to middle finger, to index finger, back to middle, to ring, to pinky. A seven count, each color in turn, from sub-red to superviolet, feeling the little thread of emotion from each.
For Orholam’s sake, I’m the Prism. I am the whole man. Master of all colors. In my prime. Stronger than any Prism in living memory. Maybe the strongest for hundreds of years. Most Prisms only lived seven years after their ascension. Only four had made it to twenty-one years. Always in multiples of seven—of course, they could be killed or die of natural causes too, but none burned out except on the multiple years. Gavin had made it to sixteen, so he had at least five years left. In fact, if any Prism could make it past twenty-one years, he would be the one to do it. He felt strong. He felt stronger and more in control of his colors than he had in his whole life.
Of course, it could all be an illusion. He’d been exceptional in other ways; perhaps he’d pitch over and die tomorrow.
He felt that familiar tightness in his chest again at the thought. He wasn’t afraid of death, but he was afraid of dying before he accomplished his purposes.
He stood outside his father’s apartments in the Prism’s Tower. His father’s slave—Gavin knew the man’s name was Grinwoody, though it was rude to use a slave’s name if they didn’t reveal it to you themselves—was waiting, holding the door open. It was a door into darkness of more than one kind. There was sharp pain in Gavin’s chest. It was hard to breathe.
Andross Guile didn’t know Gavin wasn’t Gavin. He didn’t know his elder son was rotting under the Chromeria. He thought Dazen was dead, and he’d never seemed concerned about it, much less sorry. Traitors were to be dismissed and never spoken of.
“Lord Prism?” the slave asked.
Gavin shook the last tendrils of luxin from his fingers, the waft of resinous smells a small comfort.
Andross Guile’s room was kept completely dark. Thick velvet drapes had been hung over the windows, then the whole wall hung with more of the same in layers. An entry chamber had been erected around the entrance so that light from the hallway wouldn’t come in with his few visitors. Gavin drew in superviolet light and then stepped into the entry.
Grinwoody pulled the door shut behind them. Gavin drew a little ball of superviolet into his hand, drafted imperfectly so it would be unstable. The instability caused it to slowly disintegrate back into light of its own spectrum. For a superviolet drafter, it was like carrying a torch whose light was invisible to everyone else. Neither Grinwoody nor Andross was a superviolet, so Gavin could have as much of the eerie violet light as he wanted.
As Gavin watched, Grinwoody pushed a heavy pillow in front of the slight crack at the bottom of the door behind them. The man paused, letting his eyes become used to the darkness. He wasn’t a drafter, so he couldn’t directly control his eyes. In darkness, it took a dull—a non-drafter—half an hour or more to reach full sensitivity to light. Most drafters naturally could do it in ten minutes, just from spending so much time attuned to light. A few could reach full light sensitivity in seconds. But Grinwoody wasn’t trying to see. He had obviously memorized the layout of the room years ago; he was simply making sure he wasn’t allowing any light into High Master Guile’s chamber. Finally, satisfied, he opened the door.
Gavin was glad to be holding superviolet. Like all drafters, he’d been taught not to rely on colors to change his moods. Like most, he failed often. It was a particular temptation for polychromes. There was a color for every feeling, or to counteract every feeling. Like right now. Using the superviolet spectrum was attended by a sense of remove or alienation or otherness. Sometimes it seemed ironic or cynical. Always it was like looking down at himself from above.
You’re the Prism, and you’re afraid of an old man.
In the superviolet light of his torch, Gavin saw his father sitting in a high-backed padded chair turned toward a covered, boarded-up window. Andross Guile had been a tall, powerfully built man. Now his weight had dropped from his broad shoulders to form a little ball in his paunch. He wasn’t corpulent; it was just that what weight he had was in his gut. His arms and legs had grown thin from years