The Black Prism(222)

Orholam, she thought he’d looked at her, but then she’d dismissed it as her imagination. There had been thousands listening last night. And how did he recognize her?

“You love your father, don’t you, Liv?”

“More than anything,” she said. How did he know her name, much less her nickname?

“And how old is he?”

“Maybe forty?” she said.

“Old, then. For a drafter. If he weren’t a drafter, he could live another forty years. But as a drafter loyal to the Chromeria, he’s an old dog already, isn’t he? Most men don’t make it to forty. Your father must be very disciplined, very strong.”

“Stronger than you know,” Liv said. She felt a surge of emotion. Who was this bastard, talking about her father? She wouldn’t let anyone speak badly of him. He was a great man. Even if he had made mistakes.

The attendant handed the long musket back to Lord Omnichrome. He raised it, stabilized its significant weight on its leg, and said, “Blue drafter, just right of the gatehouse.”

Liv watched, horrified, as Lord Omnichrome waited. The blue drafter was ducked behind a crenellation, popping up to throw death down on the men below and ducking down again. He popped up, Lord Omnichrome said, “Heart.” The musket roared.

A burst of light and blood and the drafter disappeared from view.

“Shoulder, your left,” the attendant said. “One hand left and three thumbs high.”

Lord Omnichrome handed the musket back to the man with a polite thank-you. “When the time comes, will you tell them?” he asked Liv.

“Tell them? Tell them about my father?” Liv hesitated. “I’ll do what I need to do.”

“What you need to do. Interesting how they make it that, isn’t it? What if you couldn’t make it back to the Chromeria in time? Would you kill your father yourself, with your own hand? What if he asked you to stop? What if he begged you?”

“My father isn’t such a coward.”

“You’re dodging the question.” Lord Omnichrome’s eyes were swirling orange. Liv had never liked oranges much. Always unnerved her. When she didn’t speak for a long moment, he said, “I understand perfectly. When I started my own Chromeria, I followed them blindly at first, too. Despite what I am. One of my students broke the halo and I murdered her with my own hands. She wasn’t the first to die for the drafters’ ignorance nor the last, but she was the beginning of the end. When I killed her, I knew what I did was wrong. I couldn’t shake it.”

“Drafters go mad. Like you. They turn on their friends. They kill those they love.”

“Oh, absolutely. Sometimes. Some people can’t handle power. Some men seem decent until you give them a slave, and soon they’re a tyrant, beating and raping the slave in their charge. Power is a test, Liv. All power is a test. We don’t call it breaking the halo. We call it breaking the egg. You never know what kind of bird is going to be hatched. And some are born deformed and must be put down. That is tragedy, but not murder. Do you think your father could handle a little extra power? The great Corvan Danavis? An immensely talented drafter who’s nevertheless had the discipline to make it to forty?”

“It’s not that simple,” Liv said.

“What if it is? What if the Chromeria has perpetuated this monstrosity because this is how they keep themselves in power? By scaring the satrapies, saying that only they can train the drafters born among them—for a price, always for a price—and only they can restrain the drafters who go mad, which is all of them. By doing that, they make themselves forever useful, forever powerful, and by divvying out drafters to the satrapies, they make themselves the center of everything. Tell me, Liv, when you judge the Chromeria by its fruit, do you find it a place of love and peace and light—as one might expect from Orholam’s holy city?”

“No,” Liv admitted. She didn’t even know why she was defending it, except out of stubbornness. The Chromeria was everything she hated, and it defiled all it touched. Including her. She owed debts there, and she couldn’t lie to herself so much that she would believe her flight to Tyrea and to follow Kip wasn’t partly a flight from her debt to Aglaia Crassos and Ruthgar.

“The truth is, Liv, you know I’m right. You’re just afraid to admit you’ve been on the wrong side. I understand. We all do. There are good men and women who fight against us, good people! But they’re deluded, deceived. It hurts to leave a lie, but it hurts more to live one. Look at what I’m doing. I’m freeing a city that’s ours, by rights. Garriston has been passed around like a whore to be abused by every nation in turn. It’s not right. It has to end, and since no one else will end it, we will. Does not this land deserve freedom? Should these people pay because two brothers—neither of whom was born here or cared a whit for this land—fought here? For how long should they pay?”