She trapped one of Kip’s legs in one iron hand. Then she punched his thigh. She caught it dead center. It was like being kicked by a horse. He screamed. Then she grabbed his other leg. No amount of thrashing could break her grip. It was hard to even breathe with her on top of him, her legs crushing his face. She pummeled his other leg, and it too went dead. She pushed herself up and punched him in the groin.

Stars flashed in front of Kip’s eyes. Any thought of counterattack fled. He just wanted to curl into a ball. Her weight shifted, crushing him again, and then she stood. She had one of his ankles in each of her hands, and she lifted him easily. She was going to toss him over the balcony, dear Orholam. There was nothing he could do to stop it.

Eyes squinted in pain, weakly thrashing, Kip saw a thin beam of superviolet luxin stick to the assassin’s head.

“Stop it! Drop him now!” a young woman screamed from inside the room. Liv?

The assassin snarled a curse and turned toward Liv just as a yellow luxin ball blasted from her hands, zipped along the superviolet line, and exploded in a blinding flash against the assassin’s face. Mistress Helel dropped Kip, lifting a hand to protect herself too late, and staggered backward.

She was so tall that the rail of the balcony caught her below the waist. She hit it hard and tottered. Her meaty hands slapped onto the rail as she went on tiptoe, feet seeking purchase. Kip, lying on the ground, slid a hand under her foot and lifted. Not hard—he was in so much pain he could barely move—but it was enough.

The assassin felt herself going over the edge and scrambled. She fell—and caught herself on the rail of the balcony. Through the clear yellow of the balcony, she swung face-to-face with Kip. Each balcony had a small gap for rainwater to sluice off so it wouldn’t fill with water, and the big woman’s face was barely a foot from Kip’s own.

Kip looked at her. He knew how this ended. Some skinny woman might be able to pull her weight up, but not a woman this size. Kip was strong—he could lift heavier things than Sanson or even Ram—but when you were really big, heaving your entire weight over a ledge was impossible. And this woman was much bigger than he was. Mistress Helel heaved, and for one terrifying moment Kip thought he was wrong. Her elbows bent and her body lifted. She swung one heavy leg to the side, trying to reach it high enough to reach the rain-gap in the balcony.

Then her strength gave out and she swung back to vertical. She was finished. Kip could see it in her eyes. “Light cannot be chained, Little Guile,” she said. “Anat blind you. Mot smite you to the tenth generation. Belphegor blight your sons. Atirat spit on your mother’s grave. Ferrilux corrupt your father’s—”

Kip punched her through the rain-gap. Her nose crunched in a spray of blood. She must have been expecting the blow, because she tried to snag his fist—but missed.

She fell, flailing all the way, screaming something, but Kip couldn’t make out the words. She slammed into a sharp boulder not five paces from the crashing waves of the Cerulean Sea, and her body actually burst asunder, a piece—a leg?—shearing off and flying to splash into the water as the rest of her crunched in one long bloody smudge.

It didn’t seem real. Part of Kip knew that could have been him, maybe should have been him, but he was suddenly aware of Liv standing just inside her apartments. “Kip, Kip, we killed her,” Liv was saying. Kip was more aware that his balls were aching and he was pretty much naked in front of the only girl he knew, and he was fat and gross and should cover himself immediately.

He’d barely hiked up his pants by the time Liv lurched to the balcony rail and vomited. Kip hated throwing up. He hated himself throwing up, and he hated other people throwing up. But worst, he discovered, as the wind blew across the yellow tower and carried mist through the rain-gap, Kip hated being thrown up on. Little misty wetness stuck to his face and in his open mouth.

He rolled over, spitting and coughing and slapping at his own face to wipe off puke-mist. He rolled to his feet, balls still aching, face scrunched.

“Oh no,” Liv said, her face gray and mortified, realizing she’d thrown up on him. She looked from him, to his crotch where his pants were torn, and then to the rocks so far below. She struggled for words and found none.

“You know, I’m glad things aren’t awkward between us,” Kip said. Did I really just say that? It was like part of him couldn’t help being totally inappropriate. He’d just killed someone, and he was so terrified and pained and embarrassed and mortified and thankful to be alive and he didn’t even know what all else, he couldn’t help himself.

Liv’s mouth twitched up for half a moment, and then she leaned back over the rail and vomited again.

Always something to say, never the right thing. Well done, Kip.

Chapter 51

“Midsummer is coming,” the White said. “Sun Day.”

Gavin stood in front of her on the top of the Chromeria. Together, they were waiting for the sun to rise. Midsummer, as far as Gavin was concerned, was always coming.

“I’ve started preparations for the Freeing,” she said. “Do you think your father will commune this year?”

Gavin snorted. “Not this year. Not ever.” He rubbed his temples. He hadn’t slept.

“It’s not natural,” the White said quietly. “I used to marvel at his self-control, you know. Living in that awful room, keeping his mind sharp, keeping the nightmares at bay.”

“Nightmares have to keep him at bay.”

“I live half in darkness, Gavin,” the White said as if he hadn’t interrupted. “That’s how it feels to live without drafting. But to live fully in darkness? Is that not a denial of Orholam himself? ‘They love the darkness, for their deeds are dark, and the light shames them.’ ”

“I leave the state of my father’s soul to my father. Are we not to honor our fathers, rendering obedience unto the authority the Father of All has entrusted to them?”

“You’re not just a son, Gavin. You’re the Prism. You should honor Orholam by practicing the authority he’s given you, not just the power.”

“Maybe it’s time for you to be Freed,” Gavin said bitterly. He had these conversations at least once a year. He was sick of it. The White asked after his father, his father suggested the White go first. Both pressured him to pressure the other.

The White held her hands out, palms up. “If you command it, my Prism, I will join the Freeing. Gladly.”

Her words stopped him cold. She meant it.

“I also obey,” the White said. “It might surprise you to learn it, Gavin, but I drew the straw to become the White before I began to understand what it was to even be a drafter, much less a Color, much less the White. But perhaps it is not a lesson that can be taught, only learned.”

“What are you talking about?” Gavin asked.

“Do you know why faith is harder for us, my Lord Prism?” The White grinned. Sometimes despite her years, she seemed a mischievous girl.

“Because we know Orholam sleeps a hundred years for every day he wakes?” Gavin asked. He was tired, and not just from the insomnia.

She refused the bait. “Because we know ourselves. Because others obey us as though we were gods, and we know we’re not. We see the fragility of our own power, and through it we see the fragility of every other link. What if the Spectrum suddenly refused my orders? Not hard to imagine, when you consider the scheming and lust for power it takes to become a Color. What if a general suddenly refuses his satrap’s orders? What if a son refuses his father’s orders? What if that first link in the Great Chain of being—Orholam Himself—is as empty as every other link before him? Seeing the weakness of each link, we think the Great Chain itself is fragile: surely at any moment it will burst if we don’t do everything in our power to hold it together.”