in his life. He was going to be different here, too. He would be different and alone, no matter where he went.
Orholam, why had he even stopped that woman from throwing him over? Two moments of terror, sure, and a mess of exploded Kip on the rocks. But the terror would end, everything would end, and the sea would wash away the mess.
Someone slapped him. Kip staggered. Rubbed his jaw.
“Make the words, Kip,” Gavin said.
So Kip told them everything. Liv stared woodenly at the floor when he told of her leaving after he’d told her that he thought her father was dead.
Commander Ironfist said, “General Danavis has been living in some backwater village all this time?” He glanced at Liv. “Sorry, I knew we had a Danavis at the Chromeria, but I didn’t think you were related.” He cleared his throat and shut up.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he did get away,” Gavin said. “The general was always a wily bastard, and I mean that in the best possible way.”
Liv grinned, weakly and briefly. Kip told them the rest of it.
After he finished, Gavin and Ironfist shared a look. “The Broken Eye?” Ironfist asked.
Gavin shrugged. “Impossible to know. Of course, that’s the point.”
“The what?” Kip asked.
“My magisters told us that was a myth,” Liv protested. The Prism and the commander of the Blackguard turned to look at her. She swallowed hard and stared at the floor.
Ironfist said, “Your magisters are partly right. The Order of the Broken Eye is a reputed guild of assassins. They specialize in killing drafters. They’ve been rooted out and destroyed on at least three separate occasions, if not more. No satrap or satrapah enjoys losing drafters who’ve cost them so much before the end of their natural span. We believe that each time the order has reformed, it’s been without any connection to any of the previous orders.”
“To put it plainly,” Gavin said, “some thug rounds up a few more thugs, hoping to make a lot of money from backstabbing a few drafters, and they name themselves the Order of the Broken Eye so they can demand hefty payments. It’s pure pretense.”
“How do you know?” Kip asked.
“Because if they were real, they’d be better at their job.”
Kip scowled. His assassin had been pretty good.
“It’s not to say they’re all equally incompetent, Kip,” Gavin said. “That’s the whole point. We shouldn’t even have brought it up. It doesn’t get us any closer to the real problem. Whether or not the order is real, someone sent an assassin to kill you. You haven’t been here long enough to make any enemies, so it’s clearly an enemy of mine. There’s only one thing for us to do.”
Kip bit. “What?” He didn’t want to admit that he had already made an enemy. Surely that tester, Magister Galden, wouldn’t have sent an assassin after him, would he?
“We run away.” Gavin grinned, a reckless, boyish grin, eyes dancing.
“What?!” Kip and Liv asked at the same time.
“Meet me at the docks in an hour. Liv, that means you too. You’ll be Kip’s tutor. We’re going to Garriston.”
“Garriston?” Liv asked.
“Pack quick,” Gavin said. “You never know where the order is lurking.” He grinned again, teasing.
“Oh, thanks,” Liv said.
“Pack?” Kip asked as Gavin swept out of the room. “I don’t even own anything!”
Chapter 54
The prisoner studied the dead man. “I’m going to kill you,” he said quietly.
“I don’t die easy,” the dead man said, his mouth twitching. He was seated opposite Dazen, in his wall, knees folded, hands in his lap, his pose a mockery of Dazen’s own. He glanced at the carefully woven rag in Dazen’s lap. “Who would have thought?” the dead man mused. “Gavin Guile, so patient, so quiet, so content doing women’s work.”
Dazen studied his handiwork. Woven of his own hair as tight as he could manage with calm cool blue flowing through his body, he wasn’t even sure how long he’d spent on it. Weeks, maybe. It made almost a skullcap, a small bowl. He studied the shiny interior. Finding, perhaps, a flaw, he took a long but perfectly round fingernail and scraped it around his nose, over his forehead in methodical strokes. Harvesting the accumulated skin and, more importantly, the precious oil with another fingernail, Dazen smeared the oil carefully onto the flaw.
He was only going to get one chance. After years and years, he wasn’t going to mess it up.
With a steady hand and skin filled with blue, he gathered more oil and smeared it on the