knife edges along their forearms. They passed an orange. The man looked normal except he'd slicked back his hair with orange luxin as if it were hair oil, and the whites of his eyes were solid orange, leaving no differentiation from white to iris, only the tiny black dots of his pupils marring that perfect color. A green clad only in leaves hissed at them; then she laughed. A menagerie indeed, except Kip was in the cage with the animals.
They were brought all the way to the front. The crowd was arrayed in front of a stone rising out of the ground, its surfaces worn smooth by wind and rain, but tall enough to be a platform. As Kip and Karris arrived, a man climbed up on the rock wearing a hooded cloak. He reached the top of the stone, threw back his hood, and tore off the cloak, throwing it aside as if it disgusted him.
The man's entire body glowed in the gathering dark. He stood, defiant, silent, legs braced. He extended a hand toward the crowd, and at every five paces, in a wave, torches burst into flame, bathing them in light. Last, torches ringing his stone platform caught fire, and Kip saw that the man was made entirely of luxin. And he was glowing from within.
All around, drafters were dropping to their knees before Lord Omnichrome. But not all of them. Those who stood looked awkward, conflicted. For those who bowed weren't just bowing, they were pressing their faces to the ground. This was pure religious devotion.
'Don't bow,' Karris said. 'That's no god.'
'What is he?' Kip whispered.
'My brother.'
Lord Omnichrome extended his hands. 'Please, no. Brothers, sisters, stand. Stand with me. We have fallen prostrate before men for far too long.' The orange drafter, the artist Aheyyad, fell prostrate before Gavin. He was to be the first of the night. It was an honored place, and Aheyyad deserved honor. Real honor, not this travesty. But there was no way out. There never was.
Gavin stepped forward. 'Stand, my child,' he said. Usually, when he called the drafters 'my child' he felt sardonic. But Aheyyad was a child, or at least barely a man.
Aheyyad stood. He met Gavin's eyes, then quickly looked away.
'You have something to say,' Gavin said. 'This is the time.' Some drafters felt the need to confess sins or secrets. Some made requests. Some just wanted to express a frustration, a fear, a doubt. Depending on the number of drafters to be Freed before dawn, each year Gavin took as much time with each drafter as he could.
'I failed you, Lord Prism,' Aheyyad said. 'I failed my family. They always said I was the son who could have been great. Instead, I'm a waste. An addict. I'm the gifted one who couldn't handle Orholam's gift.' Bitter tears rolled down his cheeks. He still couldn't look Gavin in the eye.
'Look at me,' Gavin said. He took the young man's face in his hands. 'You joined me in the greatest work I have ever done. You did what I, the Prism, couldn't do. Any man who has seen a sunset knows that Orholam values beauty. You made that wall as beautiful and terrible as Orholam himself. What you did will stand for a thousand years.'
'But we lost!'
'We lost,' Gavin acknowledged. 'My failure, not yours. Kingdoms come and go, but that wall will protect thousands yet unborn. And it will inspire hundreds of thousands more. I couldn't have done that. Only you could. You, Aheyyad, have made beauty. Orholam gave you a gift, and you have given a gift to the world. That doesn't sound like failure to me. Your family will be proud. I am proud of you, Aheyyad. I will never forget you. You have inspired me.'
A quick grin flickered over the young man's face. 'It is a pretty great piece, huh?'
'Not bad for your first try,' Gavin said.
Aheyyad laughed, his whole demeanor changed. He was a light indeed. A gift to the world, beautiful and so burning with life.
'Are you ready, son?' Gavin asked.
'Gavin Guile,' the young man said. 'My Lord Prism. You, sir, are a great man, and a great Prism. Thank you. I am ready.'
'Aheyyad Brightwater, Orholam gave you a gift,' Gavin began. The last name was the invention of the moment. In Paria, the only people given two names were great men and women, and sometimes their children. From the sudden tears welling in Aheyyad's eyes and the deep breath he took, his chest swelling with pride, Gavin knew he'd said the perfect thing. 'And you have stewarded well the gift he gave you. It is time to lay your burden down, Aheyyad Brightwater. You gave the full measure. Your service will not be forgotten, but your failures are hereby blotted out, forgotten, erased. Well done, true and faithful servant. You have fulfilled the Pact.' 'They say we take a Pact! We make an oath! And with that oath, they bind us, they bury us,' Lord Omnichrome said.
