“What?” Ferkudi asked.
All of them were seated around a table. Ferkudi and Daelos—who had only learned to read in the last year and still read slowly—were agonizing over their own studies nearly as much as Ben-hadad, who’d known how to read for years, but still had trouble with the words swimming around the page.
All paused from their work. It had turned out there was a lot of boring material that the Magisterium had banned, but every once in a while they found a gem.
Big Leo said, “You can’t not tell us. I’ve been reading about flowering plants for two hours. Flowering plants, Cruxer. Flowering. Plants.” Kip liked Big Leo a lot. His mother had been an acrobat and his father a strongman for a traveling circus. They’d been killed in the False Prism’s War; Ferkudi had said it was because Leo’s father didn’t know how to fight, despite his enormous strength. Big Leo had vowed to become the best fighter he could, to never be vulnerable. But other than the intensity that sometimes came out when he was drafting red or sub-red, he was good-humored and wry.
Cruxer said, “I sort of had this picture of the greens worship—” He looked around at them, suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry, Teia.”
“Shut up,” she said. “Go on.” The squad treated her like one of the boys most of the time, but neither the squad nor Teia was terribly consistent about when she wanted to not be treated like one of the boys.
He shook his head. “It sounds like fun, right? Orgies and wild drunkenness and dancing and, uh, temple girls—”
“It wasn’t only temple girls,” Teia said.
They looked at her.
“Don’t even,” she said.
Cruxer cleared his throat. “Uh, anyway. I just came across instructions for the planting ritual. It’s, uh, it’s instructions on how to prepare the infants for human sacrifice. It’s not just how to remove the heart from such a small space, but also how to have musical instruments play loudly at the point when the infant starts wailing as they’re cut open so that the worshippers don’t… don’t lose faith.”
The whole squad went silent for a moment. “Orholam curse them,” Big Leo said.
“I could handle that. I mean, I’d heard they passed babies through the flames, and I…” Cruxer shrugged. “It was just a story. But this… the worst part is it details how to choose the babies by lot, ‘due to the usual problem of there being many more infants offered by parents than the dozen needed.’ This wasn’t some evil priest ripping a babe out of the arms of some young mother. They did it willingly. Our ancestors. Our people. How could they?”
Quentin said, “If I may? There was a warrior-priest once named Darjan who they say saw and participated in all the worst of war: massacres and murders and torture and worse, and excelled at all of it. He was a leading pagan priest, but he became one of Lucidonius’s personal converts, and after a lifetime of war around seven of the nine kingdoms, he put out one of his eyes, moved to Tyrea and lived out his days as an ascetic, climbing daily to the top of—well, a statue or what is now Sundered Rock or—there are arguments, and—not important. He spent the last thirty years of his life praying dawn to dusk, and—more not important stuff. He once said, ‘For most of our lives, that Orholam is just should fill us with fear, but there are moments when that truth is the only thing that can fill us with peace.’ ”
Kip said, “Are you telling me this is what I’ve been missing out on by skipping the ‘Lives of the Saints’ lectures? Murderous warrior-priests who camped out back in Rekton? I climbed on that statue!”
“Way to miss the point, Breaker,” Teia said.
“You have to sit through a lot of lectures to get the good ones,” Quentin admitted. They all laughed a little, and they all knew it was only to cover over what they’d heard. But they were all ready to let it go.
“It’s sort of a ‘Look inward first, but look outward, too’?” Teia asked Quentin. It was an old saying.
“Pretty much—the real quote was Ambrosius Abraxes, ‘Look ye first to thy innermost parts. Search and know them as does Orholam himself, and then may ye turn thy gaze to the deeds of those who persecute thee.’ Some of the saints had a real way with words, others…” He grinned.
Still serious, Cruxer said, “This is who we’re fighting. This wasn’t an individual’s guilt—one bad priest oppressing a community that feared him. It was the entire community, eager to participate in what they knew was evil.”
“There’s no evidence that the Color Prince’s people have done any of this,” Ben-hadad said uncomfortably.
“This is what they want us to go back to!”
“They probably don’t even know about this,” Ben-hadad said. “It’s here, in this library. How would—”
“Are you on their side?” Cruxer asked. “You read it, you tell me if such things don’t go a long way to explaining why the Chromeria sent luxors out into the world.”
The table fell silent. Of all them, Quentin looked worst. “That was a… dark chapter in the Magisterium’s history. We don’t even like to speak of it.”
Teia said, “I’ve heard rumors that some of the High Luxiats themselves have been agitating to give the Office of Doctrine some of their old powers again.”
Quentin shook his head. “Other luxiats have foolishly said such things, yes, but I don’t think it goes that high.”
“They haven’t squashed those rumors, though,” Kip said.
“They’re scared,” Quentin said. “But they’re wiser than scared. We can trust them.”
“I’m sure people thought that the first time the luxors were established,” Ben-hadad said.
“Quentin’s right, though,” Teia said. “They’re right to be scared. Every time we hear about the war, it’s about a loss like at Ruic Neck. Even the victories don’t make sense. A victory at Sitara’s Wells? And then two weeks later a victory at Amitton? Our armies marched backward as fast as they could to reach the next ‘victory’? I think we’re losing everywhere, and they’re lying about it.”
“Enough about the war,” Cruxer said. “I don’t think we should be looking at these books anymore. These volumes were restricted for good reason. I think this knowledge deserves to be lost.”
“You can’t be serious,” Ben-hadad said.
“Look at what I just read,” Cruxer said. “I can’t unlearn that! I didn’t even read you all of it. It’s worse. And I didn’t even finish. What’s wrong with saying that in some cases, other people know best?”
“I wouldn’t trust anyone to know what’s best for me,” Ben-hadad said.
“Then maybe you don’t belong in the Blackguard,” Cruxer snapped, “because that’s what you agree to every time you take an order.”
“Enough!” Kip said. “Cruxer, I’m sorry you had to read that. If you need to stop, stop. But I need to do this.”
“Do you? You don’t even know what you’re looking for.”
It was a sore spot. They’d looked through a mind-numbing number of genealogies: Klytos Blue was, like most nobles, related to nearly everyone, and though they’d found hints of dozens of scandals, none involved Klytos directly. It was getting harder not to conclude that they’d been wasting their time. Kip shot back, “If you can’t handle the horror of what man can do to man, maybe you’re the one who shouldn’t be in the Blackguard.”
The table fell silent.
Cruxer’s ever-warm eyes chilled. “Breaker, we’re going to be part of this war, like it or not. It’s going to kill some of us at this table. And it’s going to change all of us. It doesn’t mean we should be eager for those changes. Most of them aren’t good.”
“These books could give us the edge we need to win,” Kip said.
“The best thing these books can do is to teach us forbidden magic.”
“For defense!” Teia said. “How we can defend against what we don’t even know?”
“Knowledge is a musket. You can use it only as a club, but will you? When your life is on the line? The miracle to me is that the luxiats were able
to sequester this knowledge at all. Breaker, when I held Lucia in my arms as she was dying, in that moment, I would have damned myself with any magic known or unknown if it would have meant vengeance on her murderer.”
The faces around the table were somber. The young luxiat looked on the verge of fainting. Delicate sensibilities about damnation, Kip figured.
“There isn’t only the danger to our souls,” Cruxer said. “If we use these… the Color Prince’s drafters will, too.”
“If they can figure it out. They don’t have our books,” Teia said.
“They probably have their own books,” Ben-hadad said.
“But what if they learned it from fighting us,” Cruxer said. “Then they’d think they have to use these magics because we are.”
“They’re probably already working on all this,” Big Leo said. “This stuff is forbidden by us—who they hate and wish to destroy. Let’s be realistic; they’re not going to be held back by beliefs they don’t share.”
“We’re talking about starting an arms race,” Cruxer said.
Teia said, “We’re not starting it; we’re just starting to run before they cross the finish line.”
