The Broken Eye (Lightbringer, #3)

by Brent Weeks

The man who is content to live alone is either a beast or a god. —ARISTOTLE

Kip was safe, though, for the moment. He needed water. Then food. Then a way home. But nothing would stand in his way. These were trifles. His life was a trifle. But his message was not. The men and women on the ship that night had seen Gavin Guile plunge overboard after being run through with a sword. They had to believe him dead. Kip knew better, and only Kip knew that Gunner had him. And should the gods themselves stand against him, Kip was going to get his father back.

“Who’s this pirate?” Zymun asked. “Fancies himself a bit of a cannoneer. Calls himself Cap’n Gunner.”

Her trainer, Magister Lillyfield, with a body like a young woman’s and her face craggy as the Red Cliffs,

Teia’s formal lessons in her special color had been brief, but Magister Marta Martaens had pounded into her that seeing a woman’s pupils grow until the whites of her eyes disappeared was not merely disconcerting for others, it was terrifying.

Teia had only seen two other paryl drafters in her life. Magister Martaens, who’d given her a handful of lessons at her former owner Aglaia Crassos’s behest, and a man who stabbed paryl into a woman’s neck and left her seizing to death.

Teia’s last talk with Magister Martaens hadn’t gone well. The older woman thought that even talking about the possibility of the paryl assassination would invite all paryl drafters to be hunted down. And Teia had lost the magister’s tutorship briefly thereafter when Andross Guile had somehow gotten Aglaia Crassos to sign over Teia’s slave papers, and she hadn’t seen Magister Martaens since then.

“I didn’t take it. I’m not a savage, and there was something funny about him. Red hair in a fringe, balding, odd necklace. Barely saw it, but my papa used to pull teeth. That necklace was all human teeth. Something nasty about that I’d rather not know. Read your letter quick and go. I wouldn’t put it past him to be watching even now. Oh, and don’t fold the note. Marta was particular about that. You can use the back exit if you want.”

Fraying apart now that it was exposed, there was something written in paryl. No wonder Marta hadn’t wanted the letter folded. It would have destroyed the secret message. “It’s all true. The killings, everything. The Order of the Broken Eye is real, and now they’re after you. Orholam forgive me for leaving you alone in this, but there’s no fighting these people. Run, Teia. —Marta Martaens.”

We’ll give you orders soon. One simple assignment, and you’re free. Pardon, let me amend that. One simple assignment, and one meeting afterward if you do well, for my masters would like to take their own roll of the die at recruiting you.” He walked to the door. “Think carefully of all the costs of acting rashly. You have so much potential, Adrasteia.”

For one moment, as the drums fell silent, as the slaves gasped for breath, as the men above braced for impact, there was no sound but the peaceful hissing of the waves. Then hell broke loose.

The real source here was the beautiful greeter and superviolet drafter, Mahshid Roshan, who saw everyone, and knew everyone, and heard everything either directly or through the other servers and slaves here. She was one of the White’s best spies, and Karris needed her.

It whiplashed her back toward the spy. Something warm splattered against her lips and neck. The spy raised his hands, panicked—his throat slashed open, his jugular fountaining blood all over Teia. Teia pushed the spy away and he fell, gasping like a fish. The shadowed assassin put something into her hand. A bloody knife.

Teia stood, paralyzed, for one moment more. She saw a watchman two hundred paces down the alley. He saw her, too, bloody blade in hand, standing over a dead man. She ran.

He didn’t remember it himself, but he’d been told he’d been impaled on the damn thing. “My father put it there.” That was true, as far as it went. Gavin had taken the dagger into his own chest when he saw it was him or Kip. An odd touch of mad heroics. And now Kip was drowned. Which showed all the good heroics do.

“We’re being followed by a galley. Belongs to one Mongalt Shales. He’s sworn vengeance on me. Two years ago, I was gunner for the famous Captain Giles Tanner. You know him?”

“Do not think to placard me, Guile. I’m no child to be twisted round your twosies. Take him below!” he roared. “Now! Before Gunner blows off the head of our prize!”

“Congratulations,” he said. “You are hereby released from all oaths of loyalty to any other than the Blackguard and the Chromeria.” He smiled at her and patted her hand. “Perk up, why don’t you? You’re free.” Teia had achieved what she’d yearned for above all else, what she’d sought for years, and she was richer than she’d ever dreamed, but she’d never felt less free in her life.

It was a mirror to the very help that the Blood Foresters in those border towns would beg, and that the Spectrum had silently agreed to deny. You must die, they had agreed without so much as a vote: you must die so that our purposes can be accomplished. Karris only hoped Orholam was not so callous and practical with them.

“He is no king. He doesn’t exist. He’s a comforting tale, a candle held against the darkness of our fears. There is only nothingness. It is as little use to curse him as it is to pray to him. We are a man who, having tripped, blames the stone for grabbing his foot.”

Better that he hadn’t been born. Better that he hadn’t been born a Prism. If only he hadn’t started light splitting, if only he hadn’t been a full-spectrum polychrome, if only he hadn’t told Gavin about his polychromacy, hoping to mend the rift that seemed to have sprung from nowhere when Gavin had been taken away and named the Prism-elect, everything would be well. His older brother had taken Dazen’s gift as a betrayal, as Dazen taking away the one thing that made him special. So the real Gavin had retaliated by betraying his younger brother’s elopement with Karris. Sitting on the rocking deck of the galley, the false Gavin drained his strongwine to the lees. He hadn’t realized that until this moment. He’d thought for years that Karris had lost her nerve. He’d blamed her maid. He’d blamed his own poor planning, thinking he must have let something slip. In truth, his older brother had found out, and in vengeance, had shared the secret. The White Oaks had then intimidated Karris’s maid into speaking.

Family, child.” “Father’s a trader. Was. Day laborer now. Two sisters, younger. My mother isn’t worth speaking of.”

“My mother lost her sense for a while during one of my father’s journeys. Brought home any man who would come bed her. Finally found one who liked her enough to stay for a while. She held parties we couldn’t afford, hired dancers and musicians like the rich do. We weren’t rich. She ruined us. And when my father came back, I think she thought he’d kill her. I think she hoped he would. She’d sold all of us into slavery to pay back the debts she ran up. “My father sold everything he had left—his ship, mainly—and bought back my sisters. I’d shown my talent by then, and I was too valuable. He didn’t have the money to redeem me and he couldn’t borrow that much.” “And what did he do to your mother?” the White asked. “Nothing.” There was no hiding the bitterness. Father, why didn’t you fight for me? