armor and stomping of hooves as the Mirrormen and drafters pressed in closer to Rask Garadul. Gavin only heard it; he was looking down the hill. He’d avoided looking until now to avoid drawing attention to Karris. By now, she’d probably decided whether she was going to stay or go.
She was almost gone, already starting down the swift-flowing river on a little punt. If Gavin knew Karris, though, she would stop and try to see what happened to him. After all, she was a Blackguard, and though their first responsibility was always to the White, his protection came in a close second. He wondered if she’d left because she trusted him, because she thought he could fend for himself, or because she had her own mission to accomplish and nothing could be allowed to interfere with that.
The stout boy, on the other hand, was now almost directly behind Gavin. After Gavin had saved him once from Mirrormen, apparently he thought Gavin was his best hope to survive.
“You misunderstand me, King Garadul,” Gavin said, turning once more, committed, letting the title stand. “I saw these men slaughtering the innocent citizens of your satrapy. I intervened to save your people. I believed I was doing you a favor.”
“Doing me a favor by murdering soldiers in my uniform?”
“Renegades, surely. Bandits. What sort of madman would burn his own town to the ground?”
Many of the Mirrormen looked away or down and threw furtive glances at King Garadul. Clearly, not all of them had been happy to murder their countrymen. The king flushed. “I am king,” he declared. “I will not have my choices questioned. Especially not by the Chromeria. Tyrea is a sovereign nation. Our internal conflicts are no business of yours.” The soldiers went back to being stony-faced.
“Of course not. It’s simply… novel to find a king burning his own town and people. Murdering children. You can understand my confusion, I’m sure. My apologies for this misunderstanding. The Chromeria serves the Seven Satrapies. Tyrea included.”
It was, perhaps, as well played as Gavin could manage. If they’d been standing before fifty nobles versed in the interplay of nations and respectful of diplomacy, it might have been enough. Rask Garadul would demand some monetary consideration, allowing it had been an honest and understandable error and preserving his own right to have been outraged, and Gavin would be understood to have won. Elegant and clean.
But Rask Garadul was a young man and a new king. He was not standing in front of nobles, but in front of his men. He saw that he was losing, but with the bloody corpses piled on every side and his men looking askance at him, he didn’t think he could afford to lose. “Surely you haven’t come hundreds of leagues simply to patrol our kingdom for bandits? And unannounced, no less. One would think you’d snuck into our kingdom under cover of darkness, like some sort of spy.”
Ah, not stupid either. When on a losing path, take a new one, quick. Gavin glanced once more at the boy, to see how he was holding up. Not well. He was practically quivering with terror. He had eyes only for Rask Garadul. Or was that rage?
“A spy?” Gavin said lightly. “How droll. No no no. One has people to do that sort of thing. One doesn’t do it oneself. Surely you’ve been king long enough to know this?”
“What are you doing here?” King Garadul demanded. Again, shockingly rude if they’d been in a court in any capital in the Seven Satrapies. He glanced at the boy, and Gavin knew he was lost. He could leave—he was the Prism, after all, and even killing thirty of Garadul’s Mirrormen wasn’t enough to justify his seizure or murder. Especially not under questionable circumstances. Rask would risk uniting the satrapies against Tyrea. Killing a satrap would be an outrageous breach; killing the Prism would be an unconscionable one. But Rask felt he was losing, and he was going to make Gavin pay for that. He was going to hurt him as badly as he could.
Gavin would be released; the boy would be killed.
“I saw smoke,” Gavin said. “One of the ways I serve the Seven Satrapies is by dealing with color wights. I came to help.”
“What are you doing in our kingdom?”
“I wasn’t aware you’d closed your borders. Indeed, I wasn’t aware of this new ‘kingdom’ at all. This seems needlessly… hostile. Especially to wish to bar a servant of the realms like myself.” The myth