The Broken Eye
Page 218

Tremblefist produced a key and opened the little gate. “Breaker, put slow-burning pyrejelly on the lock. Make it look like we burned through.”
Kip did it.
While he was doing so, Tremblefist said, “Narrow path out there, along the cliff face. Used to go down to the water, but the path fell into the sea long ago. It’s a dead end. Any who go that way won’t be on us.”
Then, instead of going through the gate, they sprinted once more along the wall. In another few blocks, they found another gate. Tremblefist produced another key. They ducked through, and he locked it behind them.
After a few hundred paces, this path dead-ended, too, and Tremblefist took them through a gate to get back onto the streets. In only a few minutes, they reached the docks and finally had to slow. The area was crowded with people arriving late for Sun Day and hundreds of merchants offloading and selling every kind of good imaginable—it would quiet at noon, but not until then. More importantly, it looked like no Lightguards were here.
Before they got to the red dock, they saw a luxiat standing, shifting from foot to foot, and Tisis Malargos, beautifully made up and looking like she had been waiting.
“You made it!” she said. “Was that you?” She pointed to sky cable, and Kip just grinned.
But he felt Teia shrinking back.
Tisis looked at Teia, and then at Kip; she didn’t look pleased. “So,” Tisis said. “Are we going to do this?”
“What do we need to do?” Kip asked.
“Sign three copies of the contract and say the words in front of the luxiat. That’s it. He knows he needs to boil it down to the essentials.”
“Give me the contract,” Ben-hadad said. “One of the copies. Quick!”
“You’re not seriously going to read it?” she asked. “Now?”
“Well, no, I’m not. But only because I’m shit at reading. Big Leo, read it to me. Over here.”
“It’s a typical Ruthgari wedding contract,” the luxiat said. But he handed over a copy, and Leo began reading it aloud to Ben-hadad.
“Do we really have time for this?” Winsen asked. He and the others were eyeing the crowd, trying not to look threatening and conspicuous and failing.
“What’s the saying,” Cruxer asked. “‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure’?”
“Hmm,” Teia said.
“Surely this doesn’t count as haste,” Tremblefist said. It was hard to tell whether he was being sarcastic or droll.
“Look, this is my deal,” Kip said.
“Deal?” Big Leo asked, breaking off from his low, murmured reading. “Was part of that deal Andross trying to kill us all?”
It was Aram, Kip thought. Aram had to be working against what Andross wanted. I think. But he said, “My deal isn’t with Andross.” Which was a lie, but Tisis was standing right here. “My deal’s with the only people who can protect me from him: Tisis and the Malargos family.”
“Leo, keep reading!” Ben-hadad said.
“Kip,” Teia said. “Breaker.”
“Oh, shit,” Tremblefist said.
“What?” Kip and Cruxer said at the same time, Kip to Teia and Cruxer to Tremblefist.
“You’re really going to do this?” Teia said.
“This this, or this, getting the hell off the island?” Kip asked.
“Either. Both.”
“It’s the signal,” Tremblefist said to Cruxer. “The Lightguards have control of the cannon emplacement at the mouth of the harbor. If we try to sail out of here, they’re to sink us.”
“Yes, I am,” Kip told Teia.
There was a moment of hurt, and she smoothed it down, but it didn’t disappear. “I’m staying,” she said. “I’ll help you get away, but I’m staying.”
“Is this because of—” Kip gestured to the cable they’d come down together.
“What do we do?” Cruxer asked.
“What are the parameters of your mission?” Tremblefist asked Cruxer.
Cruxer looked surprised that Tremblefist was giving him command. “Save Breaker,” he said quickly. “Nothing else matters.”
“No, it’s not about that,” Teia said. “You heard … Her. She didn’t release me.” She meant the White. She didn’t want to say it, not even in front of the squad. It was that kind of secret. “I have a mission. A purpose that’s bigger than what I want, and a task that only I can do.”
“What? What task?” Ben-hadad asked, interrupting.
They both stared at him.
“Sorry. By the way, contract’s fine. Bit archaic, ‘enemy of your enemy’ and the like, but … Sorry!”
“Teia, you don’t have to do this,” Kip said.
“No,” she said. “I don’t have to. But I choose to.” She tugged out the necklace she always wore, a little vial of olive oil. She’d always avoided questions about it. Now she broke the string, dropped the vial, and crushed it under her heel.
“Breaker,” Tremblefist barked.
“Sir,” Kip said, turning away from luxiats and women and—fuck! Did everything always have to happen at once? “Yes, sir?”
Tremblefist locked his gaze. “Thank you.” His mouth twitched a grin. The family resemblance to Ironfist was never more clear. But Tremblefist seemed free, his spirit open and joyful.
“Thank you? For what?” Kip asked.
Tremblefist said, “I’ll clear those cannons. Your ship will be safe. Go in light, Breaker.”
“Quickly, people!” Cruxer said. “I see Lightguards. Lots of them. Thirty seconds. Maybe.”
Kip turned back toward the luxiat, who’d gone pale. Someone put a pen in Kip’s fingers and presented the contracts, braced on a board. Kip signed, signed, signed.
“We have everything?” Tisis asked.
“Yes,” the luxiat said. “Hands.”
“Defensive positions, people!” Cruxer said.
Kip and Tisis presented their hands and the luxiat lifted a pitcher and washed them of metaphorical sin. When he saw that Kip’s hands were smeared with literal blood, he gulped. Kip felt Ferkudi put something on his head and saw that the young man had crafted green luxin crowns for both of them.
“You are here of your own free will?” the luxiat asked.
“Yes,” Kip and Tisis said quickly. Kip realized he’d barely even looked at her since he’d gotten here.
“Have either of you promised yourself to anyone else?”
“No,” Tisis said.
“No,” Kip said, a heartbeat late.
“Touch your right hands and entwine your fingers.”
“Wait!” Ben-hadad said. He waved his hands and almost fell over, having to hop on his good foot to regain his balance. “A Ruthgari wedding can be considered illegitimate and annulled if there’s no fire. Water, wine, and fire to sanctify a marriage. You need them all.”
The whole squad started looking around for a torch. How hard could it be to find a torch in the middle of a thousand merchants?
“Ah, hells,” Kip said. He opened himself to the sun and raised his own left hand, letting power roar through him. Fire gushed out of his hand skyward.