The Black Prism
Page 28

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.
She was supposed to still be on a ship. She was supposed to meet with a Chromeria spy before she got this far into Tyrea. He was supposed to guide her up the river to King Garadul’s army and give her a cover that would get her into the army without getting killed. Instead, she was dripping wet, alone, and less than a full day’s walk from that army, with no introduction, no map, no guidelines, no plan. Gavin and his bastard had disappeared down the river not five minutes ago.
I’m getting reckless. The red is destroying me.
Karris wrung out her heavy black wool cloak and started looking for a place to make camp. On the hillside there were huge numbers of eucalyptus trees filling the air with their fragrance, mixing with the taller pines, blocking out the harsh rays of Orholam’s bright eye. It took her only a few minutes to find a decent spot mostly obscured by brush. She gathered wood and made a little pyramid. She didn’t bother with kindling: there were advantages to being a red. But she did look around carefully for several minutes before she drew out her spectacles from their little pocket up one sleeve. She was alone. She drafted a thin thread of red luxin into the base of her pyramid.
Even drafting that much red blew on the coals of her fury. She tucked away the red and green lenses and thought of smashing Gavin’s grinning face. I love you? How dare he?
She shook her head and shook her finger out, flinging away deliberately off-center red luxin, getting rid of the excess. As with all luxin drafted imperfectly, it decayed rapidly, releasing a paired scent: the smell of resin that all luxin shared and the odd, dried-tea-leaves-and-tobacco smell of red in particular.
She took out a flint and her knife instead of drafting sub-red directly for a spark. She was already cold, so she struck the spark like a mere mortal.
I love you. That bastard.
While her wet clothes dried, she changed into the spare clothing that had been in her waterproof bag. Tyrean fashion had become mercifully practical in the last fifteen years. Though in social or urban settings women wore calf- or ankle-length dresses belted and often accompanied with a wrap or a full jacket for the evening, on the trail and in the countryside women often wore men’s linen trousers, albeit with longer shirts than men wore as a nod to modesty, worn untucked but belted, like a tunic. The way Commander Ironfist had explained it to her was that after the False Prism’s War, there hadn’t been enough men and boys to harvest the oranges or other fruits. The young women who’d joined the harvesters had shortened their skirts to make it easier to climb ladders repeatedly. Clearly someone had objected to that. Probably not the young men holding the ladders.
Thus the addition of trousers.
Karris liked the clothing. She was used to wearing men’s clothes from training with the Blackguard, and if this loose linen didn’t move with her as nicely or feel as soft as the stretchy, luxin-infused Blackguard garb, it was still cool. It also did a better job of camouflaging her body than the tight Blackguard garb. No man would dare so much as whistle at a woman Blackguard on the Jaspers, even if she was flaunting a hard-earned figure a little. A woman traveling alone in a far country shouldn’t tempt fate more than necessary.
As her little fire burned merrily, Karris distracted herself by arming carefully. Her ataghan would sit concealed and fairly accessible within her pack once the black cloak was dried and rolled up. A bich’hwa—a scorpion—was strapped to one thigh inside her trousers. It was a weapon with iron rings to fit the fingers, four claws for swiping, and a dagger—the scorpion’s tail—for stabbing. It wasn’t quickly accessible, but she always thought it was good to have more weapons than were visible. Another long knife was tucked into her belt. Her bifocal spectacles went into the bag. Their weight simply made them too obvious if she concealed them in these long, flowing sleeves. That left her with her eye caps. The caps, with horizontally streaked lenses of red and green, each fit onto an eye socket, as tight and close to the eye as possible. A thin ridge of sticky red luxin made sure the lenses would stay on her face—and, if she weren’t careful, would rip off half her eyebrow when she removed them. The sticky red luxin was shielded with a little strip of solid yellow luxin that was to be torn off before you stuck the caps onto your eyes.