The Black Prism
Page 66

“But why do you want me to spy on the Prism? He’s never done anything to offend Ruthgar.”
“We like to keep an eye on our friends. It helps us remain friends—”
“And yet you were just telling me how I could do this to hurt the man who killed my mother. Which is it, Aglaia? Do you want me to betray him to hurt him, or it’s not really a betrayal at all because you aren’t going to hurt him?”
“Well said,” Aglaia said. But then she continued, unflappable, “The point is, you may be able to damage the man personally who is responsible for so much havoc in your country, but your interference, your betrayal—perverse girl, insisting on calling the service of your own country a betrayal—your ‘betrayal’ won’t result in war. These lands have seen enough of that.”
It took Liv a moment to digest. It did make sense. In a way.
“But this is impossible. I don’t know the Prism. He’s talked to me once. Once.”
“And he liked you.”
“I don’t know that I’d go that far.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to get someone next to that man? We’re going to give you all this just for trying. Besides, we know he has a weakness for Tyreans.” A tiny, quick lift of her eyebrows showed that she was honestly surprised that the Prism would have such bad taste. “Maybe you can use this son of his to get close to him. We don’t care.”
It was bad enough to be asked to betray the Prism, but to use Kip to get to him? No. Kip was a good boy. Liv wouldn’t do it. There was only one way out of this, and she’d known it all along.
Liv pulled out three coin sticks. “This is how much the Ruthgari government has spent on my upkeep for the last three years. With interest. Here, take it. I’m done with you. I’m free. I don’t owe you anything.”
Aglaia Crassos didn’t even look at the coins. She didn’t ask how Liv had gotten so much money. In truth, it had taken signing over a writ to an Abornean moneylender that would allow him to receive her allowance directly, and a ruinous interest rate. Liv was a pauper once more. She’d have to sell some of the marvelous dresses they’d given her just to stay afloat. “Liv, Liv, Liv. I don’t want to be your enemy. But now that you’re finally worth something, I’d swive a horse before I’d let you go. You have a cousin who was here when you first arrived. Showed you how things work here, yes?”
“Erethanna,” Liv said.
“She’s a green serving Count Nassos in western Ruthgar. She just petitioned to marry some blacksmith. The count has put a hold on it—at my request.”
“You…” Liv said, trembling.
“Lovely couple, apparently. So happy together. Tragic if the count decided the land needed Erethanna to marry another drafter to increase her odds of having gifted children.”
“Go to hell!”
“And your own studies can be opposed. And rumors can be started from dozens of corners about all sorts of despicable things you’ve done. We can poison any well when you finish your studies and are looking for work. You can’t stay under the Prism’s patronage forever. The second his eyes turn elsewhere…”
“I’m not worth that much to Ruthgar,” Liv said, real fear constricting her throat.
“No, not to Ruthgar. But to me you are. Your attitude has made you worth my full attention. And if you make me look bad, I will make you mourn the day you ever met me.”
“I already do.” Liv felt deflated. “Get out. Get out before I kill you with my bare hands.”
Aglaia stood, grabbed the money sticks, and said, “I’ll take these for my troubles. After you’ve reconsidered, you know where to find me.”
“Get out!”
Aglaia walked out.
Liv was left trembling. Not thirty seconds later, there was a knock on the door. That was it. Liv was going to kill her. She strode to the door and threw it open.
It wasn’t Aglaia. A beautiful woman stood there. A Blood Forester, with the oddly pale, freckled skin that still seemed strange to Liv even after years at the Chromeria, and red hair like a flame. The woman was dressed in a slave’s dress, but it was tailored to her lean figure, and a finer cotton than Liv had ever seen any slave wear. A nobleman’s slave?
The slave handed Liv a note. “Mistress,” she said. “From the High Lord Prism.”
Liv Danavis stared at the note, feeling stupid, off balance. It read, “Please come see me at your earliest convenience.” Her heart leapt into her throat. A summons from the Prism. So here it was, the beginning of her paying her debt to Gavin Guile. She didn’t fool herself by hoping it would be the end of it, too. When you owed a luxlord, you owed them forever.
She just hadn’t thought he’d ask for her so soon.
Oddly, the first thing she thought of was, What do you wear for an audience with the Prism? Liv didn’t usually pay much attention to her choice of clothing. Maybe that was because when you only have a few changes of clothes, you wear what’s clean and despair of ever wearing what’s fashionable. That, of course, had changed instantly. Gavin had ordered that she be kept in an equivalent fashion to a Ruthgari bichrome, and that meant lots of clothes, a few jewels, and this huge apartment—literally five times larger than the one she’d lived in for the last three years. And though she might not have any money, now she had makeup. Now she had options, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. The idea of turning into a prissy girl like Ana made Liv’s stomach turn.
The slave was still standing at the door, waiting to be dismissed with the pleasant, neutral expression of a woman ignoring the cluelessness of her superior.
“Pardon me, caleen,” Liv said, “but would you help me?” Liv always felt awkward when it came to dealing with slaves. No one in Rekton had been rich enough to afford one, and the few slaves that came through working with the caravans were treated the same as other servants. Things were more formal at the Chromeria, and most of the other students had grown up having slaves or at least being around them, so Liv always felt like everyone else knew what to do, while she was all thumbs. She still felt weird calling a woman ten years her senior by the diminutive “caleen.”
Of course, now that Liv was a bichrome, she was going to have to get used to it fast, or she was going to look like an idiot even more often than usual.
The slave cocked an eyebrow like any twenty-eight-year-old would at any seventeen-year-old being foolish.
“I don’t know what to wear,” Liv said in a rush. “I don’t even know what ‘at your earliest convenience’ means. Does that mean actually at my earliest convenience, or does it mean go right this moment, even if I were just wearing a towel?”
“You can take a few minutes to dress appropriately,” the slave said.
Liv stood paralyzed. Was what she was wearing now appropriate?
“Most women called to the Prism’s room wear something more… elegant,” the slave said, eyeing Liv’s plain skirt and blouse.
Maybe the fitted blue dress, then. Or that odd Ilytian black silk sheath. But that was more of an evening dress, wasn’t it? Or should she wear the shockingly small… Liv wrinkled her nose. There was something about the slave’s statement that made her nervous. She could just imagine a procession of beautiful women queued up outside the Prism’s door. Liv had never heard any gossip about who the Prism took to his bed, but she wasn’t exactly in the middle of the juicy gossip circles, and she could certainly imagine more than a few girls willing to dress or undress any way the Prism wanted. In addition to basically being the center of the universe, he was gorgeous, commanding, witty, smart, young, rich, and unmarried.