by Brent Weeks
He walked to his desk, took the folded shimmercloaks and the deck box, and tucked them in a closet. More problems for tomorrow. There were always more problems for tomorrow. He went to his bed, stripping off his clothes. He threw them willy-nilly, suddenly peeved. Where was Marissia, anyway? What does one have a room slave for, if not for some damned companionship once in a while? Schedules could wait. He wanted her here. He cursed, feeling peevish and petty.
Truth was, he was angry at Karris for being so damned intractable. And he missed Marissia, and not only for her admirable bed skills. He didn’t want to sleep alone tonight. He wanted to hold her body, to feel the soft comfort of her curves. To wake and embrace her and then sleep again. He wanted to take her in the bath in the morning, and then have her comb his hair, anoint him with oils, dress him, and send him off to conquer the world again with a clear head.
Instead, she was off doing whatever it was she did when she wasn’t serving him.
That was ungracious, unfair. Most of the time that Marissia spent away from this room was to serve him. He crawled under the covers and thought dark thoughts for a few more seconds, then surrendered to sleep.
In the middle of the night, Gavin must have gotten hot and thrown the covers off, because he felt cold. Foggy-headed, he reached a hand to pull the blankets back on him, but then he felt the sweep of long hair over his thigh, and then a kiss. She took his hands and tucked them firmly at his sides, telling him not to interfere.
Oh, Marissia, if a man could fall in love with a slave…
Marissia pleasured him like she did everything: efficiently and well. She’d done this before when he’d come back from trips and she’d been out when he got back, or even just when she’d sensed that he was hungry for the pleasures of the flesh. She would wake him rapidly and pleasantly, and then ride him to a quick climax. It was like providing a meal on the march: she satisfied his hunger as quickly as possible, and interfered as little as possible with the business at hand. In this case, his sleep. Funny woman, but Gavin wouldn’t trade her for the world.
Having roused him with admirable dispatch, Marissia crawled up Gavin’s body. He reached for her breasts, but she grabbed his hands and pushed them above his head. Marissia’s breasts got so tender some months that she didn’t like Gavin to even touch them. She’d allow it if he insisted, of course-she served for his pleasure-but Gavin didn’t want to insist tonight. Not when she was being so solicitous.
She quietly moaned as she lowered herself onto him a little at a time, and the pleasure of it almost blotted out all thought for Gavin, but he opened his eyes. Marissia rarely moaned. The room was dark. Gavin could of course change that, but pleasure blotted out will. It had been so long.
When she settled fully on him, though, even without hands, without sight, he knew this wasn’t Marissia. As he came out of his stupor, it became more and more obvious. He knew Marissia’s body, how she moved, the smell of her arousal and the smell of her perfume, and this was not That perfume. As his succubus began to rock her hips rhythmically, Gavin was entranced by the competing soporifics of pleasure and memory.
Karris almost never wore perfume. Only one day a year, and then only when she couldn’t get out of it. She only wore perfume to the Luxlords’ Ball. This perfume.
Orholam have mercy. That was how she’d gotten into his room. The Blackguards knew they weren’t supposed to allow anyone in, but they wouldn’t stop Karris. Especially not after Gavin had told them that… Ooh.
The very thought that it was Karris brought Gavin fully awake, inflamed him. His succubus was a little awkward, like she didn’t really know what she was doing. Karris had only had two lovers that he’d heard about, and neither of them for long. She hadn’t had all that much practice. Still, in most things she was more coordinated than this.
Gavin brought his hands to the softness of her hips to help guide her. Karris! After sixteen Soft? Karris’s hips? A woman could be incredibly fit and still carry a little softness on her hips, of course, but…
She was moaning louder now, and her vocalizations almost covered the sound of voices outside Gavin’s door. He stopped guiding her, but she only ground against him harder.
The door opened and a woman bearing a lantern walked in.
“Watch Captain,” one of the Greylings protested, “I really think you-”
The light from the lantern showed Karris standing at the foot of Gavin’s bed. The same light threw his succubus into shadow. Nor did the woman atop Gavin stop, grinding lascivious hips against him for several long, deliberate seconds after she must have become aware there were others in the room.
