The Black Prism(211)

“Mother,” Gavin interjected.

“Daughter,” she corrected firmly.

Gavin paused. Acquiesced. “Daughter, go on.”

“I have spoken cruel words. I have lied a thousand times. I have treated my slaves without regard to their welfare…” She spoke for five minutes, not sparing herself, blunt and forthright, not condensing her answers for her sake, but for Gavin’s—he had others to shrive this night. It was surreal.

Gavin had heard stunning admissions and seen darker sides of people with saintly reputations for the last sixteen years, but hearing her confess beating an innocent slave in her rage minutes after finding Andross in bed with another woman was heartrending. Dislocating. To hear his mother confess was like seeing her naked.

“And I have killed, thrice. For my son. I lost two boys; I couldn’t bear to lose my last,” she said. Gavin could hardly believe her. “Once I got a Blackguard who suspected him reassigned to a dangerous post during the Red Cliff Uprising, where I knew he would be killed. Once I directed pirates to the ship Dervani Malargos was taking home after having been lost in the wilds of Tyrea for years. He claimed to have been closest to the conflagration at Sundered Rock and to have seen things no one else had. I tried to buy him off, but he slipped away. And once I hired an assassin during the Thorn Conspiracies, using the cover of someone else’s fight to murder someone who was about to blackmail my son.”

Gavin was speechless. In the first year of his masquerade, he’d killed three men to protect his identity and exiled a dozen more. Then two in the seventh year. He hadn’t killed anyone in cold blood since—until Bas. He’d known his mother had protected him, but he’d always thought she’d done it by passing on information she learned. His mother had always been fiercely protective, but he’d never imagined how far she would go. How far he would force her to go because he’d supplanted Dazen.

Dear Orholam, how I wish I believed in you, that you might forgive me for what I’ve done.

“Each time,” she said, “I told myself I was serving Orholam and the Seven Satrapies, and not just my family. But my conscience has never been clear.”

Shaken, he intoned the traditional words, offering her forgiveness.

She stood, looking at him intently. “Now, son, there are a few things you should know before I lay my burdens down.” She didn’t wait for him to say anything, which was good, because he didn’t think he was capable of it.

“You are not the evil son, Dazen. You were errant, but never mean-spirited. You are a true Prism—”

“Errant? I murdered the White Oaks! I—”

“Did you?” she interrupted, sharp. Then, softer, “I’ve seen that poison eating you for sixteen years. And always you’ve refused to talk. Tell me what happened.” His mother really was a Guile, if not by blood, by temperament. She’d wanted to talk about this all along.

“I can’t.”

“If not me, who? If not now, when? Dazen, I’m your mother. Let me give you this.”

His tongue felt like lead, but the images were there before his eyes in an instant. The leering faces of the White Oak brothers, the surge of fear paralyzing him. Gavin licked his lips, but he couldn’t force the first words out. He felt the hatred once more, fury at the injustice. Seven on one, more. The lies. “Things were already bad with Gavin. Blue and green awoke for me early, but I was starting to suspect I could do more. I told him. You know, we hadn’t been close since he’d been announced Prism-elect, and somehow Sevastian’s murder only made things worse. I guess I thought telling him my gifts were growing would bring him back. Like we could be best friends again. But he didn’t like it. Not at all.” From nowhere, a wash of tears came to Gavin’s eyes. He missed his brother so much it tore his soul. “I understand now how threatening it must have been for a young man to lose the one thing that made him special. I didn’t, then. The day after I told him I was a polychrome, I heard him urging father to betroth him to Karris. It was the greatest betrayal I could imagine. Her love was the one thing that made me special. It was some time before I saw the symmetry to that.

“Anyway, I thought Karris was as in love with me as I was with her. When father announced her betrothal to Gavin, we decided to run away together. She must have told someone. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe Gavin seemed a better prize. Karris and I were supposed to meet just outside her family’s mansion after midnight. She wasn’t there. Her maid told me she was inside. It was a trap, of course. The White Oak brothers knew I’d been trysting with Karris, and they wanted to teach me a lesson. Said I’d dishonored them, turned their sister into a whore.”