Adrasteia grimaced toward the trainer, face intense. She turned toward Kip, gave a very perfunctory bow.
Kip bowed back. “Sorry, I didn’t-”
“Save it, Lard Guile,” she said.
Several students laughed aloud.
“Oh, I get it, you’re jealous ’cause I have bigger boobs than you,” Kip said. He covered the stab of self-loathing with a condescending grin.
“I can see you naked,” she said. “And I’m not jealous of that.” She sniffed with distaste at his body.
Huh?
But Kip didn’t have time to think about what she could possibly mean, because she attacked him.
He wasn’t in a ready stance, and he wasn’t ready, period. Especially not for her foot to go from the floor to the side of his head in the blink of an eye.
The flexibility! The grace!
The astonishing feeling of blood flying from his face!
Kip was looking at the world sideways. He was lying down, without having been aware of the whole falling part. As ever when hurt, he did a quick inventory: just how bad was it? Not that bad. He’d bit the hell out of his cheek and tongue, but he’d gone down mostly from the surprise.
Getting your head torn off by a little girl will do that to you.
She came into his view, still in a fighting stance, close to his head. Flat on his back, he asked, “That all you got?”
It enraged her, and she stepped toward him.
He rolled toward her, fast, hoping to catch her feet and trip her.
She jumped, trying to leap over him, but he slowed, grabbed one foot while she was in midair. He got lucky and snagged the inside foot.
Adrasteia clawed, catlike, twisting, but she couldn’t recover. She landed flat on her hip and cried out.
Kip scrambled, trying to pin her-something, anything to use his weight to win somehow.
He was halfway on top of her when her small fist caught him straight in the throat. He coughed, collapsed.
In a moment, he was lying facedown and she was on top of him with her arm around his neck.
An adult was shouting, but Kip could only hear the roar of blood in his ears.
Then Adrasteia disappeared, feet kicking in midair as Ironfist lifted her bodily off him, literally hauling her off by her collar.
Ironfist dropped the furious girl in front of him. “I said, Enough!” he bellowed. Adrasteia was shocked to stillness. Then she wilted. Everyone in the class shrank back, wide-eyed and suddenly quiet. “Kip!” Ironfist roared.
Kip swallowed a few times. “Yes, sir?” he asked, pulling himself to his feet for what felt like the hundredth time of the day.
“All the scrubs have a partner. You just found yours.”
Chapter 17
At dinner, Kip took his food and sat at the end of a long table by himself. You can’t get rejected if you don’t try to fit in.
Adrasteia came over and sat across from him. “I’m supposed to spy on you,” she said.
“Um, good sausage?” Kip said.
“It’s not bad. You should see what the full Blackguards get.”
“Good?” Kip asked.
“Fantastic,” she said. She picked at her food. “I’m serious.”
“You really love food, huh?” Kip asked.
“I meant about the spying, sheep-for-brains.”
“I know.” Sheep for brains? After the time he’d just spent with sailors and soldiers, it was insufferably cute to hear someone swear with euphemisms.
“Oh.” She flushed. Looked down at her food.
“Why does anyone want to spy on me?” Kip asked.
“You’re a Guile.” She shrugged as if that explained everything. Kip supposed it did.
“Who are you spying for?” Kip asked.
“My sponsor, of course.”
“Well, I sort of figured.” Kip had had no idea. “But who’s your sponsor?”
“That’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it?” she said.
“You’re spying on me, but I don’t get to ask slightly personal questions?” Kip asked, incredulous.
She laughed. “It’s not really a personal question, Kip. I was just testing you.”
Oh, and I failed.
“So does that mean you’re going to tell me?” he asked, bullish.
“Tell you what?” Playing dumb.
“You are really impossible, aren’t you?” Kip asked.
She grinned. “Lady Lucretia Verangheti of the Smussato Veranghetis is my sponsor.”
“You’re from Ilyta? You don’t look Ilytian. Plus, I thought the Ilytians don’t like drafting. Heretics and all.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You just say the first thing that pops into your head, don’t you?”
“I’m getting better,” Kip said. What had he done?
“ This is the better?”
Maybe I’ll just shut my fat face for the rest of my life. Kip slowly cut off another piece of sausage. His fingers were healing, so gripping wasn’t very painful. Stretching, however, was murder. Of course, using his hands to fight with hadn’t made anything better. “Tell you what,” he said. “How about you tell me about you- and that way I can spend a few seconds not getting myself into trouble?”
“What’s there to tell?” Adrasteia said. She hadn’t eaten a bite of her dinner yet. “Father’s a merchant sailor. Does the spice/silk circuit when he can. Gone more often than not. Mother’s a brewer in Odess. She wanted me to take over the stills. Instead, here I am.”
“Isn’t Odess in Abornea?” Kip asked. His mother hadn’t taught him much about geography, but he did know that Abornea and Ilyta were different satrapies.
“Head of the Narrows, one of the biggest cities in the world.”
“So how come your sponsor is Ilytian?”
“Because she’s the one who bought me last.”
Bought? Kip tried not to let his surprise show.
She tapped the top of her ear. It was snipped vertically and cauterized. “You not see this?” she said.
“Oh!” he said. She was a slave-and he was stupid.
But she didn’t mock him. She said, “They like to say that among the Chromeria’s pupils, there is no slave and no free. They like to say all sorts of things, of course, but if you can make it into the Blackguard, it’s actually true.” She didn’t say it bitterly, though. She shrugged. Who you were mattered here, and there was no getting around it.
“So that’s why you’re trying to get into the Blackguard?”
“You’re joking, right?” she asked.
Kip’s look must have been enough. She sighed.
“Do you know why almost everyone in our training group is older than you, Kip?”
“Do you see this blank look on my face? Assume it applies for everything,” Kip said.
She grinned for a moment. “Getting a spot in the Blackguard is the most coveted appointment most of us can dream of. In our training group alone, there are four legacies: children of Blackguards. Cruxer, Rig, Aram, and Tana. I can guarantee you that all of them have been training in martial arts since they could walk. If you’re a slave and you test in, you’re freed-though you do have to swear your service to the Blackguard. If you’re the owner of that slave, the Chromeria pays you a fortune for the transfer of your property. The Veranghetis have placed dozens of Blackguards over the years. It’s one of their more lucrative businesses. I came in a little sideways. The family that owned me had a daughter who was my age. They wanted her to be able to defend herself. I was trained with her, so she’d have a sparring partner. When they realized I might be able to draft, they sold me to Lady Verangheti. She had me train for the last year, all day, every day, with a variety of top masters, so that I might make it in.”
A whole life, spent as property, spent training for this? “So you’re telling me I shouldn’t feel bad for getting beat up by a girl.”
“Watch it, chunky.”
He grinned a moment late, not realizing right away that she was teasing.
Her face fell. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t-I didn’t realize you were sensit-I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry.”
There was a sticky silence.
“I heard you almost passed the Threshing,” she said.
“Almost.” Kip Almost. Another reminder of failure. But she’d clearly meant well. “Actually,” he said, “I’ve got one special talent.”