“No, you’re not.”
“Well, shit. A one-in-two chance, and I still blow it. What, then? I’m Gavin indeed?”
“You’re asking me?” the old man said. “And you’re going to listen?”
“Yes!” Gavin said, exasperated. This was surreal, infuriating. He’d stepped into a circus world, a hall of mirrors. Up was down, left was right, and though he could finally remember everything he’d lost to black luxin, he couldn’t even firmly pin down his own name?
Orholam said quietly, “You’re not a trickster. You’re a protector. You’re the one who goes out before his people into battle. Is that enough, or do you need more hints?”
“Promachos?” Gavin asked, but something in him cracked. “That’s what Ironfist called me. I come all the way up here just to get my Blackguard name a second time?”
But he was being defensive, holding the prophet off mentally. Stalling. It had felt good when Ironfist called him that. It had felt real, and strong, and true. And that had been a treasure. He’d held off the name then, too, even as he’d craved it. ‘I’m not the man you think I am,’ he’d told Ironfist. Ironfist had replied, ‘Are you not the man I’ve served these past ten years?’ ‘I am.’ ‘Then perhaps, my lord, you’re not the man you think you are.’
Orholam went on. “Harrdun saw what you did, for decades, and at Garriston you gave him undeniable evidence, no matter his other feelings about you.”
Dazen cocked his head. “At Garriston? What, making Brightwater Wall?”
“No!” Orholam laughed. “That part infuriated him, how seemingly effortlessly you could create such a wonder, and how you so easily turned people’s hearts to you. I mean at the gate.”
“I got his people killed at the gate,” Gavin said. “I should’ve finished it faster.”
“You laid down your life for your friends at that gate, and in so doing, you drafted white luxin. He found a piece of it. He wears it still.”
“White luxin? Me? That’s not—”
“Dazen or Gavin, you have been what you thought you needed to be in order to be Promachos. It’s who you are. And you are at your most powerful when you stand for those who have no one to stand for them.”
The words smote him like a giant’s fist crashing down around him.
But instead of crushing him, he felt his dead heart stir once more, pounding for at least one moment again within its dark and thorny cage—life in him pulsing against the death garrisoned in his body. It was truth, smashing him as painfully as a man pounds a drowned swimmer’s chest, breaking ribs to save his life, making him gasp in pain in order to help him breathe at all.
But he knew this was nothing more than one last skirmish in an old, losing war. It was too late. He’d not drowned in water that might be spat out, leaving his lungs clear. He’d drowned in blood. Rivers and seas of it.
And yet . . .
Tears coursed from his eyes. Promachos.
His mind cast back to a thousand times he’d thrown himself into danger to save those who couldn’t save themselves. The best times of his life had been when he’d saved others, whether by going after wights, sinking pirates and slavers, killing bandits, stopping the Blood Wars. And the worst times of his life had been the times he’d failed to protect those he’d loved: He’d failed to protect Sevastian. Failed to protect Marissia. Failed to protect Kip. Failed to protect Karris—because he couldn’t do it alone. And he’d always been alone.
“I stand for them,” Gavin said. “Well . . . stood.”
And then his voice lowered to a low, piteous tone utterly unbefitting the Prism he’d once been. It was the voice of that helpless boy, in an empty, beautiful mansion in a storm, holding the lifeless body of his little brother. With a voice shot through with tears and weakness, he said, “I stood for them. Who stands for me?”
Gavin looked away. He didn’t dare see what might be in the old man’s eyes now. He couldn’t handle pity, and one I-told-you-so and Gavin was going to throw himself off this goddam tower.
He didn’t need an answer. When had he given anyone the chance to stand for him? Or even beside him? When had he asked? No, Gavin had wanted to be the big hero, partly from vanity so he’d be seen as a hero, and partly from pride that only he could do whatever was required, but also partly from fear at losing whomever he might have asked.
Gavin said, “I failed everyone I love, and I’ve not loved those who deserve it and needed it. What do I . . . what do I do with that?”
When Orholam didn’t answer, Gavin began to lift his gaze to the old prophet, when he saw a tear splash in the blood between them, a momentary pinprick bleaching the red stream. “Love as you are, Dazen. Sometimes a broken mirror serves best.”
“Ha! Oh yeah? When?! When bits of it are tied into a cat-o’-nine so it can tear flesh, like with that little shit Alvaro?” Gavin turned away. He couldn’t look at Orholam’s face. “Besides, I wasn’t looking for an answer.”
It was a lie, though. Of course he was.
“Your dark night was lived every day in the sun. And was darkest on the brightest day of the year. In the full view of unseeing thousands, you felt alone.”
Gavin grunted an assent.
“If only there were someone you could have talked to.”
“I had no one.”
“I was suggesting you might have talked to Me.”
Ha. “I feared if I looked too closely, the whole thing would fall apart.”
“It would’ve,” Orholam said.
Gavin blinked. “What do you mean, like maybe afterward I could have put it back together better or something?”
“No. Not alone. But there would’ve been many willing hands, ready to help.”
“If they had a leader maybe. Sevastian.”
“No. You. There was always a key role for you to play.”
“Right. Whatever.”
“I sent others, over the centuries. Some denied the call. Others were killed. Others were seduced, corrupted before they could fulfill their purpose. The sea demons, for example.”
“ The—wait, what?”
“Lucidonius was to be the Lightbringer. He turned aside. Chose conquest. Sought godhood. And then, in terror of my judgment, he sought immortality. He soul-cast himself into the gentle creature that had been his servant and friend. Lucidonius became the first sea demon. He swims still. All the later ones took their inspiration from him.”
He swims still? Gavin’s jaw went slack. He’d fought Lucidonius himself: the greatest of the sea demons had smashed the Golden Mean onto the reef.
“Wait, wait, wait, how come no one at the Chromeria told me this?” he asked. “I was the Prism. The emperor! I was even promachos for a while!”
“Would you tell Gavin Guile how to find immortality, knowing what it would cost everyone else?” the old prophet asked.
My God. That was the real reason Karris Atiriel had created the Blackguard: they guarded the black secret. What had seemed the contradictory goals of guarding his life and ensuring his death weren’t opposed at all: they guarded the Prism and his honor—by forcibly marching him to an honorable death, if necessary. As brothers in arms would kill a compatriot drafter out of mercy if she broke the halo, so the Blackguard would kill the Prism before they’d let him become a monster forever. “You’re telling me the sea demons are all former Prisms?”