The Blinding Knife (28 page)

“Happened? I think I always thought it was—oh, no, there was something. When I was a boy and my brother stopped playing with me, I’d find these prophecies in old books, and I’d dream that I could decipher them. There was this one: how’d it go?”

He was asking himself, but the Third Eye said quietly,

“Of red cunning, the youngest son,

Will cleave father and father and father and son.”

“How’d you…?” he asked.

“I see that line burning in bitter fire over your head, Lord Prism. What did you take it to mean?”

“The youngest son of red cunning—the youngest son of the red
Guile—the youngest son of the Guile who becomes the Red. So Andross Guile’s youngest son. It was a prophecy about my little brother Sevastian.”

“And then he died. Murdered.”

“By a blue wight. He was everything that is good about my family with none of the bad. If he were alive, everything would be different.” He shook it off. “Your prophecies aren’t like that. I mean, maddeningly vague. I mean, except for this last one.” He grinned. “Why is that?”

She touched her third eye thoughtfully. “We’re human, Gavin. My gift didn’t come with a list of rules. I’m muddling through. I’m making it up as I go. But I feel the same temptations I’m sure all my predecessors have felt: to be important, to help those I love and harm those I hate, to be held as almost a god, to guide and be loved—or to say hell with it, I’m not responsible for this damned thing, and just spew everything I see. I hold my tongue when I’m not sure. I think others have spoken more, but more cryptically, hoping that they wouldn’t be held responsible if things went wrong. And then, of course, there have been frauds: Seers who were not Seers at all.”

“Can you tell me if that prophecy was a fraud?”

“I have no idea where to even start looking.”

“You said you saw it in bitter fire over my head,” Gavin said. “How about there?”

“I saw the words for a moment, yes. That doesn’t mean they’re true.”

“You’re honest to a fault, aren’t you?” Gavin said.

“I hope not,” she said. She smirked, a devious, playful twist on her full lips.

Gavin wanted to tear her clothes off.

He looked away and cleared his throat. “My lady, good night, and ahem, now that we’ve decided not to make a most delightful mistake together, I hope together we make our next meeting less… strained.” He stood and brushed nonexistent crumbs off his lap pointedly. He grinned. But he wanted her agreement in this. He’d made mistakes that he knew were mistakes before.

She offered her hand and allowed him to help her stand. She stretched as if tired, but quite obviously to give him a chance to admire her while she looked away. He could tell what she was doing, and yet he admired her all the same. She gave a small, naughty smile. “You know,” she said, “I’m actually really quite modest most of the time.”

No, actually, I don’t know that. He merely cocked a dubious eyebrow, quickly smoothed it away, and like a gentleman politely lying said, “Of course you are.”

She laughed. “That you’re impossible makes you somehow even more fun to play with,” she said.

“When most people flirt with disaster, it’s a figure of speech,” Gavin said.

“Dangerous toys are the best toys. I pray you sleep well, Lord Prism.”

Well, there was a prayer they both knew wasn’t going to be answered.

“The old gods weren’t worshipped because the people of the Seven Satrapies were ignorant fools,” Zymun told Liv. They were walking together to the outskirts of Garriston, heading through the Hag’s Gate to the plain between the old wall and Brightwater Wall, where most of the drafters were camped. “The old gods were worshipped because they were real.”

“Go on,” Liv said, not doing a great job keeping her skepticism back.

A brief look of fury shot across Zymun’s face, quickly smoothed away. He looked at her intensely. Who’s the tutor here?

Liv blushed. Her instant reaction had been an artifact of her old beliefs. She’d always heard that the old gods were figments of the primitive imaginations of the peoples who lived around the Cerulean Sea before Lucidonius came. But if the Chromeria lied about other things, then that could be a lie as well. She cleared her throat. “I mean, go on.”

