by Brent Weeks
“Elene, wait,” Kylar said. “Wait, just tell me one thing.” She stopped and looked at him, confused, terrified and hopeful at the same time, her eyes full of tears. “Who was it who gave you those scars? It wasn’t Durzo, was it? It was Rat, right?”
“You come back from the dead to ask me that? Of course it was Rat!” She fled.
“Wait! Elene, I’m sorry!” He tried to move, but it seemed he’d used up all his strength to sit up. She was gone. “Wait, what the hell am I sorry about?”
Uly looked at Kylar accusingly. “You aren’t going to let her go, are you?”
Kylar held onto the edge of the bed like a lifeline. He looked at Uly, and raised a hand helplessly—and had to quickly put it down to keep from falling over. “How can I stop her?”
Uly stomped her foot and stormed out of the room.
Momma K was laughing, but it was a different laughter than he’d heard from her before, deeper, fuller, truly happy, as if with the same act of will that had made her choose life, she’d set aside her cynicism. “I know what you’re thinking, Kylar. Durzo lied to you when he told you he’d hurt Elene. Of course he did. It was the only way he could save you. You had to kill him to succeed him. The ka’kari couldn’t complete the bond until its former master died.”
They sat there in silence, Kylar thinking of how Durzo’s death cast his life in a completely different light. It was disconcerting to think how wrong he’d been about his master, thinking him so hateful—actually believing Durzo was capable of mutilating Doll Girl—but Kylar liked the picture that was emerging. Durzo Blint, the legend, had been Acaelus Thorne, the hero. Kylar wondered how many other heroes’ names his master had worn. He felt a stabbing pain, an emptiness in his stomach, a surge toward tears that he suppressed. “I’m going to miss him,” he said, his throat tight.
Momma K’s eyes mirrored his. “Me too. But it’s going to be all right. I don’t know why, but I really believe that.”
Kylar nodded. “So you decided to live,” he said, blinking tears away. He didn’t want to break down in front of Momma K.
“And so did you.” She arched an eyebrow at him, somehow holding both grief and happiness and amusement in her eyes all at once. “She loves you, Kylar. Whether she realizes it or not. She dragged you out of the castle by herself. She refused to leave you. Jarl’s men found her. It was only when they got you here that Uly saw your wounds were healing.”
“She’s furious with me,” Kylar said.
“Furious the way a woman in love gets. I know.”
“Have you told Uly who her mother is?” Kylar asked.
“No, and I never will. I won’t raise her into this.”
“She needs a family.”
“I was hoping you and Elene would be interested in the job.”
Night came to the east shore of the Plith River in a smothering cloud. The city had been burning all day and the night winds wafted the smell over the entire city. Fires reflected in the Plith, and low-hanging clouds held the ashy air like a pillow against the face of the city.
A wagon clattered down a street, its driver hunched, face muffled against the malodorous air. He overtook a crippled woman with a bent back and a foot turned sideways.
“Want up?” his scratchy voice asked.
The woman turned expectantly. Her face too was muffled, but her eyes were young, though both eyes had been blackened.
Her Khalidoran driver was supposed to be dark-haired and fat. This man was white-haired, lean as a rail, stooped and almost lost in his clothes. She shook her head and turned away.
“Please, Elene?” Kylar asked with his own voice.
She flinched. “I should be scared of you, shouldn’t I?”
“I’d never hurt you,” he said.
Eyebrows above the eyes he’d blackened lifted incredulously.
“Well, not really hurt you.”
“What are you doing?” she asked, looking around. There was no one else out on the streets.
“I’d like to take you away from here,” Kylar said, brushing back his bleached hair and smiling through his makeup. “You and Uly both. We can go anywhere. I’m going to pick her up next.”
“Why me, Kylar?”
He was dumbfounded. “It’s always been you. I l—”
“Don’t you say you love me,” she said. “How could you love this?” She jerked the scarf down and pointed at her scars. “How could you love a freak?”
He shook his head. “I don’t love your scars, Elene. I hate them—”
“And you’ll never see past that.”
