The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,168

to hurt him.

This is no good, T. You need to expel this poison.

I chose this path. Dumbass that I am, I chose this.

Halfcock rolled off his lover, and Teia saw the reason the slattern had been gasping. The Blackguard’s flag was only flying at half mast now, and Teia saw the full extent of the sarcasm behind his name.

Sure, a woman’s body can stretch. We give birth, after all. But I can’t imagine that even a woman who spoke with the fuzzy nostalgia of the ‘ultimate feminine beauty’ of pushing a baby into the light would want that kind of experience every time she made love.

And yet, hierovagus over there lay basking in juicy cetacean satiety.

She gazed at Halfcock with unabashed adoration.

“I don’t want to keep hiding us,” she said. “My son should know—”

He froze, trousers half-laced. Then he finished angrily. “Get the hell out. We’re not talking about this again. I’m gonna be late for duty as is.”

“Don’t be angry with—”

“The hell I won’t!” he said. “I can’t believe you.”

“Next week?” she asked, not moving from the bed.

“Up!” he said. “You’re leaving first. You cannot sleep here. You gotta get back. Gimme your key. Eliazar can’ t—”

“You’ll be here, though? Next week?” she asked.

He sighed. “Yes. Now, would you hurry?”

“And we’ll talk?” she asked, getting up and pulling her dress over her head.

“Yes, yes!” he said.

She got dressed and pulled on a cloak as he dressed, too. He glanced toward the open back door, which they had never taken notice of all this time, and slammed it in Teia’s face.

It scared her, though she knew she was invisible.

She heard no more raised voices, and two minutes later, the door opened again. She saw that the lanterns were extinguished in the room behind Halfcock, the front door barred, the folded blankets stacked, and the bedcovers pristine once more. He’d made his lover leave first, then cleaned up. The man might be in a hurry, but he simply couldn’t leave a mess.

Too long living in a barracks does things to you.

The paryl was ready. Teia was ready. Through the velvet pistol bag at Halfcock’s right hip, her paryl revealed the exact forward tilt of its grip. A scabbarded short sword was on his left hip.

She’d have to be quick.

Halfcock turned to close and lock the door, key in hand.

Before the door swung shut, she launched herself at the big Blackguard. With fingers of paryl, she enervated both of his knees just before she slammed a shoulder into the small of his back.

She drove his face and body into the door, her hands snatching at the pistol and the short sword.

Her timing was flawless.

Halfcock slammed through the door, smacking his face against the rough wood and careening to the ground inside.

His falling made the pistol bag and the scabbard both pull hard in her grasp, but Teia held on to both of them. She flicked them out behind her into the street. No time to examine the workings or check the load of an unfamiliar pistol, and her shoulder and face were throbbing from where she’d hit the big man. What was he, made of solid rock?

She kept her feet, though, which kept her clear of him. That and disarming him made it a victory, despite the fact that the collision had stunned her, too.

Halfcock’s reflexes were better than she’d hoped, though. A lesser man would have been immobilized. Instead, he tried to launch himself up to his feet a moment before Teia could get a paryl grip on his spine.

His legs below the knee didn’t obey him, and he fell again, farther into his house.

She flicked a kick at his neck.

It caught him mostly across his jaw instead. He rolled with the blow, his legs jamming against the doorframe, and the motion broke the paryl crystals paralyzing his knees.

Teia hesitated. On the long list of things she didn’t want right now, getting stuck in an enclosed space with a bigger and stronger fighter was pretty high up. But she couldn’t get the angle to get at his spine from here.

The advantages of being inside the little house—where they wouldn’t be heard or interrupted—were only advantages if he was paralyzed. Her invisibility was far less helpful in a tight space, where she could be trapped.

But she had to attack or he’d escape and regroup.

She dodged in, kicking, just as he rolled head over heels farther into the house. She was aiming to stab the point of her boot into his kidney, but