Teia shook her head. “I attended my mistress’s physical training, not her tutoring. My owners didn’t want a slave girl to think I might be an equal to their daughter.”
Essel waved that away; it was a discussion for another time. “We’re social animals, Teia. All of us. Without a community, we can’t reach our proper end, our telos. We can’t become who we’re supposed to be when we’re alone. Those without a community become monsters. We can get stuck looking for a freedom that doesn’t exist, because when you’re part of something, the weakness of others puts a burden on you. Maybe even an unfair burden. But you’ll put unfair burdens on your community, too. And let me be blunt. You do. You’re inexperienced, you’re uneducated, you’re color-blind, you’re short, and you’re weak. So in this thing, you’re going to help Gav Greyling. Not because you’re the woman, but because you’re human. You’re a Blackguard. And our community, this precious little thing we have, helps each other grow and become the best us we can be. And maybe he’ll never help you back, but one of the rest of us will. Or maybe we won’t, and you’ll go through life with your ledger slightly unbalanced. If you’ve got complaints about things being unfair, take them to my friends who died at Garriston in one fucking unlucky cannon shot.
“It’s not fair. But so what? There was a scholar—more of a dramatist, really—who said, ‘Hell is other people.’ He was right, and he was a fool. Heaven is other people, too.” She smiled apologetically. “Sorry. I kind of gave it to you right between the eyes there, didn’t I?”
Teia said nothing, though she wasn’t offended. It felt good to be treated as an equal by a full Blackguard. Apparently she didn’t need to say anything, though, because Essel went on.
“It’s uh, it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot, duty. Obligation and service and what we Blackguards owe and what we don’t. I mean, I loved Gavin Guile being my Prism. He was like my big brother and father and luxiat and the lover I could never have all wrapped up in one. Believe me, I spent more than a few nights with a lover with my eyes tight shut, imagining it was him on top of me, or under me. Mm. That sounds wrong because I started with the brother-and-father thing, doesn’t it?”
“I, uh, knew what you meant,” Teia said.
“I mean, he was our Prism from the time I was girl. I grew up on Gavin Guile. Most heroes get smaller the closer you get to them. But he’s gone. Even if we find him—and surely he would have surfaced by now, if he lived—I saw him, Teia. He was broken. Fingers cut off, eye gouged out, starved. He can’t be Prism now. I don’t know if I’d want him to be, knowing what he once was. And… you know, he’s married, too. That fantasy should have died long ago, but it’s dead now. And I don’t think I want to be a Blackguard for this new Prism. You’ve heard the rumors.”
“Um, no?” Ah shit. Apparently being in her own world so much had some real drawbacks in the gossip circle.
“That’s right, you’ve mostly pulled duty with the White. Well, by order of the commander, none of the Archers are allowed to attend Zymun alone.” She tented her eyebrows at Teia, lips pursed as if it was a significant look.
Except Teia had no idea what it signified. “Huh? Why?”
Essel sighed. “He gets grabby. Won’t take no for an answer. Samite nearly punched him in the face.”
“He laid hands on Samite?” The stocky, one-handed trainer didn’t exactly seem like his type.
“Oh hell no. Gloriana. From the cohort behind yours.”
“Oh, sure, I was there at her swearing in.” It was odd to Teia to already not be the newest, but they were inducting new Blackguards as fast as they could.
“If it weren’t wartime, we’d already have had a number of the Archers buy out their commissions because of him. That’s actually what I’m thinking of doing. Not because of him, though. Or more that he’s not Gavin. I’m thirty-five years old, Teia. I love the Blackguard. But maybe it’s time for me. I mean, after the war anyway, right? I want to get married. Not kids, you know, but a husband? The same man every night used to sound too boring to me. Maybe it still does. But the same man every day? That sounds… I dunno. Warm. Safe. Nice.”
She scowled ruefully.
“But listen to me go on. I guess that’s another thing about community. When someone who filled a certain place leaves it, someone else has to stand in. Karris used to listen to my whinging. Now she’s the White. It doesn’t seem right to bother her with all this, you know? Anyway, sorry to unload. You’re a good Blackguard, Teia. A good Archer. I’m proud to call you sister. Thanks. I feel a lot better.”
Teia had said approximately two words. “Right,” she said. Three. “Anytime.” Four.
“And take care of the Gav thing.”
Teia winced. “Right away.”
Chapter 35
The goddam cards. Kip had absorbed scores of the damned things—and not a one was triggered by a wall of fire or a sinking ship?
The Cwn y Wawr on the second, sinking barge weren’t taking their impending deaths passively. It was the only reason they hadn’t already died of smoke inhalation. They were chained, so they couldn’t reach their own blindfolds, but they’d torn off each other’s.
The initial explosion had blown holes in the barge’s hull, but through those holes, enough light had poured to give a few of them a source for magic. Even as Kip had leapt through the air, they’d blown the upper deck off the barge, leaving most of the hold open to the evening sky.
But there was no key. It wasn’t on the big man who’d triggered the explosions, so it had probably been carried by one of the sentries now dead at the bottom of the river. Nor could most of the drafters actually help. There was a source for sub-red and red from the fire, some oranges, and a bit of weak green from the trees illuminated by the fire, but the sky was too dark for the blues to draft more than a trickle.
The oranges were warding off the fire with walls of their luxin, and the sub-reds were redirecting the heat as well as they could, but it was a losing effort. The barge was on fire in every place not in their direct lines of sight—and it was sinking.
The main lock holding the chains to the deck was already submerged. It was one thing to try to pick a lock with luxin when you could see it, but holding your breath, trying to feel the lock through foul water and keep drafting long enough to work the tumblers of a well-made, huge lock?
Kip had already failed thrice.
He surfaced with a gasp.
Two rows of men chained closest to the lock had already been pulled beneath the water and fought no longer. A third row were still holding their breath, eyes squeezed tight shut or rolling with terror. The men of the fourth row were submerged to their throats. They tilted their chins up, sucking air, no longer screaming.
One drafter, three rows back, had drafted a large cone around his own neck. He was shouting at the others telling them to do the same, but between the cone muffling his voice and everyone else screaming, no one noticed. Except Kip.
The cone would buy the man time when he was pulled under the waves. Until the water reached above the top of his cone, he could still breathe. Almost every one of the men chained here could have done the same, but they hadn’t thought of it.
Kip could do it for them.
But that was a distraction, wasn’t it? He could save ten or twenty men so they could have another minute or three of life—but only if he abandoned the main problem: the damned sinking barge.
If ten more men had to die while he solved the problem, that was the price he had to pay.
Well, that they had to pay.
Come on! Not one of the damned cards was going to help him?
“Breaker!” Cruxer shouted from above, standing on a nonburning remnant of the upper deck. “Not much time!”
So he’d caught up. Kip looked at him and saw Cruxer had a coil of rope in his hand. The other end stretched out beyond him toward the shore.
Immediately, dozens of voices cried out for him to save them. As if he weren’t trying. As if he could.
Kip looked through the water. It was up to his neck, too. The next row went under.