The whole swiving Chromeria was corrupt. It defiled everything it touched. Liv had been at the bottom. She'd seen how monochromes were treated; she'd seen how Tyreans were treated. And she'd become part of the power, too. She'd become almost a friend to the Prism himself-and she'd loved it, loved talking with a powerful man, basking in his attention. She'd loved the beautiful dresses and being treated as special and worth attention. And to keep her power, she'd sold herself-so easily, so easily. But that was how things worked at the Chromeria. It had even corrupted her father.

"Liv," her father said. "Liv, trust me. I know it's hard, but please."

"Trust you? When you won't trust me?" she asked, pained.

"Livy, please. I love you. You know I wouldn't do anything to hurt you."

And then it all became clear and it took Liv's breath away. How could the Prism get her father to betray everything he held dear? Why would her father evade simple questions? Because he loved her. Corvan had been corrupted, but not by money or power or sex. She knew he wouldn't sell his soul so cheaply. So what did the Prism have over Corvan? He had Liv.

Gavin Guile was using Liv to suborn her father. She didn't know what exactly the threat and the bribe had been, but it didn't matter. Liv was being bribed and threatened exactly the same way, but by the Ruthgari. She knew how the game was played, now. She had betrayed her principles because she loved Vena. Her father was betraying his principles because he loved Liv.

Corvan had chosen that his fealty would be to his family only. That meant Liv. And it meant he couldn't tell her. Because if he told her, she'd ruin it and make his sacrifices worthless.

Liv's heart broke. She had to clamp down hard on her emotions to keep from bursting into tears. Cruel. So cruel. How could Gavin do such a thing and then smile at her?

Because that's how the Chromeria is. Vipers and villains, all of them. And Corvan had done everything he could to try to keep Liv out of the Chromeria-everything short of ordering her not to go, because he wasn't so imperious. It was her fault. Liv swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. Her father had been debased because of her. He deserved better than for her to expose his shame.

She smiled as bravely as she could, pretending to acquiesce. "I understand, father. I do trust you. Just tell me everything when you can. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough," Corvan said, his relief obvious. "I love you, Livy."

"I know you do, father."

And Gavin Guile was going to pay for turning that love against him.

Chapter 64

It's simple, Kip. You're not being asked to draft a pulley or a scull. One little green ball. It's nothing.

He was sitting cross-legged, green spectacles on, white board in his lap, willing something to happen. He'd been doing this for two hours. And what exactly was he doing? Nothing. How were you supposed to even keep your mind on drafting when nothing happened for hours? His stomach was complaining again. It was constant now as the sun approached noon.

No food until I draft? It's cruel. It's torture. It's impossible.

Kip looked up. Gavin had brought them only a few hundred paces outside the Lover's Gate to the ruins of the old outer walls. When they'd arrived, there were already hundreds of men at work, and since then, many of those who'd been stuck in the line that they'd passed had joined them. They were excavating the roots of the wall down to bedrock, which was at least four paces down in the few places Kip could see. The excavation, though, went faster than he would have thought possible, between the sheer number of men working and the sandy soil, with only thin vegetation on top.

Gavin was poring over drawings with Master Danavis. General Danavis, Kip supposed, and the natural manner with which the general commanded men to do this or that-exactly how he'd told Kip to go do this or that-made Kip wonder why he'd never wondered about Master Danavis before. The man was obviously too big for a little town like Rekton, but Kip had never even thought about him. Children only think about themselves, Kip.

"It's not good enough," Gavin was saying. "No, the detail's fine. The detail's perfect. But the old wall didn't stop us, so why rebuild something that's faulty?"

Rebuild the wall? Hadn't Gavin said that King Garadul's army was arriving in four or five days?

"We'll be lucky if we can get something that's merely faulty," General Danavis said. "We'll be lucky if we can finish anything at all."

"Bring me the drawings of Rathcaeson," the Prism said.

"You're seriously going to build a wall based on artists' renditions of a mythical city?"

The muscle in Gavin's jaw twitched with irritation.

"Understood, Lord Prism," General Danavis said. He bobbed a bow.

"Bring your daughter," Gavin said. "I could use a superviolet."

A slight hesitation. "Of course." The general left, mounting his horse and galloping toward the city, his Ruthgari personal guards trailing in his wake.

Then, though he'd been speaking nonstop with foremen, Ruthgari guards, and General Danavis all morning, Gavin was suddenly alone. He looked over at Kip. Oops, I think I'm supposed to be drafting.

Gavin cocked an eyebrow at him. "Not hungry yet, huh?"

Kip grimaced. "Thanks for reminding me."

"Kip, more than any other color, green can be summarized in one word. All the others require at least a few, a bit of hedging, some qualifiers. Green is wild. Everything both good and bad associated with wild is what green is. That's why I can tell you that you only need will, because will and wildness go so naturally together. If you were an incipient blue, I'd have to explain the sense of drafting, the harmony, the order, how it fits with the world. That's not you. Any questions?"

Not about drafting. "What happened to that gunner?"

"What?" Gavin asked.

"The one on the Ilytian boat, who nearly killed us. Right before I shot him, his gun blew up."

"It does happen," Gavin said. "You overcharge your shot, the musket can't handle the charge."

"That gunner, who nearly hit us from five hundred paces? He misjudged a musket?"

Gavin smiled. He turned his palm over. There was nothing in it. Oh, Kip tightened his eyes. A superviolet ball rested in Gavin's hand. "See it?" Gavin asked.

"I see it."

Gavin extended his hand. A little pop, and his hand jumped back. The superviolet ball streaked out like it was a musket ball itself. "I blocked his musket barrel," Gavin said, shrugging. "You can use any color to do it. Yellow only if you can make solid yellow, of course, but pretty much anything else."

"Why not kill him?"

"I may have," Gavin said. "A musket exploding in your hands is no joke." He shrugged. "I recognized him. Freelancer during the war. Sometimes fought for me, sometimes for my brother, sometimes for any captain that would pay him enough. He's a drunk and a scoundrel and the finest artist of the cannon in the Seven Satrapies. Whatever name he was born with, now he's simply known as Gunner. It's everything he is. His first underdeck command as cannoneer was on a ship called the Aved Barayah, the Fire Breather."

"The Fire Breather? The Fire Breather?" Kip asked.

"Only ship in memory to ever kill a full-grown sea demon. Gunner was maybe sixteen years old." Gavin shook his head, dispelling a memory. "I've killed a lot of people, Kip. Sometimes you hesitate, and as bad and as dangerous as that is, I like to think it's proof that I've still got some humanity left. Besides, I knew making his gun blow up in his hands would really infuriate him. If I know Gunner, he made that musket himself, and he's probably wondering who the hell overcharged his precious musket." He glanced over to a richly dressed Ruthgari approaching, flanked by guards and slaves carrying a mobile pavilion to shade the light-skinned man. "I'll leave you to your work," Gavin said. "You might want to hurry, the servants should be bringing lunch anytime."