“You think it unworthy of me to question you?” Gavin asked.

Corvan’s lips were tight, eyes lidded.

“It is,” Gavin said. “You’ve more than proved yourself. But your faith will be tested.”

“And will come through the fire purer than before, doubtless.”

“Thank you, Corvan. Your pardon. Satrap Danavis.”

“My lord,” Corvan said quietly. “Thank you for what you did. With the blue bane. I know… I know it must have been awful, but thank you for doing it.”

Gavin stood, said nothing. Popped his neck right and left. He’d summoned the people to the great square. There were plans to build a stadium, but they hadn’t progressed far on it yet. Regardless, he was going to have to give a talk. Bolster support for Corvan.

“Lord Prism,” Corvan said quietly. “I don’t know if I can be a satrap. Not even of a second-rate satrapy.” It was a mercy, switching the subject, saying his piece about Gavin’s slaughter and then letting it go.

“Nonsense. It’s just like being a general, except that if you’re any good at it, you’ll rarely have to watch your people die.”

The general snorted. It would be harder than that, in the environment he was leading his people into, and they both knew it. Then Gavin’s friend squinted. “My lord,” Corvan said. “The rebels have my daughter. You making me a satrap will make Liv a thousand times more valuable to them.”

Corvan always was quick.

Gavin stood, and looked to the people crowding the stadium, gathering to listen to him, hoping he’d speak, but willing to just get a glimpse of him. He said, “You know what you can’t do with a satrap’s daughter when you’re looking for support among neutral parties?”

For once, Corvan didn’t have a ready answer.

“Kill her,” Gavin said. “I hold you in my eyes, Corvan. I won’t forget.”

The man’s face contorted for an instant with sudden grief, sudden hope, and his shoulders heaved. He looked away from Gavin, trying to control himself. Then he dropped to his knees, and farther, lying prostrate at Gavin’s feet. More than respect and thankfulness, it was veneration. Worship.

“You would do this, for me?” Corvan said.

“I do it for many reasons, my friend. There is no unadulterated altruism.”

“But altruism abides. I know you, lord.”

“Please stand, my friend, it grows awkward.” And indeed, around the square, and from the wood-hewn balconies of golden buildings all around, men and women, and even children who couldn’t have known to what they paid obeisance, were dropping to their knees, to their faces where there was room.

It touched Gavin’s heart. They’d lost everything because he’d failed. Not one had eaten his fill for the last months, because they didn’t know how long their food would last. Everyone had worked from dawn to dusk and beyond, every day. They lived in great longhouses, not homes, stuffed with strangers. They had no wealth, little hope, and lots of pain, and yet what little they had, they offered him freely.

“My people!” Gavin shouted, pitching his voice to his orator’s tone, his general’s tone. “Downtrodden, destitute, devastated but not dismayed. My people, dearest to my heart…” And so he spoke. He bade them rise, and they rose. He could bid them into the teeth of hell, and they would descend, singing praises all the way. He was good at this. Not born to it, but he’d stolen this crown and worked it so long in his hands that now it fit him.

He addressed their fears, and fired their desires, and acknowledged their sorrows and their sacrifices, and braced them for coming hardship and made them feel noble about it all.

By what right do I bend men to my will? Or is there no right, only ability? Are these women here mere slaves on my pirate ship? Are these children mere victims in the path of my plague?

But on he spoke, urging peace and honest dealing with the people of Seers Island, laying foundations, frankly assessing the difficulties coming their way, and throwing the full weight of his support behind Corvan.

He swore he would be with them when he could, and that when he left he would go to better protect them, and that he would always come back. He would work beside them, and prevent the suffering that he could, and mourn the dead beside them when death couldn’t be avoided.

Gavin saw that there were at least two scribes copying his every word in shorthand. He was surprised that there were scribes here among the poor, but he shouldn’t have been. Corvan would have, of course, scoured the refugees for scribes so they could distribute copies of his decrees to those camped far out in the woods and send messages to the Seers.

It made him temper what he would say. He hoped it would take months, but eventually, his father would end up with a copy of every word. Still, the good it would do in spreading support through the refugees was worth the damage it would do him later.

Not even you will be able to stop this, father.

And last, bracing them that the Spectrum and the other satrapies would look down on them—as if they should care about such things when their bellies were gnawing on their navels—he built up the audience and himself as their champion, and announced the new satrapy.

The people roared in approval.

I really am very, very good at this.

They looked radiant. Perhaps he was a gifted orator; he was a gifted drafter for sure, the best for many years, perhaps. Their respect, their admiration, these were his due, but he didn’t deserve their love. He wondered that he was the only one who knew it.

Half an hour later, he and Karris skimmed away with little more than they’d brought with them three months ago. He didn’t explain himself. She’d seen the blood on him when he got back last night. She’d seen the look on his face. She didn’t berate him for leaving without her. She knew him. And without asking whether they were leaving, she’d said her goodbyes. She knew.

The crowds gathered once more as they walked to the beach, and they roared as he waved to them. Men and women wept for him. It was an insanity of kindness that Gavin couldn’t understand, but he treasured it nonetheless. And then they left.

As Seers Island slowly disappeared into the distance behind them, Gavin examined it over his shoulder, discomfited. He and Karris talked little that day, each introspective, and camped on a beach near Ruic Head in Atash.

The next day, as Gavin switched the skimmer for the manual labor of the scull to close the final leagues to Little Jasper, he spied the towers, rising majestic against the noon sun. Against the stark colors of the other towers, the blue sat mute, gray. Its sister tower and neighbor, the green tower, was adorned with illusions beneath the luxin to make it look like a towering tree—this year they honored Atash by depicting the extinct atasifusta. But the color wasn’t right. Before the war, Gavin had seen the last grove of atasifusta.

There were storm clouds gathering over the Chromeria, and at first Gavin thought perhaps it was simply a trick of the light, but as they got closer, he became certain that wasn’t it.

Why would they make such a mistake? Surely some Atashian who remembered the trees would complain. The leaves of the giants were vibrant, radiant, a perfect complement to the green tower, not this sickly, gray-green mishmash.

Oh hells. Gavin drafted the green he needed for the scull’s flexibility. He could still do it, but it was like he was building the whole damn Brightwater Wall all over again, just to give a few corners of his boat some flexibility.