Liv was pushing carefully through the throng, moving toward the front. She swore she'd seen Kip led there, black spectacles bound to his head. But everyone else was paying rapt attention to the freak up front, so she couldn't move too quickly. Instead, she pretended to listen, too, and moved slowly.
'Like this,' Lord Omnichrome said. He gestured to the rounded stone on which he stood. 'This is all that's left of what was once a great civilization. You have seen these relics scattered throughout this land. Statues of great men, broken by the pygmies who followed.' Liv's ears perked up. Rekton had had a broken statue, out in an orange grove. No one had ever said anything about where it came from. She thought that was because no one knew.
'You think these statues are a mystery?' Lord Omnichrome asked. 'They're no mystery. You think it was a coincidence the Prisms' War ended here, in Tyrea? You think the Guiles simply wandered the Seven Satrapies until their armies found each other? And it happened to be here? Let me tell you something you already know, something that all of you have believed but no one dared to say: the wrong Guile won the Prisms' War. Dazen Guile was trying to change things, and they killed him for it. The Chromeria killed Dazen Guile. They killed him because they were worried he would change everything. They feared him, because Dazen Guile wanted to Free us.' There was some consternation in the crowd at that phrase. They all knew what day it was, and that the Prism was in Garriston, not even a league away, performing the Freeing this very night.
'You see?' Lord Omnichrome said. 'You feel that uneasiness? Because the Chromeria has twisted our very language against us. Dazen wanted to Free us. Dazen knew that light cannot be chained.'
'Light cannot be chained,' some of the drafters echoed. It was an almost religious refrain.
'The Freeing, they call it. Lay your burdens down, the Prism says. I give you absolution and freedom, he says. Do you know what he gives us? Do you know?!' 'I give you absolution,' Gavin said, his heart in his throat as Aheyyad knelt at his feet, eyes up, right hand on Gavin's thigh. 'I give you freedom. Orholam bless you and take you to his arms.' He drew his knife and buried it in Aheyyad's chest. Right in the heart. He withdrew the blade. A perfect thrust. But then, he'd had a lot of practice.
He didn't look at the wound, didn't watch the blood bloom on Aheyyad's shirt. He held the boy's eyes as the life went out of them. And when it did, Gavin said, 'Please forgive me. Please forgive me.'
Gavin had sheathed the dagger, and he was scrubbing his hands on the blood rag he carried-though they were clean. He stopped. 'They murder you!' Lord Omnichrome shouted. 'They stick a knife in you and watch you die. As you beg, they watch-and they say their god smiles on this! Tell me, is this any way to treat our elders? Under the Chromeria, we barely have elders. They've killed them all. Oh, except for the White. Except for Andross Guile and his wife. The rules don't apply to them, but you and me, and our mothers and our fathers-we should be killed. They say this is Orholam's will. They say it is the Pact. Like something we swore to as ignorant children makes their murder of our parents good and right. What insanity is this? A woman serves the Seven Satrapies for all her life, and then as a reward, she's murdered? Is this freedom? This is what they call 'Freeing' her?'
Liv caught sight of Kip, but she wasn't pushing toward him anymore.
'You know it's wrong. I know it's wrong. They know it's wrong. That's why they speak about it in hushed tones and euphemisms. It's not just. It's not a Freeing, it's a murder, let's be clear about that. And then they don't even have the decency to give your body back to your family. They use it in some dark ritual instead. Is that what our fathers served so long to get? Is that just? The Chromeria soils everything it touches. And do you think that all who are 'Freed' have volunteered?'
Lord Omnichrome laughed derisively. As the Blackguards took Aheyyad's body out of the room, careful not to spill any blood, there was a single knock on the door. One strike, followed by nothing. It took Gavin a moment to remember: Bas the Simple had never really understood knocking.
'Come in, Bas,' Gavin said. Children and idiots. This is who I kill? I bathe in the blood of innocents.
The man came in. He was actually quite handsome dressed in his finery. Unlike other simpletons Gavin had
