after she jumped up, but her butt cheeks had been cold because her underclothes had been yanked up too. Now they were cleaving the moon in a serious way. She shimmied, trying to fix her underclothes without fishing after them with a hand. “Aliviana, what are you doing?” the Prism asked.
Liv froze, transfixed.
“Never mind, stay here. I’ll call for you in a moment.” Gavin opened the door to the testing chamber and slipped inside. All the drafters in the hall, including one of the best-looking young magisters in the whole Chromeria, Payam Navid, turned to look at Liv, obviously wondering why she was so important—and killing her chance to quickly tug her underclothes down. Not having any idea what she was going to find or what the Prism was going to expect of her, she smiled nervously at the young magister.
Chapter 45
Gavin moved quickly, hearing the old bichrome say, “Are you ready to see your colors?” to Kip.
“I know I am!” Gavin said. “Mistress Varidos, may I?” Family members of supplicants weren’t allowed in the testing chamber for fear that it would lead to cheating. The rule, at least theoretically, even applied to the Prism. There’s a reason theory and practice are two different words.
“I wasn’t even aware that you’d begun your testing. How long did they say you lasted?” Gavin asked.
“Four minutes, I guess,” Kip said.
“Four twelve,” the old mistress said.
Gavin physically stopped. It had seemed like a long time up in his room, but he’d supposed it had only seemed long. Four minutes was astounding. Passing had only taken him five.
Mistress Varidos drew close to Gavin and whispered, “There was some irregularity that I think you should know about.”
Gavin smiled at Kip. “Well done, we’ll just be a moment.” He came aside, leaving Kip with the men and women who were asking him which part he thought was hardest, how he’d managed to hold out so long, and generally treating him like the center of the world. It was pretty intoxicating for a young drafter, and it was supposed to be.
Grinning, Gavin walked toward the tester’s table with Mistress Varidos. They came to stand right over the stone table. A black samite cloth was spread over a hole in the middle of the table. The testing stone would be right in there. Gavin tried to remember exactly how it was positioned. He’d only get one shot at this. “What was the irregularity?” he asked. The samite blocked out any outside light that would interfere with the testing stone.
The old woman exhaled slowly. “He threw the rope out of his hand at about three thirty. Before I could stop her, one of the women put it back in his hand.”
“Are you joking?” Gavin said.
“They send the beautiful ones for the testing. Half of them barely have the brains to remember their lines, much less remember some of the more obscure rules governing situations that have never arisen in living memory. Even Dazen didn’t throw the rope aside.”
“Which one did it?”
“The green.”
Of course it was the green. Wild, unpredictable, chafing at the slightest restriction. “Get her over here!”
The green tester saw the mistress’s summons and walked right over. All the testers were beautiful, and if being light-skinned was a detriment on the battlefield, it was favored for this and a few other ceremonies. The visual effect of a man or woman whose skin was green or blue or red was more muted the darker their natural skin tone. Even the Parians chose coastal, lowland, or mixed-blood countrymen to represent them in this ceremony. This woman was Ruthgari, and light-skinned even for them. She moved with the easy grace of a dancer. Her thin green robe, thrown on during the ceremony so that all the testers would be clad in their colors when the supplicant emerged—which might be only ten or fifteen seconds after their testing began—was, in her case, open deep between her large breasts. She walked up eagerly, throwing her hair back, back straight, standing just on the other side of the table.
The nudity and near-nudity of some of the ceremonies were shrouded in religious and cultural symbolism that made them almost non-erotic. Almost, because no matter how high-minded you might be, you couldn’t completely ignore the fact that you were looking at someone who was naked and astoundingly attractive. But the parties afterward, especially at initiations, were always a gray area. Everyone beautiful, everyone half-clad, everyone with the fresh memory of everyone else stark naked, the atmosphere jubilant,