“I’m not finished,” he said. “Elene, I’ve watched over you since we were children. For a long time, you’re right, I couldn’t see past your scars. I’m not going to give you some crap that they’re beautiful. Your scars are ugly, but you aren’t, Elene. The woman I see when I look at you is amazing. She’s smart, she’s got a quick tongue, and she’s got such a heart that it makes me believe that people can be good despite all I’ve seen to the contrary for my whole life.”
His words were sinking into her, he could tell. Oh, Momma K, tell me I learned something about words from you. Tell me I learned something despite myself.
Elene’s hands waved like little birds. “How can you say that? You don’t know me!”
“Aren’t you still Doll Girl?”
Her hands came down, the little birds fluttering to rest. “Yes,” she said. “But I don’t think you’re still Azoth.”
“No,” he admitted. “I’m not. I don’t know who I am. Right now, I only know I’m not my master and I won’t live like he did.”
Hope seemed to leach out of her. “Kylar,” she said, and he saw that the name was a deliberate choice, “I will always be grateful to you. But we would be a disaster. You would destroy me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Momma K said your master intercepted all my letters.”
“Yes, but I’ve had a busy afternoon catching up,” Kylar said.
She smiled sadly. “And you still don’t understand?”
Do girls ever make sense? He shook his head.
“When we were children, you were the one who protected me, who looked out for me. You were the one who put me with a real family. I wanted to be with you forever. Then when I was growing up, you were my benefactor who made me special. You were my secret young lord whom I loved so desperately and so foolishly. You were my Kylar, my poor nobleman that the Drake girls told me stories about. Then you were the one who came to save me in gaol.”
He paused and paused. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Oh, Kylar. What happens to that silly girl when it turns out I’m not good enough for the man I’ve loved for my whole life?”
“You not good enough?”
“It’s a fairy tale, Kylar. I don’t deserve it. Something will happen. You’ll find somebody prettier or you’ll get tired of me, and then you’ll leave me, and I’ll never recover, because the only kind of love I have to offer is stupid and blind and so deep and powerful that I feel like I’m cracking just to hold it in. I can’t just swoon and fall into bed with you, because you’ll hop right out and get on with your life, and I never will.”
“I’m not asking you to make love with me.”
“So I’m too ugly for—”
He couldn’t say a damn thing right. “Enough!” he roared, emotion filling his voice so suddenly that it shocked her into silence. “I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Elene. And the purest. And the best. But I’m not asking you to fuck!”
Consternation played over her features, but she obviously didn’t like being yelled at.
“Elene,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I yelled. I’m sorry I hit you—even if it was to save you. I’ve thought I was dying twice in the last few days—maybe I did die, I don’t know. What I do know is that when I thought I was dying, you were my regret. No! Not your scars,” he said as she touched her face. “I regretted that I hadn’t
turned myself into the kind of man that you could be with. That it wouldn’t be just for me to be with you, even if you wanted me. Our lives started in the same shit hole, Elene, but somehow you’ve turned into you, and I’ve turned into this. I don’t like what I’ve done. I don’t like who I’ve become. You don’t deserve a fairy tale? I don’t deserve another chance, but I’m asking you for one. You’re afraid that love is too risky? I’ve seen what happens when you don’t risk it. Momma K and my master loved each other, but they were too afraid to risk it and that destroyed them. We risk everything either way.
“I’m willing to risk it to see the world through your eyes, Elene. I want to know you. I want to be worthy of you. I want to look in the mirror and like who I see. I don’t know what’s next, but I know I want to face it with you. Elene, I’m not asking you to fuck. But maybe some day, I’ll earn the right to ask you for something more permanent.” He turned, and facing her was harder than facing thirty highlanders. He extended his hand. “Please, Elene. Will you come with me?”
She scowled fiercely at him, then looked away. Her eyes were shiny with tears, but it could have been from all the ash in the air. She blinked quickly before looking back up at him. She searched his face for a long moment. He met her big brown eyes. He had turned away from them so many times, afraid she would see what he really was. He had turned away, afraid that she couldn’t bear the sight of his filth. Now he met that gaze. He opened himself to it. He didn’t hide his darkness. He didn’t hide his love. He let her gaze go all the way through him.
