The Broken Eye(302)

Kip’s mouth worked silently, but he had nothing to say. He went to the door and opened it a bit, not so little as to cause suspicion, but not inviting anyone to step right in, either.

“Oh, Kip! Thank Orholam you’re here!” Teia said.





Chapter 88




It wasn’t yet dawn of Sun Day when Karris and Commander Ironfist and their squad rowed into sight of Big Jasper. Exhausted from skimming all the way to Rath, and then fighting, they hadn’t been able to get all the way back before they ran out of daylight, even on the eve of the longest day of the year. It was only because of Ben-hadad, young genius, that they’d been able to navigate the rest of the way home with the stars.

He’d drafted a perfectly working mariner’s astrolabe from memory, calculated their latitude, estimated their rowing speed, remembered the latitude of Big Jasper, told them they could make it by dawn if they rowed all night, and kept them on course.

Mostly. Karris had thought that the enormous spires of the Chromeria would be impossible to miss, but late in the night, a low mist kicked up, and though they could still take their bearing by the stars still visible overhead, they found themselves west of Big Jasper, having overshot Little Jasper entirely.

“It’s just as well,” Ironfist said quietly. He and Karris had this last shift on the oars. The others were still asleep. It was almost time to wake them, though. “There will be Lightguards at the Chromeria’s dock. I’m not handing Gavin over to them.”

“He needs chirurgeons before anything. West dock isn’t far from Amalu and Adini’s.” They were the best chirurgeons on the Jaspers, maybe in all the satrapies. They’d made a fortune treating nobles and Colors for two decades, but then had freed their slaves and taken a religious oath to treat the poor of Big Jasper.

“Karris,” Ironfist said after a few more long sweeps, “it’s Sun Day. If we don’t bring Gavin to the Spectrum today … They’re not going to stop naming a new Prism on our word alone.”

“You saw his eyes,” Karris said. Eye. She felt dead inside.

A pause. “Blue.”

“Then you know. Hope is dead. We’ve lost.”

Gavin knew it, too. When night had fallen and they could draft no longer, he had insisted that he help row. It was one thing he was good at, he’d said. But soon he’d passed out, overcome by his wounds and long privation.

Karris looked at him now, still asleep on the deck, his gouged-out eye bandaged as well as they could. She had wanted to see her husband and simply rejoice that he was alive, that he was hers once again. But the first thing she noticed—and it had overwhelmed her love and her relief and her hope—wasn’t the dirt or the bloody grin or the ruined hand or the burnt-out eye or the black hair dye or the long beard or his indomitable spirit; it was his good eye, his blue eye, his icy-bright intelligent natural blue eye.

They’d come to rescue a Prism. Instead they’d rescued a man.

They’d done the impossible, five of them rescuing a man from fifty thousand, and it was for nothing.

“This isn’t how Prisms die,” Ironfist said, keeping his voice barely above a whisper. “When I was named commander of the Blackguard, they told me what to look out for. Nothing about Gavin Guile has been normal.”

“What is?” Karris asked.

“I’m not supposed to say. Last thing we need is every Blackguard playing chirurgeon, wondering if she should obey her Prism, or if he’s going mad.” He looked away and said, “It’s not the first sign, but eventually, they get color in their irises, and eventually, they break the halo. Just like the rest of us.”

“But…” Karris said. Obviously, that wasn’t what was happening here, not at all.

“That’s not all. There’s a ceremony, every seven years. I don’t know what happens, but the first time I had the distinct feeling that Gavin hadn’t made enough friends, and he wasn’t going to be Prism afterward. But an odd thing happened: they never had the ceremony, and Gavin kept being Prism. After that, everything changed. If you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t have seen it, but the composition of the Spectrum changed drastically. Marid Black killed himself, but he’d long struggled with melancholy, and we found a note. The Blue left immediately after Sun Day and was killed in a shipwreck, possibly while fleeing pirates. The Green retired and since has died. The Yellow was called home to Abornea and died months later after being thrown from a horse. The Sub-red withdrew to his estate on Big Jasper and didn’t leave until his death two years later, supposedly of drink and lotus eating. Delara Orange’s mother somehow emerged from what had been called ruinous debts; she’d been gone for much of the previous few years, missing meetings while she tried to beg, borrow, or steal money to keep her house together, but was suddenly present for every meeting. Only the Superviolet and Red seemed unchanged. It was spread out over so much time, and the news of some of these didn’t come for six or eight months later, that everyone was already engaged in maneuvering over who would take those seats. And Gavin and the White and the Red and the High Luxiats and the satraps and everyone else who was anyone jumped into those fights. No one party emerged as a total victor. I’m certain of that. I’ve kept tally of the close votes, especially the close votes Andross has won. He didn’t buy or suborn all the new Colors. It’s been nine and ten years or more now. It would have been clear by now if he had them all under his thumb. Which is probably the other reason everyone wrote off the changes as coincidence. Who would overturn a Color if they didn’t have a plan to put in a friendlier face?