Master Danavis started to say something, then saw that Kip was serious. He said nothing for a moment, then his whole demeanor changed.

He started asking Kip questions rapid-fire: where were they exactly, when was he there, how did he know they were going to wipe out the town, what had the tents looked like, how many tents had he counted, were there any drafters? Kip's answers were unbelievable even to his own ears, but Master Danavis accepted it all.

"He said King Garadul is recruiting color wights? You're certain?"

"Yessir."

Master Danavis rubbed his upper lip with thumb and forefinger, like a man would smooth his mustache, though he was clean-shaven. He strode to a chest, opened it, and grabbed a purse out. "Kip, your friends are fishing this morning at Green Bridge. You need to get out there and warn them. The king's men will seize that bridge. If you don't warn them, your friends will be killed or taken for slaves. I'll warn everyone here in town. Worse comes to worst, use that money to get to the Chromeria. Liv will help you."

"But-but, my mother! Where-"

"Kip, I'll do my best to save her and everyone here. No one else is going to save your friends. You want Isabel taken as a slave? You know what happens, right?"

Kip blanched. Isa was still a tomboy, but it hadn't escaped him that she was turning into a beautiful woman. She wasn't always very nice to him, but the thought of someone hurting her filled him with rage. "Yes, sir." Kip turned to go, hesitated. "Sir, what's a superchromat?"

"A pain in my ass. Now go!"

Chapter 5

This was not going to be pretty. The note, the you-have-a-son note, hadn't been sealed. Gavin could pretty much guarantee that the White's people read all of his correspondence. But Karris had laughed after giving him the note, which meant she she hadn't. So she didn't know. Yet. But she'd gone to report to the White. Where Gavin was expected. hadn't. So she didn't know. Yet. But she'd gone to report to the White. Where Gavin was expected.

He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck to one side and then the other, each giving a satisfying little pop, then started walking. His Blackguards fell in step behind him, each carrying a wheellock musket and wearing an ataghan or other weapon. He climbed the stairs to the open roof balcony of the Chromeria. As always, he noticed Karris first. She was short, with a naturally curvy figure now carved into too-hard planes and veins by years of strenuous training. Her hair was long and straight and platinum blonde today. Yesterday it had been pink. Gavin liked it blonde. Blonde usually meant she was in a good mood. Her hair color changes were nothing magical. She just liked to change frequently. Or maybe she figured she stood out so much that she might as well not even try to blend in.

Like the other Blackguards protecting the White, Karris wore fine black trousers and blouse, cut for fighting and plain except for the embroidery of her rank on the shoulder and at the neck in gold thread. Like the others, she carried a slim black ataghan ataghan-a slightly forward-curving sword with a single cutting edge for most of its length-and rather than a shield, a metal parrying stick with a punch dagger in the middle. Like the others, she was extensively trained in the use of both, and a number of other weapons. Unlike the others, her skin wasn't the deep black of a Parian or an Ilytian.

Nor was her mood dark, apparently. There was a mischievous little twist to her lips. Gavin raised a brow at her, pretending to be mildly peeved about her earlier prank with the shades in his room, and came to stand before the White.

Orea Pullawr was a shrunken old woman who was taking more and more to the wheeled chair she sat in now. Her Blackguards made sure that every guard rotation had at least one burly man in case she needed to be carried up or down stairs. But despite her physical infirmity, Orea Pullawr hadn't needed to fend off a challenger for the white robe for more than a decade. Most people couldn't even remember her real name; she simply was was the White. the White.

"Are you ready?" she asked. Even after all these years, she still had trouble accepting that this wasn't hard for him.

"I'll manage."

"You always do," she said. Her eyes were clear and gray except for two broad arcs of color surrounding each iris, blue on top and green below. The White was a blue/green bichrome, but those arcs of color were washed out in her eyes, desaturated now because she hadn't drafted in so long. But each arc was as thick as possible, extending from the pupil out to the very edge of each iris. If she ever drafted again, she'd break the halo: the color would break through into the whites of each eye, and that would be the end of her. That was why she didn't wear colored spectacles. Unlike other retired drafters, she didn't even continue the pretense of carrying around her unused spectacles to remind everyone of what she once was. Orea Pullawr was the White, and it was enough.

Gavin headed to the dais. Above it, mounted on arcing tracks so it could be adjusted for any time of day or month of the year, a great polished crystal hung. He didn't need it. Never had, but it seemed to make everyone more comfortable to think he required some crutch to handle so much light. He never got lightsick either. Life just wasn't fair. "Any special requests?" he asked.

