And it came to her.

Chapter 86

Karris ran down the broad steps of the hippodrome’s tiered seating, not even trying to be ladylike.

With the broadness of the steps, she couldn’t take her eyes off her footing to see if Gavin still lived. But the audience still seemed transfixed, so she guessed he must. Maybe it was only torture.

As she descended the crowds got thicker, until she had to push through a mass of people standing at the chest-high fence that ringed the track. The track itself was fifteen feet below them. With her dress, Karris had to push through the crowd instead of dodging through it. But she wouldn’t be denied.

A man took umbrage at her shoving. He said, “Who the hell do you think you—”

Sometimes being short was a blessing. She swung a hand up between his legs, grabbed a fistful of cloth and his stones, and twisted, hard. He dropped, and she snatched his ghotra off his head as he fell.

From the spina, she heard a man’s screams. She recognized the voice. No, no, no.

She unwrapped the ghotra as she moved. Reaching the front, she vaulted over the worn stone handrail. She threw the ghotra into a knot around the rail and jumped, sliding down it until she ran out of cloth.

She dropped daintily onto the sand of the hippodrome floor and ran out onto the dirt racetrack before anyone could stop her.

There was a murmur from the half of the hippodrome that saw her immediately. What was a noblewoman doing running out onto the track?

But the people on top of the spina—drafters and what looked like a chirurgeon—didn’t see her immediately. They were looking at Gavin, bound to a table. He was screaming, throwing himself against his bonds, obviously in agony, but he couldn’t move. The chirurgeon was lifting a red-hot poker in gloved hands. Karris had never seen him in such pain. Gavin, admitting weakness, admitting pain? Gavin?!

They were blinding him. Dear Orholam, they’d already burned out one eye.

The soldiers standing around the spina saw her. These were the Nuqaba’s elite drafter soldiers, the Tafok Amagez. Bad luck. But then, Ironfist had once said that Karris was the fastest drafter that he’d ever seen, and Ironfist didn’t flatter. Karris’s white skin was a disadvantage in full battle. There was no way to draft vast amounts of luxin without it showing in her arms. But she’d learned a thing or two. There are advantages to apparent disadvantages.

The hot poker descended toward Gavin’s face.

Green luxin uncurled down the underside of Karris’s arm to make a ball that fit nicely in her fist. Her feet danced through a progression, positions on a clock, hips twisting like throwing a javelin, loading tension and snapping forward to impart it all into a projectile. It was faster than the Tafok Amagez could react. The green ball flew at the chirurgeon’s head. Connected.

She spun away hard enough that when she dropped the burning poker it didn’t fall on Gavin’s face.

Karris turned her odd steps into an awkward swaying dance, desperately trying to clear her skin of any hint of green luxin. The projectile had been small enough and so fast as to be invisible. That, together with the sight of Karris moving strangely, might leave the crowd simply baffled. More importantly, it might leave the Nuqaba baffled.

Play it to the hilt, Karris. Pretend you’ve got the confidence of Gavin.

She raised a hand, her index finger up. “Pardon me!” she shouted.

As she stepped forward, she remembered to alter her steps to a lady’s. Her sidesteps had triggered Ben-hadad’s other contraption. As subtly as she could after having just demanded the attention of fifty thousand people, she reached a hand down to the ridiculous huge bow and pressed it firmly to her hip once more. It clicked. Wait, had she landed on that hip? Had she destroyed the mechanism?

No, she’d landed on the other hip. Right?

She raised her other hand at the same time she checked the bow. “Pardon me?” she shouted again. She smiled, as if she were asking a man to come to her bed.

Which confused the hell out of them, as intended.

There was brief chaos on the platform on the spina. The chirurgeon was on her knees, in serious pain, but she wasn’t saying anything. An Amagez tried to pick up the poker. He was smart enough not to grab the glowing end, but not smart enough to realize iron didn’t need to be glowing in order to be hot.

He threw the hot iron away, cursing loudly, adding to the chaos.

Karris made it to the steps before the Amagez tried to intercept her. She ignored them, jutting her chin high and dismissive—and made it to the top before they brandished muskets and luxin to show her they were serious. Amateurs.

She stopped, now in full view of everyone in the hippodrome, as if shocked and put out that soldiers would threaten her. A young one stepped forward and started searching her.

Moment of truth. Big stage, big body language to let everyone see it.

He had to push hard against the many petticoats to try to feel the inside of her legs. For a moment, she let him search as if stunned and violated. But she had to let him search enough that he could be convinced to stop.

She stepped back, as if horribly insulted, flinging her arms wide. In her loudest battlefield voice, she projected, “Pardon you, sirrah! I no more have a weapon between my legs than you do!”

And she slapped him. Not hard, not with the correct body mechanics to put the poor fool on the ground, but sloppily, tossing her hair like a dimwit.

The audience roared with laughter, still wondering what the hell was happening. Was this part of a show?

She held up her hand again, turning to face the Nuqaba’s box. She was sitting right at the front, beside Eirene Malargos.

The young guard moved toward Karris again, chagrined, but she boomed out, “Your Excellency!” toward the Nuqaba. “Move aside, young man,” she said in a withering whisper. “Your betters are speaking.”

It was enough to freeze the young Tafok Amagez. Accustomed to taking nonsense orders from an imperious woman who demanded his obedience without question, he felt suddenly bereft of authority.

This is how tyrants fall. By destroying their people, they destroy themselves.

Blackguards knew exactly what they were entitled to do, and they were authorized to do it to whomever entered their sphere. A lord might complain, but not even a luxlord would go without being searched in an area where weapons were forbidden. No Prism or White or Black would ever reprimand a Blackguard for doing his duties thoroughly. The Nuqaba was clearly not so rational.

She stood in her box, and motioned to the young Amagez to move back.

“Who are you?” the Nuqaba demanded. “What is this?”

“This man,” Karris projected, so that not only the Nuqaba, who was near enough to easily hear, but all the hippodrome could hear as well. “Is my husband.” Karris turned, to shout it the other direction. “This man is my husband!”

What she hadn’t planned was to see him as she turned. He was strapped down so he couldn’t turn his head. But he heard her. “Karris?” he shouted. “Dear Orholam, Karris, get out of here!”

His left side was to her, and blood trickled out of his eye, down his cheek, a stream of red tears from a wound that hadn’t been fully cauterized.

Her stomach caught and she tried to stifle a sob. She hunched over, but set her jaw. Weeping and running to him would mean death for both of them.

Put it aside, Karris.