The Blinding Knife
Page 18

Archly, the prince said, “Rare is the man who won’t swoon over women swooning over him.”
“So I’m trivially correct on the latter.” He enjoyed her attention, her growing awe, but he had barely touched her, even when he had excuses to do so. He didn’t lean toward her as they spoke. He was engaged intellectually but not bodily. “But this is no seduction.”
He didn’t look entirely pleased. “Alas, the fire that took so much else has denied me the simpler pleasures of the flesh. Not that I despise such. But no cavorting like a green for me.” Between the immobilization caused by the burn scars on his face and the immobilization of the luxins he was weaving into his skin, it was difficult to read any but the most overt expressions on his face, but she reminded herself that this didn’t mean he didn’t feel readily or deeply. His eyes swirled freely with colors, but Liv thought they, too, were only good indicators of his emotions when he felt something strongly. It made him something of a cipher.
Superviolet loved ciphers. Cracking ciphers.
“Do you know who I was?” the Color Prince asked.
“No.”
“And I’m not going to tell you. Do you know why?”
“Because you don’t want me to know?” she hazarded.
“No. Because superviolets love digging up secrets. And if I don’t set you to work digging up something that doesn’t matter to me, you might be smart enough to dig up something I don’t want known.”
“Diabolical,” she said appreciatively.
Luxin shot out of him, slamming into her chest. She staggered, lost her grip on superviolet, and found something tight around her neck.
Kicking, Liv realized she’d been lifted off her feet. No, not just off her feet. She was suspended, off the edge of the balcony, held by a fist of luxin around her entire head. She grabbed at the fist, trying to pull herself up, trying to breathe, trying to loosen its grip—panicking, not even realizing that loosening its grip was the last thing she ought to want. If she fell from this height, she’d die. Her head felt hot, all the veins bulging, her eyes feeling like they’d explode.
The Color Prince’s eyes were stark red, glowing like coals. He blinked. Yellow flooded to the fore, and she felt herself swung back onto the balcony, released.
She fell, coughing.
“I… The Chromeria has demonized what we do,” the prince rasped. “Literally. They have made us into actual devils, and I won’t tolerate those who call good evil and evil good. I… reacted badly.”
Liv was shaking, and embarrassed of it. She thought she was going to cry, and was furious with herself for it. She was a Danavis. She was brave and strong and she would not break down like a little girl. She was a woman, seventeen years old. Old enough to have children of her own. She would not break down.
She stood and curtsied, wobbling only a little. “My apologies, my lord. I didn’t mean to offend.”
He looked out over the bay, putting his hands on the rail. He’d lost his zigarro. He lit another. “You needn’t be embarrassed of the trembling. It’s the body’s reaction. I’ve seen the most fearless veterans do the same. Your embarrassment of it makes it look like weakness. Ignore it. It passes.”
Painting a placid expression on her face as if it were the stark lines of kohl, Liv drafted superviolet. It helped. She folded her arms, as if against the evening chill but really to bury their shaking. “So, my lord?”
He cocked his head. “So?”
“So you have a plan for me.”
“Of course I do.”
“And you’re not going to tell me what it is.”
“Such a smart girl. I’m going to assign you a tutor to answer almost every one of your questions.”
“Except for that one?”
He grinned. “There will be other omissions as well.”
“Who is this tutor?”
“You’ll know when you see him. Now go. I have grimmer tasks to accomplish before the light dies.”
Chapter 16
Ironfist was standing outside Andross Guile’s chambers when Kip came out. As ever, he was huge and intimidating, but Kip was getting to know the commander of the Blackguard, and the look on Ironfist’s face was more curious than anything else.
“I’ve seen satraps come out of that room looking worse,” Ironfist said.
“Really?” Kip asked. He felt destroyed.
“No. I was trying to cheer you up.” Ironfist started down the hall, and Kip fell in step beside him. “Kip, I’m inviting you to train for the Blackguard.”
Oh, right. Because my father demanded it. Not on my own merits.
Kip thought he’d only thought those words, but by the time he said “merits,” he realized he’d stepped in a big pile of his tongue once again.
Ironfist stopped cold. Turned to Kip, glowering, threatening. “You were eavesdropping?” Ironfist asked.
Kip swallowed. Nodded. I didn’t mean to!
But this time the words didn’t weasel their way past his lips. Excuses dried up in the blast furnace of Ironfist’s disapproval.
“Then you know I have to induct you at the end. It’s up to you how much of an embarrassment you want to make that for both of us.”
It was like someone had put a great chain around Kip’s chest, dropped him in the sea, and told him to swim home. Ironfist headed off once again, and didn’t pause or slow as they left the Prism’s Tower and crossed the great yard between the seven great towers of the Chromeria to a broad staircase that disappeared into the ground.
As they descended, Kip got a notion of just how massive the Chromeria was. It wasn’t merely the huge towers, the spindles that connected them in midair, and the great yard covered with thousands of people going about all the business of the Seven Satrapies. All of it extended below the ground as well, into a huge chamber. The ceiling was fully twenty paces above the floor. Each of the seven towers had its roots down here, and yet more entrances. Buildings and storehouses, barracks, inns, and even a few homes crowded the chamber, reaching in many places from floor to ceiling. Some were constructed of stone, others of luxin. Vibrant colors rioted everywhere, and though the whole area was underground, it was neither dark nor musty. Crystals scintillated in every color like torches, taking sunlight from above and splashing it liberally through the chamber. Great fans set in the ceiling at either side sucked in and blew out air, sending a constant slight breeze over the whole area. There was a great hall in the center, and exercise yards off to one side.
“Beginning of each new class, there’s a lottery. Some numbers are random, but legacies and those who finished just below the cut of the previous training class get to challenge in last. Big advantage. You fight for your spot, but you only have to fight three times. So if you choose spot ten, you might have to fight ten, eleven, and twelve. It’s only a starting point, though; it’s easy to move up in the coming weeks, and easier to move down. I can do this much for your father: you get to choose last. Don’t choose too high or you’ll pay for it in blood, but don’t go too low. We cut the bottom seven each month.”
Ironfist moved purposefully, unfazed by the subterranean splendor. Kip followed, tense. He was squeezing his burned hand. He consciously straightened it, grimaced against the pain. Soon he found himself standing with Ironfist in front of forty-nine young men and women. They were all dressed in loose tan shirts and pants. Everyone wore at least one armband with the color he drafted on his right or left arm. Though Kip knew that women outnumbered men in the Chromeria substantially, this class of potential Blackguards had only ten women.