The Black Prism

Chapter 41

Liv had barely seen her new apartments in the yellow tower before she'd gone out. Not to celebrate, not because she was impulsive, but because her courage had been fading with every passing second. She'd been to half the moneylenders on the islands before she found one willing to do business with her.

Stepping inside her new room, she found that the tower's slaves had brought all her meager belongings over from the closet she'd called home for the last three years. And there was a woman sitting on her bed.

"Salve, Liv, been out celebrating?" Aglaia Crassos asked.

"What are you doing in my apartments?" Liv asked. "How'd you get in here?"

"It's not good to forget your friends, Aliviana." Aglaia stood and came to stand a hand's breadth from Liv's face.

"What? You're here to threaten me? I'm shaking."

Something ugly crossed Aglaia's face, but then was replaced by that smooth mask again, and that disingenuous laugh. "Careful with that sharp tongue, girl. You may cut your own throat."

"I'm done," Liv said. "Gavin Guile has-"

"Bought you to be his bed slave. I heard."

"Go to hell!" Liv said.

"You're the one who'll do that, seeing how you're throwing yourself at the man who murdered your mother and destroyed your country."

It was a tremendous slap. Liv took a step back.

Aglaia had made a reference to the burning of Garriston before, but Liv had never heard anything remotely like that. In truth, Liv had no idea, but considering the source, she was willing to bet it was a lie. "The Prism didn't have anything to do with that."

"And you know that because he said so? Your mother died in those fires. Your father led the fight against Gavin Guile."

"What do you care about Garriston? Ruthgar fought on the Prism's side. Your father fought beside Gavin."

"And my brother is the governor of Garriston, so I'm in a position to know things," Aglaia said. She lowered her voice and leaned in. "And maybe now you are too."

So that was what this was about. "No," Liv said. "I'm finished with you, with Ruthgar, and with your lies." Fealty to One. That was the Danavis motto, with strong suggestion that it was fealty only to one. And Liv wasn't about to serve this one.

"Welcome to your new life, Liv. You're important now. You are a player in the great game, and your hand isn't all bad. You see, Liv, you might be Tyrean, but no one's going to hold that against you anymore. It will only make you more remarkable for overcoming such a handicap. The good life can be yours."

"You can't buy me," Liv said.

"We already did."

"Things are different now. By the Prism's own command."

Aglaia's eyebrows rose slowly, making her horsey face seem even longer. It was a practiced gesture, but then, nothing about her was genuine. "I've been working with you for, what, three years now? And I went back through my notes. I never thought you were a thief, Aliviana Danavis. But now you're abandoning your duty after three years of schooling. Three years we've supported your every need-"

"Oh so generously, too!" Liv said.

"If it had been more generous, your debt would be that much greater now. Here's my question, Liv. What kind of woman are you?"

It was the same question that had put a quill in Liv's hand to sign away a fortune. With her new friendship with Gavin, she could probably tell the Ruthgari to go bugger themselves. What could they say against the Prism's decision? And though Liv had gone from a nothing-a monochrome talented in a minimally useful color-to a bichrome, she still wasn't worth fighting over. Plenty of each nation's investments went bad. Drafters died or burned out, or switched loyalty in the last year of their training. Every nation tried to steal drafters, and the Ruthgari were more successful at it than anyone else, so surely they wouldn't fight too hard to keep Liv.

But to be a Danavis was to act with honor. Always.

"What do you want?" Liv asked.

"You've been an embarrassment to me, Liv. The hardly talented daughter of a rebel general. But now you're going to be a jewel in my crown. You will be my vengeance on those who thought to slight me. And for that, I need you to be a success. You'll already be collecting a generous allowance from the bursar out of the Chromeria's general fund. Keep that, and we'll pay you double as well. We'll forgive your debt and the years of service you already owe us. Hell, if you play your cards right, you can draw allowances from three or four nations before you leave the Jaspers. Indeed, you won't need to leave the Chromeria at all, if you serve us well. Think about that: you can have a life here, at the center of the world, where everything important happens. Bed who you want, marry who you want, give your children every advantage you were denied. Or you can go serve some lordling somewhere, writing letters and examining his wife's bed to see if she's faithful to him, hoping he'll give you permission to marry someone you can tolerate. Out of all the nations, Ruthgar is the best to serve. And the worst to offend."

