The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,98

from it.

The convulsing, gulping mouth of this greatest of the sea demons was the long-pursuing mouth of hell itself.

At the last moment it closed its great cruciform jaw to bring its head like a bony war hammer up and against the stern on the starboard side.

The collision lifted and crumpled the ship against the reef. Gavin saw the coral punch in the portside hull, tearing forecastle from deck as wanton boys fighting over an old book might tear off a cover.

The flexing mast, first bent from the shock of the collision with the sea demon and then loosed with the shock of the collision with the reef, catapulted Gavin skyward. His three-fingered hand hadn’t a prayer of holding him. He twisted out into the air hopelessly, as sea and sky spun fast beneath him.

And then darkness opened its maw and swallowed him.

Chapter 25

Teia was being paranoid. She was sure of it.

Pretty sure.

The best thing about the near-total invisibility that the shimmercloak granted her wasn’t the invisibility, not today. It was the ‘ near-total’ part. Total invisibility might allow her to relax. Instead, using the cloak here took everything Teia had: constant drafting to maintain the paryl cloud necessary to defeat any errant sub-red who would otherwise see a warm ghost passing by, will to activate the cloak, skill to follow how the cloak split the light hitting it at each moment, bending it around her form. Most Shadows—the Order’s shimmercloak-using assassins—wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t, maybe.

Teia had to keep moving, and that meant she had to pay attention to any places where sources of paryl light weren’t available. Those were rare, but given that being stuck with no paryl meant discovery, and discovery meant death, it was still important to look out for. Using the cloak while dodging all the churning humanity that shot through the Lily’s Stem and into the turning flower that was the Chromeria itself took all her vigilance, all her dexterity, all her athleticism at moments that couldn’t be predicted. That was the gift: not thinking.

In this past year, she’d adjusted to the quick glances necessary to keep her eyes unseen, to the dodging and darting while keeping the cloak tight about her form so her feet wouldn’t show. She knew when to be visible and when to disappear, when to gather luxin and pack it so that she’d never be without if she had to dodge indoors or to some dark area where paryl was scarce.

But there was something in one’s mind that refused to believe one was truly unseen. It was too unnatural. When eyes crossed one’s face, something in the mind fiercely held that one had been ignored but wasn’t actually invisible.

Thus, the paranoia that popped up at irregular intervals—a sticky, oily feeling, like a predator’s eyes were on you in your bath.

And right now the feeling was strong.

The entrance to the luxin bridge called the Lily’s Stem was a natural choke point. Here half a dozen of Andross Guile’s Lightguards stood watch. They were thugs one and all, armed with muskets and blunderbusses smarter than most of them. Less conspicuously, four Blackguards would be somewhere farther back. Teia took her time finding them, hanging to the edges of the crowd so she wouldn’t be bowled over while she searched. Being terrifically short was terrific when you wanted to disappear in a crowd, and horrific when you wanted to find anyone else.

She found them all, and knew them all. Not one was a sub-red or superviolet.

So she should relax a little.

But she couldn’t. She kept flaring her eyes to paryl, kept circling, kept searching, searching, gnawing on that feeling like she was one of those tiny dogs trained to run in a wheel that turned a spit for cooking, and she’d been thrown an ox bone and couldn’t crack it open with her weak little jaws.

She couldn’t draft paryl or keep the cloak working forever, though.

Fine, I’m afraid. Since when has that stopped me?

She moved, slipping into the stream of humanity passing gushing into and then out of the Lily’s Stem. The waves battered the covered luxin bridge as effectually as her fears. She moved fast, as fast as she could, riding right at the edge of foolhardiness. If her worst nightmare was true, and she was being pursued by some other Shadow, sent to murder her for her disobedience and to reclaim their Fox Cloak, they’d have a hard time matching this pace. Teia was damn good at this now.

Coming upon the exit