The Burning White

by Brent Weeks

  Every time a lift went past her, she tensed, and tonight, the lifts were never still. Panicky people at first, then guards and Blackguards and Tafok Amagez, then messengers, then nobles, then more messengers all through the night.

  After a few hours, she told herself she had to be patient, that the Old Man was being patient. He needed to get his stuff, but he couldn’t afford to arouse suspicion with the lifts as busy as they were.

  Teia assumed that at some point, Ben-hadad and Magister Kadah would finish their work on the code, so they would meet her here. It had been much longer than six hours now, but surely the woman would eventually get it, right?

  But the night passed. Teia dozed standing, jerking awake every time a lift passed. None ever paused, even for a moment, and the darkness was a warm embrace.

  No one ever came. She’d gambled her hours and lost.

  So sometime after dawn, she made her way to Magister Kadah’s room. Maybe the woman had worked out how to open that door. If not, at least she could give Teia a place to sleep.

  She knocked on the door with their agreed-upon series of taps.

  Shit, Teia thought, she didn’t think she could have missed them. Maybe they’d decided to sleep a few hours to tackle the code afresh.

  Anyway, she definitely needed to tell someone else that the Old 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 live, too.”

  His weird, uncontrolled shimmering pulsed in the darkness, and she saw him illuminated for an instant, raising the sap high his hand, and then he swung it sharply into her temple.

  Chapter 96

  It had been a long night, and Karris’s initial elation at being alive to greet the dawn had long since faded to fear.

  King Ironfist had stayed on his feet for only a few moments after he’d been brought into the audience chamber, clearly conscious through heroic effort of will alone. He’d ordered a stop to Karris’s execution and ordered the deployment of all his troops under High General Danavis’s leadership. Then he’d searched the crowd as if looking for some face, while begging Karris to come aside to hear something private. She went to him instantly, but he’d finally succumbed to his wounds.

  He hadn’t stirred since.

  Naturally, the Chromeria’s best physickers were with him, and his own Tafok Amagez, and Blackguards. There had been some chaos at the lift, apparently a Blackguard had attempted to assassinate him? The Tafok Amagez didn’t trust the Blackguards (understandably enough, Karris thought, though of course the Blackguards were in full denial mode) or the physickers, and the Blackguards didn’t trust the Tafok Amagez or the physickers, and the physickers wanted everyone to get the hell away from their patient.

  Karris had no idea what the private thing Ironfist had hoped to tell her had to do with, and now there was no getting Ironfist away from the Tafok Amagez. After an attempt on their king’s life, they weren’t going to allow anyone near him until he was conscious and safe.

  It was a fight she wished she had time for. She didn’t.

  Sun Day Eve dawned with thousands of Corvan Danavis’s and King Ironfist’s warriors disembarking and carrying supplies to their respective stations. High General Danavis was in his element, orchestrating a million details with ease and efficiency. There were a thousand logjams and bottlenecks that could happen with deploying so many troops and supplies, and with Danavis in charge, people simply were given orders and went, and when they arrived, they found the supplies they needed arriving at the same time, or already there, or arriving immediately after them.

  It was
a level of technical virtuosity that people didn’t even see: of course black powder, wadding, flints or match cord, bullets, and ramrods will arrive in the same place as a thousand muskets, they thought. Of course that place would be centrally located to where the men who were trained in their use and needed them could get them in an orderly and timely fashion. But with what Karris and her luxiats had been doing in the last month to prepare the islands’ defenses, she knew now how hard all of this was, and she simply stood back in awe.

  But not in rest. She had her own details to oversee.

  Not least of which was the fleet visible with the morning sun. At first everyone had assumed they were seeing the vanguard of the White King’s fleet, coming in from the west.

  But this fleet was alone, and small, not followed by an armada—and flying the flags of Ruthgar and the Malargos clan.

  Karris took a skimmer out to them to divine their intentions: Eirene Malargos hadn’t come herself (smart, in case we all die, Karris thought), but Karris learned that her luxiats had prevailed upon Eirene to send everyone they could spare.

