The Burning White (48 page)

“Oh? I never heard about that.” The trainer had asked enough trick questions to make every scrub paranoid.

“She asked us, if we had to pair up that day and fight in teams, fighting to the death against the others, who we would like to have on our side: you or Aghilas. We all said Aghilas, of course—except Aghilas, who tried to be smart.”

Aghilas had never been as funny as he thought. “She whack him upside the head?” Karris asked.

“She whacked him upside the head,” Samite said with a smile. “Then she said we’d have to be fools not to choose Aghilas, that he was one of the most naturally gifted athletes she’d ever seen. He was fast, strong, and quick with a dozen weapons, or without any at all. Then she asked us if, in a few years, we had to go to war, who we’d want to have fight beside us: you or Aghilas.”

Karris realized momentarily that she hadn’t thought about her damned papers in several minutes, but she was enrapt.

“Some of us figured this had to be the trick part, so we said
you
instead of the obvious answer, but when she demanded why, none of us could say. You could see the traps opening up in front of your feet with that woman and still never avoid them. I hope I can be half the trainer she was.”

“Well, what’d she say?” Karris demanded.

“Do you know why you piss blood when you’re killing yourself from overexertion?”

“What?” she asked, not following.

“Your body panics. It starts devouring its own muscles.”

“That sounds . . . unhelpful, when one’s already overexerted.”

“Trainer Tzeddig pointed after you, where the physickers were carrying you, and—” Samite’s voice cracked with sudden emotion. She cleared her throat, but her eyes brimmed. “And she said, ‘That girl Karris has all of two muscles to rub together, and she wants to be here with you so bad she’s literally pissing them down her leg. She is working harder than anyone here. That
goddam
slip of a girl is working herself to death. Aghilas, do you know how good you could be if you worked half that hard? I don’t, and I don’t think you ever will, either. Last week we rigged the race so you couldn’t do better than second—and you gave up and didn’t finish in the top ten. You haven’t stopped complaining since. You know who’s never complained?’ ” Samite shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Orholam’s stones, I remember it like it was yesterday. That woman was magnificent when she was chewing our asses.”

Karris was barely holding back tears herself.

“Tzeddig said, ‘That
little girl
will run through a brick wall for you. You give her a goal and death itself won’t keep it from her. For years now I’ve trained the best fighters in the world, and I tell you that you haven’t seen a person until you’ve seen how hard they’ll push themselves and what they do
after
they reach their end and fail. So you tell me, when you go to war—and you will, may Orholam grant that it’s merely a metaphorical one—but when you go to war, who do you want beside you?’ And I tell you what, Karris, you weren’t there, and Aghilas was. And a lot of us were afraid of him, and we knew we’d have to spar him that afternoon, and the next day, and the next, but almost everyone in the cohort chose you anyway.”

They did? And now Karris couldn’t stop the tears from spilling hot down her face.

“And then Trainer Tzeddig said, ‘So now you’ve voted with your words. Let me tell you what you all already know: Karris isn’t good enough to make it. Not yet. She’ll get there: she’s not just relentless, she’s quick and she’s a damn fast drafter too. But she’s not good enough to get into the Blackguard. What you may not know is that she’s got nothing else. The False Prism’s War took it all from her: family, lands, wealth, and she’s got enemies, too, who blame her for things, who see her vulnerability and are drooling to devour her. So I don’t know where she’ll be in a year, but it won’t be here. She won’t be able to try again. This is her only chance.’ We all looked around at each other like we’d been punched in the gut. Then finally someone, maybe it was Fisk, asked, ‘What do you mean we’ve voted
with our words
?’ But Tzeddig didn’t answer. Some of the older Blackguards were there, enjoying watching us get reamed, and Holdfast—remember him? Cruxer’s father? Married Inana eventually?—he said, ‘You know what Blackguards do? We stand for each other. When one of us can’t make it, we carry him. You’ve all said you want to fight with Karris by your side, but the fact is, if she gets in, one of you standing here doesn’t. So each of you make your choice. Vote with your cunning and your fists. You want Karris in? Make it happen.’ ”

Karris put a hand to her throat. “ But—no one ever . . .”

