The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,330

Man was Grinwoody. She didn’t know if Ironfist had had the clarity to realize how important it was to get that out. To Karris only, if possible. Grinwoody would have other people who were in the audience chamber—they would tell him immediately if Ironfist had blurted out his name.

If that happened, Grinwoody might flee forever. Might have already, actually. Dammit.

But first, she had to tell Ben the Old Man’s identity.

She tested the door. It wasn’t locked.

That didn’t seem wise.

“Hey, you two,” Teia said, “please tell me you’re not—”

The room was lit an eerie orange-red from testing lanterns the magisters used to teach discipulae.

But she barely noticed the wave of feeling that hit her with the light when her nostrils were assailed with a familiar smell. Blood.

Teia could see a woman’s body crumpled behind a workbench to her left, and from behind a desk to her right, a pool of blood spread out.

Ben-hadad. No!

Teia jumped—backward. She threw her hood back up and snapped the cowl shut over her face, going fully invisible again. Pulling a long dagger under the cloak, she drew in as much paryl as she could hold and sucked in a breath, then froze.

Nothing.

Was that a moan from behind the heavy desk? Ben-hadad?

She shot a puff of paryl smoke around the corner of the door into the room. The paryl itself would be an attack—and visible to Sharp, if he were here, if he were looking. But there was no sudden violence. Her clouds of paryl didn’t billow around any shape.

If he were in the room, her first move would be vital, and she couldn’t stand at the open door forever. So Teia shot little darts of paryl into every corner of the room, even at the ceiling above the big desk, into the curtains at the window—anywhere large enough to conceal a man.

Nothing.

Only then did Teia turn to look at the woman lying on the ground. Magister Kadah. Teia’s paryl had gone into her chest, where Teia could feel that the woman’s heart was still.

Another moan from behind the desk. Ben!

The orange desire for connection and the red compassion overwhelmed her. Ben-hadad! No, please tell me I didn’t get you killed! I can save you! Teia rushed over to her friend.

At her steps, a scintillant shimmering something concealed in the shadow of the desk itself uncurled. Something smashed across her face.

Her nose fountained blood as she staggered backward.

She saw Ben-hadad first. He lay on the ground, eyes wide, gagged, limbs bound but seemingly unharmed. Crouching over him was Murder Sharp, somehow out of control of his shimmercloak, contiguous patches of it invisible and then flaring colors intermittently.

She was already slashing blindly with her dagger before the first gush of her blood hit the floor. But she felt pinches in both her knees.

Nerveless, her legs buckled under her and she tumbled across the floor. Her elbow went numb.

Before she could think, she felt a hand grabbing her hair. She saw Murder Sharp raising a sap in his other hand. “Ah, Teia,” he said. “I’ve missed you so much.”

His voice was all warm honey, but in his eyes she saw something that made her blood run cold: paryl crystals like purply shrapnel had exploded through the whites of his eyes. Murder Sharp had broken the halo.

He hugged her briefly. “You’re the only one who understands,” he said. “But I should really kill you.”

Then, as he sat back up to sit on her stomach, he slapped her face. Not softly, but it wasn’t hard enough to wound her.

But it did scatter all the paryl she’d been drawing in.

“None of that,” he said, and his voice was softly scolding, as if she were a naughty lover. Her stomach knotted in fear. He’d lost some of his faculties, it seemed, but none of the ones that mattered. He knew exactly how and when she might be dangerous. He was only losing his inhibitions.

That was not good news.

“Nice trap, huh?” he said, pointing to the orange-and-red training light. “Only forgot how susceptible I am to these myself. Seems like it’s gotten worse recently.” He pointed at Ben beside her on the floor, his eyes rolling with rage, tears of helplessness streaming from his eyes. “But you see how kind I’m being to you, Adrasteia? I let your friend live. I never do that.”

He sighed. Stood, and turned out the lights to plunge the room into total darkness.

His voice took on a tone as black as the room. “I wish I could let you