone, the gravity of the situation. Even the Blackguards wouldn’t hear this. But if she had read his unsealed mail, anyone else could have too.

  “To the best of my knowledge, it’s not true. I don’t see how it could be.”

  “Because you’ve been careful, or because it’s actually impossible?”

  “You don’t really expect me to answer that,” Gavin said.

  “I understand that a Prism faces substantial temptations, and I appreciate your temperance or discretion over the years, whichever it’s been. I haven’t had to deal with pregnant young drafters or irate fathers demanding that you be forced to marry their daughters. I thank you for that. In return, I haven’t joined your father in pressing you to marry, though that would doubtless simplify your life and mine. You’re a smart man, Gavin. Smart enough, I hope, that you know you can ask me for a new room slave, or more room slaves, or whatever you require. Otherwise, I hope that you are… very careful.”

  Gavin coughed. “None more so.”

  “I don’t pretend to be able to track all your comings and goings, but to the best of my knowledge, you haven’t been to Tyrea since the war.”

  “Sixteen years,” Gavin said quietly. Sixteen years? Has he really been down there for sixteen years? What would the White do if she found out my brother is alive? That I’ve been keeping him in a special hell beneath this very tower?

  Her eyebrows lifted, reading something else in his troubled expression. “Ah. A great many things may be done during war by men and women who think they may die. Those were wilder days for you. So perhaps this revelation is a particular problem.”

  Gavin’s heart stopped cold. For all of a thousand things that had happened sixteen years ago, the one that was most important now was that during the time the child must have been sired, Gavin had been betrothed to Karris.

  “If you’re absolutely certain that this isn’t true,” the White said, “I’ll send a man to take the note from Karris. I was trying to do you a favor. You know her temper. I figured it would be best for both of you if she learned about this while she is away. After her head cools, I imagine she’ll forgive you. But if you swear it isn’t true, then there’s no need for her to know at all, is there?”

  For a moment, Gavin wondered at the old crone. The White was being kind, no doubt, but she had also orchestrated this situation to happen right in front of her—and the only reason for her to do that was so she could see Gavin’s most honest reaction. It was kind and cruel and cunning all at once, and by no means accidental. Gavin reminded himself for the hundredth time not to get on the wrong side of Orea Pullawr.

  “I have no recollection of this woman. None. But it was a terrible time. I, I cannot swear it.” He knew how the White would take that. She thought he was admitting to cheating on Karris during their betrothal, but that he believed he’d always been careful. But young men make mistakes.

  “I should go,” he said. “I’ll get to the bottom of it. This is my mess.”

  “No,” she said flatly. “Now it’s Karris’s. I’m not sending you to Tyrea, Gavin. You’re the Prism. It’s bad enough that I have to send you after color wights—”

  “You don’t send me. You just don’t stop me.”

  It had been their first titanic clash of wills. She refused to let a Prism endanger himself, called it madness. Gavin hadn’t made any arguments at all, just refused to be stopped. She’d confined him to his apartments. He’d blown the doors off.

  Eventually, she gave in, and he paid for it in other ways.

  A moment passed, and she said very quietly, gently, “After all this time, Gavin, after all the wights you’ve killed and all the people you’ve saved, does it hurt any less?”

  “I hear there’s some talk of heresy,” Gavin said brusquely. “Someone preaching the old gods again. I could go find out.”

  “You’re not the promachos anymore, Gavin.”

  “It’s not like any fifty of their half-trained drafters could stop—”

  “What you are is the best Prism we’ve had in fifty, maybe a hundred years. And they might have fifty-one drafters, or five hundred at their little heretical Chromeria, so I won’t hear of it. Karris will check on this woman and her son and see what she can learn as she investigates this ‘King’ Garadul. You can expect her return within two months. And speaking of color wights, an unusually powerful blue wight was just seen on the outskirts of the Blood Forest, heading toward Ru.”

  A blue wight heading toward the reddest lands in the world. Odd. And blues were usually so logical. It was a distraction, but it was a good one, and it left him almost no time to reach Karris. “By your leave, then, High Lady,” he said, his good manners always partly ironical. He didn’t wait for her approval before he gathered his magic and jogged toward the edge of the tower.