  And by ‘her luxiats’ they meant Karris’s luxiats, Karris soon realized, for three of the young men who’d been so convincing to Eirene Malargos had been part of Karris’s little group of faithful scholars.

  ‘Everyone they could send’ seemed an exaggeration, because Malargos had only sent five thousand men. But the five thousand were Ruthgar’s best, and they were outfitted better than any of the other contingents. In addition, Eirene had sent desperately needed supplies. Not only black powder (most precious since Atash had fallen), but also good muskets and, most valuable of all, ten thousand sets of mirror armor.

  Ten thousand!

  Karris had thought all her entreaties to Eirene Malargos had fallen on deaf ears, but all the while the woman had been stockpiling and commissioning gear whose cost must have bankrupted even her. And Eirene had done it all silently, so that it might be kept secret from the White King.

  The rest of Sun Day Eve passed in a blur of preparation: Kip was frantic with his Mirror preparations, too distracted to even talk to her; Andross was entirely absent except for when he popped in and demanded some of her smartest luxiats; Zymun had constant demands (not in person, as she refused to see him, but his messengers sought her out everywhere). The last couldn’t be ignored entirely: there were forty drafters who needed to be Freed tonight, before dawn of Sun Day. Normally, she’d postpone the ceremony entirely, but these drafters were unable to fight and were fearful of what the arrival of the bane would do to them.

  Truth to tell, she was, too. No one wanted them to go rogue at such a time.

  That meant Zymun would get to kill them. The sick little piece of trash. She arranged to have him flanked by the most intimidating Blackguards she could in order to hem in his most disgusting tendencies, armed with strict orders on how to handle him if he got out of line with his somber duties. She also had to make sure he wasn’t armed or accompanied by his Lightguard cronies.

  If Karris hadn’t had so much else to do, maybe she could have done better, but she—and the poor broken drafters who would be Freed—were simply going to have to make do.

  In the afternoon, Koios’s armada was spotted. It was, indeed, as large as Kip had claimed. The Parian fleet that Karris had hoped might save the Chromeria went out to fight them. By attacking with half of his skimmers, the Parian admiral attempted to goad the armada into raising the bane once more. Once those were raised, the armada would lose all mobility.

  But Koios didn’t take the bait, and the admiral wasn’t willing to commit (and thereby lose) all of the skimmers in order to make the prize too tempting to ignore, so the battle devolved into a largely conventional one. Worse, not only did Koios have more ships, but the Parian admiral had emptied his fleet of drafters, lest they be immobilized by the bane as well. The Parians’ superior cannons were matched and finally overmatched by the Blood Robes’ superior magic.

  The sea battle lasted the entire afternoon, but the White King’s fleet was too large, his wights too numerous, and though his barges behind the front ranks were ungainly, the Parian fleet wasn’t able to reach them.

  The Parians broke off after taking heavy losses. They’d inflicted too few in return.

  By evening, in a wide ring on the horizon, the White King’s fleet had encircled the entirety of the Jaspers. They were besieged.

  Orholam, she thought as she watched the sun descend, this is Your fight. Without You in this, we die.

  As the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, she watched for the green flash.

  But there was none.

  Chapter 97

  Teia woke to the sound of a man weeping in the darkness.

  “That fucking bitch! Why’d she have to call me that? This is all her fault. This is some witchery. This is… goddam.”

  Sharp.

  A weight of dread settled on Teia’s chest. She was trapped in black-as-hell darkness with a paryl wight. Her arms were bound in front, hugging herself, elaborate knots under her fingers, and she was wearing… a dress?

  She did not want to think about how she came to be wearing a dress.

  “It’s the darkness,” she said aloud. She didn’t know why she didn’t spend minutes faking sleep while she checked the knots and tried to escape. Maybe because Sharp had always been so masterful with knots. Maybe she had some compassion for the sick, broken wretch.

  Or maybe she was just giving up.

  “Huh?” Sharp barked. “What are you on about?” He sounded angry, embarrassed.

  Perfect.

  “We’re sensitive to darkness, just like we’re sensitive to light. A black mood is literal for us.” No one had told Teia about that part, though she should’ve figured it out long ago. Sharp hadn’t told her, and just as obviously, the effect was exaggerated even further for a paryl drafter who went wight.

