“You know,” Teia said, “I can’t decide if you’re brave or stupid.”
Huh?
“If I fight you again, I’m going to win,” she said.
“You never know,” Kip said. “I might get lucky.”
She left. He barely noticed; he was watching the fights. Because he didn’t get any time in drafting practice, this was Kip’s first glimpse of what he assumed was normal drafting.
But most of the Blackguard trainees were monochromes, and the odds of drawing their color on the wheel weren’t good, so most of the fights were purely hand-to-hand or weapon-to-weapon. Or sometimes the wheel would give them their color, but weakly, so instead of trying to draft a color slowly, they’d go for a straight fight. Not many of the children were able to fight effectively while also slowly drawing in enough light to be able to use it after two or three minutes of fighting. Most of the fights didn’t last that long.
The fighters got a lot better quickly, though.
The last fighters in danger began their fight. A muscular boy got unlucky and fought a blue-drafting girl in blue light. She used bars of blue luxin to choke him out before he could cross the distance to her.
When he got up, furious, instead of going toward her, he marched over to Kip and shook his finger in his face. “You! You’re worse than me! You should be going home, you lardass. Not me.”
“You’re right,” Kip said quietly.
“You’re damn right I’m right! Why are you even here? Because your mother’s some whore who spread her legs for Gavin Guile? You’re a bastard. I’m the son of the dey of Aghbalu! This is bullshit!”
Kip knew what he should do. He should punch the boy. Destroy him somehow with a ferocity that let everyone know, once again, that Kip was not to be crossed. He’d already done it with the bully Elio. Apparently once wasn’t enough. One story, people could disbelieve.
But Kip didn’t want to be the boy who was the crazy, erratic bastard. The one whom people tiptoed around because he might hurt someone with little or no provocation. He looked inside himself for that fury he knew was there for the boy insulting his mother, but today it was just an ache. He had no violence in him now.
“Is this what I am to be?” Kip asked. Some part of him wanted to weep.
“What?” the boy snarled. “I wasn’t done with you.”
“You’re nothing,” Kip said sadly. “And I’m less. I’m the violent madman.”
The other Blackguard trainees were gathered, of course, eager to see what would happen. The trainer, Kip thought, was notably slow to come break it up. Perhaps pecking orders were best established early in the Blackguard.
Kip stood up. He needed a spark of fury, but he had nothing. It was too hard to think of coldly sucker-punching another boy. Especially one who was rightly angry at him.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Kip said. “What’s your name?” I won’t fail my father.
“Tizrik, and you’d better remember it, you—” The boy’s eyes were suspicious.
“Tizrik Tamar, of Aghbalu? Tizrik!” Kip spread his arms out to hug the boy like he was long-lost family. “Tizrik! My uncle said—”
“No, it’s not Tamar—I’m—”
Kip embraced the boy, who tried to push his hands away, irritated. But then Kip seized both of the boy’s sleeves and yanked fiercely, throwing his forehead into the taller boy’s face. With his own hands off to the sides, trying to stop Kip from hugging him, Tizrik didn’t have a chance.
Face met forehead. Stuff crunched. Blood showered over Kip’s head.
The boy collapsed, mostly onto Kip. Kip pushed him off. The boy fell to the ground, his nose streaming blood even as he lay whimpering. His nose was crooked, clearly broken, his lips mashed. He more mouthed out than spit out blood, and a tooth came with the torrent.
Kip felt like he was watching himself from afar as he stepped over the boy and put a foot on his neck, holding him prone.
Murmurs and gasps raced through the crowd. Trainer Fisk pushed through them. He looked at the bleeding young man, then at Kip. “Chirurgeons! You, too, Kip.”
Kip was stunned that he didn’t appear to be in trouble, and apparently the others were, too. “But… but I haven’t fought yet today.”
“You’ve fought enough,” the trainer said, pulling Kip back away from Tizrik.
“He cheated!” Tizrik said, holding his nose.
Trainer Fisk said, “Blackguards don’t cheat. Blackguards win.”
Their questioning looks obviously irritated Trainer Fisk. “This is real life,” the trainer said. “Our coin is violence. Sudden, sharp, breathtaking, leaving no hope of revenge. That is what we do, when we must. Kip understands and some of the rest of you obviously don’t. That’s fine. We’ve got time to cut the rest of you deadwood out.”