“The spies report—”
“Out with it, for Orholam’s sake.”
Ironfist clenched his jaw, then willed himself to relax. “I need to go after him, Gavin, which means I can’t be here, helping with the defense and directing my people.”
“And you’re Parian and huge and pretty much the opposite of inconspicuous, so if you go after him—as your honor demands—you’ll most likely be killed, which will not only mean that you’re killed, which you don’t particularly desire, but it also means you will have failed to protect Kip, which would be the only point of going after him in the first place. And you can’t delegate the mission to anyone else because you promised to protect him personally, and besides, any other Blackguard would stand out nearly as much as you do.” It wasn’t that Blackguards were darker-skinned than Tyreans and had kinky rather than wavy or straight hair. There had been enough mixing over the centuries that quite a few Tyreans had both traits. Even Kip could still make a good spy despite his blue eyes; Tyreans were used to minority ethnicities from all the people who’d stayed after the war. The problem was that ebony-skinned, extremely physically fit drafters who exuded danger from their very pores were going to stand out anywhere. Blackguards would stand out among an army of Parian drafters.
“That’s pretty much it,” Ironfist admitted, the edge of his anger blunted by Gavin acknowledging exactly why he was angry.
“What else did you learn from our spies?” Gavin asked, shunting aside Ironfist’s concerns for the moment.
Ironfist seemed just as happy to not be talking about his dilemma. “Some of them have come from King Garadul’s camp, and I think our problems are bigger than we realized.” He pushed his ghotra off his head, scrubbing his scalp with his fingertips. “It’s religious,” he said.
“I didn’t think you were much for religion,” Gavin said, trying to inject a bit of levity.
“Why would you think that? I speak with Orholam constantly.”
“ ‘Orholam, what did I do to deserve this?’ ” Gavin suggested, thinking he was kidding.
“No. Seriously,” Ironfist said.
“Oh.” Ironfist, devout?
“But you know how that is. You speak with him all the time as well. You are his chosen.”
“It’s different for me.” Very very different, apparently. “But sorry to jest. Religion?”
“This isn’t just some political matter of calling himself a king. Rask Garadul wants to upend everything we’ve accomplished since Lucidonius came. Everything.”
An indefinable dread settled in Gavin’s stomach. “The old gods.”
“The old gods,” Ironfist said.
“Get Kip back, Commander. Do whatever you have to. If anyone complains about your methods, they’ll have to go through me. If you can, save the girl too. I owe her father a debt I can never explain.”
Gavin slept little and fitfully. He never slept much, but it was always worse as the Freeing approached. He hated this time of year. Hated the charade. His chest felt tight as he lay in his bed. Maybe he should have let his brother win. Maybe Gavin would have done a better job of all of this. At the very least, he wouldn’t be here now.
Nonsense.
And yet he couldn’t help but wonder if Gavin would have been a better Prism than he was. Gavin had always borne burdens of responsibility better than Dazen had. It didn’t even seem like a weight to his older brother. Like the man had been without self-doubt. Dazen had always envied Gavin that.
The morning came none too soon. Dazen sat up and put on his face, Gavin once more. He felt that stab of pain radiating through his chest, tightening his throat. He couldn’t do this.
Nonsense. He was just missing Kip, and Karris, and was worried for Corvan’s daughter and dreading the exhausting drafting he was going to have to do all day long. There was nothing to do but get on with it.
After taking his time with his ablutions—why had Gavin had to be such a dandy?—he ate and rode to the wall. He was greeted by a young orange drafter.
The drafter was one of the tragically young who couldn’t handle the power. An addict. He couldn’t have been twenty years old, mountain Parian, but he didn’t wear the ghotra, instead wearing his hair in dreadlocks, bound back with a leather thong. The rest of his clothing spoke of similar rejection of traditional attire—any tradition. Oranges tended to see exactly how others liked things to be. In most cases they used that to their advantage, becoming as slick as their luxin. But in some cases they defied every convention they saw, becoming artists and rebels. Given how the man’s clothes somehow worked together to look good despite their disparate origins, and that all the colors and textures complemented each other, Gavin guessed this one was an artist. This young man’s orange halo was thin with strain, though. He definitely couldn’t have made it until the next Freeing.
“Lord Prism,” the young man said. “How can I help?”
The sun had barely cleared the horizon, and all the drafters who were capable of drafting without hurting themselves or losing control had gathered at the wall. The local workmen seemed stunned to be surrounded by so many of them.
“What’s your name?” Gavin asked. He didn’t think he’d even seen this young man before.
“Aheyyad.”
“So you are an artist,” Gavin said.
Aheyyad smiled. “Not much choice, with the grandmother I had.”
Gavin tilted his head.
“Sorry, I thought you knew. My grandmother is Tala. She knew I was going to be an orange and an artist by the time I was four years old. She forced my mother to rename me.”
“Tala can be very, ahem, persuasive,” Gavin said.
The boy grinned.
A boy going to the Freeing at the same time as his grandmother. There was a tale of woe just under the surface there, a family’s grief, the loss of two generations at once, but no need to prod that now. All things are brought to light in time. “I need an artist,” Gavin said. “Can you work fast?”
“I’d better,” Aheyyad said.
“Are you any good?” Gavin already knew that Aheyyad was or Corvan wouldn’t have sent him. He wanted to know whether the young man would be bold or tentative when faced with something so vast.
“I’m the best,” Aheyyad said. “What’s the project?”
Gavin smiled. He loved artists. In small doses. “I’m building a wall. Work with the architect to make sure you don’t screw up anything functional, but your task is to make this wall scary. You can commandeer any of the old drafters to help you. I’ll give you some drawings we have of Rathcaeson. If it can resemble those, do it. You’ll tell the blues how to hold the forms. I’ll fill them with yellow luxin. I’m doing functional things first. We can attach and integrate whatever you design in two or three days.”
“How big can I make… whatever I make?”
“We’ve got a couple leagues of wall.”
“So you’re saying… big.”
“Huge,” Gavin said. Having the artist only design the forms would also keep the young man from having to draft anything at all, which with how close Aheyyad was to breaking the halo would possibly save his life.