To his wonder, her eyes filled with something softer than justice, something warmer than mercy.
“I’m so scared, Kylar.”
“Me too,” he said.
She took his hand.
Acknowledgments
I t was all downhill after seventh grade. That was the year my English teacher, Nancy Helgath, somehow made me cool when she encouraged me to read Edgar Allan Poe to my classmates at lunch. They sat goggle-eyed as I read “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “Berenice,” and “The Raven.” But I had eyes for only one: the tall, smart girl I had a crush on—and was terrified of—Kristi Barnes.
I soon started my first novel. I would go on to become an English teacher and a writer, and marry Kristi Barnes.
This book wouldn’t have happened without my mother—for more than the obvious reason. I started reading late, and when I did, I hated it. This wasn’t helped by a teacher who shouted “Choppy sentences!” at me for my inability to read aloud smoothly in the first grade. My mom took me out of school for a year to home school me (insert social awkwardness joke here), and her dedication and patience gave me a love for reading.
Thank you to my little sisters, Christa and Elisa, who begged for bedtime stories. An enthusiastic and forgiving audience is a must for a budding teenage storyteller. Any princesses in my books are their fault.
It’s one thing to love reading; it’s another to write. My high school English teacher, Jael Prezeau, is a teacher in a million. She inspired hundreds. She’s the kind of woman who could chew you out, cheer you on, make you work harder than you’ve ever worked for a class, give you a B, and make you love it. She told me I couldn’t break the grammar rules she taught me until I was published. It was a rule up with which I could not put. She tried.
In college, I briefly considered politics. Horror. A few people turned me from disaster. One was an industrial spy I met in Oxford. On reading a story I’d written, he said, “I wish I could do what you do.” Huh? Then my best friend Nate Davis became the editor of our college literary journal and held a contest for the best short story. Wonder of wonders, I won the cash prize, and realized I’d earned slightly better than minimum wage. I was hooked. (It was better than I would do again for a long, long time.) I started a new novel, and whenever I tried to do my homework, I could count on Jon Low to come knocking on my door. “Hey, Weeks, you got another chapter for me yet?” It was irritating and flattering at once. I had no idea I was being prepared for having an editor.
I must thank the Iowa Writers Program for rejecting me. Though I still sometimes wear all black and drink lattes, they helped me decide to write the kind of books I like rather than the books I ought to like.
My debt to my wife, Kristi, cannot be overstated. Her faith kept me going. Her sacrifices awe me. Her wisdom has rescued me from many a story dead end. To get published, you have to defy overwhelming odds; to marry a woman like Kristi, you have to knock them out.
My agent Don Maass has an understanding of story that I’ve not seen rivaled. Don, you’ve been a reality check, a wise teacher, and an encourager. You make me a better writer.
Huge thanks to the amazing editorial team at Orbit. Devi, thanks for your many insights, your enthusiasm, and your guidance ushering me through an unfamiliar process. Tim, thanks for taking a chance on me. Jennifer, you were my first contact at Orbit, and I have to tell you, the fact that I’d e-mail you a question and get an answer the same morning was a big deal. Of course, then you started sending me paperwork—and then I knew I wasn’t dreaming. Alex, thanks for your brilliant Web page design, the beautiful billboards, full page scratch-and-sniff ads in the New York Times, and those nifty little cardboard display stands at Borders. They’re fab. Lauren, thank you for taking my ones and zeros and making something real. Hilary, copyeditor extraordinaire, a special thanks for two words: bollock dagger. They made the novel.
I also want to thank all the other people at Orbit and Hachette who do the real work while we artists sit in cafés wearing black, drinking lattes. I’d mention you by name, but I don’t know your names. However, I do appreciate what you do to take my words and make something out of them. So, layout people, art people (by the way, Wow!), office go-fers, accountants, lawyers, and the mail guy, thanks.
