“A man, deeply surprised, will have only his first instinctive response be as controlled and crisp as it is when he trains. Then that torrent of emotion is on him. We spend thousands of hours training that first instinctive response, and further, we train to control the torrent of emotion so that it raises us to a heightened level of awareness without making us stupid.”
“So the positive, for us Archers: surprise me, and my first reaction will be the same as my male counterpart’s. I can still, of course, get terrified, or locked into a loop of indecision. But if I’m not, my second, third, and tenth moves will also be controlled. My hands will not shake. I will be able to make precision movements that a man cannot. But I won’t have the heightened strength or sensations until perhaps a minute later-often too late.
“Where a man needs to train to control that rush, we need to train to make it closer. If we have to climb a mountain more slowly to get to the same height to get all the positives, we need to start climbing sooner. That is, when I go into a situation that I know may be hazardous, I need to prepare myself. I need to start climbing. The men may joke to break the tension. Let them. I don’t join in. Maybe they think I’m humorless because I don’t. Fine. That’s a trade I’m willing to make.”
Teia and the rest of the girls walked away from training that day somewhat dazed, definitely overwhelmed. What Teia realized was that the women were deeply appealing because they were honest and powerful. And those two things were wed inextricably together. They said, I am the best in the world at what I do, and I cannot do everything. Those two statements, held together, gave them the security to face any challenge. If her own strengths couldn’t surmount an obstacle, her team’s strengths could-and she was unembarrassed about asking for help where she needed it because she knew that what she brought to the team would be equally valuable in some other situation.
The Archers were uncompromising and unapologetic and yet in total balance. They respected each other and they respected themselves. Some of the Blackguards, Teia knew, had come from slave stock, others had come from noble blood. Some were blues, some were yellows or greens or reds. Some were bichromes, some were tall, some were skinny, some were as muscular as Commander Ironfist. They were different from each other-but the Blackguards looked at those differences and asked where they were useful, not who they made better than whom. Being a Blackguard was the central fact of their identity. All else came behind that.
For a girl who was a slave and a color-blind drafter of a useless color, that was like the impossible dream, dangled in front of her nose. She’d been ordered to join the Blackguard by her owner, she’d been trained for it for years at the direction of others and for the profit of others-but now she wanted it for herself, for her own reasons. And she wanted it with all her heart.
Chapter 29
Kip and Teia finished their laps-for Teia punching a boy who’d dismissed her as a ‘little girl,’ this time-and had no time to clean up before heading to practicum: drafting practice, Teia called it. She seemed to dread it. Kip was looking forward to it-even if he was a sweaty, stinky mess.
As usual, Teia led the way. It was on a different floor than their other class, sun side of the Prism’s Tower. But when they got to the room, Kip saw that Grinwoody was waiting outside the door.
Oh no.
“Kip,” the wizened slave said. “You’re late. The Red will not be pleased.”
And I care so much about his pleasure. “What does he want with me?” Kip asked.
“You’ve been summoned.”
“What if I don’t want to go?” Kip asked.
Grinwoody’s eyebrows tented. “You wish me to communicate your refusal to the Red?” His belief that Kip was a buffoon was written all over his face. The man clearly didn’t like him, and now that Kip had been disavowed, he felt no need to hide it.
It made Kip want to dig in his heels and tell the man to go to hell.
“Kip?” Teia said. She waited.
Kip looked over at her.
Teia said, “Don’t be an idiot.”
Kip frowned. “Let’s go,” he told Grinwoody.
He followed the man up to Andross Guile’s room and found himself trying to hold on to his anger, but getting more and more nervous. Grinwoody opened the door and gestured to the heavy blackout curtains.
So help me, if that old bastard hits me today, I’m hitting him back.
Kip was pretty certain that he would do no such thing, but it made him feel better to think it. He stepped inside.
Cloying odors. Old man and incense. Dust and sour armpits. Oh, that last was him.
“You reek,” a voice said in the darkness, thick with distaste.
“So do you,” Kip shot back. Brain engaging two seconds late.
Silence. Then: “Sit.”
“On the ground?” Kip asked.
“What are you, a monkey?”
“More monster than monkey. You and I are related, after all,” Kip said.
Silence again. Longer this time. “I’d forgotten how reckless the young can be. But perhaps you’re not rash, perhaps you’re simply stupid. Sit. In the chair.”
Kip groped around in the darkness until he found the chair. He sat.
“Grinwoody!” the old man barked.
The slave came in and hung something on a hook above Kip’s head. He left wordlessly.
“Lantern,” Andross Guile said.
Lantern? But it wasn’t on. Was Kip supposed to light it? Wouldn’t that defeat the whole point of sitting in a darkened room with blackout curtains over every window and door? Besides, Kip didn’t have so much as a flint.
Was it a drafting test to see if Kip could Moron. It’s a superviolet lantern.
Kip tightened his pupils, and the room jumped into alien, violet, superfine relief. It was a larger room than he’d thought. Portraits of the Guiles’ ancestors hung on every wall. Viewed solely in superviolet light, the portraits were lifeless, monochrome. Kip could distinguish the ridges and bumps from the brushstrokes, but seeing the faces made thereby was more difficult. There was an enormous four-poster bed barely visible through the doors in a second chamber, and of course the heavy velvet curtains everywhere. Ivory and marble sculptures sat on the mantel, on the harpsichord. Kip couldn’t pick a single style from all the art, but it all seemed very, very fine.
There were a number of chairs, divans, and tables. A clock with spinning gears and a swinging pendulum of the kind Kip had only heard of.
Last, Kip looked at the man in front of him, expecting some horror. Despite the darkness, Andross Guile wore enormous dark spectacles. He’d been a big man, before age robbed him. His shoulders were still broad, but skinny. His hair, flat, desaturated violet in the lantern light, must be silvery gray, almost white. It was sparse, disheveled-befitting a man who lived without mirrors. His skin, too, was washed out, loose. Naturally darker than Gavin’s, but bleached by age. His nose straight, deep wrinkles. There was an old scar along his neck up onto his jawline.
He had been a handsome man. Clearly a Guile.
“You play Nine Kings?” Andross Guile asked.
“My mother never had that kind of money,” Kip said. It was a card game. The cards themselves were often worth their weight in gold.
“But you know how to play.”
“I’ve watched others.”
“The deck lies before you,” Andross Guile said. “Let it not be said I’m not fair: the first game will have no stakes.”
“It will not be said,” Kip said. He picked up his deck, and was hit with another reminder of how different of a world he’d stepped into. Depending on the seriousness of the players, there were many different variants of Nine Kings. There were more than seven hundred cards, from which each player constructed his own deck. In villages like Rekton, soldiers passing through might have a deck built by a small-town artist. The main requirement there was that the cards should have no markings on the back side by which players could cheat and draw the card of their choice. Nobles would play with cards made by artists and drafters together at one of the six branches of the Card Guild. Those cards were beautifully drawn and lacquered with blue luxin, guaranteeing every one was uniform.