No one even knew.
The Lightguards had found Tisis somewhere, though she was supposed to be on the far side of the city. Maybe she’d come when she saw him on the array. Kip didn’t think her presence was a mercy.
He felt pulled away from himself, watching himself walk, watching himself look at his wife.
He didn’t know what to say to her. She was going to see him die, like this. She was going to watch him burn to death, rave, shriek. It was not the last view anyone should have of someone they loved.
“You can look away,” he said. “When it gets awful.”
“You did not just say that to me,” she said, her voice jagged as hell-stone.
“I wanted to see that fire in you. You know, since you’re going to see fire in me soon.”
She didn’t even smile, her face falling. “Goddammit, Kip.”
“I always prided myself on being able to do hard things,” he said, forcing a little smile. “But you know, I’m not coming to this fresh . . .”
She was right on the verge of tears, and he was afraid he was, too. He looked away. He’d seen men die by fire. There was no stoicism equal to it. Such a death was never less than ugliness itself.
He said, “Please don’t judge me for . . . for how I go.”
“Judge you?” she asked, her voice cracking, and he dared a single glimpse, seeing her tears of loss and rage and impotence streaming down her face. “Never!”
His hands were bound behind his back, so he said, “There’s a, uh, card in my pocket. Can you take that out for me?”
The Lightguards let her. Indeed, a couple of the young men—kids really—among them looked sickened by what they were about to do. If there had only been five or six Lightguards, Kip might’ve been able to turn that to his advantage. But not with forty.
“Can you press it against my forearm?” he asked. “I owe a favor to someone.”
She looked at the card. “This asshole? You owe Andross Guile nothing!”
“I owe him our marriage,” Kip said simply. He didn’t look at her, still. He thought maybe he had enough residual luxin in his body to trigger the card.
She pressed the card to his skin. It slapped down as of its own volition, tap, tap, tap.
He grunted at the flood of Andross’s memories. A lifetime passed in a few moments, and then Kip was back. “Hmm. Damn. I was kind of hoping the old man maybe helped construct Orholam’s Glare or something and knew a secret way for me to . . . well, not die. No such luck. No magic way out.”
It was really the wrong time to try to comprehend what he’d just seen. But he had duties.
“You tell Andross I Viewed his card. Tell him . . . tell him my respect for and loathing of him have both grown immensely. He should laugh . . . I love you,” he said. He could see the steps to the platform up ahead. They didn’t have any more time. “You have given me one perfect thing. In a life suddenly overfull with blessings, you were the brightest and best gift of all.”
He took a quick breath and blinked back the tears.
“Now, go, quickly. I have to maintain this tough-guy façade for a few more minutes.”
“Kip,” she said quietly, “you will always be a dragon to me.”
“Oh, that is adorable,” a voice broke in. Zymun. “My little dragon-poo. And what is she? Your little bunny-kins?” He pushed past her. His halos were shattered, and red raged through the whites of his eyes, but either no one noticed or no one dared say anything. “I know I should be up on the array, but I . . . I just couldn’t miss this,” Zymun said. “Plus, you do have so many friends. I couldn’t bear to have you so far out of my grasp. Good, let’s do this! Places, everyone!”
Kip was marched straight up the platform. They started strapping him to the frame.
Facing out, he saw a small crowd gathering. The execution hadn’t been announced, and most of the civilians of Big Jasper had taken to cowering in their homes, anyway, but this sudden gathering of people at one of the most important intersections in the city garnered attention.
Kip saw a messenger from Corvan Danavis at the Great Fountain heading toward the Chromeria. She pulled up her horse.
She saw Kip and recognized him, and immediately turned her horse around. She galloped away.
Too late. Even if she cut past all the other messengers coming and going around the high general at the Great Fountain, even if Corvan Danavis himself heard her immediately, even if he had horses waiting and issued the orders immediately—even if he disregarded the fact that attacking the Prism would be treason—Corvan still wouldn’t arrive in time.
Kip appreciated that they were trying, though.
The Lightguards cinched the straps tight on his arms and legs.
“Hurry up,” Zymun said. “The sun’s not far from the horizon. Is it going to be hot enough to kill him?”
“Easily, sir. I mean, it’s not gonna turn him to ash, but he’ll burn,” one of the men strapping Kip in said. “He’ll die faster if we remove the colored lenses first, but burn or pop, he’ll go all right! Your choice.”
Kip felt a sudden reverberation in blue, and Zymun tensed, too. It seemed he and Zymun were the only blue drafters in sight.
Blue suddenly felt free once more.
Big Leo had done it! Damn, and he’d done it fast, too! Holy shit, Big Leo.
Maybe Big Leo could . . . but no. He was several thousand paces away, and if the bane evaporated in the next minute or three, he was going to be several thousand paces away and swimming. And he didn’t know Kip was here.
Big Leo wouldn’t be coming in time.
Funny thing. Zymun had said, ‘You do have so many friends.’
It was true. Kip had no doubt that his friends would drop everything and run for him when they heard about his need.
When had that happened?
Growing up, he’d always been the outsider, the kid scared of being rejected again. And look at this! This life he was leaving? How could the son of a drug-addled prostitute hope for even a day of this life? Kip had tasted honey that few in the history of the world had tasted: he’d had meaningful work, and friendship with titans; a great marriage to a strong, good, beautiful woman; and a father who’d been willing to die for him. Kip had had a couple years of a life that old chubby Kip of Rekton would have happily died to have for a single day.
How could he face his death with anything but gratitude?
Yet he was still afraid.
He’d seen immortals coming with the bane when that strange wave had passed. Maybe . . . “Rea?” he whispered. “Are you here?”
“Of course I’m here!” the immortal, all invisible, said in his ear.
She was weeping.
That meant she couldn’t stop this.
“Will you . . .”—his voice choked—“will you help me be brave? I don’t feel very brave right now.”
The frame lifted him suddenly into the air.
The mirrors grated on their gears as they began to turn into place.
“Look, and see,” Rea said.
Kip blinked. It wasn’t like looking in paryl or superviolet, but rather more akin to looking through that immense wave that had passed over the Jaspers. It felt like his eyes were only slowly bending into focus, his mortal lenses unaccustomed to seeing this spectrum: what he was seeing was more real than reality.