The Broken Eye recap

The Prism is presumed dead at Ru, and the Chromeria fills the hole with whoever is nearest: Andross Guile takes control of the succession and produces Zymun, a charming psychopath who turns out to be the son Karris bore and lost before the war. The dying White sends Teia into the Order of the Broken Eye, the assassins' society the Chromeria claims to have wiped out, where she is trained by the killer Murder Sharp and given a cloak that makes her invisible. Kip fights his grandfather across a card table and a city, survives repeated attempts on his life, and is pushed into an alliance-marriage with Tisis Malargos. Gavin, an oar slave with no magic, works his way off Gunner's ship and back to the Jaspers, where his father takes him, blinds him, and locks him in the deepest of the cells he once built for his brother. Orea Pullawr dies and Karris is made the White. Kip and his squad flee the Jaspers for the Blood Forest, and the rebellion keeps everything it has taken.

Previously: drafters in the Seven Satrapies turn light into luxin and shorten their lives doing it, and are killed by the Prism in a rite called the Freeing when their power runs out. The man the world calls Gavin Guile is really his brother Dazen, who won the False Prism's War sixteen years ago, took the dead-seeming Gavin's name and office, and has kept the real Gavin alive ever since in a set of nested coloured cells below the Chromeria. Every cell the prisoner breaks costs the false Prism that colour. Kip, a Tyrean boy claimed as Gavin's bastard, came to the Chromeria carrying a jewelled dagger that turned out to be an ancient artifact capable of stripping a drafter's magic. He got through Blackguard training and made a squad of friends there, including Teia, a slave who drafts the invisible colour paryl. Liv Danavis defected to the Color Prince, the burned man leading a rebellion that has taken Tyrea and marched into Atash. Gavin buried his own mother at the Freeing, married Karris White Oak against his father's wishes, then destroyed the rebellion's bane at Ru at the cost of every colour he had. Powerless and unrecognised, he was fished out of the sea by the pirate Gunner. The satrapies were told their Prism was dead.

Gavin is an oar slave. He has no magic, no name he can use, and no way of proving anything to anyone, so he survives by being useful to Gunner, who is unpredictable and much cleverer than he looks. On the Jaspers the Prism is mourned, the war is going badly, and the vacancy at the top of the Chromeria is the only thing the Spectrum can concentrate on. Andross Guile begins arranging the succession. Karris, widowed within weeks of her wedding, is taken out of the Blackguard by the White and put to work as her agent, which is a promotion disguised as a demotion. Kip is left at the Chromeria as the least defended Guile alive, and the attempts on him start almost at once.

Orea Pullawr, the White, is dying and knows roughly how long she has. She spends it placing people. Teia is the piece she cannot replace: paryl is invisible, undocumented and exactly what the Chromeria's enemies use, so the White asks her to go into the Order of the Broken Eye as a spy, with Karris as her only handler and no way to prove her loyalty if she is caught by either side. Kip, meanwhile, keeps being drawn back to the ancient cards, which let a viewer live the memories of the dead, and to what they show about his own family's history. Andross wants the cards, the knife, and Kip out of the way, in roughly that order.

Teia is taken in by the Order and trained by Murder Sharp, a paryl drafter and assassin who is patient, talkative and entirely unhinged, and who teaches her things the Chromeria refuses to admit are possible. The Order proves to be old, wealthy and embedded, with members inside the Chromeria itself. Kip survives another attempt on his life and is approached by Tisis Malargos, a Ruthgari noblewoman whose family has its own claim on the Guiles and who has been sent to make herself useful to him. Karris runs Teia, works the White's networks, and starts to see the shape of the thing her mother-in-law's family has been doing for decades. Gavin, still at sea, begins to work out how to get off the ship.

