I do? I do not!

“Yes, you do,” she said.

“Now you’re just guessing,” Kip said.

She shrugged. “If that makes you feel better…”

He grinned, but then got pensive. They were both skipping a ceremony. “So … this Feast of Waxing Light. What are they doing? I mean, without Gavin, what is there to do?”

It had been almost six months since the autumnal equinox that had seen a sea demon and a whale do battle for the Chromeria, or for the Cerulean Sea. Six months of war grinding its gears slowly through the winter, shipping made difficult with heavy seas and torrential downpours, and ships lost and caravans delayed and stalling actions as the Color Prince pushed into Blood Forest. But the dry season was here, and all the satrapies knew that meant more war.

“First there’s a procession in honor of your grandfather, the promachos. Some fireworks. Some martial demonstrations. Given that there’s a war to spend money on, it will be a much-diminished thing.”

“What isn’t, these days?” Kip asked.

She shook her head. “Was I a know-it-all like you when I was young? Don’t answer that.”

“Do I have to go?” Kip asked.

“You don’t want to? Even diminished, it will be a bigger party than you’ve ever seen.”

“I’d rather learn things that might save my life than eat cakes and candies.”

She gave him a dubious look.

“Depends on the cake.”

“Chocolate?”

“That would be worth dying for,” Kip said.

“Can’t get chocolate worth the name since we lost northern Atash,” she said.

“Thus me, here.”

Karris grinned. “Today, I’ll show you the sharana ru, the tygre striper.” She hefted the flexible spear in her hands, and spun it easily. “The sharana ru is said to be carved from sea demon bone. It doesn’t work the way other materials work. Note.” She spun the flexible shaft, and stopped it with an arm. The shaft bent around it like jelly, more flexible than a green branch. It sprang back suddenly.

“Excellent,” Kip said. With his slowly growing knowledge of weapons, he guessed that the sharana ru would be a difficult weapon to master, but would then be terribly effective because it would move with surprising speed when used properly. Still, an odd weapon. How fragile was it to get that springiness? Could it parry a sword?

“You haven’t seen the half of it,” Karris said.

“And what’s the half of it?” Kip asked.

She looked like she’d been about to tell him, until his big mouth said that.

“Let’s let you find out the hard way,” she said.

“Oh, goodie,” he said. He scowled, though he deserved it for acting wise with her.

“Fencing,” she said. “Let’s see that yellow. Five, four…”

Kip drew in a bit of superviolet and then shot it across the room at the control panel. Yellow light bathed the room. He sucked it in hungrily, the rush of clarity giving him the hard edge he would need to draft the perfect yellow he’d practiced so much. He flicked out his hand, and with it, yellow liquid that he furiously worked to solidify and narrow as it streamed from him.

“Three, two…” she counted.

“Too fast, too fast!”

She lofted the sharana ru and began swinging the dual blades in loose circles, swishing the air. She set herself in position just as she reached the end of her smooth count. “One, and—” She lashed out with one end.

Kip brought his yellow luxin sword, trying to finish the temper even as his body went to the correct block instinctively. Excess yellow luxin coating the blade burst into light with the energy of the collision between blunt yellow blade and blunt wooden guard.

He didn’t make it, and instead the yellow luxin burst apart.

But both of them had narrowed their eyes against the blast of light, used to this. A slash cut across Kip’s front shin, a smear of ink from the sponge on the sharana ru’s guard: a bruise for Kip and a point for Karris.

She let him form the sword correctly. It took more than ten seconds. And they went again. Their bout was fast, ridiculously fast, and finished in less than two seconds.

He cursed inwardly, and settled into his stance again.

Again, a loss. And again, and again, and again. Aptly named, the tygre striper left Kip with streaks—mercifully of ink, rather than blood—across stomach, arms, forehead, shin, and hands.

On the tenth round, he scored a point, just before Karris did. She nodded. In a real fight, they’d both be dead. The Blackguard didn’t want dead Blackguards who’d also killed their opponents; they wanted unscratched Blackguards who’d killed their opponents. Still, from the humble acorn …

Again, a loss. And again, and again, and again. But Kip was starting to figure out how the sharana ru worked, how it sprang back when Karris would snap one side against her own leg as she attempted a short sweep—a feint—at Kip’s face to set up the speedier long sweep. The flexibility itself gave a small measure of predictability, for what bent must become straight.

Even with the guard and the sponge, Karris’s weapon hurt. Every time they sparred, Kip’s body was covered with bruises for days. His favorite was when she used a rapier and his bruises looked like freckles. Bruise-freckles on the turtle-bear. Not that Karris cared if he complained about it. And her fighting—learned the hard way with Blackguards—wasn’t the speedy, light dance the court duelists used. It was full-contact, brutal action. Hip throws and leverage, forearm strikes and elbows and grabbing your opponent’s blade with a gloved hand—or grabbing your own and pressing it to his neck. Kicks and throws and foot sweeps and clothing pulls and eye gouging and knee strikes to the kidneys—everything, everything dirty and fast and effective and lethal.

Kip’s weight and burgeoning strength should have been a significant advantage. Maybe it would have, if they’d been wielding battle axes or war hammers. Karris was fast and a small target, and she was an expert at using leverage to compensate for what she lacked in strength compared to her beefier Blackguard brothers. Sixteen years of constant practice against the best opponents in the world had made her surprisingly deadly for her diminutive figure.

Today, she didn’t lecture. Some days she did. Learning to keep some attention on other things kept you from getting war-blind, too focused on what was immediately in front of you. Last time she’d taught him about the other magic-using fighting companies in the world: the Nuqaba’s guard in Paria, the Tafok Amagez; the old Blue-Eyed Demons that Gavin had destroyed after the war; a few of the martial elites from the highland Parian tribal societies; the secretive Shadow Watch of Ruthgar, whom she knew did exist because Gavin had checked them out personally to see if they were a threat to the Seven Satrapies. Few individuals within any of those groups, though, also used magic with anything near the facility of the Blackguards. The Cwn y Wawr were archers and tree climbers and green drafters and masters of camouflage in the deep parts of Blood Forest, and some of the Shadow Watch were highly talented drafters as well—but no one group had the range of drafting abilities available to them that the Blackguard did. No other group had the critical mass of drafters to maintain a drafting tradition in each color, so instead each generation had to invent again techniques their forebears would have been able to teach them easily.