“Who was gonna tell you? If you were a lock to make it in, maybe you’d stop working so hard. And some of the kids who were on the edge really
did
fight you. But those at the top eased your way a bit. It wasn’t for you, Karris, you understand? It was for
us
. Because we knew an Aghilas would get us killed someday. You? You’d keep us alive. And that’s what you’re doing now, saving all of us, no matter what.” Sami shrugged. “Anyway, that day changed my life. That was the day I stopped hating you. I realized that if you could get in on sheer grit, I could, too. So that day you kind of became my role model, and uh, you’ve never stopped. So when I lost my hand, I had this little moment where I thought my life was over and I’d have to retire. It’d kill me, you know? This work is everything for me. But then I thought, ‘How can I quit now? I’m not pissing my muscles down my leg yet.’ ” Sami pursed her lips hard, but then went on as if her face weren’t streaked with tears. “And that was it. That turned me around. Sure, I was still afraid. This isn’t what I expected from my life. Death? Death I expected, someday. But living as a cripple? Seeing pity and fear in my brothers’ and sisters’ faces? This isn’t what I expected from life, but this is what life expects from me. And you know what? I don’t see myself as a cripple now. I just got a bad left hand to compensate for. And I don’t see much pity anymore, and the nunks’ fear of
being me
has become their fear
of
me. But the fact remains: I’m not what I was. A bit of my burden has to fall on someone else, but I’ve made my peace with that. Blackguards stand for each other. I can be humble enough to let ’em, even as I work to make myself useful—if not today, tomorrow. So if you need us to carry you for a day or two, we’re here. We’re
here
, Karris. But don’t you dare give up, because that isn’t who you are.”

Samite studied her, then flashed a sudden smile. “You got that look on your face like my nunks get, you know? Like you’re about to ask a stupid question. So let me answer it for you before you embarrass us both.”

“What, I was—”

“ ‘Who am I, then?’ ” Samite mocked. “That’s what you were gonna say, wasn’t it?”

“No,” Karris lied, sounding way too much like a nunk who’d been caught out.

But Samite laughed. She’d known Karris too long.

“Karris, your answer for that’s never been found in words. At least not any this simple Blackguard can put together. You’ve always made yourself known by your actions. Known and loved, too. So just keep doing what you do.” Samite rolled her shoulders, as if trying to find some way to extricate herself from the messy emotions and pick up her gruff-trainer persona once more. “Now, uh, there’s a stack of messengers and a line of papers outside your door—or maybe I got that backward. Regardless, uh, given the circumstances, I’ll give you the rest of the morning off. See you at the training yards tomorrow?”

Slowly, despite the still-churning mess of thoughts and emotions roiling head and heart and stomach, and despite the headache she had—she always got headaches when she cried—slowly, Karris nodded, and she felt a little bit of herself coming back. “Bright and early,” she promised.

“I wanted to ask you something,” Kip said, coming into the little room that Cruxer had made his office and bedroom. It was nauseatingly tidy. Even the stacks of schedules on the desk looked just so.

“Anything,” Cruxer said. He’d just dribbled oil onto his blade, and now he picked up his whetstone, spinning a spear point into position.

“It’s a sore spot.”

Cruxer didn’t waver. He began the soothing
wush-wush
of the whetstone.

Kip went on. “Big Leo said something I didn’t understand. He said you were still grieving Lucia—”

“It hasn’t been that long,” Cruxer interrupted. It was uncharacteristic of him. He’d been in love with the young Blackguard scrub, and when she’d stepped into the line of fire, taking a bullet that had been meant for Kip, Cruxer’s world had ended.

“No. It hasn’t. And that wasn’t at all what tripped me up. It was that he thought the reason you were angry about me giving Ruadhán another chance had something to do with her. He wouldn’t say anything else when I asked him. So what’s that about?”

“I’m fine with you giving Ruadhán another chance,” Cruxer said. “Now.”

“That actually confuses me more,” Kip said.

Cruxer paused in his sharpening, then said, “You’re the . . . you’re the Breaker, not me. Different rules apply to you. I’m not a man who does new things. I’m a man who does the old things as well as they can be done. But here? I’m doing new things all the time. I’m making decisions over other people’s lives, like I’ve got any right to do that. I’m worried all the time, Breaker. I keep looking around waiting to be punished,” Cruxer said.

“Punished? For what?”

“Breaker, I’m eighteen years old. I’m styling myself a commander? I’m not even eligible to be a watch captain. I keep thinking Orholam’s gonna give me what I deserve any moment.”

“Is that who Orholam is to you?” Kip asked. “An Andross Guile waiting for you to transgress, so that He can expose you at the worst possible moment? Isn’t He instead like Ironfist, who will correct your form, not because He enjoys showing you how you’re messing up but because doing it wrong might get you hurt or killed someday?”

