The Black Prism

Chapter 84

I’m not important enough for this, Liv thought as Lord Omnichrome came back to the top of the hill where she was tied up. From her vantage point, she could see a familiar form taking a big red stallion from a groom, then mounting. Kip. If he turned around, he couldn’t help but see her.

For a moment, Liv wasn’t sure if she wanted him to see her or not. She had no doubt what he would do if he did. He’d come charging up the hill, and to hell with the odds. That was Kip. That was who he was and who he always had been. Not always smart, but always ferociously loyal.

She ducked her head. There was only death here for Kip. And sure enough, he turned for one second as he sat unsteadily atop the big horse. Then he kicked his heels in and almost tumbled out of the saddle as the animal surged forward.

Liv almost grinned at the sight, but the looming figure of Lord Omnichrome wiped away any thought of amusement. As he came close, she realized he wasn’t as big as he seemed from a distance. His white robes and the white cape hanging off great blue horns rising from his shoulders made him seem bigger than a mortal man, but he wasn’t even as tall as Gavin Guile. But he glowed. It was like yellow luxin filled his veins instead of blood. His hair had been sculpted into a spiky crown with yellow luxin, so it dazzled, as if he’d been crowned by the sun itself, and his eyes beneath were a constant riot of colors. And he was staring at her.

I’m not important enough for this, she thought again. Her cheek was throbbing, still dribbling blood. The powder wagon’s explosion had knocked her unconscious, and shrapnel had cut her in a dozen places. She didn’t know how they’d found her among all the bodies. She didn’t know why they would want her.

“How did you come to be here, Aliviana Danavis?”

“I walked, mostly,” she said. Danavis, so that was it. They knew her father was commanding the enemy army. And she’d stupidly delivered herself into their hands. Well done, Liv.

Lord Omnichrome’s retainers surrounded them: broken-haloed drafters of every type, soldiers, messengers, and a few high-ranking officers from King Garadul’s camp who looked decidedly uneasy around all the drafters, much less Lord Omnichrome. Lord Omnichrome picked up a strange musket as long as he was tall. He lifted it, fitted its leg into a slot on the barrel, propped it up in front of himself, and aimed down the hill toward the fighting.

“Dead center on that green door,” he said.

“Third house from the left?” a spotter asked.

Liv didn’t know much about muskets, but she knew you couldn’t make a shot that accurate at three hundred paces. Not that you’d want someone shooting in your direction, but past one hundred paces aiming was more a general hope. Nonetheless, Lord Omnichrome took a deep breath, sighted down the barrel through the mists, fired.

The musket roared.

“Three hands high, one hand left,” the spotter said.

Lord Omnichrome handed the musket to an attendant, who began reloading it. He turned to Liv. “I want you to join me, Liv. I saw you, last night, listening. You understood. I could tell you did.”

Orholam, she thought he’d looked at her, but then she’d dismissed it as her imagination. There had been thousands listening last night. And how did he recognize her?

“You love your father, don’t you, Liv?”

“More than anything,” she said. How did he know her name, much less her nickname?

“And how old is he?”

“Maybe forty?” she said.

“Old, then. For a drafter. If he weren’t a drafter, he could live another forty years. But as a drafter loyal to the Chromeria, he’s an old dog already, isn’t he? Most men don’t make it to forty. Your father must be very disciplined, very strong.”

“Stronger than you know,” Liv said. She felt a surge of emotion. Who was this bastard, talking about her father? She wouldn’t let anyone speak badly of him. He was a great man. Even if he had made mistakes.

The attendant handed the long musket back to Lord Omnichrome. He raised it, stabilized its significant weight on its leg, and said, “Blue drafter, just right of the gatehouse.”

Liv watched, horrified, as Lord Omnichrome waited. The blue drafter was ducked behind a crenellation, popping up to throw death down on the men below and ducking down again. He popped up, Lord Omnichrome said, “Heart.” The musket roared.

A burst of light and blood and the drafter disappeared from view.

“Shoulder, your left,” the attendant said. “One hand left and three thumbs high.”

Lord Omnichrome handed the musket back to the man with a polite thank-you. “When the time comes, will you tell them?” he asked Liv.

