“But that’s true of any drafting,” Teia said. “Used judiciously, think of it. We’d be faster, stronger, jump farther.”

“This can’t be the first time anyone’s thought of this,” Kip said, suddenly embarrassed.

“Every brilliant discovery is obvious after someone’s made it,” Ben-hadad said.

“Did you really just come up with this?” Cruxer asked. “No one suggested it to you?”

Kip shrugged.

“He shall be a genius of magic,” Ben-hadad said quietly, as if quoting something. The rest of them stopped, looked at him, looked at each other. Kip could tell they’d talked about it among themselves before.

“Does this mean we’re going to have to fill ourselves full of holes?” Ferkudi asked.

Chapter 26

Aliviana Danavis stood high on the Great Pyramid of Ru, wrapping up teaching the women who would replace her. The four superviolet drafters who had been learning from Liv for the last four months were joined by Liv’s personal guards. That guard had been formed around the core of men who’d helped her seize this very structure during the liberation of Ru.

Phyros was Liv’s rock. Over six feet tall, wide as the sea. When they’d infiltrated the city, he hadn’t worn his lucky cape because it was too distinctive, but usually he didn’t go anywhere with it. It was the skin of a lion, the roaring mouth forming a cap for his head, the mane bunching around his shoulders. Over an alligator-leather vest with many straps, he wore a jade-and-turquoise belt that hooked with great, curving giant javelina tusks. The sheath for his belt knife was a hollowed-out sabre-cat’s fang. He claimed to have killed each of the beasts himself, armed only with that knife. He despised muskets and pistols, but otherwise didn’t have a favorite among weapons. He had two axes that looked like halberds with their hafts cut short in special slings on his back. Someday, he would craft a weapon from sea demon tooth, he said.

From anyone else, Liv would have thought it empty boasting, but Phyros she believed. She’d seen him without a tunic on, and he bore scars from claws and fangs like a man who had done everything he claimed.

The rest of her guard were less conspicuous, but perhaps no less dangerous. Tychos was an orange drafter, one of the best hex casters in the Blood Robes. He was a small man, violent, and strangely direct for an orange. Magic is no match for man, as an old saying went. There were crafty sub-reds and reckless blues. But here, it was probably one of the main reasons why he wasn’t in contention to become the prince’s candidate for Molokh. With one of Tychos’s hexes woven into her cloak, Liv could inspire awe in everyone who looked at it. Or dread. Simply being aware of the hex was usually enough to end the effect—it was an imposition of will and could be broken, but most people hadn’t fought hexes in hundreds of years. Tychos was a khat chewer, his teeth stained red from his constant use of the stimulant. With red teeth and orange eyes, the man would have looked a demon to Liv a few months ago.

But she’d come a long way since she’d left the Chromeria.

She finished up teaching the superviolet drafters how to manipulate the great mirror atop the pyramid, answering their questions, guiding their rough efforts to reach their drafting into the controls and shift the mirror to shoot light into any corner of the city, immediately empowering the drafters there, even late in the day when the shadows were long. Ru would never be as light as Big Jasper, with its Thousand Stars, but this mirror was a wonder. The light from it was as thick and potent as anything Liv had ever seen. It had helped birth a god—a god immediately slain by Gavin Guile, but still.

Unfortunately, turning the mirror this way and that to illuminate the city meant surveying the city itself. Unlike Garriston, Ru hadn’t accepted its liberation joyfully.

The Color Prince had bet it would. Ru had as many reasons to hate the Guiles as anyone: They mercilessly quashed rebellions that had been sponsored by the old royal family. The massacre of the Atashian nobility during the False Prism’s War. Even two short-lived and small uprisings since then. The streets of Ru had run with blood, blood the Chromeria had spilled. Freed of their satrap, they should have been natural allies.

Instead, its subjects had fought fiercely. The prince had been furious. He’d issued an ultimatum for several of the leaders of the resistance to be surrendered to him for immediate execution. When they hadn’t been, he’d gone insane with fury. He’d given his army leave to do whatever they wanted for three days to punish the city.

Liv’s guards had urged her not to go out in the city—even as they had taken turns going out themselves. The advice was simultaneously wise and patronizing. She hadn’t intended to go. But she wouldn’t be stopped from going out by any man. The Chromeria liked to cloak unpleasantness in soft ritual. Liv would have her truths served in hard light, thank you.

Phyros had tried to object one last time, as all of them shifted uneasily and armed themselves: “Eikona”—it was the term for the preeminent drafter of her color. The Blood Robes would have new titles. “Eikona, I understand you want to look. It’s natural. But you’re what? Seventeen years old? Pretty, and a woman.” He scowled. Like she hadn’t noticed her gender.

“Eighteen,” she said, even though she wouldn’t be eighteen for another ten days. “Thank you for your concern, and fuck you.”

Still, when they went, they’d prominently displayed their Blood Robes.

It had been a nightmare tour. The sights were etched on her eyes. It didn’t bear thinking about now, even though some of the many fires burning in the city below her now were funeral pyres. Huge pyramids of flame. And still it wasn’t finished. There were places the patrols couldn’t go to collect the bodies for burning. It was still too dangerous. So disease spread.

She couldn’t leave too soon. She fingered the black jewel in her pocket. Black luxin, the prince claimed. She didn’t really believe it. It was likely obsidian only, though threads of darkness seemed to swim in the jewel. She didn’t know how the Color Prince had gotten it. Regardless, he believed that it was a means of control. She’d first thought that perhaps he spied through it, but simply seeing wouldn’t be enough to stop a god, would it? Surely it was something more dangerous.

She didn’t like to think about it. Didn’t like to look at it. Didn’t like the feel of it on her skin. But he’d forbidden her to go anywhere without it.

“You have my things?” she asked Phyros.

“Packed and on the galley.” Phyros’s voice was a deep, satisfying rumble that practically made your lungs vibrate themselves, like a tuning fork rung. It was, for some reason, incredibly comforting. She’d heard him bellow in rage with that voice, and having it on her side soothed all sorts of fears. Not that she’d ever let him know it.

The Color Prince didn’t have nearly the number of ships he needed, so Liv and her guard would be traveling in a cheap, poorly constructed galley. Of course, there were villages for the supply of galleys around the entire rim of the sea. Traveling by ship wouldn’t be fast, especially not when they would have to find ports to wait out every winter storm, but it would be faster than walking or riding, and much less dangerous. Any pirates who waylaid them would be in for several unpleasant surprises—though usually, merely announcing the presence of a drafter was enough to convince pirates not to attack. A little blast of luxin into the sky would be enough to turn back all but the most foolhardy.