Dazen’s knees almost went out from under him, and he heard Karris gasp as she recognized the voice.
“Everywhere,” Marissia said, “they love him, and when I asked them if they’d fight for Gavin Guile in his hour of need, they ran to answer the call.”
Dazen couldn’t speak. He couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe his eyes as Marissia strode out of the gloom.
Dazen crushed her in a hug, and Karris—gracious Karris!—joined him immediately.
Fiammetta, who had apparently become a great friend of Marissia’s, couldn’t help herself. She crashed into the hug, too.
He choked out, “I thought you were dead. I thought that was on me, too.”
“But how? How?” Gavin asked.
Marissia said, “Your father’s an asshole, but he doesn’t always murder people when he can avoid it. He exiled me to one of those little islands he owns. I escaped.”
“But how did you—?”
“Escape? Gavin Guile,” Marissia said in a reproving tone, “I am not a woman without resources.”
“ I—”
“Enough!” Marissia said. She was radiant, smiling fiercely despite the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Come see!”
She pulled him out onto the forecastle, where she raised one of his arms, and the pirate queen Fiammetta came to his other side and raised the other. Thousands of voices roared at seeing him, not just those sailors on the great ship but the sailors on all the others around them.
Pash Vecchio’s fleet had to make up more than a third of the White King’s entire armada. And it was shifting into a formation that didn’t make much sense if they were preparing to invade the Jaspers.
Marissia said, “Every one of these thousands you see here: every gunner, soldier, and sailor has told me some variation of the same thing: ‘When I needed help most, Gavin Guile stood for me. How could I not stand for him now?’ ”
Dazen was speechless. Proud as he was, he’d never understood what people meant when they said they were humbled by a gift.
He understood now.
“This isn’t Pash Vecchio’s fleet, Gavin Guile,” Marissia said. “It’s yours.”
Pash Vecchio cleared his throat awkwardly. “I was against all this, but . . . but you should really have a daughter. Then you’ll understand.” He glowered. “Come on, Orholam with the squirts, people, this is the part where we betray the pagans and destroy their armada. Isn’t anyone going to give the order?”
“What order?” Dazen started to ask. Was this why the whole pirate fleet was coming to bear not on Big Jasper but on the White King’s battered armada, into which they’d already driven a wedge?
O my sweet Orho—
“Fia?” Pash Vecchio said, unlimbering a massive curving sword.
He flicked it spinning into the air.
Fiammetta jumped up to a gunwale and snatched it out of the air. She shouted, “Who stands with Gavin Guile?”
Pash Vecchio launched a signal flare even as she brought the blade down with an impressive flourish.
The people roared, and the thunder of many cannons rose like a chorus of a thousand voices, shouting:
“I stand, I stand, I stand with Gavin Guile.”
Chapter 146
The goddess once known as Aliviana Danavis watched the battle play out from atop the Prism’s Tower as the sun rose. She’d tended to her wounds throughout the night, pausing when her flesh required it and simply watching as Andross Guile directed astonishing quantities of light with deft control. She was glad, then, that he’d chosen to become an old man rather than a god.
The fall had not only nearly killed her, it had shaken her. More importantly, it had shaken Ferrilux’s hold on her. The immortal was more cunning than she’d given him credit for, and if not for being hurried by this battle, he might have taken her over by degrees.
It was going to be a very long war between them.
She limped to the edge of the tower. Not everyone realized it yet, but the battle had already been decided. The pirate fleet was fresh and had better position, and the Blood Robes’ leadership was in utter disarray, some ships counterattacking and colliding with other ships fleeing, contradictory orders, confusion—it had all the elements of an impending slaughter.
Nor was the fleet the only surprise: that, the hosts and their immortals might have destroyed. The dawn had brought sea demons, and they were devouring the bane from beneath. The fresh seed crystals with which the Blood Robes had planned to renew any bane they lost simply winked out of Liv’s perception, ingested into those great cruciform mouths and digested by their great cetacean gullets.
Interesting. The sea demons were a conundrum she hadn’t studied yet. She would have to, in the coming centuries.
She heard the clank of the mirror-array frame’s metal on metal as it came to a rest. Then Andross Guile began unstrapping himself. He looked weary, and angry.
“What are You playing at?” he demanded. He wasn’t looking at Liv. He was looking skyward. “Orholam! That can’t be it. This was to be my last and greatest game. This was to be everything!”
She studied him, curious. He had summoned magic from the far corners of the empire. He’d empowered thousands of drafters through the entire night, and killed countless of his enemies by his own will. He’d saved the empire. Turned the war.
And it wasn’t enough for him.
Suddenly, to Liv’s left, the old spectral form appeared. “Kill him!”
Ferrilux hissed. “We’ll give you all power. Power such as Koios could only dream of. But kill Andross Guile now!”
With stony eyes, Liv met Ferrilux’s gaze for a moment and then turned her back. Ferrilux hated being ignored more than anything. She smiled.
“How dare you take it from me,” Andross Guile said to the heavens. “This was to be my greatest trial and my greatest achievement. But you had them do all the parts I didn’t know if I could do.”
He climbed out of the mechanism. He looked toward the door into the Prism’s Tower, but no one came out.
Andross Guile, the Lightbringer, was utterly alone.
Gathering the superviolet to her to float her down, Liv stepped to the edge of the tower.
The battle was over now. There would be hours of murderous cleanup, but now it was only a matter of bloody time. Now it was just meat slaughtering meat.
The old man had dropped to his knees. “I don’t understand,” he said. “My whole life. My whole life . . .”
People, Liv thought. So strange.
She floated down from the tower and crossed the bridge. There was nothing for her here now.
It was a mistake. She had barely left the Lily’s Stem when she saw him, being carried in a litter.
Her father.
He shouldn’t have been able to see her, but there was something odd about people’s vision when they were close to death. It was another thing she would have to investigate someday, she thought.
For the moment, she pulled her hood down, hoping this more mundane cloaking would save her the bother of speaking with him. But even surrounded by his soldiers and being hurried to the Chromeria, he saw her. “Stop! Stop!” he commanded them, and they did. He pushed a man out of his way, and stared at her, transfixed. “Aliviana?”