She stood, briefly forgetting in the superviolet rush that she was naked. Koios White Oak looked at her frankly, and she soaked up his regard as boldly as if it were light itself. She waited a long second until she saw the twinge of regret hit him, and moved as soon as she saw it, gathering up her shift and pulling on her dress so that he might think she hadn’t seen it. There were other kinds of power than magic and the sword. But some power works best in silence.
In silence, she dressed in her most practical dress and held her long dark hair out of the way. The Color Prince buttoned the last buttons for her, then she followed him out into the camp.
As the Blood Robes had marched on, rolling over town after town, their ranks had swollen. Liv was never sure how many of those who joined them believed in their cause, or if they merely believed in victory and plunder. She wanted to despise those who joined out of convenience, but she was using superviolet too much to be more than coolly amused most of the time. Besides, men believe in power, and what is victory but the demonstration of power?
Parts of her still mourned it, but everywhere she looked, she saw that the Color Prince was right. Power. All human interactions came down to power.
The Color Prince gave sermons every day, and he had disciples now, both drafters and munds, who wrote down every word and did their best to make a coherent system of it all. He talked about Dazen coming back and championing their cause. He talked about freedom. He talked about the tributes they all paid to the Chromeria. Though his words melded politics and religion and history and civics and science, Liv thought she discerned less of an incredibly nuanced system underneath his rhetoric, and more of a belief created simply by the strength of his believers’ faith that it must be rational, or their great leader wouldn’t profess it. She couldn’t tell how much of it the Omnichrome believed, but she knew that if he was going to accomplish his great purposes, he needed loyal followers. And those followers needed something to believe in, to unify them.
He didn’t preach to the mob about power, just as he didn’t allow them to call him Koios. Familiarity and knowledge both were for the privileged. Sometimes Liv thought the Color Prince probably didn’t give a damn what all the people believed, that he tapped the heresies he tapped because he figured he might as well exploit every resentment against the Chromeria.
“Have you figured out your great purpose yet, Aliviana?” the prince asked. He nodded to a group of green wights who barely stirred at his presence. Greens weren’t much good at veneration either.
“Aside from bait for my father?”
“I told you from the beginning you were that, and no, I haven’t given up all hope for Corvan. But a hostage needn’t be given privileges or the freedom you have. Surely you’ve gone past that.”
“I’m the best superviolet you’ve got. It has something to do with that,” Liv said.
“A broad guess,” the prince said. “But not long ago you would have said ‘one of the best.’ ” He seemed amused.
“I’ve changed,” she said. She was more confident now; she had cut away the Chromeria’s false humility. “And I’m right.”
“Mmm.”
The Red Cliffs loomed above the whole camp. There were spidery trails everywhere up those cliffs, but the prince had opted to send almost everyone along the coastal road. Only his cavalry had traveled along the high road, foraging and ready to put down any armed resistance.
The army was big enough now that some days there were skirmishes that Liv didn’t even find out about until after dark. The Atashian army had probed the Blood Robes for weakness, but with the number of drafters the prince had, they hadn’t found much. Zymun had speculated, though, that they were going to find out how much steel was in the Atashians’ spines soon. The army was to reach the narrowest pass between sheer cliffs and the ocean tomorrow.
“Are they going to crush us at the Gates of Sand?” Liv asked.
“No,” the prince said.
“Really? Zymun thought that was the best chance they had of stopping us before we get to the grasslands around Ru.”
“It was. But you need naval support to hold the Gates, and our Ilytian allies crushed the Atashian navy five days ago.”
Liv hadn’t even heard a whisper of that. “Ilytian allies? But the Ilytians don’t believe in anything.”
“They believe in gold.” The Color Prince gave a grim smile. Together, they climbed up an exposed rock promontory. The soldiers standing there snapped salutes. The prince reached the top and did something with his eyes. He expelled a disappointed breath. “Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”