  “Oh no you don’t!” she said.

  He stopped. Sighed. “What?”

  “Gavin!” she scolded. “Surely you didn’t forget you promised to teach today. It’s a high honor for each class to meet with you. They wait months for this.”

  “Which class?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Superviolets. There’s only six of them.”

  “Isn’t that the class with the girl always spilling out of her top? Lana? Ana?” It was one thing when women pursued Gavin, but that girl had been throwing herself at him since she was fourteen.

  The White looked pained. “We have spoken with that one a few times.”

  “Look,” Gavin said, “the tide is going out, I have to catch Karris. I’ll teach that class next time you see me. No excuses, no fight.”

  “You give me your word?”

  “I give you my word.”

  The White smiled like a sated cat. “You enjoy teaching more than you admit, don’t you, Gavin?”

  “Gah!” Gavin said. “Goodbye!”

  Before she could say anything else, he sprinted for the edge of the tower and leapt into space.

  Chapter 8

  Kip was staring at Isa’s body. After she’d seen the soldiers kill Ram, she’d looked back at Kip. She’d been looking for safety, for protection. She’d looked at hi
m, and she’d known he couldn’t save her.

  A sound and a sudden absence next to him made Kip tear his eyes away from Isa. Sanson was running toward the village. Sanson wasn’t smart, but he’d always been practical. He hadn’t done anything so dumb in his life. But Kip couldn’t blame him. They’d never seen anyone die, either.

  But there was no way the soldiers could fail to see Sanson, and now he’d die too if Kip didn’t do anything.

  Kip had stood around enough, doing nothing while his friends died. He didn’t think. He acted. He ran—the other way.

  Kip hated running. When Ram ran, it was like watching a hunting hound speed after a deer, all hard lean muscles and flowing strength. When Isa ran, it was like watching the deer flee, all easy grace and surprising speed. Kip running was like a milk cow lumbering out to pasture. Still, no one was expecting him.

  He made it to Ram’s body and to full speed before he heard a shout. He crashed up the bank of the river, barely slowing. Once he got his mass moving, it took a lot to stop him.

  A dead tree, its trunk rising to shin level, mostly hidden in the long grasses, counted as a lot. Kip’s shin cracked into wood in midstride, and he pitched forward. He skidded on his face and then flopped over like a fish. Pain blurred his vision black and red. For a second, he thought he was going to throw up, then he went lightheaded. He looked down, fully expecting bone to be jutting out of his leg. Nothing. Wimp.

  Tears streamed from his eyes. His hands were bleeding again, fingernails torn. He heard the men on the bridge shouting. They’d lost him for the moment, but horsemen were coming. He wasn’t fifty paces away. The grasses were only knee high. The horsemen would see him any second now, and then he’d die. Just like Isa.

  He staggered to his feet, his shin afire, tears blurring the world. He hated himself. Crying because he fell down. Because he was clumsy. Because he was weak.

  The horsemen gave a yell as he stood. Kip had seen King Garadul’s horsemen pass through town before, but never in full battle harness. When they passed through Rekton, their harnesses were always stowed. Rekton wasn’t even big enough to be worth showing off for. The two horsemen galloping toward Kip were both part of the lower cavalry. Barely able to afford their own ponies, weapons, and armor, they served only during the dry season. Amateur warriors, hoping to bring home loot and lies before the harvests. Both were dressed in mail-and-plate jackets. Lighter and cheaper than the full plate worn by the lords and King Garadul’s Mirrormen, these long jackets bore six narrow rows of thin, overlapping plates down the front, with four-to-one riveted mail for the sleeves and back. Each wore a toep, a round helmet with a spike on top and vulture plumes sticking up beside them. A mail aventail draped down over the shoulders, protecting the neck and giving double-thickness mail over the upper chest. Neither carried a lance. Instead, they bore vechevorals, sickle-swords. The weapons had a long handle like an ax and a crescent-moon-shaped blade at the end, with the inward bowl-shaped side being the cutting edge. The horsemen were jostling each other for the better line, laughing, competing to see who would hack the child.