Kip took heart from that, and ate his breakfast as she went about her duties, finally leaving to tell the others he was up and well.
Then it occurred to him that if he broke the halo in paryl or chi, there were only a few people in all the world who would be able to tell, and none of them were on this boat.
He could be a madman already and not know it.
Cruxer came in alone. “Breaker,” he said, nodding his head. “We thought it best not to overwhelm you by coming in all together.”
“Thanks. Can you, uh, tell me what happened out there?” Kip asked.
“How much do you remember?”
“Right up to where the water tornado thing was going to explode under the galley.”
“That was the exciting part,” Cruxer said. He cleared his throat. “Well, it did explode—half on each side of the galley, and it kept trying to twist back together. Two enormous spinning waterspouts. And… somehow… you held them apart until the galley sailed through. The light storm passed as fast as it came. All’s been well since then. You saved the ship and everyone on it.” He cleared his throat again. “A, um, a couple of the sailors tried to worship you.”
“Ha!” Kip said. “Funny.”
Cruxer didn’t share his amusement. “I was serious. They were, too.” He chewed on his lip. “Breaker, I saw you sink the Gargantua. This was… Breaker, I froze up. I’ve never frozen up in the face of danger before. Tisis was the one who saved you. Shamed all of us.”
“Because she’s a girl?”
“Maybe a little. But mostly because we’re Blackguards. We’re supposed to be there for you first. We failed you.”
“You got there in time,” Kip protested. He remembered that much now. The hands on him, the yelling.
“We got there second.”
“You got there soon enough.”
“It could have—you almost fell in the—”
“What did Commander Ironfist say about past mistakes?” Kip asked.
Cruxer grimaced. “Look at your mistakes long enough to learn from them, then put them behind you.”
Kip lifted his eyebrows.
“Oh, shut up,” Cruxer grumbled. He picked at a fingernail for a bit. “Tisis is saying some things that have the squad uncomfortable, Breaker.”
“What’s that?”
“I guess you told her we’re leaving? She’s been insisting that she’s going with us. She says you told her she could.”
“I did.”
“But you told me we were leaving her.”
“And then I changed my mind. I had to.”
Cruxer’s displeasure had an almost physical weight to it. “Breaker, we’ve got to figure something out right now. I know I said that you’d be in charge when it made sense for you to be in charge, and I’d be in charge the rest of the time, but that isn’t working. I can’t handle the uncertainty.”
“Uncertainty is part of—”
“Uncertainty is part of your world. Not mine. When I give orders, I have to know they’re going to be followed. Or when someone tells me something, I have to know it’s the truth.”
That stung.
“It’s not a lie when someone tells you what they think is the truth and is wrong. Plans change. Anyway, heck, call her an honorary member of the Mighty now. She did save me,” Kip said. “There, see? The Mighty didn’t fail now. She was just the fastest of us to react.”
Cruxer grimaced. It was, Kip thought, a fairly nice dodge to save face. But Cruxer wasn’t interested in dodges. Regardless, he let it go. “It’s not about that. It’s not only about that, anyway. Breaker, I propose we use a different template for our squad.”
“And what’s that?”
“I say we mirror how the Prism and the commander of the Blackguard interact. It’s close to what we have now. As above, so below, right? You decide where we go—though I give input and register any disagreements—and I keep you alive when we go there. You’re the boss, but we don’t keep each other from doing our work.”
As above, so below. But for Kip to step into that place, that low mirror of the Prism, was highly suggestive of something else. “I’ve never claimed to be the Lightbringer, Crux.”
“That uncertainty I can live with.”
“I want you to know, I think Tisis can help us, Cruxer. I wouldn’t ask to bring her along if she couldn’t.”
“I’m not convinced. And if we get her killed, her sister goes from a very tenuous ally to a mortal enemy. But you don’t need to convince me. You don’t need to ask to bring her along at all. Simply give the order… my lord.”
Chapter 17
Biggest day of my life, and all I can think about is how I have to pee.
When the complement of full Blackguards had joined Teia and the other nunks in their vigils before dawn, the one-handed new Blackguard trainer Samite had thoughtfully brought Teia and a few other Archers-to-be cups of kopi, still steaming from the kitchens. Teia had only sipped the stimulant before, and hadn’t liked the taste, so she’d never had a full cup.
This morning, she’d drained it with gusto.
Now she had to pee, and she felt jittery. With the burden of Quentin’s life and death off her shoulders, she’d then had something quite like the vigil she’d always hoped to have: she’d wept and then sworn at Orholam for all her problems, then beseeched him for forgiveness, then begged him for guidance, then been at peace, and then wept again. She’d had a sense, for some fragile tender minutes, that she wasn’t alone, that she wasn’t forsaken, that she had purpose, that he knew her. He saw her. He cared. He saved. It had been a night overfull.
Like my bladder.
Orholam, let me not wet my new blacks.
Fifty Blackguards had gathered to stand in rows with her and five other nunks on the roof of the Prism’s Tower, saluting the sun as it rose. Commander Fisk turned as soon as the sun had barely cleared the horizon. It was going to be a busy day for all of them, so the ceremony would be abbreviated at best. Not that Teia was complaining.
“Adrasteia Gallaea’s daughter,” Commander Fisk said, after greeting each of the others. Teia hadn’t heard her mother’s name since the day she’d been signed over to Blackguard training. She didn’t want to think of herself as that creature’s daughter, though slaves were traditionally known by their matronymic. “The Blackguard is an ancient order, heavy with honor. We were born out of fealty and failure, out of the honor of Lucidonius’s thirty mighty men and the shame of the satrapies failing to protect his widow and our second Prism, Karris Shadowblinder. Upon her death, those who remained of the thirty organized this guard to protect the Prism, and, in the last extremity, to protect the Seven Satrapies from a Prism.”
A quiet descended, the full Blackguards contemplative, the newest ones confused. Protect the satrapies from the Prism?
Then a crack like a musket shot rang out. Fifty pairs of hands went to weapons. Fifty pairs of eyes were covered with colored spectacles.
But it was only the propped-up replacement door falling to the ground as someone came up to the roof.
Karris Guile, Karris White Oak, now Karris White, stood in the opening for a moment to let her former brethren relax, then stepped outside. She wore the white dress of her station, but one newly made, cut to her slim, muscular figure. The points of her high collar were sharpened, reminiscent of swords, and all her accents were bright silver, not gold. The dress itself was lean cut, and if Teia didn’t miss her guess, infused with luxin, as were the Blackguards’ blacks. As much as a dress could be, it was one in which the former Blackguard could move. It was steel femininity, and Teia immediately recalled that just days ago, when they’d tried to throw her off the testing platform, this woman had kicked two big men to their deaths without hesitation, remorse, or much effort.
The Blackguard Karris White Oak had been small, fast, and fierce.
The only thing small about Karris White was her frame.
As the Blackguards saluted her and her attending Blackguards fanned out onto the roof, she said, “If I may, Commander?”