“You mean originally? I don’t know. Some Parian or Ilytian blood, maybe,” Liv said. “Why?”
“What’s she look like?”
Too skinny, with bloodshot eyes and bad teeth from smoking haze. “Tall, short kinky hair, mahogany skin, stunning hazel eyes.” Now that Liv thought about it, Lina had probably been a real beauty once.
“And Kip? Who’s he?”
Oh, hell, caught. “Uh, her son.”
“Oh, she does have family, then.”
“I thought you meant does she have any people around Rekton.”
“Right,” Aglaia said. “How old is Kip?”
“Fifteen now, I suppose.” Kip was nice, though it had been obvious the last time Liv was home that he was terribly infatuated with her.
“What’s he look like?”
“Why do you want to know all this?” Liv asked.
“Answer the question.”
“I haven’t seen him for three years. He probably looks totally different now.” Liv threw up her hands, but Aglaia didn’t relent. “A bit chubby. A little shorter than me, the last time I saw him—”
“For Orholam’s sake, girl, his eyes, his skin, his hair!”
“Well I don’t know what you’re looking for!”
“Now you do,” Aglaia said.
“Blue eyes, medium skin, not as dark as his mother’s. Kinky hair.”
“Half-breed?”
“I guess so.” Though Liv couldn’t have said what Kip’s halves would be. Parian and Atashian? Ilytian and Blood Forester? Something else? Probably not simple halves, whatever he was. “Half-breed” was a mean description, though, and completely unfair. The finest families and all the nobles in the Seven Satrapies intermarried far more often than commoners, and they were never called half-breeds.
“Blue eyes, though. That’s interesting. Not many people in your town with blue eyes, are there?”
“My father has blue eyes. There’s a few among people who settled there after the war, but no, we’re like the rest of Tyrea.”
“Is he a drafter?”
“Of course he is. My father’s one of the most famous red—”
“Not your father, idiot girl. Kip.”
“Kip? No! Well, not the last time I saw him. He was twelve or thirteen then.”
Aglaia sat back. “I should let you grope in the dark after your attitude today, but then you’d be even more likely to muss everything than you already are. I have an assignment for you, Liv Danavis. It turns out that my punishment of having to deal with you was Orholam’s gift in disguise. We intercepted a letter this woman Lina wrote to the Prism.”
“She what?”
“She claimed Kip was his bastard.”
Liv laughed, it was so ridiculous. Aglaia’s face said she wasn’t kidding.
“What?!” Liv asked.
“She said she was dying, and she wanted Gavin to meet his son Kip. We don’t know if it’s their first communication or not. But she didn’t ask for anything, or threaten him. Kip’s the right age, and Gavin had blue eyes before becoming the Prism. The rest is inconclusive, but the note was written as if it were true. As if Gavin knows her.” Aglaia smiled. “Liv, I’m going to give you an opportunity at a better life, and I hope I don’t need to tell you that I can already make you have a much worse life, if I so choose. You tested as a superviolet and a marginal yellow. For obvious reasons, your sponsor chose not to train you as a bichrome.”
Yes, Liv knew it well. A bichrome was expected to be kept in a certain style, or it reflected badly on the sponsor and the sponsoring country. And yellow was so hard to draft well that few who were trained in yellow passed the final examination. So supporting a yellow bichrome was a huge investment, with little possibility of a return. Liv’s sponsor had pretended she wasn’t a bichrome to save his money. It wasn’t fair, but there was no one to speak up for Tyreans.
“Here’s your assignment, girl. I’ve maneuvered things so that your class will be up next for the Prism’s personal instruction. Get close to him—”
“You want me to spy on the Prism?” Liv asked. The very notion was nearly… blasphemous.
“Of course we do. He may solicit you for information about his son and this woman Lina. Use that opportunity. Become indispensable to him. Become his lover. Whatever you need to—”
“What? He’s twice my age!”
“And that would be horrible—if you were forty years old. You’re not. It’s not like we’re talking about someone old and decrepit. Tell me the truth, you’ve already dreamed about him tearing off your clothes, haven’t you?”
“No, absolutely not!” Really she’d just admired him. Every girl did that. But for Liv, it had been completely abstract. Platonic.