How exactly the Prism felt the imbalances in the world's magic was still a mystery. Shrouded in religious hokum about the Prism being connected straight to Orholam and therefore all the satrapies, the subject had not even been studied before Gavin became the Prism. Even the White had been quite nearly fearful when she asked about it, and she was as brassy a woman as Gavin had ever met.

Not that they'd made much progress, but long ago he and the White had struck a bargain: she would study him intensely and he would cooperate, and in turn she would allow him to travel without Blackguards dogging his every step. It worked, mostly. Sometimes he couldn't help but tease her, since it seemed they hadn't learned anything in the sixteen years he'd been the Prism. Of course, when he pushed her too far, she'd bring him up here and say she really needed to examine how the light moved through his skin. So he'd balance. In the open air. In the winter. Naked.

Not pleasant. Gavin being Gavin, he'd learned pretty much exactly where the line was. Emperor of the Seven Satrapies indeed.

"I'd like you to start allowing the Blackguard to do their jobs, Lord Prism."

"I meant about the balancing."

"They train their whole lives to serve us. They risk their lives. And you disappear, every week. We agreed you could travel without them, but only during emergencies."

Serve us? It's a little more complicated than that.

"I live dangerous," Gavin said. They fought about this all the time. Doubtless the White figured that if she didn't make a show here, he would push for more freedom. Doubtless she was right. Gavin looked at the White flatly. The White looked at Gavin flatly. The Blackguards were very, very quiet.

Is this how you would have handled them, brother? Or would you have simply charmed them into submission? Everything in my life is about power.

"Nothing special today," the White said. Gavin began.

A Prism, at core, did two things no one else could do. First, Gavin could split light into its component colors without external aids. A normal red drafter could draft only an arc of red, some a wider arc, some a lesser arc. In order to draft, they had to be seeing red-red rocks, blood, a sunset, a desert, whatever. Or, as drafters had learned long ago, they could wear red spectacles, which filtered the sun's white light to deliver only red. It gave less power, but it was better than being utterly dependent on one's surroundings.

The same limitations applied to every drafter: monochromes could draft only one color; bichromes could draft two colors. Generally, it was colors that bordered each other, like red and orange, or yellow and green. Polychromes-those who controlled three or more colors-were the rarest, but even they had to draft from the colors they could see. Only the Prism never needed spectacles. Only Gavin could split light within himself.

That was convenient for Gavin, but it didn't help anyone else. What did help was this: standing atop the Chromeria, light streaming through his eyes, filling his skin with every color in the spectrum, bleeding out of every pore, he could feel the imbalances in magic in all the world.

"To the southeast, like before," Gavin said. "Deep in Tyrea, likely Kelfing, someone's using sub-red, and lots of it." Heat and fire usually meant war magic. It was the first place most non-drafting warlords or satraps went when they wanted to kill people. No subtlety. The amount of sub-red being used in Tyrea meant either they'd been having a quiet war, or the new satrap Rask Garadul had set up his own school to train battle drafters. It wouldn't be something his neighbors would be happy to learn. The Ruthgari governor who occupied Tyrea's former capital Garriston definitely wouldn't be happy to learn it.

In addition to the surfeit of sub-red, more red magic than blue had been used since Gavin last balanced, and more green than orange. The system was self-regulating, initially. If red drafters around the world used too much red, it would begin to get harder for them to draft, and simultaneously easier for the blues. Sealed red luxin would unravel more easily, while sealed blue would seal better. At that level, it was an inconvenience, an annoyance.

Legends spoke of an era before Lucidonius came and brought the true worship of Orholam when the magic centers had been spread throughout the world: green in what was now Ruthgar, red in Atash, and so forth, all worshipping pagan gods and mired in superstition and ignorance. Some warlord had massacred almost all the blues. Within months, they said, the Cerulean Sea had turned to blood, the waters choked of life. Fishermen on every side of the sea had starved. The few surviving blue drafters had heroically worked to bring the balance back by themselves-using so much blue magic that they'd killed themselves. The seas cleared, and the red drafters returned to drafting as before. But this time there were no blue drafters left. Anything using red luxin failed, the seas turned bloody again, famine and disease descended.

And so it went. Nearly every generation huge natural disasters wiped out thousands who believed they'd done something to offend their capricious gods.

Prisms prevented that. Gavin could feel what was out of balance long before there were any physical signs, and fix it by drafting the opposite color. When Prisms failed, as they inevitably did after seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, the Chromeria had to prevent disasters the hard way-in addition to running around putting out fires (sometimes literally), they would send missives throughout the world, perhaps urging blues not to draft unless it was an emergency, and reds to draft more than usual. Because everyone could only draft a finite amount in their lives, that meant hastening the reds to their death, and keeping the blues from doing useful work in all of the Seven Satrapies. So at such times, the Chromeria sought a Prism's replacement with great fervor. And Orholam was faithful to send a new Prism every generation, or so the teaching went.

