The Black Prism
Page 67

Whoever had packed her drawers with cosmetics had bought mostly skin lighteners or darkeners. But with Liv’s kopi-and-cream-colored skin, she didn’t have a hope of looking as light as a west Atashian. Her eyes were too dark anyway. And with wavy hair, even with a darkener on her skin, she wasn’t going to look Parian. There was no hiding that she was Tyrean.
All those other girls and women would look fantastic in their fancy dresses and perfect makeup. They’d feel comfortable, beautiful. Liv would feel like a fool and look like a tramp.
How many of the women called to the Prism’s room had gone with ulterior motives? How many had been acting for one country or another? How many of the ones who hadn’t been co-opted had gone with their own agenda anyway? All of them? She wasn’t going upstairs to seduce Gavin Guile—to hell with Aglaia and her ilk—so why should she make herself look like she was?
“To hell with it,” Liv said. She didn’t swear much, but it felt good right now. She threw down a dress that probably cost as much as she’d spent all last year. “It’s convenient for me to go right now.”
The slave looked like she wanted to speak, but she stopped herself. “This way, ma’am.”
After they headed up the luxlords’ lift, the slave led Liv to the Blackguards stationed there. The woman of the pair searched Liv for weapons. Thoroughly.
Liv couldn’t help but feel a little violated. “They take their job seriously, don’t they?” she said as they finally led her to what Liv assumed was the Prism’s door.
“Do you have any idea what it would mean for the world if the Prism died? He’s not always an easy man, but he’s a much better man than Prisms usually are. And there are many of us who would do anything for him. Anything. Remember that… ma’am.”
Orholam’s prickly beard, but the slave woman was protective.
The slave stopped at the door, knocked three times, and opened it. Liv stepped into the Prism’s room and found him sitting behind a desk, staring at her. His eyes were entrancing. Right now, they looked like diamonds, scattering light everywhere. He gestured to the chair across from him, and Liv sat.
“Thank you, Marissia, you may go,” Gavin said to the slave. Then he turned his diamond eyes on Liv and said, “It’s time for that favor.”
Chapter 42
“Scout!” Corvan called. “She’s seen us. Sonuvabitch!”
After Rekton, Corvan and Karris had decided to travel together. Both wanted to go after King Garadul’s army, if for different reasons: Karris to join it somehow, and Corvan to see if he could find some way to exact vengeance. It was a risk to trust Corvan Danavis, of all people, but he had saved Karris and his reputation from the war was sterling. Truth was, it was more dangerous to travel alone.
They’d been following King Garadul’s army south for days, and not once had he put out scouts. He’d seemed so careless that now Karris and Corvan had walked right past a scout in a tree stand.
As they stood at the edge of a wood, half a league behind the rear guard, the scout was sprinting to the east, down a slight hill, rather than going straight for the rear guard.
“She’ll have a horse down in the gully there. You might be able to cut her off,” Corvan said. He was unslinging his great yew bow. “Shot’s too far. But I might get lucky.”
Karris was already running. Away from the Umber River, Tyrea had rapidly become a scrub brush desert. In a few spots fed by underground springs, there were clumps of pine trees like the one she and Corvan had just left, but for the most part this land was rolling hills, often broken, something between a desert and a badland. It had made their pursuit of King Garadul’s army more and more difficult, because even though they were traveling by foot and thus didn’t kick up the huge quantities of dust that Garadul’s men and wagons did, they still could be seen. They had to decide at every hill whether they should go straight over and risk being seen, or go around and lose even more ground. An army didn’t travel fast, but it did travel straight.
The scout was a good two hundred paces in front of Karris. Judging from the slight slope of the hill, and making a guess, Karris angled off to the right. Probably the scout would make it to her horse, but if Karris were within a hundred paces when the scout mounted, she wouldn’t be mounted for long.
Something dove out of the sky and pierced the ground not five paces behind the fleeing scout. She didn’t even notice. Damn. Corvan had nearly hit a sprinting target at two hundred fifty paces. That close and he couldn’t have gotten just a little closer?
The woman turned and angled more to the right. Corvan’s second arrow missed by a good fifteen paces, flying where she might have been if she’d run straight.
Karris barreled on, heedless of the ground, hurdling tumbleweed and praying that she not step on the infrequent tough cactus that grew so low to the ground here that you never saw it until its spines stabbed through your shoes. And that wasn’t as bad as the rattling snakes. At the speed Karris was running, of course, there would be no warning rattle, just a strike. She pushed harder. Maybe if she ran fast enough, even a striking snake might miss her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Corvan’s next arrow streak into view. The shot was more than three hundred paces now, albeit with no wind, so Corvan was having to shoot halfway between the horizon and vertical simply for the arrows to make the distance. But this shot looked perfect.
It dove and the scout crashed into the ground, full speed. Karris couldn’t believe her eyes. An impossible shot. Three hundred paces at a running target? She cut left, heading straight for the woman.
Almost as soon as Karris turned, she saw Corvan’s arrow. Sticking out of the ground. Back where the scout had fallen. It hadn’t impaled her. It had tripped her.
Even as Karris saw it, she saw the woman standing, her head swiveling toward Karris. She looked shaken, her palms bloody, a cut down the side of her face, but the woman started running regardless.
Karris had easily covered a hundred of the two hundred paces between them, and as the scout had to go from a dead stop to sprinting, Karris made up more than half of that. She wasn’t even thirty paces back.
No more arrows fell. They were out almost four hundred paces now. Even with a yew longbow this was an extreme distance. There was no way Corvan would risk an errant shot with Karris so close to their quarry.
Karris fumbled with her necklace, trying to grab her eye caps. Even breaking stride that much gave the scout an edge, and she pulled away. Curse her, the woman ran like an antelope. But with the patience born of experience, Karris let her take the extra distance. Once she got the green-and-red eye caps on, the fight was over.
She cracked apart the appropriate link of her necklace, watching the ground in front of her, ripped the luxin off, and slowed for a few steps to get the caps stuck perfectly around each eye socket.
The scout cut hard left as the hill descended rapidly, shouting. Karris came after her, filling her right arm with red luxin and her left with green as she ran.
The scout was shouting? To whom?
Maybe she was shouting to her horse.
Sure she is, Karris.
In an instant, Karris was over the hill and barreling down the steep path straight into a camp. There were a dozen men waiting for her. At least two with nets. Two with catchpoles. Cudgels, staves. Swords sheathed. Not wanting to kill, but capture. A trap.