The weight of grace was a punch to the face. Totally unexpected, totally undeserved. Ana had been a fool, but she didn’t deserve death, and death was what Gavin had given her. Orholam have mercy.
Gavin took a deep breath. He took those feelings, boxed them up, and put them aside. I’ll mourn you later, Ana, and make recompense to your family, you damned harlot. I’m sorry.
Today would be a test. If he could make it through five more minutes with his father, he might make it through today. If he could make it through today, he might live another month. If another month, a year was possible.
“No,” Gavin said.
“And next time, for Orholam’s sake, how about a little self-control?”
“Self-control is for those who can’t control others,” Gavin said. Then he realized who’d taught him that: this grimly smiling man. “The answer is no.”
Andross Guile said, “You appear to be laboring under the mistaken assumption that I’m giving you a choice.”
“No mistake: No.” Gavin kept his voice level, civil, firm.
“If you choose not to obey me, you’re choosing for me to disown you.”
The threat literally took Gavin’s breath away.
“You think I can’t? You think because you’re my only child that I won’t? I’m not too old to have other children, you know. It was your mother who couldn’t, after Sevastian. If you don’t marry Tisis Malargos, I will. It’s that simple. I don’t know if she’d hate being married more to you or to me. Doesn’t matter. She’s a loyal girl. Loyal to her family. Practical. She’ll do what she has to. An example you would do well to follow.”
“So you don’t need me?” Gavin said. “I’m the Prism. You think getting money is going to be hard for me? You think I’ll lack for anything? You really want to start a fight with me?”
“Start it? If you hadn’t been so busy fucking that little girl, I think you’d have noticed we’ve already started.”
“What have you done?” Gavin asked.
“I made you, boy. In every way.” Andross Guile sank back into the cushions of his chair. “You want to cross me? Look to what you love.”
Chapter 88
“I heard that the wights are using hellhounds,” Ferkudi said. “In Atash.”
“And I heard the Eternal Flame in Aslal burned bright blue for two months straight!” Yugerten said. He was a gangly boy, and ranked low. No one paid much attention to him.
“Anyone can make a fire burn blue,” Ferkudi said. “I’m talking hellhounds!”
The scrubs were walking together as a class to go do another real-world training. They didn’t know any of the details yet, but after oversleeping, Kip had barely caught up with them before they got to the really bad neighborhoods.
“Burning dogs, made of luxin?” Teia asked dubiously.
Kip was trying to see who was watching them as they walked through increasingly narrow streets to Overhill.
“Hellhounds are a myth, Ferk,” Tanner said.
“The man who told me wouldn’t lie,” Ferkudi said.
“Think, you moron, you’re a drafter,” Tanner said. “How would you even do such a thing? You could make a statue of a dog out of red luxin, but it wouldn’t do anything, would it?”
“Well, I don’t know. I guess not,” Ferkudi said.
“They’re not made of luxin,” a voice interjected quietly. “But they are real.”
It was Trainer Fisk.
The boys fell silent, looked at each other.
“The wights infuse red luxin into the coat and skin of a dog. They do it for practice, before they try it on themselves. It’s a cruel, cruel thing, and worse is to set them on fire. But I’ve seen it happen. I saw Commander Ironfist put one down when we were cleaning up the wights from the False Prism’s War.”
Their respect for Commander Ironfist jumped up a few more rungs on the ladder to pure worship.
“But wouldn’t a dog who’d been set on fire be just as likely to kill the men who sent it as that man’s enemies?” Kip asked. “I’d think it would just go crazy.”
Trainer Fisk spat. “Dammit, Breaker. It would be you, wouldn’t it?”
“What?” Kip asked. He still wasn’t used to being called Breaker.
But the trainer said nothing as they entered a small square and passed dirty merchants who stared at them with open hostility. This was a Tyrean neighborhood, but the people here didn’t see a Tyrean when they looked at Kip, they saw only a Blackguard whelp.
When they’d passed out of the square and into the next street, Trainer Fisk said, “There’s kinds of drafting we don’t talk about much with younger drafters, because we lose enough of you as it is, and everyone thinks she’s special and tries the things that we tell you not to try. But you all are going to be warriors, and maybe sooner than we’d like, so you deserve to know what’s out there.”