The Blinding Knife
Page 158

“I saw a wall—”
“I’m not the moron in this conversation, Guile. Please don’t speak to me as if I am. How many times have you escaped certain death? You think your enemies might never have the same good fortune?”
Gavin’s mouth went suddenly dry. “What—but I—does Karris know this?” Koios. That night when Karris had wept about her dead brothers, she’d said his name. She’d been trying to work up the nerve to tell him. But even telling him would have felt like betraying her brother.
“Have you told Karris all your secrets?”
Fair question. He’d told her most of them, but no, not all.
“You’re wasting time,” the Third Eye said. She was suddenly hard and cold, like it was all she could do to get herself through this. “You need to go back to the Chromeria and get Karris.”
“She’s injured.”
“Stop interrupting. She’ll be well enough to fight. The men your father sent to beat her were very careful, very professional. They were told to inflict pain, not injury.”
“It was my father? That piece of—”
“That part isn’t important right now. If you don’t get her… just get her.”
“Tell me,” Gavin demanded.
“Telling you changes things,” she said tensely. Her golden eye was glowing.
“Tell me!”
“If you don’t get her, you’ll die. A musket ball tomorrow or a green wight the next day. If you do… the old gods waken, Gavin.”
“The old gods waken?! That’s all you tell me?”
“You’ve lost green. You know what happens. This battle to save Ru, it’s noble, but it’s the wrong battle. You already know that.”
“There’s a green bane, like the blue?”
“You can’t stop them all, Gavin. It’s impossible.”
“Where is it?” he insisted.
“If I tell you, you’ll be in the wrong place.”
“Tell me.”
“If I tell you, you’ll die, you damned fool,” she said, temper flaring. “Ask the right questions!”
“Am I going to—” He balled his fists. “What do I need to do?”
“Mercy isn’t weakness, and love carries a heavy price.”
“I think I’m more the kind of a man who—”
“If you don’t figure out exactly what kind of man you are, there’s no hope for you at all.”
“If you were going for ominous, that was pretty good.”
“I do omens for a living. You want better? Then go now and bed your wife. Bruised and broken as you are, it may be your last chance.”
“Now that, that was ominous.” Gavin stood with a bravado he didn’t feel. He’d learned things, but not the way he’d wanted to.
“Gavin,” the Third Eye said, “you came to ask where their forces are. They’ve taken the fort on Ruic Head, though they haven’t put up their own flag. They hope to sink your fleet at the neck. And Ru has several hundred traitors already in the city, including the mercenaries the Atashians hired to protect them. The prince’s men have been hard at work.”
Gavin hesitated. “How long until I lose the rest of my colors?”
“That depends on what kind of man you are.”
“What would you guess?” Gavin asked, irritated.
“If you’re as good of a man as I think you are, you don’t have as much time left as you think you do.” Her eyes were full of compassion—except for that pitiless third eye, which saw only truth.
Gavin walked out the door, and saw Corvan. The man had been weeping, but had dried his eyes and was trying to pretend he hadn’t been.
Orholam’s great hairies, it couldn’t be that bad, could it?
The men embraced. Said nothing. Walked together down to the beach. The Third Eye followed them. People had gathered, realizing who Gavin was. They watched from a distance. They knelt. It was like they didn’t know how to tell Gavin what he meant to them. It was just as well, because he didn’t know how to take it. He waved to them, nodded.
“You said before that you were sometimes wrong, right?” he asked Corvan’s beautiful wife.
“Sometimes,” she said sadly.
One in a thousand. He’d faced worse.
“Dazen,” Corvan said quietly. He swallowed, looking out to sea, looking at nothing. “My lord, she tells me if I go with you, I can only make it worse. Otherwise, I’d… My lord, it’s been an honor.”
And then, as Gavin got onto the skimmer and Corvan pushed the boat out into the gentle surf, The Third Eye said, “Orholam guide you back, Lord Prism.”
He was sure that she didn’t mean back to the island.
Chapter 102
“I’m going to kill him, someday. But he’s good at what he does. I’ll give him that,” Zymun said, rising from their bed in the predawn darkness. Liv was already up and dressed, almost finished fighting her hair into some order. “I’ll let him do the work of uniting the satrapies, and then take it from him. Unless he threatens to botch it, of course.”
“What are you going to do? Once you become king, I mean.” She slid the hairpins in place, adjusted the bit that was falling in front.
“Emperor,” Zymun said, correcting her. “And whatever do you mean? What will I do? You’re not very smart, are you?”
Not smart enough to avoid you in the first place, clearly. She froze. His charm had been slipping more and more frequently. He was a lizard beneath it. There was something wrong with him. Something thin, an essential shallowness. How had she not noticed before? When he touched her now, her flesh grew cold. Her body had known. She’d told herself that she was extricating herself carefully, but she wasn’t: she was afraid. Afraid to be a woman alone in an armed camp. Such fear didn’t befit a drafter. Such fear didn’t befit a woman. He wanted to treat her like she was nothing? Hatred coiled in her breast.
It took all of her self-control, but she turned and looked at him with a mask of cool condescension. “Zymun, Zymun, Zymun. Emperor? Please. There is no trace of greatness in you.”
She slipped out of the tent deftly. She was shaking. What about your big plan to make him tire of you? To escape his clutches and make him think it was his idea?
All in pieces now. Shit.
Knowing the smart thing to do and having the makeup to do it were two different things. To hell with him.
Liv went directly to the Color Prince’s tent. He was gone. She found him instead on the outskirts of the camp, greeting new drafters who’d abandoned Ru or other Atashian towns. At least half of them were on their last year or two of life. Cowards, Liv thought.
But armies are composed of those who join for bad reasons as well as good, and the prince despised no one who helped him. Liv approached him, bowed deeply, and said, “Magnificence, may I have a private word with you?”
The prince measured her, then excused himself.
“Zymun is planning to betray you,” she said without preamble.
“Thank you. Will you teach this class of recruits for me?”
“What?” she asked. “ ‘Thank you?’ That’s all?”