“Then let’s go sink some pirates.”
The Blackguards gave a cheer, only Cruxer forgetting to join in, looking wide-eyed and tight-strung.
Gavin drew his priceless dagger-pistols and turned to Kip. “Would you hold these for me?”
Kip scowled, remembering how he’d nearly dropped them into the sea last time.
“Joking, Kip. Joking.”
Kip grinned.
“This is for you.” Gavin handed Kip a bundle.
Unwrapping it, Kip found it was a belt with a pouch meant to be worn across one hip, like a holster. In the pouch were seven spectacles, in spectral order, each in its own velvet-lined half-pocket. There were little runes in silver sticking out next to each pocket so that you could tell by feel which spectacles you were about to draw.
Kip looked up at his father, wide-eyed. The spectacles alone were worth a fortune, but this looked old.
“Do your best not to lose the sub-red and the superviolet. We don’t know how to make spectacles like those anymore,” Gavin said.
Drawing the sub-red and putting them on, Kip gasped as he saw what Gavin meant. Usually you had to relax your eyes and let them lose focus to see the heat of things. With these glasses, Kip could see in the sub-red spectrum and the visible spectrum at the same time.
“You’ll still have to relax your eyes to draft sub-red, but it makes finding good sources much easier.” Gavin buckled the belt onto Kip and showed him how he could draw a pair of spectacles quickly, flick his wrist to snap the earpieces open, and put them on. Then he flicked the spectacles to one side, which snapped one earpiece closed, and then hooked the other in, letting the pouch close the other and hold it firmly.
Gavin gave Kip the binocle and said, “You can draft when we get into the fight, but I want you to keep an eye out. It’s easy to get tunnel vision. Even for me. I’m going to be steering and drafting and shouting orders and dodging fire and magic. You keep your head about you. If another ship is bringing its guns up to rake us with a broadside, I might not even see it. Head on a swivel, got it?”
“Yes, sir.” Kip didn’t know what else to say, how to thank his father for the spectacles, but Gavin didn’t seem to require anything. He went to the pipes and motioned forward. With everyone on their own, the big skimmer picked up speed quickly.
In no time at all, they were hurtling across the waves at incredible speed, with the Gargantua getting bigger and bigger all the time.
Ahead of them, Kip saw the stern gunports yanked open, and big, big cannons pushed out the holes.
“On my signal,” Gavin said. “Wait for it. Wait for it!”
Chapter 99
As usual, Liv woke next to Zymun. It was early, and the young man’s breath was even, regular. He was a heavy sleeper. Their tent wasn’t large, barely tall enough to stand in, and they slept on piles of furs and blankets on the ground. Liv rolled over, careful not to disturb Zymun. He insisted she sleep naked, and sometimes he liked to start his day the way he liked to end it. It was flattering to be desired so much, but sometimes she thought she simply happened to be the most convenient way to sate his hungers.
She blinked, aware of some change in the atmosphere, a freer brush of the wind than a closed tent should allow.
The Color Prince stood outlined against the morning light in front of the open tent flap. He held up a finger so she didn’t speak and wake Zymun. He motioned that she was to come with him.
A wave of shame went through her. She felt like a whore, caught by her father with a boy she didn’t even love. The feelings crested, and she quickly drafted superviolet. It was like the first puff of ratweed in the morning, except the luxin made her think more clearly. The feelings were the vestiges of small-town religiosity. Besides, the Color Prince believed in freedom, free choices. She was young. She could do whatever she wanted. There was no need to feel shame here.
She stood, briefly forgetting in the superviolet rush that she was naked. Koios White Oak looked at her frankly, and she soaked up his regard as boldly as if it were light itself. She waited a long second until she saw the twinge of regret hit him, and moved as soon as she saw it, gathering up her shift and pulling on her dress so that he might think she hadn’t seen it. There were other kinds of power than magic and the sword. But some power works best in silence.
In silence, she dressed in her most practical dress and held her long dark hair out of the way. The Color Prince buttoned the last buttons for her, then she followed him out into the camp.
As the Blood Robes had marched on, rolling over town after town, their ranks had swollen. Liv was never sure how many of those who joined them believed in their cause, or if they merely believed in victory and plunder. She wanted to despise those who joined out of convenience, but she was using superviolet too much to be more than coolly amused most of the time. Besides, men believe in power, and what is victory but the demonstration of power?
Parts of her still mourned it, but everywhere she looked, she saw that the Color Prince was right. Power. All human interactions came down to power.
The Color Prince gave sermons every day, and he had disciples now, both drafters and munds, who wrote down every word and did their best to make a coherent system of it all. He talked about Dazen coming back and championing their cause. He talked about freedom. He talked about the tributes they all paid to the Chromeria. Though his words melded politics and religion and history and civics and science, Liv thought she discerned less of an incredibly nuanced system underneath his rhetoric, and more of a belief created simply by the strength of his believers’ faith that it must be rational, or their great leader wouldn’t profess it. She couldn’t tell how much of it the Omnichrome believed, but she knew that if he was going to accomplish his great purposes, he needed loyal followers. And those followers needed something to believe in, to unify them.
He didn’t preach to the mob about power, just as he didn’t allow them to call him Koios. Familiarity and knowledge both were for the privileged. Sometimes Liv thought the Color Prince probably didn’t give a damn what all the people believed, that he tapped the heresies he tapped because he figured he might as well exploit every resentment against the Chromeria.
“Have you figured out your great purpose yet, Aliviana?” the prince asked. He nodded to a group of green wights who barely stirred at his presence. Greens weren’t much good at veneration either.
“Aside from bait for my father?”
“I told you from the beginning you were that, and no, I haven’t given up all hope for Corvan. But a hostage needn’t be given privileges or the freedom you have. Surely you’ve gone past that.”
“I’m the best superviolet you’ve got. It has something to do with that,” Liv said.
“A broad guess,” the prince said. “But not long ago you would have said ‘one of the best.’ ” He seemed amused.
“I’ve changed,” she said. She was more confident now; she had cut away the Chromeria’s false humility. “And I’m right.”
“Mmm.”
The Red Cliffs loomed above the whole camp. There were spidery trails everywhere up those cliffs, but the prince had opted to send almost everyone along the coastal road. Only his cavalry had traveled along the high road, foraging and ready to put down any armed resistance.
The army was big enough now that some days there were skirmishes that Liv didn’t even find out about until after dark. The Atashian army had probed the Blood Robes for weakness, but with the number of drafters the prince had, they hadn’t found much. Zymun had speculated, though, that they were going to find out how much steel was in the Atashians’ spines soon. The army was to reach the narrowest pass between sheer cliffs and the ocean tomorrow.