The Blinding Knife (5 page)

There were too many thoughts at once. Everything Kip knew had been turned on its head too many times. In the last few months he’d gone from being a child with a haze-addled single mother to losing his village, his mother, his life. He’d been flung into the Chromeria, and into the company of the best drafters and fighters in the world.

And on the very day his father had accepted him, recognized him as a son instead of a bastard, he’d found a note from his mother claiming Gavin Guile had raped her. She’d begged Kip to kill Gavin. She’d probably been high when she wrote it, of course. So it had been the last thing she’d written. It didn’t magically make it different from all the other lies she’d told Kip over the years.

She said she loved me. Kip quickly rejected the thought and the well of emotions it tapped.

Some of it must have shown in his face, though, because Gavin said
quietly, “Kip, you have every right to be angry, but I have something impossible to ask of you. I’m going to send you on to the Chromeria. I expect you to do well in all your classes, of course. But honestly, I don’t care, so long as you learn as much and as quickly as you can. What I really want is…” He trailed off. “This has to be our secret, Kip. I’m putting my very life in your hands by even asking you this. And you may, of course, fail or choose not to do this, but—”

Kip swallowed. Why was his father dancing so carefully about asking him to join the Blackguard? “You’re scaring me more by hedging than you would if you just told me,” Kip said.

“First, you have to impress your grandfather without me there. He will summon you. He will not be pleasant. We’ll count it a victory if you avoid wetting yourself.” He grinned that Guile grin, then sobered. “Do your best. If you can impress him, you’ll have done more than I ever could. But whatever you do, don’t make an enemy of him.”

“And that’s going to be impossible?”

“No—well, maybe—but I was starting with the easy assignment. I want you to destroy Luxlord Klytos Blue.”

Kip blinked. That wasn’t “Join the Blackguard” either. “That thing about being more scared by your hedging than the assignment? I take it back.”

“By destroy, I mean do whatever you have to do to make him resign his seat on the Spectrum. I need that seat, Kip.”

“For what?”

“I can’t tell you. What you should ask is, what do I mean when I say, ‘Do whatever you have to’?”

“Right, then,
that
,” Kip said. He was hoping this was all some kind of joke, but the feeling in his stomach told him that it wasn’t.

“If you can’t get Klytos to resign of his own will, or through blackmail, kill him.”

A chill radiated from Kip’s spine to his shoulders. He swallowed.

“Your choice. I’m trusting you with that. This is war, Kip. You saw what happens when the wrong man is in power. The governor of Garriston could have prepared his city. He knew what was coming. Preparing the city would have made him deeply unpopular and it would have cost him a fortune. So instead, he chose to let them all die. One man caused all that carnage, simply by his inaction. If we hadn’t been there, it would have been much, much worse. This is like that. That’s all I can tell you.”

It was impossible, but Kip felt a calm. The impossibility didn’t matter right now. He could grapple with that when his father was gone. “Does he deserve it?” he asked.

Gavin took a deep breath. “I want to say yes to make it easier on you, but ‘deserving’ is a slippery concept. Does a coward who deserts his comrades deserve to be shot? No, but it has to be done because the stakes are so high. Klytos Blue is a coward who believes lies. If a man believes lies and repeats them, is he a liar? Maybe not, but he has to be stopped. I don’t believe Klytos is an evil man, Kip. I don’t believe he deserves to die out of hand or I’d kill him myself. But the stakes are high, and they’re rising. Do what you must. Get in the Blackguard first. I’ve secured a tryout for you. Get in, and the position will help you accomplish the rest.”

Sure. Simple as that. Of course, for Gavin Guile, it probably
was
as simple as that. Things were so easy for a man of his powers, he probably thought they were easy for other people. “What are we trying to do?” Kip asked. “Ultimately, I mean.”

