“Tell you what?” Playing dumb.
“You are really impossible, aren’t you?” Kip asked.
She grinned. “Lady Lucretia Verangheti of the Smussato Veranghetis is my sponsor.”
“You’re from Ilyta? You don’t look Ilytian. Plus, I thought the Ilytians don’t like drafting. Heretics and all.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You just say the first thing that pops into your head, don’t you?”
“I’m getting better,” Kip said. What had he done?
“This is the better?”
Maybe I’ll just shut my fat face for the rest of my life. Kip slowly cut off another piece of sausage. His fingers were healing, so gripping wasn’t very painful. Stretching, however, was murder. Of course, using his hands to fight with hadn’t made anything better. “Tell you what,” he said. “How about you tell me about you—and that way I can spend a few seconds not getting myself into trouble?”
“What’s there to tell?” Adrasteia said. She hadn’t eaten a bite of her dinner yet. “Father’s a merchant sailor. Does the spice/silk circuit when he can. Gone more often than not. Mother’s a brewer in Odess. She wanted me to take over the stills. Instead, here I am.”
“Isn’t Odess in Abornea?” Kip asked. His mother hadn’t taught him much about geography, but he did know that Abornea and Ilyta were different satrapies.
“Head of the Narrows, one of the biggest cities in the world.”
“So how come your sponsor is Ilytian?”
“Because she’s the one who bought me last.”
Bought? Kip tried not to let his surprise show.
She tapped the top of her ear. It was snipped vertically and cauterized. “You not see this?” she said.
“Oh!” he said. She was a slave—and he was stupid.
But she didn’t mock him. She said, “They like to say that among the Chromeria’s pupils, there is no slave and no free. They like to say all sorts of things, of course, but if you can make it into the Blackguard, it’s actually true.” She didn’t say it bitterly, though. She shrugged. Who you were mattered here, and there was no getting around it.
“So that’s why you’re trying to get into the Blackguard?”
“You’re joking, right?” she asked.
Kip’s look must have been enough. She sighed.
“Do you know why almost everyone in our training group is older than you, Kip?”
“Do you see this blank look on my face? Assume it applies for everything,” Kip said.
She grinned for a moment. “Getting a spot in the Blackguard is the most coveted appointment most of us can dream of. In our training group alone, there are four legacies: children of Blackguards. Cruxer, Rig, Aram, and Tana. I can guarantee you that all of them have been training in martial arts since they could walk. If you’re a slave and you test in, you’re freed—though you do have to swear your service to the Blackguard. If you’re the owner of that slave, the Chromeria pays you a fortune for the transfer of your property. The Veranghetis have placed dozens of Blackguards over the years. It’s one of their more lucrative businesses. I came in a little sideways. The family that owned me had a daughter who was my age. They wanted her to be able to defend herself. I was trained with her, so she’d have a sparring partner. When they realized I might be able to draft, they sold me to Lady Verangheti. She had me train for the last year, all day, every day, with a variety of top masters, so that I might make it in.”
A whole life, spent as property, spent training for this? “So you’re telling me I shouldn’t feel bad for getting beat up by a girl.”
“Watch it, chunky.”
He grinned a moment late, not realizing right away that she was teasing.
Her face fell. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t—I didn’t realize you were sensit—I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry.”
There was a sticky silence.
“I heard you almost passed the Threshing,” she said.
“Almost.” Kip Almost. Another reminder of failure. But she’d clearly meant well. “Actually,” he said, “I’ve got one special talent.”
“What’s that?”
Kip lowered his voice. “It’s a secret. You can’t tell anyone. Highly valuable.”
“All right,” she said, leaning close.
He looked left and right, as if nervous. “Plate cleaning,” he whispered.
Pure puzzlement. He could see her thinking, Did I hear him right? He gestured to his empty plate.
She laughed. “That one is going right to my sponsor!”
She was cute. Damn she was cute. Her smile punched right through Kip’s chest and stirred that same stupid, awful, ridiculous place that Liv had. Kip sighed. “I know you’re just being nice to me because you’ve been ordered to, but I like you.”