Karris flung the lever that opened the brightwater panels on the walls, flooding the room with light.
For one second, Gavin saw nothing as the light blinded him. Then, as his eyes adjusted, the young woman atop him was illuminated fully: Ana Jorvis, the student from the superviolets’ class. Ana, the little temptress who’d tried to sneak into his bed before.
“You mind?” Ana demanded, looking over her shoulder. She was unashamed of her nudity before both Karris and the young Blackguards. Unabashed at being interrupted in coitus. Even proud. Defiant. Haughty.
But Gavin had no thought for her. He was staring at Karris, who looked suddenly dead. Her hair hung around her shoulders, not just loose, but carefully combed and curled. The rouge on her cheeks was the only thing that livened her pallid pallor. Her lips, too, were rouged. Karris never wore makeup. She was wearing a fine cloak that he’d never seen before, and where it was open as her hand held the lantern, Gavin saw lace.
A lace chemise. Karris. Midnight. His bed chamber. She had been planning “I said, do you mind? My lord and I are occupied,” Ana said. She took one of Gavin’s hands from where it sat limp on her hip and pressed it to her full breast. The breast she hadn’t let him touch earlier-lest he realize who she was.
Karris bolted.
Gavin flung Ana off with a curse and ran after Karris, going right past the aghast Greyling brothers. “Karris!”
He heard the sound of glass shattering just as he got into the hall and saw that Karris had dropped her lantern in her haste. Its reservoir smashed and oil coated the hallway. Gavin stopped.
The still-burning wick tilted slowly, slowly, and before Gavin could draft, the hallway was alight. He smothered the flaring fire in seconds with great sheets of yellow. When he finally ran through, Karris had already gone down the lift. He hung out over the lift shaft, ignoring the Blackguards guarding it.
She’d stopped one level down, the Blackguard barracks.
“My lord!” the Blackguard Samite shouted.
“Don’t even try to stop-” Gavin snarled.
She held her hands up. Peace. She tossed him her cloak to cover himself. “Good luck, sir.”
Gavin tied the cloak around his waist and jumped into the lift shaft. He dropped down one level. He swung out of the shaft and stormed toward the women’s side of the Blackguard barracks. The door was closed.
“Karris!” he shouted.
But as he approached, a dozen Blackguards, most of them only half dressed, formed ranks seamlessly in front of the door. They made a wall in front of him.
“That’s far enough, my lord,” Tremblefist said, gently. He was one of the half-dressed ones, and even though he wasn’t quite as big as Ironfist, he was still bigger than Gavin. Enormous pectorals, shoulders broad enough to close the Everdark Gates.
“Out of my way!” Gavin shouted.
They said nothing, merely held ranks.
“Damn you all, you can’t stop me!”
“Yes we can,” Tremblefist said. “Now please, sir, leave. Leave before you shame your faithful servants any more than you already have. We’ve new men in our company. They can’t understand.”
Gavin screamed in frustration and stormed out.
The ride up one floor wasn’t enough to cool his rage. His young Blackguards watched him closely, aghast, but said nothing as he strode past them and back into his
room.
Ana should have been on her knees, weeping and begging for forgiveness. Instead, she stood in artfully meretricious pose that Gavin recognized from a famous sculpture, the Maiden’s Gift. She’d even put on a fine silk shift identical to the statue’s: back turned, hair spilling over her shoulder, curves in an S, the side of one breast visible. It was so obviously staged that Gavin would have laughed if he weren’t so furious. Instead, it stoked the fires hotter.
“My lord,” she said. “Shall we continue? I’ve so many pleasures yet to share with you.”
Gavin’s self-restraint had one last gasp. He closed his eyes, ground his teeth. Finally said, “Do you have any idea… I only-I thought you were her!”
“What?! Her? She’s all muscly and gross. Karris is old enough to be my mother. I mean, if you want a sparring partner, I’m sure she’s wonderful, but a lover? Bedding her would be like fucking dust. That old bitch-”
A sound like an uncaged tiger tore its way out of Gavin’s throat. He hit the lever that dropped all the windows in his room open and was on top of Ana in an instant.
