Kip paled, looked at the places again. If he and Teia had ranked everyone in the class correctly in their conversations, this was all wrong.
“You going to stand there all day, or are you going to challenge someone?” Aram asked. “Please pick me.”
Fighting Aram was suicide, even if Kip did want to wipe that smirk off the boy’s face. No. Kip wasn’t seeing it. He needed a new perspective. The light in between the fights was full-spectrum—and so was Kip, right? He tightened his eyes and drafted superviolet. Superviolet was supposed to be alien, aloof, apart—and arrogant.
Oh shit. Kip forgot that the first time you draft a color, it exerts a lot more control over you. He walked up to Erato and slapped his challenge token down. “Trade you my bronze for your gold,” he said.
Erato laughed at him.
“Colors?” Trainer Fisk asked.
“Green and yellow,” Erato said.
“None,” Kip said.
“What’d you say?” the trainer asked.
“I don’t need any colors to throw out this trash.”
“Ooh-hoo!” Erato said, her eyes gleaming.
“You get a bonus if you’re the one who knocks me out?” Kip asked.
Her face went blank, stricken, for half a moment. Then she said, “What are you talking about?”
“Do you have any idea how much smarter I am than you?” Kip asked.
All emotions but hatred drained out of her face. “I’m going to enjoy this, Breaker.”
They took their places in the middle of the large circle. It was twenty paces across. Stepping out for more than five seconds would result in disqualification. Neither of them had spectacles. They would get pure light from the great colored crystals above the huge underground chamber.
Trainer Fisk examined each of them in turn to make sure they hadn’t already drafted, being more careful now that they were in the fights that mattered. “Eyes, palms.” Satisfied, he stepped back and gestured that the crystals above be covered. He put their fingers on the hellstone, but didn’t press hard enough—as he hadn’t before.
Taking a deep breath, Kip rolled his shoulders, shook his head, loosening up. He took his spot across from her in the darkness.
“And… go!” Trainer Fisk shouted.
The shutters over the crystals dropped open.
Kip charged. He didn’t try to draft the green or the yellow light streaming over him. Instead, he threw one hand forward and shot out the superviolet luxin he’d already drafted, poking Erato in both eyes.
She staggered backward, crying out, holding her eyes, plans blown.
Then Kip, sprinting, jumped straight at her, spearing her stomach with his head. She went down hard, air whooshing out of her lungs.
Landing on top of her, Kip scrambled to his feet and picked up the prostrate girl by the waist of her trousers and her collar, ran her to the edge of the circle, and heaved her out of it.
Kip heard gasps in the crowd, and a few claps. Trainer Fisk counted out the five as Erato struggled to get to her feet and failed, then called it. “Breaker wins! Take Erato to the infirmary. Breaker, you have one minute until your next fight.” He came closer and lowered his voice. “So you can use superviolet now?”
“A little, sir.”
“You know you’re not supposed to pack luxin.”
“Someone taught me to use every advantage and surprise I have.” That someone, of course, was looking at him.
“You got it past me, but it won’t happen again, Breaker. Smart not to declare your polychromacy, but you won’t always get lucky and have opponents use your colors. Hope you’ve got other tricks.”
“Always, sir,” Kip said. Inside, he thought, Me, too. He shook out the last of the superviolet. The arrogance there hadn’t cost him—but it should have. No colors? How stupid was he?
Trainer Fisk said, “Also, never do that spearing thing again. You’ll break your damn neck.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Breaker, come here,” Cruxer shouted. He stood at the edge of the circle.
Kip came over.
“You’re not safe yet, you know that, right?”
“I know. I’ve got to win one more.”
“You have a plan?” Cruxer asked.
“Might not be a good one,” Kip said. “I…” He trailed off. He looked again at the placement. He was number twelve now. He had to finish the day at fourteen or better to stay in, but after he fought, everyone below him got to fight next. So if he won one more fight, he was safe, but if he lost this fight, the next fighter would be Balder. From his spot at eighteenth, he would challenge sixteenth, Yugerten, rather than take on his friend Aram at fifteenth. Yugerten had already failed out, so no problem there. Then Balder would take on Tala at fourteen. She was a great drafter, but she wasn’t that fast, not yet. He’d take her out easily, clearing the path.
From there, he could either challenge Kip or skip right past him and challenge eleven.
Maybe he’d even climb higher, but that didn’t matter. The only people who could climb after Balder went were the lower-ranked Aram and Barrel.
All of Barrel’s fights could be against people who’d already lost. And he, too, could skip right past Kip.
Then Aram would go, again only having to fight people who’d already lost until he got past Kip.
If Erato hadn’t bungled and lost to Kip, all four friends would still make it into the Blackguard training.
The more Kip looked at it, the more brilliant it seemed. Aram, Balder, and Barrel all belonged in the top ten. Even Erato was close. One or two of them might easily get unlucky and come to the final testing lower than they deserved, but all of them?
“Kip, you look like you just swallowed a lemon,” Cruxer said.
And all of them, despite finishing low, were in places from which they could still make it into the Blackguard—and without ever being pitted against each other, or against Kip. If they’d made a pact to keep him out and had grouped themselves thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth to make a ceiling beyond which he couldn’t rise, the collusion would have been obvious. But this, this was subtle.
Hell, they’d guaranteed that twentieth and nineteenth places would both challenge Kip, so if he’d been a good boy and lost, they wouldn’t even have had to fight him at all in order to knock him out of contention, and even if he won against nineteen and twenty, he’d be fatigued and easier to beat.
“It’s a conspiracy,” Kip said quietly. “And they don’t even have to touch me.”
“What?” Cruxer asked.
“Cruxer, can I win against nine, or eleven?” Teia was at ten; he wasn’t going to take her on.
“Anything can happen.”
“How about against Aram?” Kip asked.
“No.”
“What happened to ‘anything can happen’?”
“Not anything,” Cruxer said.
“Kip, time’s up,” the trainer said. “Who are you challenging?”
For one mad moment, the green in Kip wanted him to challenge Aram—even though Aram was two spots below him.
That was stupidity. Kip could still be wrong. Or others might lose. It didn’t have to be the way he’d foreseen.
“Kip, challenge me,” Teia said, her tone flat.