Except for Gavin's generation, when in his ineffable wisdom, Orholam had somehow sent two-and torn the world apart.

Gavin spun in a slow circle, spreading his arms wide and releasing gouts of superviolet light to balance the sub-red, then red to balance blue, then orange to balance green. When the world felt right once more, he stopped.

He turned and smiled at the White. Her expression, as usual, was a cipher. Her Blackguards-every one of whom was a drafter and thus had an idea of how much power Gavin had just handled-looked similarly unimpressed. Or perhaps they were simply habituated. He was the Prism, after all. It was his job to do the impossible. If anything, they relaxed slightly. Their job was to protect the White, even from him, if it came to it.

Gavin was the Prism, and thus ostensibly the emperor of the Seven Satrapies. In reality, his duties were mostly religious. Prisms who became too much more than just figureheads found themselves forcibly retired. Often permanently. The Blackguard would die to protect him from anyone else, but the White was the head of the Chromeria. If it came to it, they'd fight for her, not him. If it did, they knew they would likely all die, but then, that was what they trained for. Even Karris.

Gavin wondered sometimes, if that ever happened, would Karris be the last to try to kill him, or the first?

"Karris?" the White said. "There's a ship waiting for you, heading for Tyrea. Take this. You can read it once you set sail. When you can, scull the rest of the way. Time is of the essence." She handed Karris a folded note. It wasn't even sealed. Either the White trusted Karris not to even open it before her ship sailed, or she knew she'd read it immediately whether it was sealed or not. Gavin thought he knew Karris well, and he didn't know which she'd do.

Karris took the note and bowed deeply to the White, never even glancing at Gavin. Then she turned and left. Gavin couldn't help but watch her go, her figure svelte, graceful, powerful, but he kept his glance brief. The White would notice regardless, but if he stared, she'd probably say something.

She waved her hand as Karris disappeared down the stairs, and the rest of the Blackguard withdrew from earshot.

"So, Gavin," she said, folding her arms. "A son. Explain."

Chapter 6

Green Bridge was less than a league upstream from Rekton. Kip's body screamed at him to quit running, but every time he slowed his pace, he imagined the soldiers coming up the opposite side of the river. He had to get there first.

About twelve nightmares of enslavement and death later, he did. Isabel and Ramir and Sanson were relaxing against the bridge, fishing. Isabel was bundled against the cold, watching while Sanson tried to tease out rainbow trout and Ram told him how he was doing it wrong. They all looked at Kip as he bent over, puffing. No sight of soldiers anywhere.

"Gotta go," Kip said in between breaths. "Soldiers coming."

"Oh, no, oh, no! Not soldiers soldiers!" Ram said in mock panic.

Sanson jumped to his feet, thinking Ramir was serious. Sanson was bucktoothed and gullible, good-natured, always the last to get a joke and the most likely to be the butt of it.

"Relax, Sanson. I'm joking," Ramir said, punching Sanson's shoulder, too hard.

When they'd first heard about the recruiters demanding levies, it had taken them about a second to conclude that if one of them were pressed into King Garadul's service, it would be Ram. At sixteen, he was a year older than the rest of them, and the only one who seemed remotely like a soldier.

"I'm not," Kip said, still bent over, hands on his knees, breathing hard.

Still uncertain, Sanson said, "My ma said the alcaldesa had a big fight with the king's man. She said the alcaldesa told him to stick those orders in his ear."

"If I know the alcaldesa, she didn't say ear ear," Isa said. She grinned wickedly, and Sanson and Ram laughed. They just weren't getting it.

Kip saw Isa look at Ram-just a quick glance, looking for his approval. As she found it, Kip saw her pleasure double, and he felt sick in his stomach. Again.

"What's going on, Kip?" she asked. Big brown eyes, full lips, full curves, flawless skin. It was impossible to talk to her and not be aware of her beauty. Prettier even than Liv, really, and infinitely more here here.

Kip tried to find words. People are coming to kill us, and I'm worried about some girl who doesn't even like me.

From Green Bridge, it was three or four hundred paces to the nearest orange grove. There was precious little cover between the bridge and the trees.

"There are-" Kip started, but Ram ran right over his words.

"If they conscript me, I'm going to volunteer to become a battle drafter," Ram said. "It's dangerous, I know, but if I have to leave everything I love here, I'm going to make something of myself." He looked into the distance, off to a grand future. Kip wanted to punch him in his handsome, heroic face.

"Why don't you and Sanson run off?" Ram asked. "You know, hide from the big bad army? Isa and I want to say goodbye."

"Why can't you say goodbye with us here?" Sanson asked.

Isa blushed.

Ram's eyes flashed. "Seriously, you two, don't be assholes, huh?" he said, pretending to be joking.

"Ram, listen," Kip said. "The army is coming to make an example of us. We need to leave. Right. Now. Master Danavis said they'd seize the bridge." In fact, Green Bridge itself was a relic from the last army that came through. It was all green luxin-the most durable luxin: when sealed, it broke down more slowly than any other kind. They said that when Gavin Guile had led his army through here on his way to crush his evil brother Dazen Guile's army, Gavin Guile, the Prism himself, had drafted this bridge. By himself. In seconds. The army had pushed through without slowing, though its foragers had stolen all the food and livestock still in town. All the men in the town had been pressed into service on one side or the other.

It was why they had all grown up without fathers. No one in Rekton should treat an army passing through as a light matter. Not even the children.

"Do me a favor, Tubby. I'll make it up to you," Ram said.

"If you go with the soldiers, you won't be here here to make it up to me," Kip said. He wanted to kill Ram when he called him Tubby. to make it up to me," Kip said. He wanted to kill Ram when he called him Tubby.

An ugly look passed over Ram's features. They'd fought before, and Ram won every time. But it was never easy. Kip could take a lot of punishment, and sometimes he went crazy. They both knew it. Ram said, "So do me a favor, huh?"

"We have to go!" Kip nearly shouted. He didn't know why he was surprised. It was no mistake they always called Ramir Ram. He picked a goal and went straight at it, bashing down anything in his path, never veering right or left. His goal today was to take Isabel's maidenhead. That simple. No mere invading army was going to stop the stupid animal.

"Fine. Come on, Isa, we'll go to the orange grove," Ram said. "And don't think I'll forget this, Kip."

Ram took her hand and pulled her into a walk. She went with him but turned, looking over her shoulder at Kip, as if expecting him to do something.

But what could he do? They were actually going the right direction. If he went over there and punched Ram in the face, Ram would beat him bloody-and worse, they'd both be out in the open. If Kip followed on their heels, Ram might assume he was trying to start a fight even if he wasn't, with the same result.

Isabel was still looking at him. She was so beautiful it hurt.

Kip could stay. Do nothing. Hide under the bridge.

No!

Kip cursed. Isa looked back as he emerged from Green Bridge's shadow. Her eyes widened, and he thought he saw the shadow of a smile touch her lips. Real joy at seeing Kip pursue her and be a man, or just venal delight in being fought over? Then her gaze shifted up and left, to the opposite bank of the river. Surprised.

There was a man's yell from above, but over the hiss of the waters Kip couldn't understand what he said. Ram stumbled as he reached the top of the riverbank. He didn't catch himself. Instead, he dropped to his knees, tottered, and fell backward.

It was only when Ram's limp body rolled over that Kip saw the arrow sticking out of his back.

Isa saw it too. She looked at whoever was on the bank, glanced at Kip, and then bolted in the other direction.

"Kill her," a man commanded in a loud clear voice, on the bridge directly above Kip. His voice was passionless.

Kip felt sick, helpless. He'd wasted too much time. His mind refused what his eyes reported. Isa was running along the bank of the river, fast. She'd always been fast, but there was nowhere to hide, no cover from the arrow Kip knew was coming. His heart hammered in his chest, roared in his ears, and then, suddenly, its rate doubled, tripled.

The barest shadow flicked at the corner of his eye: the arrow. Kip's arm spasmed as if he himself had been struck. A flash of blue, barely visible, thin and reedy, darted from him into the air.

The arrow splashed into the river, a good fifteen paces away from Isa. The archer cursed. Kip looked down at his hands. They were trembling-and blue. As achingly bright blue as the sky. He was so stunned he froze for a moment.

He looked back to Isa, now more than a hundred paces away. There was the same flicker of a shadow as another arrow passed from the periphery of his vision to the center of it-right into Isa's back. She pitched face first onto the rough stones of the riverbank, but as Kip watched, she got back up to her knees slowly, the arrow jutting from her lower back, hands and face streaming blood. She was almost to her feet when the next arrow thudded into her back. She dropped face first into the shallows of the river and moved no more.

Kip stood there stupidly, disbelieving. His vision narrowed to the point where crimson life swirled from Isa's back into the clear water of the river.

Hoofbeats clopped loudly on the bridge above them. Kip's mind churned.

"Sir, the men are ready," a man said above them. "But... sir, this is our own town." Kip looked up. The green luxin of the bridge overhead was translucent, and he could see the shadows of the men-which meant that if he or Sanson moved, the soldiers might see them too.

Silence, then, coldly, the same officer who had demanded Isa die said, "So we should let subjects choose when to obey their king? Perhaps obeying my orders should be optional, too?"