“The only way out of an arms race is to win,” Ben-hadad said.
“In such victories, all men lose,” Cruxer said.
“Better to lose your idealism than your life,” Kip said.
“You all agree with this?” Cruxer asked.
No one looked excited about it, but there were nods all around. “Maybe we should listen to Kip on this, Captain,” Ferkudi said. “I mean, he is the Li—Ow! What the hell, Teia?!” He rubbed his rib.
She stared at him. Around the table, smirks were being suppressed.
“Oh, right, we weren’t going to talk about the Li…, the li… littlest squad member?” Ferkudi said.
There were groans around the table. Big Leo buried his face in his hands.
“This again?” Kip said. He knew they’d speculated. Everyone wants to live at a pivotal time in history, right? And if you weren’t arrogant enough to delude yourself into thinking you were the Lightbringer, surely the second best thing would be thinking you knew him. “Not all of you, though?”
“Sooo,” Teia said, redirecting. “Yes, Captain, we all agree.”
Cruxer blew out a breath. He looked from face to face. “I can’t lead where you won’t follow, so I’m in. But I want you all to remember this. We had a choice here.”
Kip wanted to follow up about the Lightbringer silliness, but after the ominous gravity of that, it was too awkward.
They fell back to their studies. Gradually, they got back to their complaints about the archaic diction or how much work the magisters were expecting them to master or their Blackguard training or, in Quentin’s case, with how he couldn’t figure out the organization of the restricted library yet, which didn’t follow any of the usual schema.
When they were getting up to leave, Cruxer pulled Ben-hadad aside. “Ben. A word.”
Kip hung back.
“Ben, this squad is like a body. We’ve all got our different parts to play, but we need to work together. I need to know—”
“This is about me saying I don’t trust anyone to know best for me?” Ben-hadad asked.
“That’s right.”
“Crux,” Ben-hadad said. “I don’t trust you to know what’s best for me. But I trust you to know what’s best for the squad. For the Blackguard. And they matter more than I do. That’s why I take your orders. And why I will. To the death.”
Cruxer’s whole demeanor eased, and he was suddenly less worried leader and more happy young man, glad to have a friend back.
“Besides,” Ben-hadad said. “Every body needs an asshole.”
Cruxer groaned.
“Did you hear that?” Kip said. “He just volunteered to take all the squad’s shit.”
“I didn’t mean I was the asshole!” Ben-hadad said.
“It always comes back to poop jokes, doesn’t it?” Cruxer said.
“In sailing, the poop by definition is at the—” Teia started.
“Don’t.”
“Ah, just one crappy—”
“No.”
Chapter 41
It seemed that every time that Kip thought he’d seen all of the Chromeria, he found out that there was much, much more to it. Today, he was meeting Karris in the workshops beneath the blue tower. There were smelters and glass furnaces here, racks of tools lining every wall, and at least a hundred men and women swarming, drafters and non-drafters each at their appointed task.
Despite the furnaces burning along one wall, there was no smoke, and the temperature was only slightly elevated. Vents were everywhere—for air, but also for light. The purest lenses Kip had ever seen cast spotlights in perfect colors for drafting onto tables. This was where the work of light-crafting and research into practical applications for luxin was conducted. Everywhere, he saw people looking at papers or slates holding calculations they’d done in the study rooms above, checking them against what they were seeing in practice.
Kip saw his tutor standing next to a plain, fair-skinned woman with her blonde hair pulled in a severe ponytail, sleeves rolled up, skin stained faintly green and yellow, though she couldn’t have been much more than thirty years old. Burning through her life fast.
Seeing Karris beckon him, Kip walked over. Since she’d started tutoring Kip, Karris had begun wearing the finest dresses and newest fashions. Kip had asked her about it once, and she said that with her short, lean figure, people constantly took her for younger than she was and questioned her—challenged her, in her eyes—far too often. By looking as rich as a Guile, Karris forestalled hassles. Kip knew she would have preferred to wear her blacks instead, but she only wore those when she and Kip trained together, and even then, despite the cost of clothing, her “blacks” were red or green rather than black. That part of her life was dead, she said. And the even way she said it, never looking Kip in the eye, told him how much it grieved her.