“War is a spreading fire. And every old grudge is dry wood, begging for flame. When I fought my brother, men joined me who hated me, but they hated their neighbors more, and those neighbors then sided with him. We killed two hundred thousand people in less than four months, Kip. I had a chance to stop this new war at one city, a few thousand dead. I failed. There are satrapies that wouldn’t mind seeing Atash burn, that wouldn’t mind that fire spreading to Blood Forest, that don’t want their sons to die defending Ruthgar, that don’t want their daughters to have to be Freed after defending Paria, that don’t want to raise their taxes for Ilytian heathens, that don’t want to send their crops to those filthy Aborneans.”

Kip understood. “Which leaves no one.”

“We’re trying to stop the war before it engulfs everyone.”

“How do you stop a war?” Kip asked.

“You win. So you do your part, and I’ll do mine.”

“How long do I have?” Kip asked. A small part of him rebelled. It wasn’t fair to ask a boy to do this. It wasn’t what you’d ask of a son. But Kip was only a son by his father’s grace. He was an unwanted bastard, and if Gavin held the boy he’d never known at arm’s length, how could Kip blame him?

“Depends on how long the Color Prince licks his wounds in Garriston. It’s probably too much to hope he’ll stay the winter, so he’ll
most likely head west. I imagine Idoss will hold him off for a few months. Losing Idoss should be enough to move the Spectrum. If not… six months, Kip. Eight if we’re lucky. If we don’t save the city of Ru, he’ll get their saltpeter caves and iron mines and we’ll be plunged into a war worse than the False Prism’s War, and unlikely to be as brief.”

Kip was in so far over his head he couldn’t even see the surface. “Why me?” he asked.

“Because audacity is a young man’s sword. Daring is a gun. And, to be blunt, if you fail in non-spectacular fashion, you’ll merely look like a petty child. That would damage your reputation but not mine. And it won’t get either of us killed. You’re a good weapon because to look at you, you look like a child, an affable boy who wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Affable. Code for “fat and nice.” Next I’ll be “jolly.” “I’m so unlikely that I’m perfect?” Kip said.

“Exactly.”

“I thought that once, right before I ran away from Garriston.” Kip had thought no one would think a child would come to spy on the Color Prince and rescue Liv. That had turned out well.

“But you’re stronger now.”

“That was two weeks ago!”

Gavin laughed.

“Doesn’t that tell you something?” Kip insisted.

Gavin smiled. “It should tell you something, too.”

“What?” Kip asked.

Gavin got serious. “That I believe in you.”

Kip wasn’t sure what to do with that, not when Gavin delivered it straight. He couldn’t laugh it off, couldn’t make a joke out of it. It was too obviously true, and it warmed him. Kip grimaced. “You’re really good at this, aren’t you?”

Gavin rubbed Kip’s head. “Almost as good as I think I am.” He grinned. “You know, Kip, when this is all over…” He let the words fall away, and his good humor went with them.

“It’s never going to be over, is it?” Kip asked.

The Prism took a deep breath. “Not the way I’d like.”

“Are we going to lose?” Kip asked.

Gavin was quiet for a while. He shrugged and smirked. “Odds are.” He wrapped an arm around Kip’s wide shoulders, squeezed, released him. “But odds are for defying.”

Karris had all the gear packed and ready. Gavin, she assumed, would draft another skimmer rather than take one of the ships. He always was an impatient man. She checked her gear again to calm her nerves. She hated thinking she’d forgotten something. Hated not knowing what to prepare for but trying to pack light.

Of course, Gavin would come out and say, “Let’s go!” and try to leave immediately. As if, having invented a way to cross the entire Cerulean Sea in a day and save a month of sailing, he didn’t have an extra hour or two for packing.

Why had she volunteered for this again?

Because you don’t have anything better to do than saving the world and revealing the cancer at its heart.

There was that.

Gavin came onto the deck, and Karris was struck once again by how every eye turned to him. She supposed that most of the people on this ship were common folk, and they would have turned to see even Garriston’s Governor Crassos, hated as he had been. And perhaps they would have stared as worshipfully at any Prism, but she doubted it. Gavin’s title was special, but something in her believed that he would have attracted every eye on deck even if he’d been a cabin boy. Now that he’d saved all their lives again, she was surprised that they didn’t spontaneously burst out into applause.

