Five minutes later—or at least it only felt like five minutes later—he woke. Marissia was gone. Working, no doubt. He lay in the quiet, idly picking up his problems, then setting them down with no particular urgency. He did some of his best work this way. He remembered that Demnos Jorvis didn’t get along with his wife, Arys’s sister Ela. He thought about the rate of growth of a bane. Balancing had been done manually before, drafters of one color being instructed to use more luxin for a year, drafters of the color out of control instructed to use less. The Chromeria had quite a reach. He thought of the High Luxiats, the men who determined doctrine that would be promulgated throughout the satrapies, who would no doubt be itching to meet with him after all the strange reports. They loved and feared him, but could he push through a change to the religion itself? He thought of Karris. He would win her back. It was possible now, he was sure of it.

And he thought of his dead brother. He sat up, and saw that Marissia had brought in the tray with the hard square loaves of special bread he’d dropped down the chute five thousand times. He didn’t feel guilty. It was like looking into a mirror and realizing you’re not a child anymore. But this day, Gavin could look at himself dispassionately. So this is who I am: Gavin Guile, fratricide. The man who’d had the will to kill his brother to save the Seven Satrapies. He was now the man everyone had thought he was for sixteen years.

Almost.

Marissia slipped in the door.

“My lord,” she said. “Good, you’re up. Your father wants to meet with you immediately. All Little Jasper is buzzing with news of the young lady’s death. The Blackguard is being silent while they investigate—waiting for orders from the White, who’s sleeping, after being up all night. The Spectrum had an emergency session last night and voted on the composition of the forces heading to Ru. They put your father in charge, but defeated his attempt to be named promachos. Grinwoody cornered me, my lord, and commanded me to get you. He refused to believe that I didn’t know where you were.”

There were tricks to ruling, tricks to winning and maintaining loyalty through even the fiercest fire. Gavin sometimes forgot that those were as effective on those who knew you well as on strangers. Karris was right: Gavin too often let those closest to him get the worst of him. So he drew a black line between himself and his worries and focused all his attention on the woman before him. “Marissia,” he said. “That’s no problem. You’re marvelous. Superlative. If I make it through today without going to prison or the headsman, buy yourself something really, really nice.”

She grinned. “As my lord commands.”

Her joy lifted him. He was the Prism. He was Gavin Guile. What could he not accomplish in a year?

Chapter 87

“There are rumors you fought off an assassin last night,” Andross Guile said.

“An assassin?” Gavin asked. He’d barely been able to get down here without being seen. He’d been tempted to use the shimmercloaks again, but he wasn’t bringing those within a hundred paces of his father. Andross would know, somehow.

His father was sitting in the hellstone-dark room, but Gavin remained standing. He didn’t want to be here any longer than necessary.

“There’s another that you threw her off the balcony because she wouldn’t indulge your curious perversions. Oh wait, I started that one.” Andross Guile grinned mirthlessly.

“And who’d you spread that to? The mice? You’re a shut-in.”

“You think me toothless because I’m old?” Andross Guile asked.

That is generally when people lose their teeth. “I think you’re opposing me for no good reason other than to show you can. And it infuriates me, as it would you, were you in my shoes.”

“You are a stupid, stupid boy. How long have I been directing you? When have I done anything for no reason?”

Gavin was silent.

“You will marry, Gavin. Within the week. I’ve decided that—”

“Did you send that girl?”

“Pardon?”

“Did you send Ana Jorvis to my room last night?”

“That fool slattern was either trying to seduce you to salvage her family’s chance at winning the marriage with you—which I’d already told them they’d lost—or…” Andross Guile shrugged. “Or she really was an assassin. I heard a rumor that the Order is recruiting young girls. Or perhaps she just thought you would finally succumb to her girlish lusts, which, as I heard it, you did, didn’t you?”

“I thought…” No. Gavin wasn’t going to talk to his father about whom he bedded, or wanted to.

“Ha! All cats are gray in the dark?” When Gavin didn’t respond, the Red said, “Tisis Malargos, you’ll marry her. One week. It’s not ideal, but there’s war coming, and everyone who matters is already here. It will save me a fortune, anyway. And we need allies badly. Why’d you have to throw that girl over the damned rail, anyway?”

“It was an accident,” Gavin hissed.

The Red sat back in his chair, a look of triumph spreading over his face. “So you did throw her.”

He said it like it was new information. Gavin cursed. Cursing was safe.

“How’d you get to the Blackguards? How’d you get them to lie for you? I tried to buy off those boys myself—did you already own them?” Andross Guile asked.

They’d lied for him. Gavin and Gill Greyling had lied for him.

“Pretty good lie, too: You, furious at being duped, shouting. She panics. She jumps. You blame yourself and flee. It doesn’t defuse the enmity the Jorvises will feel, but it saves you from impeachment, and there were too many witnesses for you to have them swear she jumped off some lower balcony. Which brings us back to our need for allies.”

The weight of grace was a punch to the face. Totally unexpected, totally undeserved. Ana had been a fool, but she didn’t deserve death, and death was what Gavin had given her. Orholam have mercy.

Gavin took a deep breath. He took those feelings, boxed them up, and put them aside. I’ll mourn you later, Ana, and make recompense to your family, you damned harlot. I’m sorry.

Today would be a test. If he could make it through five more minutes with his father, he might make it through today. If he could make it through today, he might live another month. If another month, a year was possible.

“No,” Gavin said.

“And next time, for Orholam’s sake, how about a little self-control?”

“Self-control is for those who can’t control others,” Gavin said. Then he realized who’d taught him that: this grimly smiling man. “The answer is no.”

Andross Guile said, “You appear to be laboring under the mistaken assumption that I’m giving you a choice.”

“No mistake: No.” Gavin kept his voice level, civil, firm.

“If you choose not to obey me, you’re choosing for me to disown you.”

The threat literally took Gavin’s breath away.

“You think I can’t? You think because you’re my only child that I won’t? I’m not too old to have other children, you know. It was your mother who couldn’t, after Sevastian. If you don’t marry Tisis Malargos, I will. It’s that simple. I don’t know if she’d hate being married more to you or to me. Doesn’t matter. She’s a loyal girl. Loyal to her family. Practical. She’ll do what she has to. An example you would do well to follow.”