“And this?” Teia asked, showing her still-bloodied hands and the bloody rag that wouldn’t get the stains out completely. “This is the best thing?”

Kip stared her hard in the eye. He took the towel in his own clean hands and smeared blood first on one palm and then on the other. “Not the best thing, Teia. The best thing possible? A thousand times yes.”

And staring into his eyes, she believed him. It was a damned thing, war, but she wasn’t damned for fighting it. It shifted her burden only a little—not much, but enough.

Twenty minutes later, after the squad had cleaned up, after Cruxer had debriefed each of them in turn, they formed up at the door of the safe house to go back to the Chromeria together and report. It was obviously a duty Cruxer wasn’t relishing.

“Teia,” Cruxer said. “Up front.”

“Huh?”

“You’re my number two now. First sergeant.”

Teia looked at Ferkudi, whom she was displacing. He didn’t look angry. “The promotion was my idea, Teia,” he said. “We froze up out there. I froze up. You deserve it.”

Deserve it? She’d gone crazy out there. She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she simply took her new place.

“What about Breaker?” she asked.

“Breaker is Breaker,” Cruxer said. “He, uh, doesn’t fit exactly in the chain of command. When it’s time to listen to him, we listen. The rest of the time, he listens to us. Fair, Breaker?”

Kip looked bereaved, but resolute. “So it begins?” he asked Cruxer quietly.

Teia had no idea what they were talking about. “It began a long time ago, Breaker,” Cruxer said. “The only question is if you fight fate or try to steer it.”

“Fate?” Kip asked. “You’re the one who gave me the name Breaker in the first place.”

“Oops,” Cruxer said. A wry grin.

“Fair enough, Captain. I’ll take the half-step to the outside. I wanted this more than anything, though. You know that, right?”

“I know what it is to want … the impossible.” His mouth twisted, and Teia knew he was thinking of Lucia.

Kip said, “You’re the best of us, Cruxer. In every way. Don’t you dare die, you understand?”

“Meh, I’m invincible,” Cruxer said. “Now let’s get back, double time. Let’s see if we can work some more of this off.” He poked Kip in the belly, and they both grinned.

Boys. How Teia loved them both.

Chapter 48

Weeks later, they stood again in their ranks in front of Trainer Fisk. He cast a baleful eye around the great yard beneath the Chromeria. Everywhere, Blackguards were training men and women who were not Blackguards. He stared at one arc of the great circle with particular, undisguised hatred, though.

The rumored Lightguard was now a reality. The nunks joined him in his spite. Established with one stroke of the new promachos’s pen, the Lightguard was Andross Guile’s own personal army, established to defend the Jaspers, so he said, and answering only to him.

The Blackguards saw what he was doing, even if it seemed no one else in power did. The Lightguard was comprised of mercenaries, ruffians, veterans from the old war, and any others who were willing to do whatever Andross Guile wanted in return for coin and his protection from prosecution or vengeance for any crime they might have committed. They were led primarily by washed-out Blackguards and the sons of poor nobles who wanted to throw themselves on Andross Guile’s mercy.

They had been given tailed white jackets with big brass buttons and medals for trifles. Worse, they were given some of the Blackguard’s prerogatives: allowed to walk through the Chromeria armed, for one.

And they were being taught—by the promachos’s incontrovertible order—by a Blackguard. It was like being forced to gut yourself with a rusty knife.

“Today, Specials,” Trainer Fisk said, spitting in the direction of the Lightguards, but then turning away.

Almost all of their training was special assignments now, and there was little pretense that it was only training. The swearing in to full Blackguard status of the best inductees had been halted. Commander Ironfist had seen that once sworn, his people were sent to duties like training Lightguards, so he held on to them.

Other Blackguards were being sent on other missions: some of them searching for Gavin, others disappearing for days or weeks, and coming back, sworn to silence about what they’d been doing. Word got out, at least in Blackguard circles, though. They were looking for bane. They said there might be nexuses of each of the seven colors out there somewhere. Which, to Kip’s ears, sounded like more gods to fight.

Some of them reported strange sights, odd phenomena they’d encountered. One brought back a small lizard called a sand dragon from Atash. The nunks thought it was the least exciting dragon ever. It didn’t breathe fire or anything interesting, but when they killed it, they were able to set it on fire without any other fuel, and it burned for three days. Somehow the things incorporated red luxin into their bodies, much like atasifusta trees used to do. This was the first one that had been seen in many years.

In Ruthgar, there were stories of the grasslands—usually dormant and brown this late in the year—growing green in great nine-pointed stars. It might have been the work of rogue green drafters fertilizing the plains to make a statement for the Color Prince, but two of the Blackguards had seen one. They believed what they had seen was far too big to be the work of even three or four green drafters working together.

In Paria, a team had found a town where half the wells were full of orange luxin. The village elders swore that there were no orange drafters nearby. And in a week, the luxin simply disappeared.

There were wilder rumors, too, of firestorms in Tyrea, where instead of lightning, great streaks of fire splashed down with the rain and hail and snow. Sinkholes in Abornea. Boiling seas off Pericol. Animals acting strangely, and even plants seeming to act with intent. It was impossible to filter the truth from the nonsense and, quickly, impossible to get some of the books from the restricted libraries that had been sitting right under the squad’s nose. Scholars appointed by Andross himself came in, grabbed a bunch of books and scrolls, and left without a word.

And all the time, the war was being fought. The enemy was advancing. Others were fighting in their place, far away.

With them all formed up, Trainer Fisk said, “Today your assignment, every squad, is to go to the docks on East Bay. The Lists are being read. Go.”

He stopped.

“And what, sir?” an Archer named Kerea asked. “What are we to do?”

“You listen. Was there something unclear about your orders? Go!”

They went.

“What was that about?” Ferkudi asked before they even reached the Lily’s Stem.

Cruxer seemed somber. But he didn’t answer. Kip took his lead and didn’t answer either. Knowing what a lesson was beforehand didn’t mean you had to blunt its impact on those who didn’t.

“Let’s take it at a jog,” Cruxer said.

They jogged through the enclosed bridge as the sunrise shone brilliance on them. Kip had two thoughts: first, that he was no longer baffled at the wonders of magic of these islands. Running through a luxin tube suspended at the level of the waves had somehow become normal to him. The awkward bumpkin was gone. He wasn’t sure that was all good. How insular the Jasperites became, every day seeing magic the likes of which a Tyrean orchardist would never see in his life, every day rubbing shoulders with women and men who harnessed Orholam’s breath itself. All the world turned around the Jaspers, but the Jaspers were not all the world. Second, he realized there was now no sign at all of the sea demon attack that had nearly demolished this bridge. The sea demon itself hadn’t been seen since the Feast of Light and Darkness, nor the black whale. The mess had been cleared, the dead taken away—and none of them were people Kip had known, or known by people Kip knew. It was like it hadn’t happened.