“Tell them? Tell them about my father?” Liv hesitated. “I’ll do what I need to do.”

“What you need to do. Interesting how they make it that, isn’t it? What if you couldn’t make it back to the Chromeria in time? Would you kill your father yourself, with your own hand? What if he asked you to stop? What if he begged you?”

“My father isn’t such a coward.”

“You’re dodging the question.” Lord Omnichrome’s eyes were swirling orange. Liv had never liked oranges much. Always unnerved her. When she didn’t speak for a long moment, he said, “I understand perfectly. When I started my own Chromeria, I followed them blindly at first, too. Despite what I am. One of my students broke the halo and I murdered her with my own hands. She wasn’t the first to die for the drafters’ ignorance nor the last, but she was the beginning of the end. When I killed her, I knew what I did was wrong. I couldn’t shake it.”

“Drafters go mad. Like you. They turn on their friends. They kill those they love.”

“Oh, absolutely. Sometimes. Some people can’t handle power. Some men seem decent until you give them a slave, and soon they’re a tyrant, beating and raping the slave in their charge. Power is a test, Liv. All power is a test. We don’t call it breaking the halo. We call it breaking the egg. You never know what kind of bird is going to be hatched. And some are born deformed and must be put down. That is tragedy, but not murder. Do you think your father could handle a little extra power? The great Corvan Danavis? An immensely talented drafter who’s nevertheless had the discipline to make it to forty?”

“It’s not that simple,” Liv said.

“What if it is? What if the Chromeria has perpetuated this monstrosity because this is how they keep themselves in power? By scaring the satrapies, saying that only they can train the drafters born among them—for a price, always for a price—and only they can restrain the drafters who go mad, which is all of them. By doing that, they make themselves forever useful, forever powerful, and by divvying out drafters to the satrapies, they make themselves the center of everything. Tell me, Liv, when you judge the Chromeria by its fruit, do you find it a place of love and peace and light—as one might expect from Orholam’s holy city?”

“No,” Liv admitted. She didn’t even know why she was defending it, except out of stubbornness. The Chromeria was everything she hated, and it defiled all it touched. Including her. She owed debts there, and she couldn’t lie to herself so much that she would believe her flight to Tyrea and to follow Kip wasn’t partly a flight from her debt to Aglaia Crassos and Ruthgar.

“The truth is, Liv, you know I’m right. You’re just afraid to admit you’ve been on the wrong side. I understand. We all do. There are good men and women who fight against us, good people! But they’re deluded, deceived. It hurts to leave a lie, but it hurts more to live one. Look at what I’m doing. I’m freeing a city that’s ours, by rights. Garriston has been passed around like a whore to be abused by every nation in turn. It’s not right. It has to end, and since no one else will end it, we will. Does not this land deserve freedom? Should these people pay because two brothers—neither of whom was born here or cared a whit for this land—fought here? For how long should they pay?”

“They shouldn’t,” Liv said.

“Because it isn’t just.”

He took the long musket from the attendant again. “Red drafter, top of the gatehouse. Head.”

Liv watched. The battle in front of the Mother’s Gate was hard to see clearly through all the smoke and flashes of magic. But she saw King Garadul’s cavalry reaching the gate, loading their muskets and firing at the men at the top of the wall, but seeming to wait for something, frustrated it hadn’t happened yet. Lord Omnichrome’s musket roared, and an instant later there was a small bright flash at the top of the gate tower. Liv was glad she hadn’t seen all of it.

“Dead center, Lord Omnichrome,” the attendant announced. “Excellent shot!”

“Begone! Leave us.” The top of the hill cleared quickly of everyone save the musket attendant, whom Lord Omnichrome gestured to stay. Lord Omnichrome turned toward Liv. He wasn’t smiling. “I don’t like killing drafters. I hate it,” he said. “What I do here is what must be done. I want you to join me, Aliviana.”

“Why? Why me? I’m barely a bichrome, not that powerful, no influence.”

He snorted. “Are you ready for the answer to that question? You want to be an adult, Aliviana? You want hard truths? Because that’s the only kind I’ve known for the past sixteen years.”

“I’m ready,” she said.

