The Blinding Knife(49)

“Andross Guile disavowed you. And he’s the Red. His word is law. That’s why you don’t have a Blackguard escort anymore. That’s why you have to work with the rest of us. That’s why Magister Kadah treated you like she did. You’re like everyone else now, Kip. Except with more talent. And a lot more enemies. You’re not a Guile anymore.”

Inexplicably, Kip laughed. It was the best news he’d heard in weeks.





Chapter 26




The Third Eye was, Gavin thought, quite beautiful for an otherworldly mystic. Her light brown hair hung in dreadlocks, pulled back on top with a spiky sandalwood crown, points lacquered with gold leaf. A very artistic sun, perhaps? Light brown to go with her hair; she had to have some Ruthgari blood in her for that. She wore a knee-length white dress, secured with golden ropes, wrapped around her body ingeniously in order to cross over the body’s power centers in old pagan mysticism. Loose ends dangled from the last knot at her groin, the next crossed over her belly, the next crossed between her breasts, the ends looped over her shoulders. Gold makeup crossed her cheeks to her lips to suggest a knot there, and a few last streaks suggested a knot at her third eye in the middle of her forehead. She wore a bracelet on each hand connected to rings on each finger—sort of a fingerless glove—gold, suggesting knots there. Her sandals, covered now in sand as she walked the beach, would doubtless be the same.

Seven knots, or nine, depending on how you counted. It was a pagan paradox.

Heresy, maybe, but what it reminded Gavin of most at the moment was that he hadn’t had sex for far too long. The knots might be religious symbolism, but the practical effect was that they pulled the dress tight around a fine-looking woman. He glanced at her breasts, briefly, then back to her face. Damn woman, not fighting fair.

He’d thought that she must have more gold paint on her forehead from how it glinted in the rising sun, but as she came to stand before him with her motley bodyguard of ten men, Gavin saw that the Third Eye had the most elaborate, remarkable tattoo he’d ever seen.

The third eye tattoo wasn’t merely exquisitely drawn, it glowed. She’d infused yellow luxin into the tattoo: it caused the eye to emit golden light, making it even more reminiscent of Orholam’s Eye, the sun.

Her own eyes declared her a yellow drafter, yellow near the halo, a pretty brown beyond it. She was in her late thirties, trim, but curvaceous.

Gavin glanced at her breasts again. Dammit. He supposed after he finished the harbor here, it would be good to go by the Chromeria. He needed to go there anyway to make sure his orders were being followed and the satrapies were preparing for war, but spending some quality time in bed with his room slave Marissia would help him tolerate a few more weeks with Karris Blue Balls.

If the Third Eye weren’t standing right there, Gavin would have drafted blue in order to give himself the cool rationality blue always brought.

Wait, no, I wouldn’t have. I can’t draft blue anymore.

Orholam’s hairy ass. Gavin’s throat tightened.

“Greetings,” Gavin said. “Light be upon you.”

The Third Eye was staring at him intently, and Gavin could swear that the tattoo was actually glowing brighter—not an impossible trick, but a good one regardless. “You’re dying,” she said, her voice mellifluous. “You’re not supposed to be dying yet.”





Chapter 27




The Blackguard training went about how Kip expected: a lot of running (not very fast), a lot of jumping (not very high), a lot of punching in time (not very timely), a lot of push-ups and sit-ups (not a lot). The vomiting, however, was a surprise. Not a pleasant one.

He stood, bent over, by one of the chalk lines, his whole body hot and cold and flushed. He felt like he was going to die.

“The good news is that this is as bad as it gets,” a familiar voice said.

Kip could barely lift his eyes from Ironfist’s shoes. He was purely focused on breathing. In, out.

“If you want it to stop, Kip, it can.”

Kip spat, trying to clear the acrid sludge from his mouth. It didn’t work. It seemed to cling to every crack and crevice. “What?”

“If you hate this. If you think it’s pointless, you can quit. In fact, I’ve been asked to cut you.”

“Cut me?” Kip’s brain wasn’t working very well.

“The Red is demanding that you be cut from the Blackguard. He cast aspersions on whether you would have been selected if you weren’t… if the Prism hadn’t requested it.”

Which was, of course, true.

So Commander Ironfist was caught between what the Prism had asked him to do and what the Red was demanding now—but Andross Guile was here, and Gavin Guile wasn’t.