The Blinding Knife(30)

Kip struggled to his feet. A number of classmates were slapping Cruxer on the back, congratulating him on his effortless victory. Kip couldn’t summon any ill feeling for the boy. He’d destroyed Kip without malice and without causing any unnecessary pain.

The second boy was stocky, blue-eyed like Kip, maybe only half Parian, because his skin wasn’t much darker than Kip’s. He bowed to Kip. Kip returned the bow, wondering what fresh pain was coming his way.

Kip and Number Two circled each other warily, but the boy kept looking up and away from Kip. At first, Kip didn’t know why. Then he saw the boy’s eyes. There were little wisps of blue appearing and disappearing in the whites of his eyes. Down, into his body. Gathering in his fists. If the boy hadn’t been lighter-skinned, Kip wouldn’t have been able to see it. It was one of the disadvantages the lighter-skinned had. It was why, nominally, the Blackguard were black.

But because they weren’t wearing spectacles, the boy could only draft tiny sips of blue light at a time. He had to take his eyes off of Kip, look at one of the blue crystals overhead, take what he could, and look back to Kip. Without blue spectacles, it made for a slow process.

And Kip circling slowly was giving the boy all the time he needed.

“Ah hell,” Kip said. He charged.

Kip threw a punch. It was blocked. The second punch hit the boy’s shoulder—but Kip had thrown the punch with his left hand. He felt cuts rip open. It was like he’d dipped his palm in fire.

A fist caught him in the stomach, and another grazed his arm as he hunched forward. Kip staggered back, his motion taking most of the force out of a punch that caught his nose.

It still made his eyes water, though. He blinked and lurched, surprised the boy had let him go rather than press his advantage.

Then Kip realized the reason why the boy would do such a thing.

A blue staff was forming in the boy’s hands, slowly stretching out like molten glass.

Kip darted in and grabbed at the unfinished staff. He caught it, and as his fingertips sank into the crystallizing structure, he felt suddenly as connected to it as if he’d drafted it himself.

He could feel the other boy through the open luxin, his will, so focused a moment before, now scattered and confused by Kip’s invasion. Kip tore the staff away from the boy and sealed it.

The blue luxin staff was bent from where the boys had grappled for it, but it was still as tall as either of them and as big around as Kip could comfortably hold in his hand. Ignoring the pain as he grabbed it with his bandaged left hand, Kip swung the bottom of the staff for the boy’s knees.

It connected with a crack, and the still-stunned boy dropped. He hadn’t even tried to move. Just stood there like a dumb ox. He crumpled, and Kip stepped over him, putting one end of the staff on the boy’s throat.

“Match!” Ironfist called out.

Kip stepped away. Drafting blue made it much easier to obey orders than drafting green did.

The boy on the ground moaned, dazed, only slowly coming back to himself.

“Commander, sir,” Cruxer asked, “what was that?”

Ironfist was scowling. “Something we don’t teach until a year from now. Kip, who showed you that?”

Kip turned his hands up, helpless.

“Willjacking or will-breaking. Trainer Fisk?”

The muscle-bound teacher stepped forward. “Technically, it’s called forced translucification. Luxin has no memory. There is no your luxin or my luxin. Once a drafter makes physical contact with open luxin of a color that she can draft, she can use it. What just happened here was two drafters fought will to will, and Kip broke Grazner’s will.”

The boy Kip had just defeated said, “But, but, I didn’t know what he was doing!”

The trainer said, “He didn’t know what he was doing either. Did you, Kip?”

“Uh, no, sir.”

“You’re just lucky you weren’t left a blithering idiot, Graz,” Trainer Fisk said.

A boy in the crowd whispered, “Blithering, no. Idiot? Weeelll…”

Several people snickered. A few had the decency to try to cover it with coughs.

“So Adrasteia, you want to challenge Kip?” Ironfist asked.

“Ah hells,” the boy murmured. He was the one who’d made the crack about Grazner.

“Sir, I thought if I won I was done,” Kip said.

“Whatever would make you believe such a thing? The winning is just the beginning.”

Kip swallowed.

Adrasteia didn’t look terribly pleased to be fighting Kip either. Alone of all the fighters, he wasn’t wearing an armband showing what color he drafted.

He had straight, shoulder-length dark hair, bound back with a gold scarf. Skin just dark enough for the Blackguard, with Atashian features and striking blue eyes. Short and slender, but wearing a baggy shirt and baggy pants, he looked maybe thirteen years old. Odd haircut, but then Kip wasn’t exactly a man of the world. Maybe long hair was in fashion now. Strange name, too, and rather full lips.