“I want you because you’re a drafter and every drafter is precious to me. And because you’re Tyrean, and this country will take a lot of reassuring after we win, and I’m not Tyrean. And because you’re Corvan Danavis’s daughter.”

“I knew it!” she spat.

“Listen, you half-wit! Listen or you’re unworthy of the role I have for you anyway.”

That shut her up.

“As Corvan’s daughter, I have some hope that you’re half as intelligent as he is. If so, you’ll be a formidable ally. I need bright leaders. But I won’t lie to you. I hope that your coming to our side might free your father from the Chromeria’s grip. I suspect that he only serves the Prism because they held you hostage. If that’s true, Corvan might come over to us, and having a general of his standing on our side might prevent any further war from even being necessary. That’s how much fear your father inspires. Men won’t even take the field against him. During the Prisms’ War, his enemies would use spyglasses to see which general was directing a battle. If it was your father, they would retreat and fight another day. That’s how good your father is, and I’d be a fool to ignore him when he might fight for me. If you think that’s me manipulating you, you’re right. I’ll use you. You’re important. The Chromeria will use you too. Already has. Grow up and realize it. I’ll be honest about it, that’s all. And my honesty gives you a choice. That’s better than they’ll give you.” His eyes were threaded with red and orange, like flames.

He was right. It was true. And if that was true, what if all of it was true?

“King Garadul slaughtered my whole town.”

“Yes. He even took some of my drafters and made them help him.”

Liv had expected him to deny it, excuse it.

“And yet you’d have me serve him?”

Lord Omnichrome lowered his voice. “Kings don’t live forever. Especially reckless ones.”

A huge explosion rocked the wall to the left of the gatehouse. It was powerful enough that it threw many of the combatants off their feet, and more than a few people off the wall itself, but as the smoke gradually cleared, to Liv it seemed that the charge must have been planted on the other side of the wall—the damage that she could see there was much more extensive, rows of houses simply obliterated. A cheer went up among the cavalry, though, as the clearing smoke showed a gap blasted in the wall itself.

“You see, the people of Garriston are working with us. They want to be free.”

But Liv barely heard him. She’d just seen something through the mists on the battlefield that took her breath away. Kip. And not just Kip. Kip and Karris both were riding into the fray. For a moment, Liv didn’t understand. Kip and Karris had switched sides? They were fighting to free Garriston? Then her eyes followed the path they were taking. The path led straight to King Garadul.

King Garadul, who Kip hated for wiping out their town and killing his mother.

And they were being pursued by half a dozen mounted Mirrormen.

“How much am I worth to you?” Liv said.

“I’ve already told you.”

“Then I’m yours, on one condition.”

The red swirled out of his eyes, replaced by orange and blue.

“Save my friends. Him, and her. The ones those Mirrormen are after.” She pointed.

Lord Omnichrome beckoned his attendant sharply, and the man came running with his long musket. “You wish me to kill several allies in order to gain one,” Lord Omnichrome said. “You barter lives like—”

“Like an adult,” Liv said sharply.

“And a formidable one indeed. But I’m not in the business of buying loyalty. I’ll do my best to save your friends. As a gift, regardless of what you decide.” He sighted down his musket and fired. A Mirrorman riding toward Karris died in a flash of light and blood. Lord Omnichrome handed the musket off to be reloaded.

“So take that out of your calculations, Liv, but tell me now, whom will you serve? Me, or the Chromeria?”

Fealty to One. And to one only.

There was no good choice. There were no good guys. Trying to do the right thing had led Liv to spying on her greatest benefactor. The Chromeria corrupted even people’s love for each other. Everyone she knew said Lord Omnichrome was a monster, but everyone she knew had been corrupted by the Chromeria. So maybe Lord Omnichrome wasn’t perfect. Neither was Gavin. The only people innocent here were the people of Tyrea. They deserved to be free. If Liv had to fight, she wasn’t going to fight for their oppressors. Fealty to One? A Danavis had to choose whom she would serve? So be it.

Taking a deep breath, Liv gave a full Tyrean formal curtsey. “Lord Omnichrome,” she said, her voice even, her eyes meeting his. “I’m yours. How may I serve?”