"But why do you want me to spy on the Prism? He's never done anything to offend Ruthgar."

"We like to keep an eye on our friends. It helps us remain friends-"

"And yet you were just telling me how I could do this to hurt the man who killed my mother. Which is it, Aglaia? Do you want me to betray him to hurt him, or it's not really a betrayal at all because you aren't going to hurt him?"

"Well said," Aglaia said. But then she continued, unflappable, "The point is, you may be able to damage the man personally who is responsible for so much havoc in your country, but your interference, your betrayal-perverse girl, insisting on calling the service of your own country a betrayal-your 'betrayal' won't result in war. These lands have seen enough of that."

It took Liv a moment to digest. It did make sense. In a way.

"But this is impossible. I don't know the Prism. He's talked to me once. Once."

"And he liked you."

"I don't know that I'd go that far."

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to get someone next to that man? We're going to give you all this just for trying. Besides, we know he has a weakness for Tyreans." A tiny, quick lift of her eyebrows showed that she was honestly surprised that the Prism would have such bad taste. "Maybe you can use this son of his to get close to him. We don't care."

It was bad enough to be asked to betray the Prism, but to use Kip to get to him? No. Kip was a good boy. Liv wouldn't do it. There was only one way out of this, and she'd known it all along.

Liv pulled out three coin sticks. "This is how much the Ruthgari government has spent on my upkeep for the last three years. With interest. Here, take it. I'm done with you. I'm free. I don't owe you anything."

Aglaia Crassos didn't even look at the coins. She didn't ask how Liv had gotten so much money. In truth, it had taken signing over a writ to an Abornean moneylender that would allow him to receive her allowance directly, and a ruinous interest rate. Liv was a pauper once more. She'd have to sell some of the marvelous dresses they'd given her just to stay afloat. "Liv, Liv, Liv. I don't want to be your enemy. But now that you're finally worth something, I'd swive a horse before I'd let you go. You have a cousin who was here when you first arrived. Showed you how things work here, yes?"

"Erethanna," Liv said.

"She's a green serving Count Nassos in western Ruthgar. She just petitioned to marry some blacksmith. The count has put a hold on it-at my request."

"You…" Liv said, trembling.

"Lovely couple, apparently. So happy together. Tragic if the count decided the land needed Erethanna to marry another drafter to increase her odds of having gifted children."

"Go to hell!"

"And your own studies can be opposed. And rumors can be started from dozens of corners about all sorts of despicable things you've done. We can poison any well when you finish your studies and are looking for work. You can't stay under the Prism's patronage forever. The second his eyes turn elsewhere…"

"I'm not worth that much to Ruthgar," Liv said, real fear constricting her throat.

"No, not to Ruthgar. But to me you are. Your attitude has made you worth my full attention. And if you make me look bad, I will make you mourn the day you ever met me."

"I already do." Liv felt deflated. "Get out. Get out before I kill you with my bare hands."

Aglaia stood, grabbed the money sticks, and said, "I'll take these for my troubles. After you've reconsidered, you know where to find me."

"Get out!"

Aglaia walked out.

Liv was left trembling. Not thirty seconds later, there was a knock on the door. That was it. Liv was going to kill her. She strode to the door and threw it open.

It wasn't Aglaia. A beautiful woman stood there. A Blood Forester, with the oddly pale, freckled skin that still seemed strange to Liv even after years at the Chromeria, and red hair like a flame. The woman was dressed in a slave's dress, but it was tailored to her lean figure, and a finer cotton than Liv had ever seen any slave wear. A nobleman's slave?

The slave handed Liv a note. "Mistress," she said. "From the High Lord Prism."

Liv Danavis stared at the note, feeling stupid, off balance. It read, "Please come see me at your earliest convenience." Her heart leapt into her throat. A summons from the Prism. So here it was, the beginning of her paying her debt to Gavin Guile. She didn't fool herself by hoping it would be the end of it, too. When you owed a luxlord, you owed them forever.

She just hadn't thought he'd ask for her so soon.

