And if it involved lighting some jackass up with a fireball the size of a small house, so much the better.

Chapter 21

They practically flew down the river. Kip had never traveled so fast in his life. And the Prism didn't speak a word, sunk into his own dark mood. For most of the afternoon, Gavin Guile worked what the scull had in the place of oars-for a while, it would be almost like a ladder, then it would be like the bellows of a forge, then it would be oars, then it would be a rolling track. Gavin worked at one until he was exhausted, muscles quivering, sweat matting his thin shirt. Then he would draft a little, the oars would change to some new shape that gave his most weary muscles a rest, and he would keep going.

When Kip finally found his voice, he said, "Sir, um, he took my case?" He wasn't going to ask about Karris White Oak or what Gavin had said. Not now. Not ever.

Gavin looked at Kip, his mouth tight. Kip regretted speaking at once. "It was that or your life."

Kip paused, then said, "Thank you, sir. For saving me." That seemed like a better choice than saying, But that was mine! It was the last thing-the only thing-my mother ever gave me!

"You're welcome," Gavin said. He glanced back up the river, his thoughts obviously elsewhere.

"That man, he's responsible for killing my mother, isn't he?" Kip asked.

"Yes."

"I thought you were going to kill him right there. But you stopped."

Gavin glanced at him, weighing him. His voice was distant. "I wasn't willing for the innocent to die so I could kill the guilty."

"Those men weren't innocent! They murdered everyone I know!" Tears leaked down Kip's face. He felt ragged, wrung out, finished.

"I was talking about you."

It caught Kip short, but his emotions were still a jumble. His presence had kept Gavin from killing King Garadul. He didn't know words that could convey his feelings for that. He'd failed his mother again. He'd actually blocked her vengeance by his own incompetence.

I'll make good, mother. On my soul. I'll kill him. I swear it.

Half a dozen small villages passed, and dozens of boats. Fed by tributaries, the river widened. But Gavin stopped only once, to buy a roasted chicken and bread and wine. He threw the food to Kip. "Eat." Then they were off again. Gavin didn't eat. He didn't speak or even slow when they passed the fishermen startled by their appearance.

It wasn't until the sun set and Gavin shifted the oars again that Kip ventured to speak once more. "Can I help… sir?"

The Prism gave him an appraising glance, as if he hadn't even thought of having him help. But when he spoke, he said, "I'd really appreciate that. Here, stand on this and just walk." He'd been running. "You can use these hand oars to help if you want. Steer by dropping in the hand oar on the side you want to turn toward. Port for port, starboard for starboard, right?"

"Port is left?"

"Right."

Kip blinked. Uh…"Port is right?"

"Only if you're facing aft."

The panic must have been clear on Kip's face, because Gavin chuckled. "It doesn't matter. You just go until you're too tired, or if we hit rapids or bandits. I'm going to rest for a bit." Gavin sat in Kip's place and tore into the remains of the chicken and bread. He watched as Kip struggled with getting the scull up to a halfway decent pace. Kip turned a time or two-it actually was pretty simple-and looked at Gavin to see if he approved, but the Prism was already asleep.

The quarter moon was straight overhead as night fell and Kip began walking. Even driven only by Kip's walking, the scull was fast. Gavin had narrowed the hull even further when Karris had left, so the boat seemed more to hover over the water than plow through it. For the first few minutes, Kip was gripped with anxiety. Every turn he was sure they would confront bandits and the Prism wouldn't awaken. But soon he fell into the rhythms of the boat, the waves, and the night.

An owl was hooting in the distance, and little bats were swooping and diving, eating the insects that flew high above the water while trout leapt to eat those that flew too low. The scull startled a heron, which flew off into the night on great blue wings.

Gradually, the peace of the night seeped into Kip. The surface of the river became as smooth as a mirror, and the stars shone in it. He saw ducks huddled on the shore, their heads tucked into their wings. And then he looked once more at the man who was supposedly his father.

Gavin Guile was a muscular man, broad-shouldered but as slender as Kip was fat. Kip searched for any resemblance at all, some hint that this could be true. Gavin was lighter-skinned; he looked like a mix between a Ruthgari, who had green or brown eyes, dark hair, and olive skin, and a Blood Forester, with their cornflower blue eyes and flaming red hair and deathly pale skin. Gavin's hair was the color of burnished copper, and his eyes, of course, were those of a Prism. When he was drafting they looked whatever color he was using at the moment, and could change in an instant. When he wasn't drafting, Gavin's eyes shimmered as if they were prisms themselves, every little twitch sending a cascade of new colors through his irises. They were the most disconcerting eyes Kip had ever seen. They were eyes to make satraps squirm and queens faint. The eyes of Orholam's Chosen.

Kip's eyes were plain blue, which did nothing for him except mark him as a crossbreed. Maybe some Blood Forester lineage. Like most peoples, Tyreans had dark eyes. Kip's hair was dark as a Tyrean's, but tightly curled like a Parian's or an Ilytian's, rather than straight or wavy. Enough to mark him a freak, but nowhere near enough to mark him this man's son. Of course, his mother hadn't had the look of a Tyrean either, which just complicated things. Darker than either, with kinky hair and hazel eyes. Kip tried to imagine what the child of his mother and this man might look like, but he couldn't do it. Blend enough mutts, and who knows what you'll get? Maybe if he weren't so fat he might see it. Maybe it was simply a cruel trick. A lie.

The Prism. The Prism himself? How could such a man be Kip's father? He'd said he hadn't known Kip even existed. How could that happen?

The answer seemed pretty obvious. It had been during the war. Gavin's army had met Dazen's not far from Rekton. So as they'd come through town, Gavin had met Lina. He was the Prism, heading to what might be his death. She was a young, pretty girl whose town had been destroyed. She'd shared his bed. Then he'd gone on to kill his brother-perhaps the very next day-and in the aftermath of the war and the reconstruction and the work of putting down the rest of the rebellion and rebuilding alliances and administering the peace, he'd probably never thought of her again. Even if he had, Tyrea wasn't exactly the friendliest or safest of places for the Prism back then. It had sided with Dazen, the evil brother, and been treated cruelly as a result.

Or maybe Gavin had raped Lina. But that didn't make sense. Why would a rapist claim Kip? Especially because it obviously cost Gavin a lot to do so.

Kip could imagine his mother, pregnant, unmarried, left in the devastation that was Rekton. Of course she'd want to escape. Kip would have been her one hope. What would she have done? Travel, alone, to Garriston, where the victors were administering Tyrea? He could imagine that well enough. His mother, presenting herself to some governor, demanding to see Gavin Guile because she bore his bastard. She'd have been lucky if she got as far as a governor with that tale. So she'd been turned away, her dreams of anything good or easy in her life dashed.

Whenever she looked at Kip, she didn't see her own bad choices, she saw Gavin's "betrayal" and her disappointment. Kip was a dream dashed.