The Broken Eye
Page 89

Leo dropped the man and turned, and this time spoke loudly enough that Kip could hear him: “Shame on all of you for tolerating this heresy in your midst! These people are monsters! Murderers! You let him walk free and spread his poison here? Shame!” Leo spat on the stones and turned to stomp off.
No one did anything. Not that the squad had expected them to, but it was nice to see something they’d planned work: by identifying the spy as a heretic, they’d hoped Leo could get out clean.
Unseen though, behind Leo, Lord Arias had risen on unsteady feet. He pulled out a knife. Leo’s back was to him. The spy lurched toward him.
It was too far away for a shout to do any good. Worse, a shout might distract Leo from the sound of the spy approaching him.
The spy drew the blade up to bury it in Leo’s back—and his arm dropped, limp. The sound of the blade tinging off the paving stones made Leo spin. He saw the knife and the staggering man at once, and his fist came up in a flash.
“Don’t kill him!” Cruxer whispered, as if he could will Leo to inaction.
Big Leo unclenched his fist and grabbed the spy at the collar and the waistband. He spun in a rapid circle with the man and hurled him out into the street. He stood for a long moment, flexing his fists. Kip could see that the battle juice was on him. Big Leo had gone for a quick fistfight, and had almost ended up dead. It was hard to think rationally. Leo took a step toward the downed spy.
Teia darted out from the crowd. “Brother!” she shouted. “Thank Orholam!” Kip couldn’t hear the rest of what she said, but she took Leo by the arm and pulled him away. He didn’t resist. Her appearance had snapped him out of his rage.
She pulled him down Verrosh Street.
“What the hell was that?” Kip asked.
“Good luck?” Cruxer suggested. But he grinned. Kip could tell he knew exactly what had made that knife drop.
“I’m serious.”
“That was paryl. You’re not the only one changing things around here. Teia’s got a few tricks, too. That one doesn’t usually work for her yet, though. Thus: good luck.”
Together, they watched. Teia was soon indistinguishable, but it took longer for Big Leo to blend with the crowds. Then Ferkudi and Ben-hadad came onto Verrosh, blocks down, almost out of sight, and began separately walking toward the square. They passed Big Leo with neither side acknowledging the other.
“You see anyone follow Leo?” Kip asked. He hadn’t.
“One possible. We’ll see in a moment.”
If the spy had an ally eager to exact a quick vengeance or even just to see where Leo had come from, it was vital that that friend fail.
Ferkudi stumbled into someone and they both went sprawling, Ferkudi taking by far the worse of it. He made a big show of it, crashing into a Parian headscarf seller’s booth and sending scarves flying.
Only Ferkudi could lower the boom on himself.
A slender Parian woman dodged out of the booth instantly, shouting and waving her arms in big gestures.
“They get away?” Kip asked.
“If they didn’t with that? I’ll give them a thrashing myself,” Cruxer said.
Down in the intersection below them, though, another quieter drama was playing out. The woman Teia had seen had come to the downed spy and was tending to his wounds.
“Thoughts?” Cruxer asked.
Kip studied the woman. Teia said she’d already had bandages near to hand before anything had happened. “A spy to spy on the spy,” Kip said. “A better way to insinuate her into their ranks than just showing up and saying, ‘Hello, I hate the Chromeria, too! Can I join you?’”
“Good point. And see that one back there? Beaded beard, gold earrings?”
Kip grunted an assent. He hadn’t seen him before now.
“That’s the spy’s actual handler. He almost came out of hiding when Leo struck, and then he almost ran away. Now he’s just watching. I think we can call this mission a success.”
“As long as no one saw us,” Kip said.
“We’ll wait here for a bit.” Cruxer sat with his back against the bricks. Kip sat beside him.
Minutes passed, and Kip had a thought that he’d had half a hundred times before. Now was as good a time as any. It seemed that he got in trouble for the times he didn’t speak nearly as often as he got in trouble for speaking too fast. But he’d been a coward with inaction too many times.
“Captain…” Kip said. “I just … about Lucia. The assassin—the assassin was aiming at me.” He could still remember Lucia with her back to the assassin, stepping into the line of fire at the last instant. He would never forget the look on Cruxer’s face as the young man had pulled Lucia’s bleeding body from Kip’s stunned arms and into his own.
Cruxer stared into the distance. Then his mouth twitched into a sad smile, remembering Lucia. Then he was back. “I know,” he said.
“You know?”
“I went back to that alley. Recreated the murder. The target could only be you.” He shrugged.
“You’re … you’re not mad?” Kip asked.
“I’m furious. But not at you. Breaker, if Lucia died saving your life, her death may still have been an accident, but it’s no longer meaningless. Death for a purpose? What more could any of us ask? Lucia wasn’t good enough to make it into the Blackguard. She knew it, and she was just beginning to grapple with the death of that dream. She was never going to make it into our ranks, but she still died serving our highest ideals. It’s not for nothing.”
So this is why he wants me to be the Lightbringer so much. If I am, Lucia died for the most important person in history.
“But what if I’m not the Lightbringer?” It just slipped out, quiet and sad.
“Don’t you take it away from her,” Cruxer said. “It has nothing to do with that. All are equal in Orholam’s eyes: she died for a friend, a squad mate. It is our earthly task as Blackguards to die for Colors and Prisms—but in Orholam’s eyes, dying for a pauper means as much as dying for a prince.”
Kip sat there for a few more minutes. He knew Cruxer meant it. But Cruxer saw Orholam’s hand everywhere. He believed that Orholam intervened in the world constantly. Commander Ironfist saw Orholam as a distant king who could intervene when he chose, but rarely chose to do so. Andross thought Orholam had set the world in order, but hadn’t touched it since, allowing the whole system of the Chromeria and the Magisterium to become a swindle that the nobles and Chromeria had pulled over on the Seven Satrapies.
Oddly enough, the latter part seemed to be the Color Prince’s view, too.
What Gavin’s view was, Kip didn’t know. Nor did he know what the truth was.
“Captain. I don’t know if this is the time, but what do people really know about the Lightbringer? At worship that one time, Klytos Blue said we’re all Lightbringers, and I’ve spent a few hours looking up prophecy interpretations in the libraries, but they all seem to contradict each other, so I gave it up. All I got is that he’s going to restore true worship—whatever that is. He’s going to comfort the afflicted, open the eyes of the blind, throw down the altars and high places, raise up the oppressed, and cast down the wicked.”
“And kill gods and kings,” Cruxer said. He smirked.