Something niggled at Dazen’s mind. The bends in the tunnel, maybe that was it. The tunnels had bent so that no blue light would spill from the blue cell into the tunnel. Thus the tunnel would be totally dark. So the obsidian would work.
Damn Gavin to the evernight. He’s not stopping me. I don’t care if I’m a bloody wreck. I’m getting out of here.
Part of Dazen was telling him to stop, to think. That blue, rational part of him. But he couldn’t stop. If he didn’t keep moving, he’d never get anywhere. He was so sick, so fevered that if he stopped he might never move again. Gavin wanted to paralyze him.
No. No no no. Dazen pushed on. The floor here felt different. Not obsidian. He’d gotten past it. He crawled farther. He could swear there was a glow ahead of him. Dear Orholam, there was—
The floor dropped out from under him, swinging open on hidden hinges. Dazen tumbled down, rolling over and over, unable to stop himself, down a chute that snapped shut behind him. He rolled over, bathed in green light.
Green?
An entire, round chamber, with green walls like trees. A hole up top for water and food and air, and a hole in the bottom for waste. Dazen looked desperately at his skin for the red luxin. It was gone. All gone, all sucked up by the obsidian tunnel.
Dazen started laughing stupidly, desperately, madly. A green prison, after the blue prison. He laughed until he was sobbing. There wasn’t one prison. There weren’t two. He knew it now. He had no doubt. There were seven prisons. One for every color, and in sixteen years, he had only escaped the first.
He laughed and sobbed. In one luminous green wall, the dead man laughed with him. At him.
Chapter 95
“Not bad for a defeat,” said Corvan Danavis, coming into Gavin’s cabin.
Gavin sat up, blinking the sleep from his eyes. His “quick nap” after talking to Kip had left him wooly. But he’d drafted so much over the past week, it was no wonder he felt off. He said, “We lost a city, three-quarters of the Blackguard, and hundreds if not thousands of soldiers. My natural son—whom I just acknowledged—publicly murdered a rightful satrap, which will make the other satraps worry I’m trying to rule the world again. We have thousands of refugees that we have to put Orholam knows where; there’s some pagan army in charge of Garriston; and I’ve built them a damn near unassailable wall, which will now protect my enemies. Oh, and your daughter has joined our foes. If that’s not bad for a defeat, I’m not really sure what is.”
“Could be worse,” Corvan said.
Gavin rubbed his cheek where Karris had slapped him. It was worse, Corvan, he wanted to say. He’d been so delighted to see Karris alive that he’d hugged her without thinking. He’d deserved the slap for that alone. But she’d clung to him, for half a moment. Maybe she just felt relieved to be safe, away from King Garadul’s army, but he’d hoped it was something more.
Then she’d whispered, “I know your big secret, you asshole. Why couldn’t you be man enough to tell me yourself?”
Big secret? His heart froze up in his chest. Which big secret?
She released him and stared into his eyes. Unable to take it, he’d glanced away—and saw Kip. Kip, whom he’d thought was most likely dead. Like a moron, he said, “Kip?”
He hadn’t meant Kip was his big secret. That would be stupid. Of course she knew about Kip. But his brain wasn’t working. Her closeness, the battle, the effects of his drafting so much, and the sudden sense of exposure throttled his thoughts.
She’d slapped him. He’d deserved it.
Gavin said to Corvan, “It can always be worse. Is the weather holding?” He sat up. If he had to make these barges weather a storm, he was going to have a lot of work to do.
“Hold up,” Corvan said. “Your attitude when you go out there matters.”
Gavin stopped. Corvan had talked to him like this before, but not since the war. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean this Lord Omnichrome doesn’t care about Garriston. The only thing Garriston was to him was a chance to take a victory from us, and frame you for murdering a satrap so he could mobilize people to fight you. What he wants is to destroy the Chromeria. He wants to drive out the belief in Orholam and set up a new order. And we don’t even know what that new order is yet.”
“So let’s rephrase ‘defeat’ as ‘crushing defeat,’ huh?” Gavin knew he was being childish, but Corvan was the only person around whom he could complain. It felt good to have his friend back.
“We have to get ready for war,” Corvan said. “A bigger war than over one little city.”