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The Third Eye stared up at the sky and scowled "I really thought it would start by now, hmm What do you think is the worst decision you everhis brother "I had pity once"
"You’re wrong You didn’t spare Gavin out of pity And you wouldn’t do any differently than you did if you could do it again"
She said it so matter-of-factly that he al catching scent of a rabbit and charging heedless--right until he got to the end of his chain She’d said sparing Gavin She knew both that he wasn’t that Gavin and that he had spared his brother The air got dense, hard to breathe Gavin’s chest tightened
"What, did you think I was a charlatan? Adjust to the new reality, Dazen, and move on to the real point"
There was no denial No point She hadn’t ventured it as a guess, or a trap, and if he ht hear Gavin’s heart was thundering He sed, took so her" Gavin was in a fog, a fugue He didn’t want to say Karris’s nah away that their voices should be aone’s own name tended to pique the ears
"No, not that either If you’d told her the truth when she was younger, she’d have exposed you What you did wasn’t kind, or perhaps fair, but it ise, and I’d advise you not to apologize for what you did when the ti to hard realities than she is at forgiving It’s a character flaw"
It was true Deeply true Telling Karris, "I was doing my duty" would probably work better than, "I’m so sorry" She understood duty, cared about it And yet so in Gavin bristled, wanted to defend Karris
"So, as it then?" Gavin asked
"I don’t know," she said "I don’t see everything I just knohat it wasn’t I know that you’ve been asking the wrong questions, so you’ve had no hope of getting the right answers Soof your back Aside fros First, your people may stay They will, I’m fairly certain, destroy our way of life But perhaps it will one day turn into so better I have little hope of that, but I’ fifty thousand starving people into the sea is not what Orholaardless of what they will do to us once they are no longer starving"
"And second?" Gavin asked It was a huge victory She was giving hi he wanted, but you don’t laud victories, you consolidate them and press forward
"And second, you’ve lost control of blue, and your… counterpart has broken out of his blue prison I’d advise you to do sos start happening First, they’re innocuous, weird little things But they get worse" She seeood way The news about his brother--if it was true--was cataclysmic Not just a terrible shock, and not just terrible news, but too coincidental Gavin had woven alaru, of course, but they were alarums to notify soone There was no way he should have been aware, no matter how dimly or on how visceral a level, that Dazen had broken out
He had sunk a huge a forbidden, so ues But huge talent though he was, the Chro blue had weakened the prison or broken it There need be no coincidence The one could have caused the other--but he didn’t knohich way that causation flowed Gavin felt like he was burrowing into the roots of a mountain, and the deeper he went, the faster heto come down on top of him
But he didn’t know any way out
Orholam, his brother was out of the blue? Did Marissia even remember how to switch over the chutes? Maybe Dazen would starve to death No… no, he’d shown her, years and years ago, how to do it, against just this eventuality She had an excellent et back And going backthat threatened him most
"Aha!" The Third Eye sniffed "Here it is"
Scrunching his forehead, Gavin glanced over at her Noticed her nipples--das to worry about here, Gavin! She was leaning back, looking up again, this tiain outlined her cold-stiffened nipples clearly against the fabric of her dress He sniffed to see what she was talking about