Oddly, the first thing she thought of was, What do you wear for an audience with the Prism? Liv didn't usually pay much attention to her choice of clothing. Maybe that was because when you only have a few changes of clothes, you wear what's clean and despair of ever wearing what's fashionable. That, of course, had changed instantly. Gavin had ordered that she be kept in an equivalent fashion to a Ruthgari bichrome, and that meant lots of clothes, a few jewels, and this huge apartment-literally five times larger than the one she'd lived in for the last three years. And though she might not have any money, now she had makeup. Now she had options, and she wasn't sure she liked it. The idea of turning into a prissy girl like Ana made Liv's stomach turn.

The slave was still standing at the door, waiting to be dismissed with the pleasant, neutral expression of a woman ignoring the cluelessness of her superior.

"Pardon me, caleen," Liv said, "but would you help me?" Liv always felt awkward when it came to dealing with slaves. No one in Rekton had been rich enough to afford one, and the few slaves that came through working with the caravans were treated the same as other servants. Things were more formal at the Chromeria, and most of the other students had grown up having slaves or at least being around them, so Liv always felt like everyone else knew what to do, while she was all thumbs. She still felt weird calling a woman ten years her senior by the diminutive "caleen."

Of course, now that Liv was a bichrome, she was going to have to get used to it fast, or she was going to look like an idiot even more often than usual.

The slave cocked an eyebrow like any twenty-eight-year-old would at any seventeen-year-old being foolish.

"I don't know what to wear," Liv said in a rush. "I don't even know what 'at your earliest convenience' means. Does that mean actually at my earliest convenience, or does it mean go right this moment, even if I were just wearing a towel?"

"You can take a few minutes to dress appropriately," the slave said.

Liv stood paralyzed. Was what she was wearing now appropriate?

"Most women called to the Prism's room wear something more… elegant," the slave said, eyeing Liv's plain skirt and blouse.

Maybe the fitted blue dress, then. Or that odd Ilytian black silk sheath. But that was more of an evening dress, wasn't it? Or should she wear the shockingly small… Liv wrinkled her nose. There was something about the slave's statement that made her nervous. She could just imagine a procession of beautiful women queued up outside the Prism's door. Liv had never heard any gossip about who the Prism took to his bed, but she wasn't exactly in the middle of the juicy gossip circles, and she could certainly imagine more than a few girls willing to dress or undress any way the Prism wanted. In addition to basically being the center of the universe, he was gorgeous, commanding, witty, smart, young, rich, and unmarried.

Whoever had packed her drawers with cosmetics had bought mostly skin lighteners or darkeners. But with Liv's kopi-and-cream-colored skin, she didn't have a hope of looking as light as a west Atashian. Her eyes were too dark anyway. And with wavy hair, even with a darkener on her skin, she wasn't going to look Parian. There was no hiding that she was Tyrean.

All those other girls and women would look fantastic in their fancy dresses and perfect makeup. They'd feel comfortable, beautiful. Liv would feel like a fool and look like a tramp.

How many of the women called to the Prism's room had gone with ulterior motives? How many had been acting for one country or another? How many of the ones who hadn't been co-opted had gone with their own agenda anyway? All of them? She wasn't going upstairs to seduce Gavin Guile-to hell with Aglaia and her ilk-so why should she make herself look like she was?

"To hell with it," Liv said. She didn't swear much, but it felt good right now. She threw down a dress that probably cost as much as she'd spent all last year. "It's convenient for me to go right now."

The slave looked like she wanted to speak, but she stopped herself. "This way, ma'am."

After they headed up the luxlords' lift, the slave led Liv to the Blackguards stationed there. The woman of the pair searched Liv for weapons. Thoroughly.

Liv couldn't help but feel a little violated. "They take their job seriously, don't they?" she said as they finally led her to what Liv assumed was the Prism's door.

"Do you have any idea what it would mean for the world if the Prism died? He's not always an easy man, but he's a much better man than Prisms usually are. And there are many of us who would do anything for him. Anything. Remember that… ma'am."

Orholam's prickly beard, but the slave woman was protective.

The slave stopped at the door, knocked three times, and opened it. Liv stepped into the Prism's room and found him sitting behind a desk, staring at her. His eyes were entrancing. Right now, they looked like diamonds, scattering light everywhere. He gestured to the chair across from him, and Liv sat.

"Thank you, Marissia, you may go," Gavin said to the slave. Then he turned his diamond eyes on Liv and said, "It's time for that favor."