Will cleave father and father and father and son.”
“How’d you…?” he asked.
“I see that line burning in bitter fire over your head, Lord Prism. What did you take it to mean?”
“The youngest son of red cunning—the youngest son of the red Guile—the youngest son of the Guile who becomes the Red. So Andross Guile’s youngest son. It was a prophecy about my little brother Sevastian.”
“And then he died. Murdered.”
“By a blue wight. He was everything that is good about my family with none of the bad. If he were alive, everything would be different.” He shook it off. “Your prophecies aren’t like that. I mean, maddeningly vague. I mean, except for this last one.” He grinned. “Why is that?”
She touched her third eye thoughtfully. “We’re human, Gavin. My gift didn’t come with a list of rules. I’m muddling through. I’m making it up as I go. But I feel the same temptations I’m sure all my predecessors have felt: to be important, to help those I love and harm those I hate, to be held as almost a god, to guide and be loved—or to say hell with it, I’m not responsible for this damned thing, and just spew everything I see. I hold my tongue when I’m not sure. I think others have spoken more, but more cryptically, hoping that they wouldn’t be held responsible if things went wrong. And then, of course, there have been frauds: Seers who were not Seers at all.”
“Can you tell me if that prophecy was a fraud?”
“I have no idea where to even start looking.”
“You said you saw it in bitter fire over my head,” Gavin said. “How about there?”
“I saw the words for a moment, yes. That doesn’t mean they’re true.”
“You’re honest to a fault, aren’t you?” Gavin said.
“I hope not,” she said. She smirked, a devious, playful twist on her full lips.
Gavin wanted to tear her clothes off.
He looked away and cleared his throat. “My lady, good night, and ahem, now that we’ve decided not to make a most delightful mistake together, I hope together we make our next meeting less… strained.” He stood and brushed nonexistent crumbs off his lap pointedly. He grinned. But he wanted her agreement in this. He’d made mistakes that he knew were mistakes before.
She offered her hand and allowed him to help her stand. She stretched as if tired, but quite obviously to give him a chance to admire her while she looked away. He could tell what she was doing, and yet he admired her all the same. She gave a small, naughty smile. “You know,” she said, “I’m actually really quite modest most of the time.”
No, actually, I don’t know that. He merely cocked a dubious eyebrow, quickly smoothed it away, and like a gentleman politely lying said, “Of course you are.”
She laughed. “That you’re impossible makes you somehow even more fun to play with,” she said.
“When most people flirt with disaster, it’s a figure of speech,” Gavin said.
“Dangerous toys are the best toys. I pray you sleep well, Lord Prism.”
Well, there was a prayer they both knew wasn’t going to be answered.
Chapter 38
“The old gods weren’t worshipped because the people of the Seven Satrapies were ignorant fools,” Zymun told Liv. They were walking together to the outskirts of Garriston, heading through the Hag’s Gate to the plain between the old wall and Brightwater Wall, where most of the drafters were camped. “The old gods were worshipped because they were real.”
“Go on,” Liv said, not doing a great job keeping her skepticism back.
A brief look of fury shot across Zymun’s face, quickly smoothed away. He looked at her intensely. Who’s the tutor here?
Liv blushed. Her instant reaction had been an artifact of her old beliefs. She’d always heard that the old gods were figments of the primitive imaginations of the peoples who lived around the Cerulean Sea before Lucidonius came. But if the Chromeria lied about other things, then that could be a lie as well. She cleared her throat. “I mean, go on.”
“I think the peoples of the Seven Satrapies knew it, too. From nowhere, it seems, little statues of the gods have resurfaced. Hidden in attics, in cellars, in secret family shrines in the woods. Keep your eyes open as you walk the camp, you’ll see little signs. Soon, there will be priesthoods reestablished, worship will become public. You look skeptical.”
“I’m sorry, but, the old gods? Like Atirat and Anat and Dagnu?”
Again, a flash of irritation, and Liv felt stupid. But he spoke with kindness. “You know how you feel when you draft superviolet?”