“I think the peoples of the Seven Satrapies knew it, too. From nowhere, it seems, little statues of the gods have resurfaced. Hidden in attics, in cellars, in secret family shrines in the woods. Keep your eyes open as you walk the camp, you’ll see little signs. Soon, there will be priesthoods reestablished, worship will become public. You look skeptical.”

“I’m sorry, but, the old gods? Like Atirat and Anat and Dagnu?”

Again, a flash of irritation, and Liv felt stupid. But he spoke with kindness. “You know how you feel when you draft superviolet?”

“Of course. Alien, separated from emotion, and honestly a little proud of how clearly I see things.”

“That isn’t you,” Zymun said.

“I’m not a terribly conceited person, I’ll agree,” Liv said. But you don’t know me, so how would you know?

“I don’t mean that isn’t the ‘real you.’ I mean, that isn’t you.”

“Pardon?”

“Those aren’t
your
feelings. Those aren’t your perceptions. Indeed, those aren’t your abilities. Ferrilux is invisible. He is behind many of man’s greatest achievements, but he doesn’t think much of most men. He is distant and disdainful, and he has chosen to share his powers with you.”

The idea seemed repugnant to Liv. “There’s an invisible man helping me draft? This is what the Color Prince believes? My drafting’s mine.”

Zymun’s voice was cold, affect flat. “So you chose your colors? Superviolet, for an outsider, for the Tyrean girl who could never be part of the Chromeria, but who secretly despised the girls who would never let her join their petty circles. Yellow, for a clear thinker who couldn’t decide whether or not to engage with all she saw around her. Hmm, sounds very, what’s the word? Serendipitous.”

“You’re talking like a tenpenny soothsayer. If I’d been a sub-red, you’d say, oh, sub-red, for the girl so furious at being made an outsider. Or blue, oh, you envied the girls who did belong. Garbage.” Liv folded her hands, took a breath, and squeezed her fingers against each other. “I mean… your pardon, my lord, but I’m not convinced. I know the Chromeria taught lies, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to accept the first counterargument that comes along.”

Zymun didn’t seem to take it personally. “You’re cute when you’re mad. And when you do that with your arms, it shows off your bosom nicely.”

Liv looked down and dropped her clenched hands like she’d been burned. “Excuse me?!” She stopped walking and he stopped, too, facing her. She almost slapped his silly face. “That is the most inappropriate thing anyone has ever said to me. And I expect your apology right this instant!”

“Inappropriate? Why? Who says? You’re beautiful. I told you so. Who gets to decide that I can’t tell you what I think? I’d tell you, but you’re smart enough to already know. You’ve joined the Free, Aliviana. We decide for ourselves, and there’s power in that. The Chromeria wants you to be modest. Why? If Orholam existed, why would he care how tight your dress is or who comes to your bed? Should have bigger problems to tackle, you’d think, wouldn’t you?”

“Well…” But Liv didn’t have anything to follow that monosyllable.

“The Chromeria teaches you to hate the very things about yourself that make you strong. You’re beautiful. Use that. Use it however you wish. Don’t you see? You
choose
. Now, you could choose to become a prostitute—no, don’t take offense, dammit, it’s a hypothetical! You could do very well, no doubt, and it wouldn’t be wrong because Orholam says it’s wrong: it’s not wrong at all. It’s just stupid. It’s a poor use of all your gifts, and it limits your other choices, at least until the world changes. So it’s a bad choice, but not a wrong one. That’s how we draft, too. Some people break the halo before they’re ready, choosing to share their body permanently before they can survive the union with their minds intact. They use their choice in a way that takes away their choice, like choosing suicide. It’s a stupid action and it demeans them as moral agents. What we have here—the Free—what we offer, is a free-for-all. But it’s not chaos. Free choices, freely made, but still with consequences. You choose to join the army, you have to obey orders until your time of service is ended. This is a harder world than what you left, Liv. Freedom is hard. If you don’t want me to compliment you because someone told you that you shouldn’t be proud of your beautiful curves, your full lips, your radiant skin, the graceful lines of your neck, your bright eyes, that’s ridiculous. To hell with them. If you don’t want to bed me because you don’t like me, that’s altogether different.” He was terribly smart, wasn’t he? And supremely willful. Powerful.