The night was moonlit, clouds being chased by buffeting winds.
“My lord, what are you doing?!” one of the Blackguards yelled, but Gavin didn’t even hear him. He grabbed a handful of the girl’s hair, walking her backward out into the cold night. “That bitch,” he screamed above the howling wind, “is the woman I love!” With an inhuman roar, he flung Ana from him. Flung her so hard that she hit the railing of the balcony and flipped right over it.
And fell.
She didn’t scream. She barely yelped, and Gavin barely heard it over the sound of wind.
Gavin’s heart stopped, and the wind stopped, but he didn’t hear her land. Maybe something had broken her fall? Maybe someone had saved her?
A fool’s hope, and Gavin knew it.
Rushing to the edge of his balcony, he looked over.
Orholam have mercy. Hundreds of feet below, Ana had landed headfirst. Her body had crumpled all the wrong ways. From here she looked like a grape popped between your fingers: all the skin gathered and juices everywhere.
“My lord…”
Gavin turned and saw his two young Blackguards. The looks on their faces told him that Ana wasn’t the only person who’d just fallen from heaven. He covered his face with his hands. He stepped back inside, and one of them, wide-eyed, closed the windows. Gavin sat on his bed, conscious for the first time of his near nakedness.
“Go tell who you have to tell,” Gavin said. “I’ll be here.”
Of course, he lied.
Chapter 80
When the pounding started on the door of the women’s side of the barracks, Karris thought it had to be Gavin come back again, but the voice was Watch Captain Blademan’s. “Hey! Why’s this door locked?! I said all hands on, dammit! I don’t care if you’re naked or on the shitter, I mean now!”
Karris threw the door open, instantly alert, tears forgotten. “What is it?” she asked.
Watch Captain Blademan looked at her, the cloak not covering her chemise, not covering her makeup, her perfume, her coiffed hair, her eyes puffy from crying. He hesitated only a moment, working through his surprise, then decided that whatever this was, it could wait. “All hands on, Karris. You’re needed upstairs immediately. Some girl just took a dive off the Prism’s balcony. She’s dead. We think he threw her.”
Gavin stared at the moon, drafting its feeble light slowly. His plan was simple-to draft a rope and dangle it out the window, making them think he’d escaped.
But he couldn’t draft green or blue now. A rope was impossible. He leaned on the doorframe, swallowed with difficulty. He’d never had to think this way before. The simplest answer had always been the best. With every color in his palette, he’d simply had to figure out the best materials for the job. Now… now he was like some normal drafter, trying to solve a problem with a limited set of tools. It was a totally different way of thinking. He hated it.
As he turned the problem over, he grabbed fresh clothes from his closet and got dressed. He could, he supposed, draft a yellow chain, but that would beg them to ask why he would choose to draft only yellow, which was much more difficult and time-consuming. Questions like that could be more deadly than killing a powerful nobleman’s daughter.
He pushed that out of his mind. No time.
Just an open window, then.
Then Gavin saw the shimmercloaks in his closet. He threw on the larger cloak. He knew the choker had to be important, so he put it on, drew it snug. He hated having things around his neck, and there were cold metal ridges along the inside that dug into his skin unpleasantly.
He stepped in front of a mirror. He was still very much visible. He drew the cloak closed. Still visible. He closed his eyes and imagined being invisible, willed it, desired it, lusted after it, believed it. Cracked an eye. Still there.
A soft knock sounded on the door. Gavin drafted instinctively to defend himself.
Daggers stabbed into his neck from either side. What felt like a sheet of flame shot up and down his body: cheeks hot, scalp aflame, chest burning, arms burning, legs burning. Then the heat passed, leaving tingling, and the tingling turned to sensitivity, like a tooth shy of a cold drink.
He looked into the mirror-and saw through himself. His face was visible, and a V of his neck where the cloak wasn’t fully closed. The collar had injected two needles into his neck. Gavin pulled the cloak fully closed, and found there were tiny hooks hidden in the fabric to keep the hood closed even over his face. Only his eyes remained. The rest of him was translucent-not perfectly transparent, but like looking through a dirty window. In low light, it would be more than acceptable. If he stayed still against a wall, it would be perfect. But moving fast in good light, he’d be easy to spot.