The sailors burst out into applause.

Son of a bitch.

Two Blackguards fell in beside him as he came out the door. Someone must have shouted the word that the Prism was making an appearance, because in moments, people were piling out onto the deck. The captain, a stalwart rotund Ruthgari, made no attempt to stop them or get his sailors back to work. They nearly trampled each other on their way out of the cabins below, and sailors, soldiers, traders, nobles, and refugee peasants alike came out to get a look at their Prism.

He’d been on board with them for the last week, and he’d been in Garriston with them before that. It wasn’t like he’d changed. But somehow where he’d been an important man before, now he was
theirs
. Their savior. Pitting himself against a sea demon and winning had made Gavin larger than life.

If Karris hadn’t seen with her own eyes how close Gavin had come to getting eaten, she might have had the cynicism to think he had arranged the whole thing.

The people were packed on the deck—every ship had been filled to bursting in order to get the refugees out of Garriston before the Color Prince took over—and all of them were talking to each other, sharing inanities like, “Do you see him? Is he saying anything?”

Gavin made his way over to Karris, Blackguards in tow. They, like she, scanned the crowd for threats. Gavin said, “Milady, would you do me the honor of accompanying me on a small expedition?”

What do you do when someone asks you kindly to do what you’ve already wheedled and schemed for? “I would be… delighted,” Karris said.

“Excellent.” Gavin smiled without any hint of irony. He did have a nice smile. The worm.

He raised his hands. “My people!” he said. He had a commander’s voice, an orator’s voice with the trick of somehow speaking so loudly and clearly that everyone could understand him without his seeming to shout. “My people! I leave you today, but only for a time. I go to make a place for you. I go ahead of you. And now I ask you to be fearless and grow strong. There are days ahead that will test us all. There is work that only you can do, though I will help as I can. I’m leaving General Danavis in charge. He has my full trust. He will lead well.”

The words walked a narrow line, and he surely knew it. What he was describing without precisely saying was that he was their
promachos—
the title a Prism could be given during war. But the
promachia
could only be instituted by the order of the entire Spectrum. Gavin had been promachos during the war with his brother, and had been relieved of the title in less than six months. To be a promachos was to be emperor in truth.

It was one of the very things the Blackguard had been created to protect against.

At the same time, what else was Gavin going to tell all these people? That he was leaving and they were going to have to fend for themselves? They had nothing. They’d left everything in Garriston.

He kept talking, and Karris kept scanning the crowd. Ironfist had taught them the telltales for spotting an assassin, of course. Someone
who was sweating profusely, shifting awkwardly, anyone who was keeping their hands concealed in such a way that they might be hiding something. For Karris, it was more of a feeling. An assassin would feel out of place. Someone who wasn’t listening, because they didn’t care what was said. Someone who only cared about his own mission.

Karris realized two things at the same time. First, that was exactly what she was doing. Second, there were at least fifty Blackguards on deck. Not to mention a couple of hundred fanatical common folk who would tear apart anyone who even dared
offend
their Prism. If there were a perfect moment to
not
attempt an assassination, this would be it.

Gavin drafted a set of steps from the deck down to the water and drafted a yellow-hulled scull onto the water, complete with rowing apparatus for two.

The Blackguards on duty were Ahhanen and Djur. Neither man looked pleased, but they saluted Karris, transferring protection to her. Life, light, purpose.

Gavin descended the steps and took his place. He didn’t offer Karris a hand onto the scull, which she appreciated. Now, in this, they weren’t some lord and a lady. She was
his
protector, thank you very much.

As she took her place on the oars, she said, “No blue this time, huh?” The last time they’d sculled together, she’d accused him of using blue luxin for the hull because blue was practically invisible against the waves and it had unnerved her.