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Corvan was one of the smartestisn’t--wait, tell ht with the sea de of the ship was soothing, perfectly complemented by the harmonious blues of sky and sea He could remember the color so clearly he could swear he almost saw it He was a superchromat, one who could differentiate colors htest to its darkest tones, froreenest ones, blue of every saturation, blue of every mixture

"After the battle," Gavin said "When we sailed aith all the refugees I woke the next day and I didn’t even notice for a while It’s like looking at a friend’s face and realizing you don’t know her name, Corvan Blue’s there; it’s close It’s like the color is on the tip of my eyes If I don’t concentrate, I don’t even notice it, except that the world seems washed out, flat But if I concentrate as hard as I can, I can see gray where the blue should be Exactly the right tone and saturation and brightness, but… gray"

Corvan was silent for a long ht," he said "Prisms are supposed to last some multiple of seven years You should have five years left"

"I don’t think what’s happening to me is normal I was never ordained the Prism Maybe this is what happens when a natural polychroh the Spectrum’s ceremony"

"I don’t know that that’s quite--"

"Have you ever heard of any Pris blind, Corvan? Ever?" The last Pris Oak He’d been a weak Prism, hid in his apartments mostly, had likely been a poppy addict The os had been before him She’d lasted fourteen years Gavin had only the barest recollection of her fro boy

"Gavin, most Prisms don’t last sixteen years Maybe the Spectrum’s ceremony would have made you die earlier If you’d died after seven years or fourteen, you’d never have experienced this We can’t know"

That was one proble a fraud You can’t elicit infor that’s terribly secret that you should already know The real Gavin had been initiated as Prism-elect when he was thirteen years old He had sworn never to speak of it, not even to once-best-friend and brother Dazen

It was one oath that, so far as Gavin could tell, each member of the Spectrum had honored Because in the sixteen years he’d been i his brother, no one had said a word about it Unless, of course, they hadreferences to it--which he never picked up, and thus didn’t respond to, and thus let thehly and they should, too

In other words, he was caught in a trap of his own devising Again

"Corvan, I don’t knohat’s happening I reen, and the next day and not be able to draft yellow Or maybe I’ve just lost blue and that’s all, but I have lost blue Best-case scenario, if Ievery blue ritual, I’ve got one year left--until next Sun Day There’s no way I could h the ceremonies, or skip them If I can’t draft blue by then, I’ all the consequences His friend expelled a breath "Huh Just when everything was going so well" He chuckled "We’ve got fifty thousand refugees that no one is going to want; we’re running low on food; the Color Prince has just had a ather thousands reatest asset"

"I’rinned ruefully back, but he looked sick "Don’t worry, Lord Prism, I’m the last man ould count you out" Gavin kneas true, too Corvan had accepted disgrace and exile to make Dazen’s defeat look credible He’d spent the last sixteen years in a backwater village, poor, unknown, quietly keeping an eye on the real Gavin’s bastard, Kip