The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,342

quite turtle-bear cute, but I like it.”

“You’re a motherfucker.”

“In more ways than one.”

“That’s all you’ve got for me? Scorn and a card?” Kip asked. “You give them weapons; you give me knowledge. Ordinarily, I’d see deep meaning in that. Today it’s just a distraction. It’s always games and bullshit with you, isn’t it?”

Viewing the cards only took an instant, but it might louse Kip up for hours or days. Another Andross Guile card? How bad might it be to View that? Forget it. Kip would either want to murder the man standing here in front of him, or worse, he might understand him. Either way, Kip might be shaken for hours. Hours he didn’t have.

Andross said, “Also, I’m ready to tell you your family history. Your mother’s history. Your father’s. Your uncle’s. Mine. It’ll be deeply unpleasant for both of us, but perhaps it’s time.”

“Forget it. This is my family,” Kip said, gesturing to the Mighty.

“Your choice,” Andross said, with that air that implied, as ever, that Kip was a fool.

Kip tucked the card away carelessly, like it was trash. “Funny thing is, grandfather, after all the time I’ve spent with you, I’ve come to a belated but very important realization: you just aren’t worth getting to know better. Thanks for the armor. Goodbye.”

He picked up his helm from the slave on the way out. It was a dragon’s head. With fur on it. Sonuvabitch.

Chapter 101

Teia was only half-unlucky. All things considered, that felt pretty good.

Between her capture and falling asleep for ‘just a moment,’ she’d lost much of the day, though she finally wasn’t high anymore. She’d first gone to see if Ben-hadad was still tied up, but he was gone. Rescued, she assumed. Or at least she hoped so.

She wanted to find her friends, to tell them everything. But there was no time to hunt them down. She had other hunting to do.

Atevia Zelorn wasn’t at any of his warehouses; he wasn’t at any of his favorite taverns or brothels on Teia’s way—but he was at his own home. Her favorite wine merchant/serial cheater/Braxian high priest hadn’t left yet.

She crouched invisibly outside one window until he made his excuses to his beautiful wife and headed out for his ‘ long-planned business meeting.’ She said, “Please don’t get drunk tonight? I promised the children we’d attend the predawn pyrotechnics. They’re still having a few, I hear . . . despite everything.”

If Teia had her way, those would be the last words the woman ever said to her husband. Atevia made his promises and headed out, climbing up into a wagon that his slaves had brought around.

Teia timed her own climbing up into the back of the wagon with Atevia climbing up into the front seat so that no one noticed the weight displacement, and then she carefully tucked herself in with the great wine barrels, spreading the master cloak out over herself.

They stopped half an hour later, and men unloaded the barrels and brought them into a dingy little workshop. Teia had gotten very good at taking little glimpses and moving when the timing was right. She dropped off the far side of the wagon so that when the cloak flared from the fall, no one would have a chance to see her momentarily visible legs.

Atevia Zelorn put on a new cowl before he climbed down. This one was lined with fine mail.

The man or woman who received the shipment had one very similar. He or she didn’t speak, and moved carefully, so it wasn’t until Teia risked a blast of paryl through the new person’s clothing that she was able to tell the other figure was a woman.

The woman held up a gloved hand to Atevia, fingers extending, twice.

“Ten minutes. Fine, fine,” Atevia said, putting a growl into his voice. It wasn’t the greatest disguise, but there were more men than women in the Order, so perhaps he figured it was good enough. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

He stepped outside, and the servants opened the barrels. The woman dismissed them and then moved from barrel to barrel. She held a small vial in one hand. It stank. Teia recognized it as a common emetic.

The hell?

But then she understood. The woman sniffed and then tasted each wine in turn, stirring them first with a big ladle.

Satisfied they weren’t poisoned, she put aside the emetic. Then she went to her workbench and pulled out bundles of wrapped vegetation. She worked with the speed and efficiency of a physicker or