The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,134

she didn’t even fight. Couldn’t figure that out. ‘Son of Separation.’ Maybe this is how I separate myself from them.”

He looked up at Teia with sudden resolve. “That’s why I ain’t killed you yet. Not fondness. Not weakness, for sure. You’re gonna be my proof. I’m better than them. Better than your master, better than mine. Better than Orholam Himself, if He’s up there, who didn’t give me one choice since He cursed me with a talent for paryl. I, Elijah ben-Zoheth, am the god who holds you in his hand. I will give you the choice no one ever gave me. You read this folio, and you make your choice. Join us for real, or fight me, or run.

“You join the Order for real, and I’ll never let ’em know you were a spy from the get-go. Or you can run. As long as you leave a trail so it’s clear that you’re running far away, the Order doesn’t have anyone to spare right now to send after you. Or if they send me, now or later, I won’t find you, on my honor. Or, if you’re just that damned stubborn and stupid, and you want to fight . . .” He paused.

He sucked spit through his teeth a few times.

“Tell you what, I’ll be as, uh, what-you-call-it? fair? sporting? generous? as I wish they would’ve been to me. You choose to fight, I won’t tell them even then, unless you blow your own cover. You aren’t supposed to be on the Jaspers at all. I haven’t reported you—and I won’t. But if you side with the Chromeria, I’ll hunt you down myself, and I’ll kill you. No mercy, no second chances. So I guess you’ll have to try to kill me first. It can be a little hunt. That could be fun. We’ll getta see who’s best. Maybe I’ll have a real challenge for once.

“So you choose. You want to join the Order for real, you show up at the Great Fountain tomorrow at noon. If you want to run, you best be on a boat off the Jaspers by then. If you want to fight me, uh . . . hmm . . . don’t do either of those, I guess? Because if you’re not at the Great Fountain at noon, the next time I see you, you die.”

“I understand,” Teia said.

He loosed her bonds, and she rubbed feeling back into her limbs. “Eyes,” he said.

She made sure he could see her eyes weren’t flared to paryl.

“Now, go,” he said, handing her the folio. “You have some reading to do.”

Teia took it carefully.

“No, wait,” Sharp said suddenly. “Uh, if you run, I can’t risk you using one of your old codes in the note, so just address it to your handler and, you know, ‘I’m sorry’ or something. Nothing else. No secret ink or codes or any of that. I’m ready to give you your life, but I don’t need you endangering mine. So just leave that in your old bunk, under the pillow.”

Where Sharp would look at it, of course.

“That would give you their name. I’d be betraying my handler.” Unless I put someone else’s name on it?

Dammit, I could have put that asshole Grinwoody’s name on the note, and the Order would have killed him. Granted, shoving an innocent into the path of an arrow in flight like that wasn’t exactly how a Blackguard was supposed to protect her ward, but between Karris and Grinwoody? Grinwoody could burn.

Shit. Teia’d thought too slow.

“Besides,” Teia said. “If I leave anything without the right codes, my handler will know the Order got to me. Or some random innocent might take it.”

Actually, that last wouldn’t be a problem for Sharp. He didn’t care that the message got through; he only cared to see the name on it.

Again, she wasn’t thinking fast enough.

But he did look confused.

Sharp cursed. “True, true. Uh . . .”

Teia realized then that he really was at a loss. It wasn’t a trap, or a devious plot by the Old Man to confirm her handler was Karris—whom he would surely have suspected.

“Just the words ‘I’m sorry’?” Teia asked. “Then if someone does pass it on to my handler, they might be expected to recognize my handwriting, but no one’s going to learn anything else from it, and if you see it, you’ll know that I’m really—”

“No,” he said. “You’d leave that note to try to trick me, even if you planned to fight me. Sorry, nope.