The Black Prism(224)

“Save my friends. Him, and her. The ones those Mirrormen are after.” She pointed.

Lord Omnichrome beckoned his attendant sharply, and the man came running with his long musket. “You wish me to kill several allies in order to gain one,” Lord Omnichrome said. “You barter lives like—”

“Like an adult,” Liv said sharply.

“And a formidable one indeed. But I’m not in the business of buying loyalty. I’ll do my best to save your friends. As a gift, regardless of what you decide.” He sighted down his musket and fired. A Mirrorman riding toward Karris died in a flash of light and blood. Lord Omnichrome handed the musket off to be reloaded.

“So take that out of your calculations, Liv, but tell me now, whom will you serve? Me, or the Chromeria?”

Fealty to One. And to one only.

There was no good choice. There were no good guys. Trying to do the right thing had led Liv to spying on her greatest benefactor. The Chromeria corrupted even people’s love for each other. Everyone she knew said Lord Omnichrome was a monster, but everyone she knew had been corrupted by the Chromeria. So maybe Lord Omnichrome wasn’t perfect. Neither was Gavin. The only people innocent here were the people of Tyrea. They deserved to be free. If Liv had to fight, she wasn’t going to fight for their oppressors. Fealty to One? A Danavis had to choose whom she would serve? So be it.

Taking a deep breath, Liv gave a full Tyrean formal curtsey. “Lord Omnichrome,” she said, her voice even, her eyes meeting his. “I’m yours. How may I serve?”





Chapter 85





“Traitors!” Kip heard a woman say. His head snapped toward Karris. She spat on the dead Mirrormen. Imperious, masterful.

What is she doing?

Karris grabbed a musket and powder horn and began reloading it, as if she were a simple soldier. When Kip saw the looks on the faces of the soldiers near them, he finally understood. They’d just seen her and Kip fight Mirrormen, but none of the surrounding men knew who was fighting on which side or if they should interfere. It looked like these soldiers had lost all of their officers—not surprising, since the defenders on the wall would try to kill officers first. That was probably the only reason Kip and Karris were still alive.

“Well, drafter?” she said, finishing her reloading. She was as fast at that as she was at everything. Her skin was the color of blood. Her eyes were no longer capped with the violet eye caps that kept her from drafting. Wait, had he done that? He was feeling shaky, drained. Her bluff had worked, though. The soldiers were turning back to the fighting, determined not to get in the way of this virago.

She was talking to him.

That’s right, genius, seeing how you’re the one who just drafted two huge spikes and impaled a couple of Mirrormen.

Which made Kip look toward the men he’d killed. Mistake. One had a frothy gore-hole in his chest the size of Kip’s fist. The other’s head was torn in pieces, chunks of white bone mixed amid red in a picture that refused to coalesce into a face.

“Kip, ordinarily this is a bad idea when you’re as new as you are, but I want you to draft more green. I need you with me,” Karris hissed.

He was staring at the smear of head on the ground. The soldiers pushing toward the gate were trampling right over the pieces of brain and bone, giving more room to the two drafters than they did to the men Kip had killed.

“Kip!” She slapped him, hard. “Cry later. Be a man now.” The red diamonds in her emerald eyes blazed. She cursed, cast about for a moment, looking for something, then a few threads of green wove their way from her eyes to her fingertips through the ocean of red that colored her pale skin, and she drafted something small in her hands.

Spectacles. Spectacles entirely of green luxin. She put them on his face, adjusted them, did something to seal them, and then stepped away. “Now draft!” she ordered.

Kip was a sponge. It was like going outside on a hot day, closing his eyes, and basking in the heat. Everywhere he looked there were light-colored surfaces, homes and shops whitewashed against the sun, and every one of them gave him magic. He soaked it in, feeling potent. Free. The throbbing in his burned hand faded to nothing.

He joined the stream of soldiers heading toward the gap in the wall. The musket fire from atop the wall had all but ceased. It was turning into a glorious morning, bright, crisp, slowly burning off the mist. It would be hot soon.

Where before, when he was unmoving, the stream of men had parted around him like a boulder as they saw that he was a drafter, as soon as he joined the stream he was jostled about just like everyone else. The lines compressed the closer they got to the wall, and men trying to stay with their units pushed hard. As it got tighter and tighter, more and more constrained, Kip started to rebel against it. He wasn’t sure how much of the agitation was his, and how much was the green luxin’s influence on him, but he could tell that there was more to his reaction than his own psyche.