“If it works the way I’ve heard guessed at, a lightsplitter acts like a wedge in the stream of light, lengthening the long spectra and shortening the shorter, so that all the visible light hitting her is released above and below the visible spectrum. If she does it perfectly, she’ll glow bright as a torch in the superviolet and the sub-red. I’ve heard tales of lightsplitters burning up if there’s too much light to handle, say on a bright day-because they’re turning so much visible light into heat, they can burn out. These cloaks make what they do easier. Like lenses make it easier for a drafter to draft her color.”
Kip had seen so many wonders in the past months, he had no trouble believing it. “So you’re telling me there may be hordes of invisible people walking among us?”
“Not hordes. Splitting light well enough to be invisible is probably close to impossible. And there are only-if the legends are right, which is a big if-twelve of these cloaks, created for the original Order of the Broken Eye, if not before. Some have surely been lost or destroyed, and we now have two of them. So at most there are five more teams of assassins out there. Maybe only two or three. Maybe none.”
“At least we have these cloaks now.”
“Which is better than our enemies having them, but they’re probably useless to us. Having denied their existence, I don’t think the Chromeria has any method of testing drafters to find lightsplitters. Even if someone knew of such a thing, could they be convinced to share it when the very idea verges on heresy? The Atashian luxors suppressed something uncomfortably similar a hundred ten, maybe a hundred twenty years ago now.”
“And that’s one card,” Kip said.
“And you have a deck full. Breaker indeed.” Commander Ironfist started laughing quietly.
“What’s so funny?” Kip asked.
“I was just thinking that with how important these cards are and who can view them most clearly, you’ve probably just condemned a few of my least favorite people to spending the rest of their natural lives in a library somewhere, touching cards and taking notes.”
“You realize,” Kip said grumpily, “that that may well be my future you’re laughing about?”
“Doubtful,” a voice said behind Kip. “I imagine that you’ll be killed within the next year or live forever.”
Kip turned around, and there, in front of the most silent door in history stood Gavin Guile, his Gavin Guile smirk on his lips.
“But I wouldn’t bet against the boy who convinced Janus Borig to give him her life’s work.”
Kip couldn’t speak. Gavin’s presence filled the room.
“How is the old goat?” Gavin asked.
“Dead,” Kip said, his voice flat and lifeless. He hadn’t realized how much he’d cared for the woman until now.
A respectful pause. “I should have gathered as much from the cloaks. No evidence who sent them, I suppose?”
Kip had nothing to say. Obviously, his first instinct had been wrong.
“Don’t look at me, Lord Prism,” Commander Ironfist said. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t kill them. Kip did.”
Gavin shot a look at Kip. “ You killed them? That’s a story I’ll want to hear. But later. Well done, son.”
Son. Son! With one word, Gavin was overturning months of Lord Andross Guile’s torment. Kip wanted to fall all to pieces. He wanted to shove all the cards and the knife into his father’s hands and blubber.
Gavin raised a finger. “First things first. Commander, your Blackguards sent Grinwoody packing. I intercepted him. He was on his way back to my father. He seemed to think that when he returns, you’ll be deprived of your position.”
“I think that faithless worm is being optimistic,” Ironfist said.
“I sent Karris to stall him, but if there’s anything you need to do, I suggest you do it now. I’ll intervene for you so far as I can, but you’re not under my purview. You’re certain he’s wrong, and you’ve done nothing, and you’re sure Carver Black will save you?”
Commander Ironfist’s face clouded. “I suppose there are a couple things that could… cause problems.”
“What?” Kip asked. “What have you done?”
“It’s not what I’ve done,” Ironfist said. “I’ve been looking into some old m-Lord Prism, Breaker, excuse me. I have urgent matters to attend to.”
He stepped out the door, then turned. “Breaker,” he said. “You can trust Cruxer. And… just so you know, you’d have made an excellent Blackguard.”
He was leaving. Kip had the sudden fear that he’d never see the big man again.
Kip ran over and hugged him.
Ironfist grunted, surprised. Then he hugged Kip in return. After a moment, he pushed Kip back.
Gavin had an odd look in his eye at seeing Kip embrace the commander. A distance between them. But in a blink, it was gone. He tossed the man a coin purse. “Commander, just in case. And honestly, I don’t know for certain that they’re coming after you.”
“I do,” Ironfist said. “Orholam give you light, Lord Prism. Be well, Breaker.” Then he was gone.
Chapter 70
Idoss was a city of ancient ziggurats. Some luxiats said they were man’s attempt to scale to the heavens. They called them blasphemy. But those luxiats’ attempts to have the ziggurats torn down had never been successful. There were thirteen of the great terraced pyramids in the city arrayed geometrically, six and six around one. The central one was easily taller than the Prism’s Tower that Liv had thought was the tallest structure in the world.
Having surrendered to Dazen’s general Gad Delmarta rather than fight during the Prisms’ War, Idoss had escaped the torch and the sword and the flux. Most of the men pressed into service in Dazen’s army-at least those who survived the Battle of Sundered Rock-had made their way home within a couple months and the city had recovered more quickly from the war than any other city on the southern rim of the sea.
The city’s corregidor was the Atashian satrap’s son, Kata Ham-haldita. The term was Tyrean, one of the few remnants left of the time when Tyrea had included what was now eastern Atash. When the corregidor came out to parley, the Color Prince had the central avenue up which the young man traveled lined with all the color wights in the army, and instructed them to all be outside and in full view, but to ignore the corregidor and go about their chores so that he might believe there were far more of them in the army than there were.
It doubtless made for a terrifying walk, and the boy arrived rattled. And boy he was, for though he nominally ruled one of the richest cities in the Seven Satrapies, he was only twenty years old, and clearly young for his age.
Liv met Corregidor Ham-haldita and his two bodyguards outside the Color Prince’s tent. Her presence seemed to brace the young man. He smiled at her as if he was used to wooing women with that smile alone. He was a pretty boy, though skinny and narrow-shouldered. Liv preferred a man who looked like a man; she gave a pleasantly neutral nod. In truth, her heart was pounding-not from the boy, but with being trusted to be here. She’d worn the nicest of her dresses, and she could tell that the young man appreciated it.