Karris felt sick horror, the shot like a fist in her gut. Like she was sixteen again, her father dragging her to a boat, sailing away from Big Jasper. Her father’s boat had sailed past the family mansion, where she’d secretly—she thought—agreed to meet Dazen. Her brothers were there, lying in wait. They’d said they were going to teach Dazen a lesson for trying to destroy their family. But she’d seen murder in their eyes.

She had been standing on the deck when an explosion had blown out all the windows of her room on the second floor of the mansion. She saw figures limned in fire, fighting.

Something ripped off half the roof and explosion followed explosion. Bodies were hurled a hundred paces out into the water. Standing next to her on deck, her father paled. “You said he was coming alone, you stupid slut. Look what you’ve done! He must have brought an army!” Her father didn’t strike her, just grabbed her head and made her watch what she couldn’t have torn her eyes away from if she tried. In minutes, the only home she’d ever known was engulfed in flames.

She’d been a child then. She’d been unable to think, unable to act. She wasn’t a child any longer, and she had pools of rage to draw from that that innocent hadn’t known.

Karris used the height disparity of coming down the steep trail to leap at the first of the two horsemen who were side by side. He was holding a catchpole in both hands and he brought it up sideways, trying to block. He caught her extended foot, but she just let her kick collapse and slammed into him with both knees.

Ribs crunched as she swept him out of his saddle. She rolled as she hit the ground, but had to catch herself with her right hand, which was holding her narrow ataghan, so she drafted a thin blade of green luxin from her left hand as she passed under the second horse. The blade passed through its belly easily.

Karris was on her feet before the horse even reared in pain. She let the green luxin disintegrate as she charged one of the net men, switching her sword to her left hand. He was too stunned. He didn’t move, not even as she lunged full length, stabbing at his face, her right hand flinging a weak arc of fire behind her for distraction. The net man still didn’t move, and her lunge connected. The blade caught him between the eyes, skidded off the bone, and dove deep through his eye.

Turning to follow the arc of fire she’d thrown, Karris saw a weighted net spinning toward her just as the arc of fire faded from the air. Perfect throw.

But she waited, waited, switching sword hands again, until the net was between her and a man swinging a staff overhead at her.

With a snapping pop-pop, Karris shot out two horseshoes of green luxin. One whistled harmlessly through the twisting, expanding net. But though it missed the net, the horseshoe did catch the staff-swinger in the cheek, blasting him off balance. The second horseshoe snagged the net as it passed through and whipped it back into several men, its leaden weights suddenly becoming a flail.

The horse was rearing now, screaming in pain, a hideous sound. Its entrails spurted out in a bloody, ropy mass. But Karris barely heard it, barely saw it. She saw only chaos, and chaos was her friend, chaos was her advantage when fighting these odds.

Men were falling away from her on every side. Karris flung little balls of fire at the tents nearest her, blocking her view, curse being short! Where was the man shouting orders? The tents went up in flames, but it didn’t seem to faze anyone but Karris. Everyone was fleeing.

She was just beginning to get a sense of how many men were in this camp—there were dozens of tents, maybe a hundred men? Orholam, she had to get out! Then she heard a thunderous roar. The ground around her feet jumped into the air as musket balls struck and the concussion of their fire rolled over her.

She looked up and saw a wide half-circle of musketeers, at least forty of them. Half were reloading in smooth, practiced motions. Unhurried. Well trained. The other half had their muskets, still loaded, trained on Karris.

“The next volley takes your life, Karris White Oak!” a man shouted. He was lean, mounted, wearing rich garments that announced he was King Rask Garadul, if the smug expression on his face hadn’t. “The sword and the luxin. Now,” he said.

Karris looked at the semicircle of blasted dirt in front of her, trying to gauge the accuracy of the king’s musketeers. Pretty damn good. They were only twenty paces away. It would take a miracle. King Garadul’s armor was, of course, mirrored, and he had Mirrormen and drafters to his left and right. What about Corvan?

If Corvan ran as fast as she had, he might get here at any time—Karris always lost track of time once fighting started. Maybe he’d already seen what she had gotten into. Either way, not even he could do anything against these odds. He certainly couldn’t save Karris from twenty musketeers with an easy shot at her.

Karris pulled off her eye caps and dropped them and threw her sword away and let the green and red dribble from her fingertips. Usually, when she let the luxin go, she felt less wild, less angry. Not this time.

“Galan?” King Garadul said, gesturing to someone behind her.

Karris was starting to turn when something heavy cracked her over the head.

Chapter 43

Kip followed Commander Ironfist up another flight of steps, which disgorged them in front of the biggest double doors Kip had ever seen. The doors were a slightly smoky glass filled with slow waves of every hue, a great lake of color.

Commander Ironfist lifted one great silver knocker and pounded it onto the door three times. It was as if he’d thrown three rocks into a pond of light. Though the door itself didn’t move, the light within it cratered and threw ripples out in every direction. It took Kip’s breath away. He put a hand on the door, and where his fingers touched, tiny ripples formed.

“Don’t touch,” Ironfist barked.

Kip pulled back his hand as if burned.

“There are a few things you need to know before you go in, Kip,” Ironfist said. “First, it’s all real. We lose one out of every ten supplicants.”

“Lose as in…”

“They die. Second, you can make it stop whenever you want. There will be a rope put in your hand. Pull the rope, and it will ring a bell. They’ll stop immediately. Third, if you quit, you’re finished, you can’t stay. It costs a lot of money for a satrap to maintain a drafter, and not one of them will waste money on a coward. Gavin has instructed me that should you fail, I’m to give you enough silver to buy a small farm and put you on a ship to the destination of your choice. It’s better than most failures get, but you’ll not be allowed to return here ever again. You’re a shame enough as it is.”

Apparently tact wasn’t part of the test. “I’m shameful?” Kip asked, a lump rising in his throat. Gavin hadn’t treated him like that.

Ironfist blinked. “The life of a drafter is hard and short. I don’t have time for lies, no matter how comforting. You’re a bastard. That’s a common enough shame for a great man, but it’s a shame nonetheless. Anyone who can do simple arithmetic will know that you were sired while the Prism was betrothed to Karris White Oak, a woman most of us hold in high regard. Prisms are held to a higher standard, so you’re a greater shame than usual. Even if you’re excellent in every regard, you’ll be a shame. If you’re a failure, it’s worse. That’s the truth. Dressing it up in silk and lace isn’t going to change it.