The Blinding Knife

Chapter 102

“I’m going to kill him, someday. But he’s good at what he does. I’ll give him that,” Zymun said, rising from their bed in the predawn darkness. Liv was already up and dressed, almost finished fighting her hair into some order. “I’ll let him do the work of uniting the satrapies, and then take it from him. Unless he threatens to botch it, of course.”

“What are you going to do? Once you become king, I mean.” She slid the hairpins in place, adjusted the bit that was falling in front.

“Emperor,” Zymun said, correcting her. “And whatever do you mean? What will I do? You’re not very smart, are you?”

Not smart enough to avoid you in the first place, clearly. She froze. His charm had been slipping more and more frequently. He was a lizard beneath it. There was something wrong with him. Something thin, an essential shallowness. How had she not noticed before? When he touched her now, her flesh grew cold. Her body had known. She’d told herself that she was extricating herself carefully, but she wasn’t: she was afraid. Afraid to be a woman alone in an armed camp. Such fear didn’t befit a drafter. Such fear didn’t befit a woman. He wanted to treat her like she was nothing? Hatred coiled in her breast.

It took all of her self-control, but she turned and looked at him with a mask of cool condescension. “Zymun, Zymun, Zymun. Emperor? Please. There is no trace of greatness in you.”

She slipped out of the tent deftly. She was shaking. What about your big plan to make him tire of you? To escape his clutches and make him think it was his idea?

All in pieces now. Shit.

Knowing the smart thing to do and having the makeup to do it were two different things. To hell with him.

Liv went directly to the Color Prince’s tent. He was gone. She found him instead on the outskirts of the camp, greeting new drafters who’d abandoned Ru or other Atashian towns. At least half of them were on their last year or two of life. Cowards, Liv thought.

But armies are composed of those who join for bad reasons as well as good, and the prince despised no one who helped him. Liv approached him, bowed deeply, and said, “Magnificence, may I have a private word with you?”

The prince measured her, then excused himself.

“Zymun is planning to betray you,” she said without preamble.

“Thank you. Will you teach this class of recruits for me?”

“What?” she asked. “ ‘Thank you?’ That’s all?”

He looked at her sharply.

“My apologies, my prince. I didn’t mean to raise my voice.”

He favored her with an indulgent smile. “When did you find this out?”

“I’d suspected he had an… overlarge opinion of himself, but he didn’t say anything treasonous until this morning.”

“And you came straight to me.”

“Yes, my lord.”

A retainer emerged from the ranks and started coming toward the prince. He lifted a hand, telling the man to wait.

“You knew,” Liv said.

“I knew.”

“So… Did you send me to spy on him?”

“You tell me,” he said. Another servant looked ready to come forward, and again he motioned to the woman not to interrupt. Running an army meant making decisions from dawn until dusk and beyond.

“You weren’t testing him. You were testing me,” Liv said.

“Oh?”

“You knew he’d betray you; you didn’t know if I would. So I passed. Was Zymun in on this?” If he had been, that would mean that he was still favored by the Color Prince, and the way Liv had left him wasn’t simply over her loyalty to the prince. She might have just made a powerful enemy, without at the same time making a more powerful friend.

“Do you know what happens to an egg, when you keep it warm?” the prince asked.

“It hatches?” Liv said.

“And when you make it hot?”

“I’m not sure I-”

“It cooks.” He smiled, indulgent, magnanimous. “Everything has a proper time and season. Some things rushed are spoiled. This is why so many of the Chromeria’s wights go mad and become dangerous, not because wights are innately so, but because their drafters get to the end of their human span and then panic. Panicked people do shoddy work. If instead they worked deliberately, over a course of years, to prepare themselves for the transition, their odds of success increase dramatically. If they had people to teach them what to do, just imagine what we might accomplish.”

“That’s-that’s… wise. And that’s what you’re doing with Zymun?”

“Zymun is incredibly gifted, and very, very dangerous. There is no human warmth in him. Only a fool would trust a man like that, but by using him? I’ve found that I can trust you. Now, did he know you were coming here?”

“I’m-I’m afraid he might. I’ve made a terrible enemy of him, my lord.”

“Forgive me for this, but raise your voice now and swear that Zymun’s a traitor, that you wouldn’t lie to me, and so forth.” The prince’s face twisted. “Do it. Now.”

“My lord! I swear it to you! Zymun is a traitor-I would never lie to you! You have to believe me!” Liv threw herself at the Color Prince’s knees.

He backhanded her across the cheek hard enough it rattled her teeth, and she fell to the ground, weeping.

Two guards lifted Liv and pulled her away, just around a tent, out of sight, but still close enough that she could hear a little of what was said. She heard Zymun speaking, his voice oily slick as usual, totally unafraid. His back must have been toward her, because she couldn’t make out his voice.

“Zymun,” the Color Prince said, “I’m giving you a small force, drafters and soldiers, whatever composition you want, but only twenty men, and make sure you bring along gunners in that number. I want you to cross the neck at midnight, climb the cliffs, and take Ruic Head. There may or may not be ropes waiting for you. We have spies, but they’re criminals and prone to hysteria. Not trustworthy. Regardless, take Ruic Head and keep flying the Atashian flag. The Chromeria’s fleet is two days out. Let the scout ships through unaccosted, only open up when the main fleet first starts through the neck. I expect you to sink at least a dozen ships. At least. Oh, and take no greens with you. Take blues. The bane will be disorienting until Atirat is come.”

Zymun said something.

“No. Absolutely not. I have need of her.”

Something else. Liv cursed to herself for not being able to hear, but she couldn’t without exposing herself.

“Zymun,” the Color Prince said, raising his voice as if the young man was farther away. “I trusted you with a vital mission once and you failed. You lost a magic worth more than ten of you. It was my mistake to trust you with that, so I didn’t punish you for it. I had hoped to abort this war before it began. I thought it worth the risk. You’re one of the very best I have, Zymun. You know that I’ve been lenient with you and why. For a privileged few, I tolerate one failure. One. Understood?”