“This is Lady Phoebe Kalligenaea,” Karris said. Her hair recently was a chestnut brown with lighter highlights, rich-looking and boring. She was also growing it out longer than she ever would have worn it as a Blackguard.
“She’s got the finest control of any yellow superchromat known. Including Gavin. Lady Kalligenaea, this is my husband’s son, Kip.”
“Mistress Phoebe will do,” the woman said. “I’m a master crafter, and down here, that means more than a silly title passed down through accidents of birth.”
“Isn’t being a yellow superchromat an accident of birth, too?” Kip asked.
Kip the Lip. But this time he didn’t squint his eyes and sink into his embarrassment. He watched her instead.
“Aha! Maybe so, but I work to make the most of this accident. The other I avoid as much as possible.” She grinned, and revealed a big gap between her front teeth.
“So you’re better than the Prism?” Kip asked.
She looked like she’d bit a lemon. “At small things. I could never make Brightwater Wall, that’s for sure.”
“What are you better at?”
Mistress Phoebe looked over at Karris. “Direct, isn’t he?”
“It’s refreshing,” Karris said. “At times.” She gave Kip the look. He understood.
“I’ve worked with the Prism, taught him,” Mistress Kalligenaea said. “Luxin makes sense to him. Karris tells me you’re same. His signature is magic that is beautiful and breathtaking in its sheer audacity—a whole wall of yellow luxin, who would dare such a thing? Much less dare it while an army was closing in? But… it lacks a certain elegance. Made of yellow, you could have a wall that still meets the requirements for strength—that is, capable of taking sustained cannon blasts—at maybe a third the thickness Gavin chose. When he isn’t sure, he opts for more, always more, rather than to sit with paper and abacus.
“It’s not a sharp criticism, mind you. If you have unlimited drafting potential, using more because it’s q
uicker is a logical choice. The rest of us would burn out that way in days. We must opt for elegance over force. The other thing Gavin does well is that he remembers everything. It’s sort of nauseating, to be quite frank. Once he gets a design right, I’ll see him staring at it, turning it over in his hands, and then it’s in his head. Ten years go by, and you ask him to reproduce the same cooling rack for bread, and he does it. It’s a marvel. But! We aren’t here to talk about Gavin Guile, we’re here to teach you. They tell me you’re a superchromat.”
The words of his testers echoed in his ears: freak. “Some would say a superchromat boy is like a dog that can bark, ‘I love you’—”
“ ‘A novelty, not a precedent’?” Her nose crinkled. “Tawenza Goldeneyes is a gifted tutor, better than I. She’s also a bitch. Karris told me she refused to tutor you. Even after Karris came down on her. Flat refused.”
“Called me a strumpet,” Karris said. She did not seem to find it humorous.
“Sorry?” Kip said.
“No matter. If she hadn’t, Lady—Mistress Phoebe wouldn’t have taken you on,” Karris said.
“You understand, if I take you on, and you ever get a chance to show up Goldeneye’s discipulae, I want you to do it. Which means you have to be better than they are.”
Kip grinned. “With pleasure. I’m at least that much like my father.”
“Can you draft a stable solid yellow?”
“On a good day,” Kip said.
“By the time I’m done with you, you’ll have memorized how to make a yellow sword, from memory, within… eh, eight seconds.”
“Three,” Karris said. “At most. By Sun Day.”
For a moment, Kip remembered scrabbling around on the old battlefield at Sundered Rock, looking for the telltale gleam of yellow luxin in the rising sunlight. Solid yellow luxin was the most valuable for resale. Picking through the mud, spitting on rocks and rubbing them clear with an already grubby sleeve, hoping against hope he could pay for dinner tonight instead of relying on charity again and hating himself, and hating his mother, and feeling guilty for it.