The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,335

Anyway, the different narcotics they tried at first were too obvious when used at the doses necessary. I actually don’t know if they ever found what they were looking for, but they stumbled across this: lacrimae sanguinis. Eaten or drunk, this poison takes a few hours to make its way to the eyes—I’ve not had enough occasion to practice to find out how long exactly. But in a few hours, it sets somehow. It crystallizes within the eyes. Then, upon the pupil contracting or dilating strongly, the poison’s released into the body.

“One drop is supposed to be able to kill a dozen men. I’ll give you two. Then I’ll leave my drapes open. You’ll have pleasant poppy dreams all night, and when light flashes over the horizon with the dawn of Sun Day, you’ll die instantly.” He cleared his throat again. “It is as kind as I can be while I do what I must.”

“That . . . does sound very kind,” Teia said.

There was nothing else to say. She’d failed. This was the end for her.

Her heart pushed through the thickets of panic and found, suddenly, the barren plains of resignation. Her breath slid from her mouth like a bit falling from her teeth.

She felt strangely better. Death wasn’t the freedom she’d choose, but it was one kind of freedom.

Unless there was a hell.

She’d find out soon enough.

“Just the one tooth?” she asked, her voice level and scoured clean of fear.

With a slurping sound, he took out his dentures and set them aside. He began washing his hands in a basin, with soap. But even still, he never took his eyes off her for more than an instant. There would be no surprising him with paryl.

“Oh, I pride myself on my tidiness. I won’t deface you unnecessarily.” He dried his hands on a pretty, nicely folded cloth, unhurried. There was some element of ritual, of nearly erotic fixation, barely contained, in his voice. “I want you to know, Teia, I’ll think of you always when I wear them.”

“You’ll help my father?” she asked.

He put a blindfold over her head, but didn’t lower it over her eyes yet.

He stared at her in the half dark of the hidden chamber for a long moment. A last, guttering goodness flickered in his eyes. She hoped it was an assent.

“Open your mouth,” he commanded, filling a tiny silver spoon full of dark liquid. Behind him on his table sat shining tools: a jaw stretcher, pliers, more awful things. She’d not be able to see or speak once he got to work on her.

“Murder?” she said.

“Yes, Adrasteia?”

“Fuck you.”

He flashed a sudden grin, showing broken stubs of teeth beneath his gleaming, violet-shrapnel eyes. “They all say that.”

She opened her mouth and accepted the bitter drops.

Chapter 98

One day wasn’t nearly enough time to get ready, but through the triple miracles of preparation, competence, and the total focus of every human on the Jaspers, things were actually coming together. Kip had meetings with Tisis and the generals. Tisis would be managing Corvan Danavis’s scouts and intel, and the generals simply needed to hear Kip say to their faces that he really did want them to follow every order Corvan Danavis gave them. It was worth the half hour Kip spent recounting all of Danavis’s exploits and brilliance and showing Kip’s own absolute faith in the man. These generals would be repeating the stories to their own men and women. Plus, they needed to see that what Kip was doing was intimately tied to their success.

He spent all of two minutes with his wife that weren’t practical and tactical.

“Have you seen Ben-hadad?” Kip asked. “I could really, really use his big brain on this.”

“No,” Tisis said. “I haven’t seen Cruxer, either.”

Kip felt the cold hand of dread around his heart. They knew the Order was here. “What?” he said. “I assumed he was with you, making sure the new members of the Mighty were squared away.”

“I know, and I thought he’d be here. But none of the others have seen them, either. Ben I could imagine disappearing to work on something he thought was important and forgetting to tell anyone. But Cruxer? Kip, he was really upset about Ironfist’s betrayal . . . and then Ironfist shows up half dead . . .”

Ironfist hadn’t woken. It wasn’t certain that he would.

“Orholam have mercy,” Kip said. He swallowed.

“I’ll let you know the instant I hear anything,” Tisis said. He saw the agony in her eyes, but there was also