“Owww!” he yelped. He cleared his throat, lowered his voice an octave. “Please.”
She went to a stack he swore he’d searched thoroughly and immediately plucked a shirt from its depths. He didn’t think he’d ever worn it before, but it was a style he liked, and dark enough that if the ointment soaked through this one, no one would notice. Marissia had a certain magic of her own. He could swear that shirt hadn’t been there before.
She began whistling quietly as she dressed him and fixed his hair; it was an old tune, pretty. Marissia was a good whistler.
Oh, the tune was “Little Lamb Lost.” A comment on not being able to find his own clothes? Probably. He had bigger things to worry about. He’d dealt with his brother, how much trouble could the Spectrum be?
“I’ll be leaving either in the morning or the next day,” Gavin said. “There’s a young man testing downstairs. Kip. He’s my, uh, natural son.” There was no need to use the “nephew” euphemism with Marissia. Marissia knew that Gavin had imprisoned his brother, but even she didn’t know that Gavin wasn’t Gavin. She hadn’t known either of them before the war, so she didn’t need to know. He trusted her completely, but the fewer people who knew that secret, the longer it would be before all this crashed down on his head. “He’s sixteen—fifteen, I mean. Will you find appropriate clothes for him and pack for both of us for two weeks?”
“More for fighting or for impressing?”
“Both.”
“Of course,” she said flatly.
On his way out the door, Gavin grabbed his sword in its jeweled scabbard. He wasn’t nearly the hand with a blade that even the least of the Blackguard was. He had been quite skilled once, but once he’d realized he could draft any combination of color and instantly have a weapon of whatever kind he needed, he hadn’t practiced with plain steel as often as was required to compete with professional warriors like the Blackguard.
Of course, that assumed a fair fight, and there was no such thing with a drafter. The Blackguards themselves would fight with whatever was at hand: blades, magic, a goblet of wine, or a faceful of sand.
He tucked the Ilytian pistols into his belt too. Just to be an ass.
When Gavin stepped out of his door, there were two Blackguards waiting for him. His escort. It was his compromise with the White. He got to travel without the Blackguard when he thought it was absolutely necessary—so, most of the time—as long as he agreed to have them around when he was in a place where assassination was more likely. The White wasn’t pleased with how he’d interpreted their agreement, but he clung ferociously to what little freedom he had.
He strode quickly through the single hall that separated the halves of this level. He and the White each had one-half of the floor. Because of the Chromeria’s rotation, Gavin’s half was always pointed toward the sun. An odd irony that the White should be forever in shadow, though in her elder years this White had appreciated it. It minimized the temptations of drafting and hastening her own death. Gavin wondered again how she did it. Without drafting, he would feel empty, weak. Life wouldn’t be worth living without chromaturgy. It defined who he was. Surely it had done the same for the White, and yet she lived on, her will still iron, her back unbowed.
Stepping past the Blackguards guarding her room, he knocked on her door.
“She’s not here,” the man on the left said. “The White has gone to meet with the Chromeria. She thought it would be rude to keep the full Spectrum waiting because of one man’s tardiness.”
This was how the Blackguards registered their displeasure. His own Blackguards knew where he was going as soon as he turned toward the White’s room rather than toward the lift, but they didn’t tell him. The White’s Blackguards knew where he was going as soon as they saw him, but they didn’t tell him the White was gone until he knocked, causing him to waste more time and be even later. One man’s tardiness? What’s the Spectrum going to talk about without me? I called the meeting.
As was typical, the Blackguards were careful in showing their irritation. There would be no more trouble from them for a while, Ironfist would see to that. If they peeved Gavin more than occasionally, he would do more to avoid them and they wouldn’t be able to do their job of protecting him. Still, they wanted him to respect them. Which he did, after a fashion.
It’s an odd person who volunteers to jump in front of an arrow when they don’t even know if they’ll like the Prism or White that they’ll be assigned to guard. But he wouldn’t be chained. Power was freedom. Power had to be maintained.
“If you can’t serve me well,” Gavin said to his own two Blackguards, “you can’t serve me at all.” He turned on his heel and started walking toward the lift.
Of course they said nothing. They simply accompanied him on his left and right. Commander Ironfist trained them to ignore orders that put their charges in danger.
Gavin waved his arms down, drafting bars of blue luxin strengthened with yellow down to his left and right. His Blackguards hesitated momentarily as he kept walking briskly, and he closed the gap in the middle. He kept walking, not even looking back as he threw up walls of solid blue, red, green, yellow, and superviolet.
It satisfied a small part of him. His brother really had gotten under his skin. The bastard.
But at the same time, this was necessary. The Blackguard had to know they couldn’t control him. That was how smart bodyguards worked: impede your freedom a little, then a little more, and soon they had their way. Gavin wasn’t going to let that happen. If he had the Blackguard hovering around him at all times—as they ultimately wished—they would learn not just his secrets like the skimmer and the condor, but his final secret. What would the Blackguard do if they found out that Gavin wasn’t Gavin at all? They might decide he was the de facto Prism and that was enough. Or they might decide he was a threat to the real Prism. Or he might split the Blackguard into warring camps. Pleasant thought, a bunch of elite warrior-drafters trying to destroy each other. That was what made this necessary. The Blackguard must be taught and taught again to accept the crumbs Gavin let drop: You can protect me if you serve me wholeheartedly, and I’ll withdraw that privilege whenever I please for any reason or none.
At first, years ago, Commander Spear had punished those Blackguards who let Gavin escape them. When that didn’t work, he’d made the punishments public, shaming the Blackguards for that which wasn’t their fault. Gavin had felt awful, and had not changed a bit. Commander Spear had escalated the punishments, publicly flogging several men, including a young Ironfist. Gavin had responded by yawning and not letting any Blackguards near him for a month. Then he’d walked through crowded markets, leaving bound and gagged the Blackguards that Commander Spear sent, and he’d done it in the aftermath of the war, when there had been not a few men who would have gladly killed him.
When there finally was an assassination attempt and no Blackguards present, Commander Spear had discharged the six Blackguards who were supposed to be protecting Gavin. The White had finally stepped in and discharged Commander Spear instead. Gavin hadn’t felt sorry for the man. Once he’d learned that using Gavin’s guilt against him wouldn’t work, he should have tried something else. A man who couldn’t change tactics shouldn’t be in charge of the Blackguard in the first place.