The back of his head glanced off the side of Aram’s cheek. Not enough.
The circle lit up again with natural white light as other mirrors were shifted onto the field, and the yellow light was extinguished. Kip’s one hope, dashed. He hadn’t even had time to draft the yellow. Green filters flipped back on.
Then Kip’s hands were trapped. Must have been trapped in luxin. A fist smashed his right ear. Another hit his left. Then his cheek. Then his mouth.
Right, left, right, left, right.
Kip was losing sense. But Aram had gone crazy. His leglock loosened as he concentrated solely on battering Kip to a pulp.
With a yell, Kip bucked and Aram lost his balance and fell forward. Kip wriggled to his knees, but Aram clamped down on him, smashing his fists harder and harder into Kip’s face.
Crying, stupid with rage and pain, blood blinding him, Kip roared and stood—lifting the older boy into the air, half on Kip’s back and half on his shoulders. He felt the boy stop punching him and his hands slip as he tried to collar Kip.
“You can do it, Breaker!” someone shouted.
The only thought in Kip’s mind was to crush Aram like a bug. Screaming over the sounds of Trainer Fisk’s incessant whistle, he lurched and threw himself toward the ground and—
Into a large red pillow. Inexorably, Kip’s limbs were pulled away, and Aram’s weight was borne away from him.
The clouds of dense red luxin faded, leaving Kip on the ground, still crying. Trainer Fisk examined him briskly to see how bad his injuries were, then stood.
“Aram wins. The top fourteen is decided. From here on up, we fight for placement. But Aram, you lost control. You damn near got yourself expelled. You’re done for the day.”
“No!” Kip shouted.
Trainer Fisk looked at him, then looked away, as if Kip was shaming himself.
Kip was weeping. Not from the pain, though everything was pain now. He’d been so close. He could have crushed Aram if they’d just let them finish the fight. He’d almost—
Almost. He was Kip Almost. Kip the Failure. Almost good enough. He was bleeding and weeping and snotting all over himself.
He looked up and expected to see Gavin leaving. Kip was an embarrassment. A weeping little girl where Gavin needed a son in his own image. Kip was nothing like his father. How could the acorn fall so far from the oak? Instead, Gavin held his gaze and beckoned Kip to come over.
Kip stood up and walked over toward the wooden bleachers where his father was sitting among all the trainees. He looked down, humiliated, humiliated by the tears dripping down his face, unable to stop, unable to hide.
Someone started clapping. Then others joined the one, and everyone was clapping. Kip looked to see if Aram was flexing or something. He wasn’t. Everyone who was clapping was looking at him. Him?
Kip rubbed his forehead, trying to hold himself together. Him? For him?
Ah fuck. He started crying harder. He’d wanted to be one of the Blackguards. They were the only people he respected. The only people in the world he wanted to be like. And he’d failed them, but they gave him this.
He took a towel, ostensibly to wipe up his blood. He covered his head. Someone put an arm around him, and Kip saw his father.
“Father,” Kip said. “I… if they hadn’t blown the whistle… I almost…”
“The boy panicked, Kip. That grip he was going for is a neck-breaker. And I think he got it. If they hadn’t blown the whistle, when you hit the ground, you’d have been dead.”
Aram had gotten the grip. Kip had felt Aram’s arms locking into place. If Aram had killed him, Aram would have been kicked out of the Blackguard. Not that it would have done Kip any good at that point.
“I failed,” Kip said, not quite daring to look out from under the towel over his head.
“Yes,” Gavin said. “He’s better than you. It happens. Smart work with the crystal there. It almost worked. Now come on, let’s go watch. It’s good to learn from those who are better than you are. Looks like your nose is broken. Best to set it quick.”
Kip touched his nose gingerly. Oh, that was not the right shape for a nose. “Is that the thing where it makes that sound and I scream?”
“Try not to,” Gavin said. Heedless of Kip’s sweaty hair, he reached behind Kip’s head, holding him in place, and grabbed his nose, pulling on it.
Kip gasped, gasped, breathed. Orholam have mercy!
But he didn’t scream.
Sure, that’s the one thing I don’t fail today.
He followed Gavin to the bleachers, but the only part of what his father had said that stuck with him was “almost” and “He’s better than you.”
A green drafter chirurgeon brought superviolet-infused bandages and tended to Kip’s cuts as they watched the remaining fights. With tiny needles and thread of green luxin, the man stitched up Kip’s right cheek and left eyebrow, then smeared stinging unguents on those and several other cuts.