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"So Delara Orange has been successful in persuading the rest of the Spectruo to war? Or am I to be on watch for the elite Ruic troops?"
"Both," the boy said Even Liv could tell he was lying
"You are a young man," the prince said "And I think you’re a hair’s breadth frohtened old harridans"
They walked through a narrow alley between two tents, stepping over the guy wires As they e into the barrels of twenty loaded muskets and at half a dozen drafters with arms loaded with luxin
"Disarm them, and keep them thirty paces away, but don’t har stupid, in which case, shoot for the groin"
With the , as if nothing had happened "Both of those ree we don’t need their interference, can’t we, Corregidor?"
"How do you know that? Or are you just guessing?" the corregidor asked, trying to keep his voice level
"Can’t we?"
The corregidor choked down his fear "Very well I’ether"
"M free choices, and bearing the consequences So here are yours: First, you can surrender I will give you less than generous terms You will free your slaves, the city will pay a ive us twenty thousand ephahs of barley, sixty wagons laden with fruit, ten thousand barrels of wine, and twenty thousand barrels of olives You will give us five thousand swords or spears and a thousand working unpowder and a hundred barrels of shot or eight hundred bars of lead You will send with us fifty shts and half a dozen cheone You will empty your city of brothels--the prostitutes can make their own choice on if they travel with us, but you will not allow any of thee them to choose wisely You will send all of your drafters to speak with me Same with the slaves They will be allowed to choose whether to join us or to go elsewhere, but they won’t be allowed to return to your city until the war is coh the city, welco you freedom And before we come into the city, you will send all your luxiats out to this carabbed on to the last like a raft in a maelstrom "What is to happen to them?"
"We’ll kill them all," the Color Prince said bluntly Then he continued as if the man hadn’t interrupted "Then, in every church, you will allow to be established new forods You will not be required to maintain or attend services at any of these, however, and our new priests will abide by your laws so long as you don’t interfere with their worship
"In return, you and the city’s mothers will be allowed to retain your lives, your estates, and your positions, unless you betray o unplundered; no men or women will be pressed into service I expect you to communicate this offer to the city’salready
"All of it is true, except one part I don’t trust the city mothers I knohat kind of wo, and smart, and flexible like you are When I leave this city, you will rule alone I am not a hard idor was pale "And if we refuse?"
They had arrived at the place where Liv now realized the Color Prince had been heading all along He gestured to a large group of wretched people behind theuarded by soldiers It was the five hundred woion "These unfortunates were taken from the last city that opposed us They will be herded in front of our army for the first attack When your ballistae and cannons and catapults start, you will massacre them--or do you think perhaps the city mothers will instruct you not to fire? And there will be attacks within your city You know I have people inside You don’t knothe river and below the Great Abbey"
The corregidor’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second Either surprise that the prince knew about this or surprise that there was another exit he hadn’t known about
"You remember the stories about thethe last war? I will simply do the saet to choose which kind--a beacon ofhow kind I can be to those I conquer, or a beacon ofhow ferocious I am with those who oppose me The children in your city will be killed--too es when they’re grown The women will be killed or put to service if they’re pretty or useful enough The only men and women ill survive unmolested will be your slaves And they will be free to keep any of their oods they wish My people in the city are already letting theidor Kata? If by some chance you do hold out for a week, teeks, a ht join us? Or have you treated them so well that their loyalty is unshakable?
"You, I will do enitals to your father I will cut off your ars and dress you in purple and put a crown on your head I may blind you I haven’t decided yet what ue? It will probably depend on your attitude Regardless, I’ll take reat pain, I proidor looked positively sick "You’re insane," he said "You talk one second like you’re some luxiat and you have all these principles, and the next you’re talking about ht had struck Liv before, but now she had another one There were only a few people in the entire world ere absolutely overawing in their abilities--and she’d met the best of them: Gavin Guile and now Koios White Oak Those two, and perhaps a few others like the White were far above Liv But no one else was She could have done better here than this boy was doing--and he o or three years her elder and had all the benefits of being raised as a satrap’s son The reason the Color Prince was treating her as a capable adult wasn’t because he was flattering her--though he was, and they both knew it--it was because she deserved to be treated as such It wasn’t that she was so incredibly gifted; it was that the people she had always assuifted than she was She was their peer And she was young yet In time, she would be superior to most Why hadn’t the Chromeria ever treated her this way?
Why hadn’t her own father?
The Color Prince said, "We all make choices, and then we bear the consequences for those Unfortunately, right now, you get to make the choices for those people and for e, they’ll be free to choose for themselves There’s no way to overturn the Chro massacres If there were, I’d take it in a heartbeat This is the only way I can bring the change needed, so this is hoill do it"