But Gavin had also known—in that moment, Kip had seen it—as they scrambled, four men, fighting over two blades, that Kip didn’t have the leverage to stop Andross and Grinwoody from burying the knife in his chest. What Kip hadn’t seen then, but knew now, was that with how their hands were interlaced, the only direction Gavin could pull the blade that wouldn’t be blocked was toward himself. He’d done it on purpose. He hadn’t stabbed himself, of course—he wasn’t suicidal—but once the blade’s direction had changed, Grinwoody and Andross had pushed hard instantly, not knowing, or not being able to stop, or not caring.
Why would Gavin save me, knowing the cost was his own life?
Gavin gave his life for me. The Prism himself, the best Prism in centuries, maybe ever. What did that mean? What did that say about Kip’s worth?
The thought was too big. The emotions welling up behind it too frightening. Kip was that lost kid whose mother had forgotten him in a closet full of rats. He wasn’t …
A tear dropped from his cheek and hit his protruding stomach. Where had that come from?
He rubbed the tears away with a grubby paw, bear once more.
And what the hell had happened with that knife anyway? The Blinder’s Knife, Andross Guile had called it. A knife that didn’t kill Gavin, but grew inside him instead. And how did my mother get such a thing?
That was better, safer, cerebral. Kip could think about that. But not, it turned out, for long. He was exhausted. He hadn’t drafted a pallet to sleep on, a blanket—could you make a blanket out of luxin?—or any kind of shirt. He hadn’t prepped any of the mundane bedding that might have made his sleep more comfortable, either. He broke the top of the blue luxin lamp and scraped a spark into it.
My father loves me. Of all men, Gavin Guile thinks I’m worth saving.
The luxin lit with a whoosh, and Kip felt waves of warmth beating back the night’s cold. The fire would not last long, but Kip figured he’d be asleep by then.
He was right. No sooner had his bare shoulder touched the sand than he began to dream of beasts and gods.
Chapter 13
~The Ex-Priest~
“War is always an excuse for the monstrous,” Auria tells me. We’ve climbed high enough we can’t see the raiders’ torches anymore. The light filtering through the fog on the headland is weak, but rising.
“Anyone who kills Angari is doing Orholam’s work,” I say.
“Darjan, all are his children, even the disobedient, and what you’re planning is forbidden,” Auria says. Her dark curls are matted with blood, her face blanched from its usual mahogany—from the bad light, I hope, and not from blood loss. I know it isn’t fear. Auria has never been afraid in her life. There are a hundred good reasons why I should listen to her. Karris Shadowblinder herself—Lucidonius’s own widow and heir—put Auria over me in our training. She’s older than me. Wiser, too.
But I’m stronger.
“I hate waiting for the light,” I say. I have a pair of Lucidonius’s marvelous spectacles, crafted by his own hand. Since he’s passed, you’d think they’re holy relics with how everyone treats them. Well made, though, anyone would admit. And utterly revolutionary. It hadn’t been that no one had thought of melting metal ores into molten glass for their color, it was that they couldn’t get the fires hot enough, couldn’t get the ores pure enough. Lucidonius had solved that, too, showing himself to be a mundane genius as well as a magical one. He’d been infuriating that way, but those lenses had changed everything, for drafters everywhere. A lens grinder, their mighty Lucidonius. In addition to everything else. Changing our lives in a thousand ways. Drawing us along behind him like leaves in a gale.
And leaving a terrible mess when the storm passed.
“As Pride is the first sin, so Power is the first temptation,” I intone. Lucidonius preached that, and became powerful, more powerful than the pagan priests and prophets. Pagan priests like me. I begin drafting.
I was a kaptan of the aħdar qassis gwardjan. Lucidonius’s words had somehow changed my heart, but I still wonder if they ever changed my mind. Or maybe it was the other way around. His words were enough to make me give up my comfort, my position, my place, my prestige, but now as I look down toward my new home, where doubtless the streets run red with the blood of my new neighbors and only friends, I think perhaps Orholam didn’t change me enough.
Every color is from Orholam, Lucidonius had said, holding a prism above his head as he preached peace and brotherhood between colors and countries. It had made sense to many, but perhaps especially to those like me, who can draw more than one color. In my land, my mastery of green had always been praised, but my use of blue condemned by my brother qassisin. Even though it made me a better gwardjan.