The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks Read Free Book Online Page B

chased him, and I beat him with my fists, and I threw him off the roof.”
    Kip swallowed. Ironfist had chased an assassin, unarmed, across rooftops, and killed a man armed with a poisoned blade—when he was
fourteen
?
    Ironfist paused, examining Kip’s burned hand. He gestured for the ointment the chirurgeons had given Kip and rubbed it on the raw skin. Kip hissed and clenched every muscle in his body to keep from crying out.
    “You need to stretch your fingers,” Ironfist said. “All day, every day. If you don’t, your fingers will tighten up into claws in no time. The scars will freeze your palm and fingers, and you’ll have to split your skin open just to move. Take a little pain now or a lot later.”
    This was a
little
pain?
    Commander Ironfist went back to his story as he wrapped Kip’s hand in fresh bandages. “The point isn’t that I’m a hard man, Kip. The point is I made mistakes. My mother was trained in
dawat
, our tribe’s martial art. Not highly proficient, but trained well for a civilian. If I hadn’t come in the room and she hadn’t been worried for me, she could have fended him off until her guards came. And once I chased him down, I shouldn’t have killed him. We could have found out who sent him.”
    “But you were just a boy,” Kip said. Having his hand wrapped back up and immobile was like crawling back into a warm bed on a cold morning.
    “And so are you,” Commander Ironfist said. Kip started to protest, but Commander Ironfist wasn’t finished. “Even if you weren’t, I’ve seen grown men and women make worse mistakes in battle. If we naturally made good decisions in battle, there’d be no need to train for it.”
    “Did I get people killed? I killed a king, and I still can’t figure out if it was a good thing or not.” The anguish leaked through and Kip’s eyes welled up. He looked away and gritted his teeth, blinking. Stupid. Get control of yourself.
    “I don’t know,” Commander Ironfist said. “But the Color Prince exposed King Garadul on purpose. He wanted him killed. Maybe he’d planned it well in advance. Certainly us capturing Garadul rather than killing him would have tripped him up. General Danavis is very, very good at what he does. He understood in a moment. Most peoplewouldn’t have. Especially not fifteen-year-old boys who’ve never been in a battle before.”
    “But I ignored him. I wanted to kill the king so much I wouldn’t listen to anyone. Anything.” Kip had crushed the king’s head. He could remember the feeling of the man’s skull cracking, brains squishing, blood splurting.
    “You were deep in the grip of your color, Kip. So you blundered. Maybe you precipitated a wider war. Maybe. Maybe the general was wrong. Maybe King Garadul would have been far worse than this prince. We don’t know. Can’t know. It happened. Do better next time. That’s what I do.”
    That’s why you train.
    “Did you ever find out who sent him?” Kip asked.
    “The assassin? My sister thought she did. Let’s head to the galley. It’s time for supper, though not as much as either of us would like.”
    “But did she get her vengeance on the killer?” Kip asked.
    “You might say that.”
    “What’d she do to him?”
    “She married him.”

~Gunner~
     
    Tap. Superviolet and blue.
As his thumb touched, it was like someone had blown out a candle. The world went dark. Eyes useless. But then, a moment later, there was sun, waves washing over him, blinking, bobbing. Seeing his perspective shift while he felt his body utterly motionless made him queasy.
    Tap.
Green solved that in a rush of embodiment, touch restored. He was swimming. A strong body, wiry, naked to the waist. The water is warm, strewn with flotsam.
    Tap. Yellow.
Hearing restored, the shouts of men calling to each other, others screaming in pain or terror. But yellow is more thanthat; it is the logic of man and place. But the yellow in this one isn’t quite right. Disbelieving. The Prism came out