The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,79

cooking, like something was deeply wrong, deeply unsafe about the outer-spectrum color. With a sudden shot of hot fear like whiskey in his belly, he wondered if the same death taking this woman was growing in his own bones at this very moment.

Gently, he said again, “Please. Tell me.”

The gathering storm of her righteous indignation frayed and scattered. Her lifted chin descended. The pulsing gold light slowed to a normal pace. A sigh released the last of her resistance.

“Our ancestors thought our cancers were a sign of a god’s displeasure at some sin they’d committed. The priests said they bore the tumors as punishment on the people’s behalf. They used their own suffering to control the people—even as they desperately searched for cures. Over many generations of careful notes, they figured out that chi kills everyone, even our families, if we have them. The more chi we use, the faster we die. Generally. Not always. This is my tenth year. It’s quite long, as we reckon such things. I’m lucky, most say.”

“You use chi for the Great Mirror?” Kip asked. “I thought the mirrors were controlled with superviolet.”

She inclined her head, and Kip couldn’t help but glance at features shaped as if by an angry child mashing clay. “May I put my raiments back on?” she asked. “For your protection . . . but for my vanity, too.”

For my protection? What the hell does that mean?

“Of course,” he said instead.

“I’ll take you to the Great Mirror. It’ll answer your questions better than I can.”

Chapter 21

The warm, compassionate light of orange dawn had thawed Teia’s iced fury. A little. Karris was unworthy of Teia’s service, but Teia’d given too much to earn her position to serve poorly just because her commander was shit. She was better than that.

And to be fair, unlike Karris, Teia hadn’t had to kill any of her friends to do her job. That had to take some getting used to, she guessed.

So before coming back to the Blackguard barracks, she’d dropped off a coded note for Karris in one of their dead drops. Teia couldn’t bear actually speaking to the woman right now, but Karris deserved to know her husband was alive.

She was going to be furious that Teia hadn’t told her right away. But Teia would deal with that later. Or never.

For now, she needed to find a safe place, if only to sleep. She would need to prepare, to hide whatever money and materials she stole—and she’d need to steal, which she hated. She’d need a place to eat, and sew disguises, and wash laundry. She’d scouted extra places before, but none of those that she’d already used would work. She had to start from zero.

Disappearing completely was the only way to be safe. To be a ghost.

Anything less could get her father killed.

Sleep, though. Sleeping sounded better than, better than . . . she didn’t know what. She was exhausted and it was coloring her every thought with a gray stupidity and every movement with black-and-blue clumsiness. She’d been up since before dawn yesterday, and not five minutes of that time had been the pink, pleasant kind of wakefulness, where you could drift in an unfocused haze.

The first and most hazardous step of her preparations was stopping at the Blackguard barracks and her old bunk. Yesterday morning, she hadn’t grabbed the extra coin stick and pistol and tailor’s kit she’d hidden under her bunk. She wouldn’t have needed them if she’d gone on the ship as the Old Man ordered. Now the danger of going back to the barracks was outweighed by all the dangers she would be able to avoid later if she had the coins and pistol.

Simply by selling the pistol, she could get enough coin to rent a room for months in Overhill.

And hell, she was already here.

Despite the early-morning hour, Gill Greyling was seated on the side of his bunk. He blinked slowly, unseeing, staring at his dead brother’s empty bunk. Stubble darkened his cheeks, and his uniform was wrinkled. He’d obviously been up all night.

Her breath froze inside her. So it was true.

Not that there had been much question, but it still seemed impossible. Gavin Greyling? Dead? Gav?

Teia’s earlier black rage was washing out with the dawn, and she was afraid what weaknesses the new day’s light would reveal.

Coming here was a terrible mistake.

She swallowed. Checked her paryl drafting, her invisibility, everything. It was all still in place.

All right. Breathe. Breathe.

There was nothing for her to do here. She