She pushed down a sudden surge of admiration, and a deep and silly pleasure at his outrageous flattery. She’d never been called beautiful at the Chromeria. Tyreans couldn’t be beautiful, couldn’t be fashionable, not after the False Prism’s War. “You’re used to getting your way, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Hazard of being handsome and brilliant.”

She sniffed. “So is getting punched in the nose.”

He raised his hands and stepped back. “I didn’t say I was brave,
too.” He offered her his arm, and she took it, not able to stop a grin from sneaking through her defenses. “Mm. Oh, just thought of something. Who was the Color Prince? Before he got burned?”

“Koios White Oak. Why?”

“Just curious.” Karris’s
brother
?

“No secret. What you were is less important to us than what you are, and what you will become. Now, you get to work on drafting. You have a lot to unlearn, and more to learn.”

“I’m still not going to bed with you,” she said.

“We’ll work on that,” he said with a wink and a big grin.

And with that, Liv’s education began.

When Kip shuffled out of the library at midnight, Ironfist was waiting for him at the lift. The huge commander said nothing, but gestured to him.

Kip was instantly alert. Hungry, but alert. He was surprised to see that Adrasteia was with the commander. They stepped into the lift together, and Commander Ironfist pushed a key into a lock, and took them to a lower level in the Chromeria than Kip had ever been to. He looked at Teia. She looked back, shrugged.

The commander poked his head into a dark hallway. He walked through the darkness. Kip opened his eyes wide, wider, to the sub-red spectrum. Ironfist radiated enough heat, his whole body gray, armpits and groin lighter, and his bare, uncovered head the brightest of all. He went down the hall.

“Kip,” Teia said. Her voice was tight. He couldn’t quite read her expression: sub-red light was inexact and Kip wasn’t practiced with it, but he could tell she was nervous. Surely not scared of the dark. Not Teia.

But of course she was. Almost all drafters were afraid of the dark—even lots of sub-reds were. Light was Orholam’s gift; darkness was akin to evil; blindness was powerlessness. Her hands were out, and Kip took one. He led her down the hall. Ironfist didn’t slow.

Then Kip realized he was holding hands with Teia, and abruptly felt awkward. He sort of spasmed. She couldn’t miss it.

“Uhm,” he said. “Uh.” He put her hand on his arm instead.

Oh, like a lord leading his lady to a dinner party. Much better. Moron!

Kip cleared his throat, but then thought that anything he said would be equally stupid. He scowled and shot a look at her.

She was smirking.

Though of course it was dark so she didn’t know he could
see
her smirking, he still wanted to die.

She said, “I’m… I’m better now.” Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, an odd, hot point in the cool, dark hall. “I… have some trouble relaxing my eyes sometimes.”

Oh, that was right. She could see sub-red. Her color was down farther on the spectrum that way. She would have gotten it on her own. She took her arm back, awkwardly.

Kip squared his shoulders, put his head down, and followed Ironfist down the halls. It was only a couple of turns before Ironfist took them into a room. He manipulated some mechanism Kip probably wouldn’t have understood even if he’d been able to see it in visible light, and the ceiling began glowing, a warm radiant soft white.

It was a training room, but not like any Kip had ever seen.

Ironfist began rummaging in a corner while Kip and Teia looked around. There were beams for practicing balance, bars for doing pull-ups, punching dummies coated with luxin that would light up in various zones to train quickness, punching bags of sawdust and leather, wooden blocking trees, a pile of cushioned body armor for sparring, terry cloths, targets, and padded weapons of every sort.

“This is the Prism’s training room. He allows us to share it,” Ironfist said. He had long strips of cloth in each hand. “Give me your hands, Kip. Straight as you can, and firm.”

Kip gave him his hands, and Ironfist began wrapping a strip of cloth around his wrist.