What if the Spectrum suddenly refused my orders? Not hard to imagine, when you consider the scheming and lust for power it takes to become a Color. What if a general suddenly refuses his satrap’s orders? What if a son refuses his father’s orders? What if that first link in the Great Chain of being—Orholam Himself—is as empty as every other link before him? Seeing the weakness of each link, we think the Great Chain itself is fragile: surely at any moment it will burst if we don’t do everything in our power to hold it together.”
Gavin swallowed involuntarily. He’d never really universalized the thought as she was doing, but he always thought his whole life was like that. His deceptions, his authority, his imprisoned brother, his relationships. A chain of wet paper, drooping under its own sodden weight. A chain to which he added new weight every day.
“Here’s what I’ve learned,” the White said. “Orholam doesn’t need me. Oh, I can do good work for him, work that pleases him, and if I foul it, others will suffer. You see, what I do still matters, but in the end, Orholam’s will prevails. So I think I still have work to do. I see unfinished business everywhere I look. But if you tell me that I should be Freed this Midsummer’s, I will do so gladly, not because I have faith in you, Gavin—though I do, more than you know—but because I have faith in Orholam.”
Gavin looked at her like she was a visitor from the moon. “That was very… metaphysical. Can we talk about the Freeing now?”
She laughed. “Here’s the thing, Gavin. You remember everything. I know you do. You think I’m crazy now, but you’ll remember this, and someday it might make a difference. And with that, I can be content.”
Madwoman or saint—but then, Gavin didn’t think there was any difference.
“I’m going to Garriston,” he said.
She folded her hands in her lap and turned toward the rising light.
“Let me explain,” Gavin rushed to say. Then he did, ignoring the beauty of the sunrise. Ten minutes later, he was almost finished when the White raised a finger. She held her breath, then sighed as the sun itself mastered the horizon. “Do you ever watch for the green flash?”
“Sometimes,” Gavin said. He knew people who swore they’d seen it, though no one could explain what it was or why it happened, and he knew others who swore it was a myth.
“I think of it as Orholam’s wink,” the White said.
Is everything about Orholam with her? Maybe she is fading.
“You’ve seen it?” Gavin asked.
“Twice. The first time was… fifty-nine years ago now? No, sixty. It was the night I met Ulbear.” Gavin had to reach to remember the name. Oh, Ulbear Rathcore, the White’s husband and quite a famous man in his day. Dead now twenty years. “I was at a party, quite disgusted with the drunk young gentleman who’d escorted me there and most certainly wasn’t going to be escorting me home. I went outside to get some air. Watched the sun set, saw the green flash, and was so excited I jumped. Unfortunately this very tall fellow was leaning over me to grab his wineglass that he’d left on the balcony, and I broke his nose with the back of my head.”
“You met Ulbear Rathcore by breaking his nose?”
“The woman he was escorting that night was none too pleased. She was beautiful, graceful, prettier than I was by half, and somehow she couldn’t compete with little clumsy me. Though I can’t imagine she would have been happy if she’d married Ulbear, your grandmother didn’t forgive me for two years.”
“My grandmother?”
“If I hadn’t seen the green flash at that instant, your grandmother would have married Ulbear, and you wouldn’t be here now, Gavin.” The White laughed. “See, you never know what you’ll learn when you let old women prattle.”
Gavin was left speechless.
“You can go to Garriston, of course, Gavin, but no one else can perform the Freeing, and it can be done at no other time. So there’s only one option: I’ll send all those to be Freed to Garriston. I’ll have to send our fastest ships to intercept theirs so they can arrive in time.”
“We’re talking about war,” Gavin said.
“And?”
“What do you mean ‘and’?” he demanded. “I’m not going to have time to throw parties and set off fireworks and give speeches.”
“The list I have so far is only perhaps a hundred and fifty drafters. Not a large flight