I wondered if Usef could kill me, when it came to it. Usef was a blue, but he was also a red. It was how he’d gotten his nickname, the Purple Bear. He hated that name with a passion, thought it made him sound ridiculous. But as I pointed out, it was really the only nickname possible. Usef was six and a half feet tall, barrel-chested, burly, and hairy, with a full, wild beard and long, wild dark hair and heavy brows. He was a bear, and a red and blue disjunctive bichrome. His growling in response to people calling him the Purple Bear had only made the name stick.

Usef’s chest exploded when a shell hit the building behind them. Impossibly, he’d stood, looking for me, relieved to find me, relieved that I wasn’t injured. His mouth moved. And then he’d died.

I’d picked up my musket, and his, but instead of turning it on myself, I attacked the bastards. Found the cannon team. Massacred them. And there I broke my halo.

At first I thought I’d been hit with musket fire. I lost consciousness, and fully believed I was dying. I was content with that.

I love you, my Purple Bear.

I woke in a blacked-out wagon, sick as a dim.

Eventually, perhaps weeks later, the wagon had been commandeered for other uses and set off from Garriston. I recovered, and now find myself daily in this tent. I pick up snatches of conversation from the soldiers and peasants who pass too close, but all I can construct is speculative. Obviously, we’re marching at the direction of this Color Prince and covering a good distance daily, despite what seems a vast caravan.

From the excitement on certain days, and the smell of smoke that isn’t woodsmoke, I know we must have cut far enough south that they avoided the Karsos Mountains, and that we have invaded Atash.

Every day, I’m chained and blindfolded carefully before we move, but otherwise I haven’t been accosted. An odd mercy. I’m on the wrong side of forty years old now, but as a warrior, I long ago prepared myself for outrages, should I be captured. Weak men like to humble women, especially great women who make them feel as inferior. I do that constantly.

So what’s the game?

I’m a formidable blue warrior, perhaps even a legend. And I’ve broken the halo.

And there it is. This Color Prince, whoever he is, wants me to join him. He thinks that the longer he lets me sit in my blueness, the more likely I am to go mad and join him.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been underestimated. I don’t like it any more now than I did as a young woman.

My tent isn’t large; I can’t stand up straight without brushing my head on the fabric. My hands are manacled in front of me, and the manacles attach to the iron collar around my neck. My legs are hobbled with chains around my ankles, held apart by an iron pole.

All in all, it gives me reasonable freedom of movement, but little possibility of attacking anyone. Truth is, I’m no Blackguard: I wouldn’t know how to attack someone with my hands even were I free. Well, I know a few punches, but that’s a far different thing than being dangerous. Truth is, without drafting, I’m simply another helpless woman.

But I’m not ready to give up drafting yet.

They haven’t taken my ring—which absolutely must mean that the Color Prince intends to recruit me. They’d taken a long, hard look at the ruby on my finger, another at the broken, pure blue halo in my eyes, and let me keep it.

It takes me two days to form my plan. The tent is red, so the light that comes through it keeps me from panicking like darkness would, but it’s worthless to me for drafting. However, the tent is also made of cloth. Standing on tiptoe, I can pull a bit of the tent that is usually covered by the frame underneath it and gnaw on it. It takes me two days to chew a hole big enough to let in a tiny spotlight of clear, white light—but still small enough to be hidden to the eyes of those who fold up the tent every morning.

The next day, I nearly panick when I find that the hole isn’t there. But there is no punishment, no mention of it. There must be more than one blue drafter imprisoned as I am; our tents had merely been switched during the march.

I begin again. This time, I’m luckier: I keep my own tent. On the twelfth day, the army takes one of its daylong breaks, camping in one spot for some kind of festival I can dimly overhear. No matter: I’m ready, and the tent has been aligned north-south, the most advantageous way with where I’d chewed the hole. I can peek out.

Above the tents is a large white canopy. I’d thought it had merely been clouds overhead, diffusing the blueness. Clouds that might burn off under Orholam’s gaze and give me the blessed blue of pure sky. It is white canvas instead, allowing in light, but blocking my color. If I had spectacles, it wouldn’t matter. I don’t. I’m no Prism; white is as useless to me as no light at all. So this Color Prince isn’t stupid. He must know the tents are vulnerable. I hate him and admire him for it at the same time. But it doesn’t dissuade me.

Silently blessing Usef for giving me the ring, I brace myself and begin slamming the “ruby” against my manacle. After a dozen attempts, I hit it right, and the top half of the jewel shears off, breaking the glue that held it in place. I spend the next twenty minutes searching my tent for the fragment that split off.

After I find it, I put it in my mouth, moistening the glue. The red half of the ring is useless to me, but if I’m interrupted I’ll need to put it back onto my ring as quickly as possible.

The bottom half of the ring is sapphire blue. It’s tiny, but if it were larger, it wouldn’t have escaped my gaolers’ notice. I pull the fabric of the tent to the left of the frame, slowly, carefully. Two hours before noon, the sun is high enough that pure light pours through it in a tiny speck, a spotlight, a pinprick of power. The fact that my hands are chained to my neck becomes another blessing, a gift from the distant Orholam. It allows me to rest my hands and yet keep them in place.

I bathe my ring in that tiny spotlight, and it sends me thready blue power.

It takes hours, hours of barely blinking, of shifting minutely every minute as Orholam’s Eye climbs to the peak of the heavens and then begins its slow descent.

With evening coming, and the certain arrival of the steward who checks on me, I bring the red glass chip to the front of my mouth and slowly reaffix it to the ring. Then I carefully move the blue luxin around beneath my skin, packing it so that it will inhabit my skin only under my clothing. I haven’t soaked up much, despite the hours, but if my steward sees it, all my efforts will have been in vain. So I move the luxin into my back and butt and thighs. They have respected my privacy so far, and if they do so for one more night…

The steward comes. He sniffs once or twice, but seems to think he is allergic to something in “this damned country.” He leaves me the daily ration. Then comes and takes the plate away when I’m finished.

He will come again at curfew. It gives me two hours. Two hours is plenty of time to die.

With trembling hands, I draft a tiny, sharp knife of blue luxin. More like a nail, really. It isn’t as dramatic as slashing my wrists, but cut wrists can be bound, my life saved. A nail driven through my own heart? That is irrevocable, and reasonably quick. Even if my flesh betrays me and I cry out, there will be no saving me.

I should have died in Garriston. I should have died with Usef. I hadn’t told Usef that Gavin is really Dazen. I hadn’t trusted how he’d respond. I regret that now. He should have known for whom he died.