But Cruxer wasn’t even hearing him. “I’m not the man anyone thinks I am. I’m a fraud. I had a hundred chances to come clean, and I never did. And do you know what punishment I got for that?”

“What are you talking about?”

“None. She paid for it.”

“Lucia?” Kip said. “Her dying wasn’t your fault!”

“She wasn’t good enough to make it into the Blackguard—”

Kip accepted that. They’d all known it was true. “She absolutely had the spirit of the best of us, Crux. She saved my life. If this is on anyone, it’s on—”

“She had the spirit, yes, but not the skills. She shouldn’t have been there. Wouldn’t have . . .” His face contorted.

“Wouldn’t have?”

“I fell for her. Hard. Like, before we even talked. There was . . .” Cruxer’s face brightened at the memory. “There was something radiant about her. Like you just want to watch her across the room and watch how spirits lighten as people talk to her. I started training her extra right away, not just to be near her, either. I knew, brother, I knew so early that she’d never make it in. I don’t think she did. And I couldn’t bear to be away from her.”

He took a breath, steadying himself against his grief.

“She came from one of the slave-training houses, you know? If she failed out of Blackguard training, we both knew her owners would look for some other way to recoup their investment. Decent men who just want a domestic don’t bid as much at the auction as men who want a domestic for whom they have . . . other uses as well. Good women who just want a domestic don’t often bring a pretty one into their homes.” He shook his head. “Have you ever seen the light in a girl’s eyes die?” Cruxer met Kip’s gaze for the first time in a while. “No, they didn’t have slaves where you grew up, did they? That disgusting brutality isn’t considered normal in oh-so-backward Tyrea, is it?” he said bitterly. “Well, I couldn’t let it happen. Not to her.”

“Oh, Cruxer.” Kip covered his face.

“I thought, if I could just keep her in until the final testing, I could take my Blackguard price the next day and buy out her contract before her owners sold her. To free her, of course. I mean, I was nervous that maybe . . . even though she’d never acted like it, that maybe she’d attached herself to me hoping that would happen. You know, that she knew I was her only hope to get out. I wouldn’t blame her for it. But as long as she was a slave, the worry’s there, right? The infernal institution perverts everything it touches. So, I get my price, I free her. Maybe she loves me, too, and sticks around for a while. I mean, I was thinking marriage, but I wasn’t going to put that on her. I wanted her to be free to go, if she wanted. But maybe someday . . .” He swallowed.

“So I cheated to keep her in. Our cohort was solid at the top places, but not at the bottom. A couple deep muscle bruises delivered during training the week before testing—hard kicks to a thigh or calf, not anything that would disable anyone, you know? Those kids were going to wash out anyway. What’s the harm? I thought.”

“Cruxer, everyone does that kind of thing, trying to keep their friends with them, and everyone knows it. It’s part of—”

“It’s
cheating
. It’s wrong.”

Except it wasn’t. Not exactly.

The trainers and the watch captains and the Blackguards’ commander all knew such scheming happened, and they didn’t stop it. In fact, they didn’t even mind, because allowing it rewarded cunning and alliance-making over pure technical fighting skill. Only fighters as incredibly skilled as Cruxer could be unaware of how the others schemed together; fighters as good as Cruxer always made it in regardless.

The rest of the scrubs stayed awake at night, wondering what they could possibly do to make it in. The commander and trainers accepted all the schemes and backstabbing because full Blackguards needed to know how cunning minds worked if they were to guard against such minds, addressing not only external threats but also internal political machinations.

But Kip wasn’t going to convince Cruxer out of his guilt with justifications that others were cheating, too.

Cruxer said, “But of course, like every fraud, I got greedy. Keeping her in the Blackguard until the final testing wasn’t good enough. I wanted to be around her all the time. There was no way she belonged in Aleph squad. I demanded it. Commander Ironfist took one look at me, and he
knew
. I never felt so naked and foolish in my life. He told me it was gonna lead to grief. He told me! He even offered to buy her contract himself if she failed out early—and I angrily denied everything. Breaker, he gave me a chance to have everything I wanted except that I wouldn’t be the big hero in her eyes, and I lied to his face. I broke faith. I was a man under authority, and in my cowardice and weakness, I ripped myself out of my place in the Great Chain of Being. I stepped outside of Orholam’s protection, and leader that I am, I brought Lucia with me. And she got killed for my sins. Orholam is good and merciful, so I’ve had many blessings since then. But the lesson remains. Those who break faith bring grief to those who love them most. And the sooner they’re stopped, the better.”