Andross produces a claimant for the Prism's office: Zymun, a young red drafter with documents the Spectrum cannot easily dismiss. Zymun is the same charming, empty young man who was travelling with the rebellion, and nothing about his arrival is an accident. Kip finally beats his grandfather across the card table, and discovers that Andross does not consider a loss binding. Teia earns her place in the Order the only way it can be earned, and is given a shimmercloak, a garment that makes its wearer effectively invisible, of which the Order holds the last few in the world. Liv, out with the rebellion, is working on the banes: the enormous floating islands of luxin that the old accounts say are where the old gods are seeded and grown.

Zymun's parentage comes out: he is the child Karris bore before the war and was told she would never see, taken from her and raised elsewhere by arrangement of the family that now wants him crowned. Karris has to sit opposite the son she lost and recognise what he is. Teia goes deeper into the Order and finds that its ambitions are not simply murder for hire; it wants the Chromeria's whole structure gone, and it has been waiting a very long time. Gavin gets himself off Gunner's ship and starts the long journey back toward the Jaspers, blind to how much has changed. Kip's position at the Chromeria becomes untenable, and Tisis, whatever her instructions were, stops following them exactly.

Zymun is confirmed as Prism-elect, which puts the succession in Andross Guile's hand and a murderer in the Chromeria's highest office. The White is failing fast and finishes arranging what she can. The Order sets its plan for Sun Day, the festival that gathers every important person in the satrapies into the same few streets, and Teia has to decide how much she can let happen in order to stay inside it. Kip is formally moved against by his grandfather and finds that being a Guile protects him from nothing. His squad closes around him.

Gavin comes back to the Jaspers under his own power, without magic, without allies, and without anyone expecting him. Karris is being groomed for an office she does not want. Andross is one ceremony away from owning the Chromeria outright. The Order's people are in position across Big Jasper. Teia, cloaked and alone, is in the middle of it with no way to signal anyone, and the assassins she has been living with are about to do the thing she was sent in to prevent.

Sun Day comes apart. The Order strikes in the open, the Blackguard fights in the streets, and the ceremony that was meant to install a new Prism becomes a battle. Teia moves against Murder Sharp and the Order's plan from inside it, at the price of any hope of coming back out clean. Kip and his squad fight through the city. Gavin reaches the Chromeria in the middle of the chaos and gets far enough to confront his father, who has been ready for him longer than he has been alive.

Andross wins. He has Gavin blinded and shut in the deepest of the coloured cells beneath the Chromeria, the prison Gavin built for the brother whose name he took, and no one else is told he is alive. Orea Pullawr dies, and her arrangements hold: Karris is raised to the White, the youngest in memory, opposite Andross Guile and above a Prism-elect who is her own lost son. Teia is left inside the Order, unable to prove what she is to anyone, holding a shimmercloak she was never meant to keep. Kip cannot survive another week on the Jaspers, so he leaves with his squad, and marries Tisis Malargos on the way out because that marriage is worth allies, money and a place to stand in Ruthgar and the Blood Forest. The rebellion, unopposed all season, holds two satrapies and is still growing its banes. The Seven Satrapies close the book with a boy for a Prism, a widow for a White, an old man holding everything that matters, and the real Prism blind in a hole under the tower.

Gavin gets back to the Jaspers under his own power and is beaten there by his father. Andross has him blinded and put in the deepest of the coloured cells beneath the Chromeria: the prison Gavin built himself, for the brother he stole a name from. No one outside that room knows he is alive. The Order of the Broken Eye is exposed as a live organisation with people inside the Chromeria's own walls, and Teia is left inside it, cut off from anyone who can vouch for her and carrying an invisibility cloak she is not supposed to have. Orea Pullawr dies and Karris is raised to the White, an office she never wanted, at the youngest age anyone can remember, with Andross Guile installed opposite her and Zymun confirmed as Prism-elect. Kip cannot stay: his grandfather has made the Jaspers lethal for him, so he leaves with his squad, marrying Tisis Malargos on the way out because the marriage buys them an army's worth of allies in Ruthgar and the Blood Forest. The rebellion, unopposed, holds most of two satrapies. The Seven Satrapies end the book with a boy king for a Prism, a young widow for a White, an old man holding the real power, and their actual Prism blind in a hole under their feet.