The people parted naturally around Ironfist, and Kip followed in his wake, trying not to run into anyone as he shot glances at all the people. There were men wearing ghotras like Ironfist, but also bedecked in robes with checkered patterns and loud colors. There were Atashian men with their impressive beards: beads, braids, natural sections, and more beads and braids. There were Ilytian women with multilayered dresses and shoes nearly like stilts, making them a full hand taller. And a riot of colors everywhere. Every color in the rainbow, combined in every possible way. Ironfist looked back at Kip, amused.

“Those soldiers at the gate,” Kip said, trying to take Ironfist’s attention off his being a bumpkin. “Those weren’t your men.”

“No,” Ironfist said.

“But they recognized you, and you didn’t recognize them, and they were really excited that they’d seen you.”

Ironfist looked at Kip again, scowling. “How old are you again?”

“I’m fift—”

“The commander,” Ironfist said. As if that answered everything. He smirked as Kip scurried up beside him. “You’re the genius. Let’s hear it,” he said.

Genius? I never acted like I thought I was that. But that was a distraction. This was a test. In fact, Ironfist had been testing Kip the whole time, Kip saw now. Putting him on the rudder had been a test, to see what he would do, how quickly he would figure it out, and if he would freeze up. Kip wasn’t even sure how well he’d done on that count.

Ironfist was a commander. A commander, the commander. The commander. Oh. Oh my.

“There’s only one company of Blackguards, isn’t there?” Kip asked.

Like most of Ironfist’s expressions, this one was quick and quickly muted: the full white of his eyes around dark irises visible for a bare moment, then a little smirk to cover. “Not bad, given the obvious hint, I suppose.”

“So you’re the sole commander of the most elite company in the Chromeria. That makes you like a general or something?”

“Or something.”

“Oh,” Kip said. “So that means I should probably be even more intimidated of you than I am right now, huh?”

Ironfist laughed. “No, I think you’ve got it just about perfect.” He grinned.

“What were you doing pulling guard duty on that rock?”

“It is a bit more than a rock.”

Put that way, it did make some sense. The Blackguard had to protect the Chromeria’s most important people, and a secret escape tunnel was the kind of thing you had to check yourself. “Still,” Kip said.

They came to a much wider road and Ironfist—Commander Ironfist—turned onto it, heading west, the opposite direction of almost all of the traffic. He sighed. “It’s not a duty anyone wants, so it’s sometimes used as punishment. Let’s just say I’ve given the White reason to be displeased recently.”

Kip said quietly, “Or that’s a cover so you can go out and check the maintenance of the tunnel.”

“Except that a tunnel is… a tunnel. Don’t make things more complicated than they are, little Guile.”

Huh? “Oh.” Ironfist could come from the Chromeria side and make sure the tunnel worked. He didn’t need to sail out to the island for that. Some genius I am. Embarrassed, Kip rushed to ask another question, and asked the question he knew he shouldn’t. “So what did you do to make him mad at you? You know, the White.”

“Him?” Ironfist asked.

“Her?”

Ironfist turned in at a little house with an oxidized copper dome, unlocked the door, and pointed for Kip to go in. “There’s hard tack and cheese and olives in the kitchen. Latrine off to the left. Bed straight down the hall. You’re not to leave until I come get you tomorrow at dawn.”

“But we came across those huge waves instead of waiting, I—I thought we were going straight to the Chromeria.”

“I’m going straight to the Chromeria.”

“While I just sit here all day?”

“When you see what you have to do tomorrow, you’ll be glad you had the rest.” Ironfist moved to leave.

“But, what—what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go get back in the White’s good graces.”

Kip scowled as the door closed. There was a click. He was locked in. “That’s great,” he told the closed door. “I’ll just wait here. I’ve been meaning to catch up on my thumb-twiddling.” Grumbling, he made his way to the olives and cheese. Ten minutes later, he was asleep.

Chapter 33

Karris woke beneath a lean-to constructed of tree branches and a man’s cloak. It was either dusk or dawn. She guessed dawn from the dew on the ground. She examined herself with a soldier’s efficiency, moving each limb and digit experimentally, trying to gauge her own potential for movement, violent or otherwise. All her fingers and toes worked properly, but her entire left side was bruised. She must have not only crashed through the doorframe with her upper body there, but also landed on her left side, because her shin ached, her knee ached, there were gravel scratches on her hip, her breast felt like someone had mistaken it for a sawdust-filled training bag and punched it for an hour, and her shoulder—Orholam, her shoulder. She could breathe without much pain, though, which she hoped meant there weren’t any broken ribs, and she could still move her arm, although it almost made her black out to do so.

Her right side hadn’t escaped undamaged either. She had long gravel scrapes on her right arm and her stomach, probably some to match on her back, and her neck was sore from Orholam knew what. She’d stubbed all the toes of her right foot—didn’t remember doing that either—and her left eye was swollen, not enough to block her vision, but enough to look real pretty. There was also a scratch on her forehead, several attractive lumps on her head, and—what the hell, a cut right on the tip of her nose?

No, not a cut. A pimple. Unbe—A pimple? Now? Orholam hates me.

Every one of her cuts and scratches had been smeared with some kind of ointment that smelled of berries and pine needles. Someone cleared his throat. “There’s more ointment to your right. I tended the more… obvious cuts.”

Which Karris took to mean that Corvan hadn’t stripped her naked.

“Thanks,” she grumbled. “What happened back there?”

“Aside from the obvious?” Corvan asked, his voice flat.

“In the church, downstairs. I’ve never seen red luxin that didn’t burn cleanly. If you drafted it wrong, it should have evaporated, not formed a crust. And what was that thing you were in?” Karris sat up, wincing. Her ankle hurt too. Ow, when had she twisted her ankle? She ignored it, and tried to remember all she knew about Corvan Danavis. He’d been a rebel, of course, but before he’d sided with Dazen, he’d been a scion of one of the great Ruthgari families. For nearly a hundred years, Ruthgar and the Blood Forest had been bound together in peace, the closest of allies. Noble families from Ruthgar had intermarried with the leading families of Blood Foresters, holding lands on either side of the Great River. Other peoples had begun referring to the countries as one, merging the Verdant Plains and the Blood Forest to call the joint country Green Forest. Vician’s Sin had put an end to that, and by a generation before the False Prism’s War, the countries were instead known as the Blood Plains. If one good thing had come from the False Prism’s War, it was that it had given Gavin the clout to finally end the interminable small-scale war constantly simmering between Ruthgar and the Blood Forest.