Louder knocking. “Sir, please let us in!”
Gavin ducked his head, to see if he could hide his eyes under the flap of the hood and thus be functionally invisible. When he did that, he saw nothing at all. Blackness so deep it struck a visceral fear into him.
So if he fell under piercing scrutiny, he’d have to make himself blind in order to be fully invisible. Lovely. Terrifying.
The window was already open. Gavin stood against a wall next to the door.
“Lord Prism,” Commander Ironfist shouted, “we’ve come to take you to the Spectrum. Please open the door, my lord.”
Thanks for the warning, old friend.
The Blackguards opened the door moments later. They had keys, of course. Ironfist led six men in. “Check the balcony,” Ironfist said.
Gavin snuck through the open door right behind them. The wind gusting through the open window and the hall made the cloak flutter around his leg. But no one saw anything. He made it into the hall.
From there, instead of heading for the lift, he walked the other way and went to the stairs leading out to the roof. He cracked the door open, dealt with another quick gust of wind, and slipped out quickly.
It was still hours before dawn. Gavin sat on a bench out of sight of the door. He had to see how bad things were before he did anything. But sitting, thinking, that was dangerous.
Orholam have mercy, he’d murdered that stupid girl. He rubbed his face. He wished he felt worse, but it wasn’t his first murder. He’d been murdering people every year in that damned barbaric ritual-hearing their sins and stabbing them in the heart. What was one more soul on his tally?
If he looked harder at that girl, doubtless he’d find out some pathetic tale. Like Ana’s family was on the brink of financial ruin, and she hoped that by seducing him they would be saved. Or that his father had blackmailed her into going to Gavin’s bed so he could then blackmail Gavin. Andross had said that Ana was in the list of contenders for a marriage, hadn’t he? Or… it didn’t matter. What she’d done, why. How she’d gotten past his guards. It might have been a conspiracy; more likely, it was simply miscommunication and inexperience.
But Gavin didn’t usually lose control
of himself like that. He was steady, logical. For Orholam’s sake, Gavin was the whole man. Was. Had been.
No longer.
He’d lost blue. That wasn’t merely a magical fact, maybe it was a personal fact as well. He’d lost the cold, hard, passionless practicality of blue. There had been no reason to kill the girl, nothing but passion and hatred had impelled him to do such a thing. Passion and hatred unbridled by reason.
The loss of his powers wasn’t only the loss of power; Gavin was becoming less. Less in control, less intelligent, less of a man.
He’d thrown a girl off his balcony. What kind of a man did that? He hadn’t meant to-but that didn’t matter. He’d done it. And maybe he had meant to do it.
And he’d lost Karris. She’d come to his room, at midnight, dressed to make love. His heart was in his throat. Orholam have mercy. He didn’t know what she’d been doing, why she’d come now when they’d had every opportunity for months. But she’d come. Everything would be perfect if he’d done anything differently-had he not charmed his guards and told them he wanted companionship; had he awakened earlier; had he stopped an unknown woman before she mounted him, perhaps?
I saw what I wanted to see, just like I always do. And my self-delusion cost me the real thing.
He wondered how long it would be before he lost yellow. How long before he lost the rest. It was another eight months until the Freeing. When he’d found out he’d lost blue, he’d thought he could make it that long. That wasn’t going to happen, he knew that now.
He thought of his goals.
Lucidonius, were things so bleak for you when the Ur trapped you in Hass Valley? Did you doubt yourself then? Or were you as willful as the tales tell? Were you just a man? You changed the world, but is this what you wanted to change it to?
Gavin had murdered his own mother, and she’d thanked him for it. What kind of broken world was this? She’d thanked him for it!
He remembered that artist, that damned genius addict artist, what was his name? Aheyyad Brightwater. He’d given the boy a name, and murdered him. Giving scraps with one hand, and taking away everything with the other. And Aheyyad had thanked him. Gavin had failed Garriston, lost them their city, their possessions, the lives of many they’d cared about-and they worshipped him as a god. They loved him.
