At the same time, to everyone who had power now, he would be terrifying. He would bring rebellion even in the best of times. But now? At the very time the Chromeria needed a united front against the Color Prince, Kip might splinter it from within—without even intending it.

For purely utilitarian reasons, the Chromeria itself might want to kill Kip, who’d never shown disloyalty for a moment.

But those who kill their friends for the trouble they might cause don’t deserve friends.

‘Deserve’? Am I still thinking about power as if morality belongs in the same conversation with it?

Teia said, “He didn’t leave me here to spy. I decided my work with the Blackguard was what I was called to. But we are still friends. I don’t deny that. That friendship doesn’t abrogate my loyalty to my oaths, sir.”

“Not yet.”

Teia licked her lips and admitted, “It won’t. Ever. Orholam forbid that such choices ever face us.”

“But if it did…?”

“This is like you’re asking a mother if they had to sacrifice one of their children, which one they’d choose. It’s a cruel question and it won’t happen.” She prayed.

“And if it does?” he asked.

“I’ll do the right thing, sir.”

“Ha! Best answer I could imagine. Anyway, I wanted to let you know where I stand before I raise you to full Blackguard.”

“Sir?!”

“You stand vigil tonight in the Prism’s chapel. At dawn you take the oath with a few of your brothers and sisters. Your first shift as full Guard will be on the White’s detail tomorrow at noon. We’re putting some traitors up on Orholam’s Glare. I recommend you get some sleep now. It’s gonna be a long couple days.”

Teia was thunderstruck. Full Blackguard? So soon? Was Commander Fisk so pressed for new bodies to fill the details, or was he trying to use his time as commander to pack as many good people into the Blackguard as possible? She mumbled a thanks and opened the door to leave.

“He hesitated, you know. Lytos,” Commander Fisk said quietly, looking away from Teia. “At the end. Breaker didn’t tell your squad about it, but he did tell the White. Lytos changed his mind, turned away from his treason. He was moving to attack Buskin to stop him when Winsen killed him. It wasn’t Winsen’s fault, so Kip didn’t tell him. Lytos shouldn’t have been there in the first place, so Breaker kept the burden of that knowledge on his own shoulders. But he wanted the White to know. When you’re a leader, you protect the living first, but you honor the dead as you can. It’s the kind of grace I’d expect from the Lightbringer. And… and Orholam saw to it that word of Lytos’s ultimate faithfulness got to me, the one person to whom it would matter most, so I wouldn’t have to remember him as a traitor. That’s Orholam’s mercy, isn’t it?”

Chapter 10

Time is the only prison from which prison frees us. Gavin woke with a new sense of vigor. Of course, the light was still the same, so he had no idea how long he’d slept. He accepted his ignorance as a gift. He’d slept until he was no longer tired.

And he felt better. Stronger than last night, the pain faded from his eye to a dull throb. He felt almost his old self. Or, he thought as he stretched and became aware of it, maybe that was just his erection.

Somehow, despite the narrowness of the palanquin, neither of them had fallen off it in the night, and Marissia’s form was plastered to his. The curve of her butt was holding down what was straining to be up.

His twitch seemed to waken her. He couldn’t shift away. He’d been imprisoned nude, and with Marissia only in her light shift, she could hardly help but notice his state if he moved. Marissia knew his body like no one else in the world.

But then she made his stillness moot by shifting her own position. She hesitated, and gave a luxurious moue. She’d always loved morning sex. “Is that for me?” she asked.

It wasn’t, but it seemed rude to say so. He cleared his throat as she rolled over with impressive dexterity, anchoring a leg on his hip and looking into his face. She pulled her body close.

“You’re feeling better, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Much.”

A cloud passed over her face. “Then your father will take me away soon.”

And like every freedom, the freedom from time offered by this prison was revealed to be a lie. Gavin said, “I can pretend to be sicker than I am.”

“But we can’t know when he’s watching, so that’s hopeless, isn’t it?”

Gavin hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

She looked into his eyes with a serenity that defied sense. “He’ll kill me.”

Gavin nodded, throat thick. She was a loose end.

“Will you do me a favor?” she asked.

“Anything.”

“Make love to me.” Her fingernails brushed lightly down his back in the way he liked. But having really seen her for the first time just last night, how could he now ignore her deep currents and see only the surface?

Easily. Oh so easily.

Her eyes were hot, intense, full of longing and grief and fear. “One last time, please. Show me I meant something to you.”

Orholam have mercy. Gavin remembered the last time he’d made love with Marissia, just before he’d left the Chromeria, how he’d felt as if he were somehow cheating on Karris, though that was before they’d married. He’d rejected the guilt then: every lord kept a room slave. Most kept more than one. Gavin was downright abstemious by comparison with others, and certainly compared to others in his class.

That day Marissia had made love to him like fire, all longing and hidden rage and despair.

No wonder.

And she felt all that again now, and worse. She said, ‘Show me I meant something to you,’ but she meant, ‘Let’s blot out feeling and fear. Let’s do what we’ve always done.’ She would make love as if it would make him love her.

Marissia pulled her shift away from between them, and her body was hot against him. And not for the first time in his life, Gavin split. His body said what his will did not. Marissia’s ears had been clipped. She had been sold, even if she’d chosen it. She had been a slave, hadn’t she? She’d been treated as a slave, so that made her one, didn’t it? And slaves weren’t quite covered by wedding oaths, were they?