  Something flared, shielded by Sharp’s body, and then a flame took—in a special, single-spectrum lantern. The room was illuminated in a monochrome, either red or green.

  If that was green, Teia was not going to do well. Sharp, turned wild when he was already feeling like this?

  But no. She was certain it wasn’t green. She could feel it now.

  Finally, at the end of her life, finally she could tell the difference between green and red. She couldn’t see the difference, but she could feel it: finally she could do consciously what she’d done in that terrible Order ceremony so long ago.

  Not that it did her any good. It was red light. Big deal. She couldn’t draft it, couldn’t use it against Sharp in any way.

  “No, no,” he said at the light. “That’s almost worse. Elijah ben-Zoheth. Damn that Seer.” He strode toward Teia and snatched up a black bag from a table, but he didn’t pull it over her head. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. But ever since she called me that… The Separated One. The Cutoff.” He scrubbed his fingers through his hair angrily. “I wanted you to be the one, Teia. You’re the only one who could understand me, you know? You know, you’d be my disciple, and you’d look up to me, and you’d ask me things. You’d rely on me. And, and as you got more and more experienced, our relationship would change. We’d become partners, with a profound respect between us, and have a thousand adventures, and then one day you’d look at me, and you would still see all this”—he gestured awkwardly toward his face—his teeth, Teia realized—“but you wouldn’t care. You wouldn’t care that I’m older, and I’d say, ‘No, no, no you have to find someone your own age,’ but you’d set yourself to winning me over and…”

  Red light. It was definitely, definitely red light.

  Wait. What was he talking about?

  “Ridiculous, huh?” He looked up at her face just as her first shock had worn away to be replaced with revulsion.

  He saw her expression, and his own darkened instantly.

  Ah, shit, Teia. A little pretending would’ve gone a long way right there.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said hoarsely.
“Stupid. Instead we gotta do it this way.”

  “How’d you find me?” Teia said quickly.

  “You really gonna try to stall me?”

  “You did kidnap me a second time. If that wasn’t to talk over our little contest, why would you do that?”

  “No, it wasn’t that. More the loneliness. So maybe sort of? But more for… another reason. A darker one.” He scowled at the candle. Reds were not known for their deviousness. He threw the bag over her head, and then she heard the flare of a candle again. A normal one, apparently, because he sighed. “Oh, that’s much better. Don’t know why it’s affecting me so bad these days.”

  “You know, I ran across you at the corner of Farbod and Low,” she said. What time was it? How long had she been unconscious? Were they underground?

  “Really? Why didn’t you kill me there?” Sharp asked.

  “Thought I had a chance at the Old Man. I followed him instead,” she said.

  “You always did have guts,” he said. “But now, tell me, why didn’t you come after your father? I sat on him for weeks waiting for you to make your move.”

  “You did?” she said. “I had no idea where he was.” Still don’t.

  “What?! I left hints everywhere! I mean, I went to all your old haunts and left things that’d point you to him. Blackguard taverns. Parks you liked. That place where you bought fruit.”

  “Well, I was avoiding those places because I thought you’d be stalking me at them.” He’d known where she bought fruit?

  “Huh. Good thought,” Murder said. “Great discipline. You always had great discipline. Just tended to try things that were a little much for your skills. It’s too bad.”

  “So how did you find me?” Teia asked. She did not like him using the past tense about her.

  “When your friends came. The Mighty. I knew you’d go to them right away. Trouble was, there’s a bunch of them. But Kip and Ben-hadad split off from the others. Really thought you’d go for your old bed buddy first, see if he wanted a quick roll while his wife’s head was turned. But then I camped out on Ben-hadad. Scared the hell out of me once I realized they were working on cracking open the Old Man’s office! I was like, Do I go report this right away, or wait? So I split the difference and waited until they had the solution—or thought they did. Anyway, I knew you’d come. How could you help it? Patience is so key in our work, isn’t it?” He sighed. “Forget about earlier. Don’t know what got into me. Never been the sensitive type before.”