Crazy dreamers need a lot of encouragers. Kevin, your being proud of me is about the best thing a little brother can get. Dad, one of my first memories is of sharing my worry with you about the space shuttle poking holes in the atmosphere and letting out all of Earth’s air. Rather than rushing to correct me, you listened—and still do. Jacob Klein, your encouragement and friendship over the years have been invaluable. You were there at the very beginning (4 A.M. in Niedfeldt, I think). To the Cabin Guys at Hillsdale College (Jon “Missing Link” Low, Nate “My Head Looks Like PK’s Butt” Davis, AJ “My Girlfriend Will Clean It Up” Siegmann, Jason “I Love Butter” Siegmann, Ryan “Mystery Puker” Downey, Peter “GQ” Koller, Charles “Sand Vest” Robison, Matt “No Special Sauce” Schramm), I couldn’t have shared a slum house with better wangs. Dennis Foley, you were the first professional writer who gave me time and guidance. You said you’d tell me if I should give up and get a real job—and that I shouldn’t. Cody Lee, thanks for the unbridled enthusiasm; it still makes me smile. Shaun and Diane McNay, Mark and Liv Pothoff, Scott and Kariann Box, Scott and Kerry Rueck, Todd and Lisel Williams, Chris Giesch, Blane Hansen, Brian Rapp, Dana Piersall, Jeff and Sandee Newville, Keith and Jen Johnson—thanks for believing in us and helping make the years of work and waiting not just tolerable, but fun.
Thanks to everyone over the years who, on finding out I was a writer, didn’t ask, “Oh, are you published?”
Last, thanks to you, curious reader who reads acknowledgments. You do realize the only people who usually read acknowledgments are looking for their own name, right? If you’re quirky enough to read acknowledgments without knowing the author, you and I are going to get along fine. Picking up a book by an author you’ve never read is a leap of faith. Here’s my offer: you give me a couple of pages, and I’ll give you a helluva ride.
Extras
meet the author
BRENT WEEKS was born and raised in Montana. After getting his paper keys from Hillsdale College, Brent had brief stints walking the earth like Caine from Kung Fu, tending bar, and corrupting the youth. (Not at the same time.) He started writing on bar napkins, then on lesson plans, then full time. Eventually, someone paid him for it. Brent l
ives in Oregon with his wife, Kristi. He doesn’t own cats or wear a ponytail. Find out more about the author at www.brentweeks.com.
interview
What professions were you involved with before becoming a writer?
I came to writing backwards, by which I mean directly. Most writers have a long list of strange jobs they held before they settled into writing. I’ve known I wanted to be a novelist since I was thirteen. I figured that instead of doing something practical that made money until I was old enough to have the leisure to try, I’d just try. To support myself, I worked as a bartender and then as an English teacher. When we married, my wife and I decided I would write full-time. Unless your spouse thinks being poor is romantic and is tremendously patient, unbelievably supportive, and basically unconcerned about owning toys, this is a recipe for disaster. For us, it worked.
Do you mainly read fantasy fiction or are there other genres that you enjoy?
Fantasy is my first love, but like most writers my reading habits are fairly promiscuous. I love reading history because it breaks you free of some of your own culture’s preconceptions while staying within the bounds of human psychology. If you read something totally outlandish in a fantasy novel, you think, meh, whatever. If you read something totally outlandish in history, you think, how did that happen? How did people accept that? It’s also fun because you find places where other novelists have “borrowed.” I was reading about the Borgias in sixteenth-century Italy and it slapped me in the face—Pope Alexander VII was the Godfather, complete with dysfunctional kids. I checked into it, and Mario Puzo readily admits it. I also dabble with mysteries and whatever’s on the best-seller rack, and I’m a recovering literature major.
The Night Angel Trilogy has a very dark and gritty concept. How did you derive the idea for it?
There are a lot of answers to this question.
First, few writers admit this, but coming up with ideas is the hard part of writing. I pay a guy in Bulgaria to do it for me. Then I do the easy part and make a novel out of it. No, actually, ideas come from a secret email discussion list in New York City. You can’t get on the list until you’re published, but you can’t get published until you’re on the list.
