The Blood Mirror

He didn’t put it in words. Who would understand?

Despite the darkness, or perhaps because of it, the Nine Kings cards he’d absorbed kept triggering in his head. He lived as men who’d lost limbs. As a heretic woman who’d had her eyes put out. As a broken warrior lashing out at those who loved him.

It wasn’t exactly a comfort.

Comfort. That was the name of a pistol, wasn’t it? Abaddon, the King of… Locusts?

But that thought, that memory—was it even his own memory?—slipped away from him like all the others.

Tisis shared the bed with him, snuggled up against him, but she didn’t seem to know how to bridge the gap. He held her close, but without his eyes to judge her expressions, he didn’t trust himself not to make a fool of himself or hurt her by doing the wrong thing. They slept only.

On the third day, he sat up in bed and took off his bandages. He could see perfectly. His eyes felt well.

But those who broke the halo usually felt well. Part of the madness was believing that you weren’t mad.

Verity nearly dropped her tray when she came in and found him up.

“My lord,” she said.

“My apologies, caleen.”

“Please, my lord, call me Verity.”

“With pleasure. Verity, will you look at my eyes and tell me what you see?” Best to know how bad it was immediately.

“Is that safe?”

Kip nodded, and she pulled back some heavy drapes they’d put up on the walls. Where had those been when they were trying to make love in here? Verity stared at his eyes for a long moment as he blinked. From the quality of the light, it had to be late morning.

“There’s something—forgive me, my lord—there’s something captivating about your eyes, as if a color beyond color shines there, but your halo’s intact, if that’s what you were worried about.”

Kip took heart from that, and ate his breakfast as she went about her duties, finally leaving to tell the others he was up and well.

Then it occurred to him that if he broke the halo in paryl or chi, there were only a few people in all the world who would be able to tell, and none of them were on this boat.

He could be a madman already and not know it.

Cruxer came in alone. “Breaker,” he said, nodding his head. “We thought it best not to overwhelm you by coming in all together.”

“Thanks. Can you, uh, tell me what happened out there?” Kip asked.

“How much do you remember?”

“Right up to where the water tornado thing was going to explode under the galley.”

“That was the exciting part,” Cruxer said. He cleared his throat. “Well, it did explode—half on each side of the galley, and it kept trying to twist back together. Two enormous spinning waterspouts. And… somehow… you held them apart until the galley sailed through. The light storm passed as fast as it came. All’s been well since then. You saved the ship and everyone on it.” He cleared his throat again. “A, um, a couple of the sailors tried to worship you.”

“Ha!” Kip said. “Funny.”

Cruxer didn’t share his amusement. “I was serious. They were, too.” He chewed on his lip. “Breaker, I saw you sink the Gargantua. This was… Breaker, I froze up. I’ve never frozen up in the face of danger before. Tisis was the one who saved you. Shamed all of us.”

“Because she’s a girl?”

“Maybe a little. But mostly because we’re Blackguards. We’re supposed to be there for you first. We failed you.”

“You got there in time,” Kip protested. He remembered that much now. The hands on him, the yelling.

“We got there second.”

“You got there soon enough.”

“It could have—you almost fell in the—”

“What did Commander Ironfist say about past mistakes?” Kip asked.

Cruxer grimaced. “Look at your mistakes long enough to learn from them, then put them behind you.”

Kip lifted his eyebrows.

“Oh, shut up,” Cruxer grumbled. He picked at a fingernail for a bit. “Tisis is saying some things that have the squad uncomfortable, Breaker.”

“What’s that?”

“I guess you told her we’re leaving? She’s been insisting that she’s going with us. She says you told her she could.”

“I did.”

“But you told me we were leaving her.”

“And then I changed my mind. I had to.”

Cruxer’s displeasure had an almost physical weight to it. “Breaker, we’ve got to figure something out right now. I know I said that you’d be in charge when it made sense for you to be in charge, and I’d be in charge the rest of the time, but that isn’t working. I can’t handle the uncertainty.”

“Uncertainty is part of—”

“Uncertainty is part of your world. Not mine. When I give orders, I have to know they’re going to be followed. Or when someone tells me something, I have to know it’s the truth.”

That stung.

“It’s not a lie when someone tells you what they think is the truth and is wrong. Plans change. Anyway, heck, call her an honorary member of the Mighty now. She did save me,” Kip said. “There, see? The Mighty didn’t fail now. She was just the fastest of us to react.”

Cruxer grimaced. It was, Kip thought, a fairly nice dodge to save face. But Cruxer wasn’t interested in dodges. Regardless, he let it go. “It’s not about that. It’s not only about that, anyway. Breaker, I propose we use a different template for our squad.”

“And what’s that?”

“I say we mirror how the Prism and the commander of the Blackguard interact. It’s close to what we have now. As above, so below, right? You decide where we go—though I give input and register any disagreements—and I keep you alive when we go there. You’re the boss, but we don’t keep each other from doing our work.”

As above, so below. But for Kip to step into that place, that low mirror of the Prism, was highly suggestive of something else. “I’ve never claimed to be the Lightbringer, Crux.”

“That uncertainty I can live with.”

“I want you to know, I think Tisis can help us, Cruxer. I wouldn’t ask to bring her along if she couldn’t.”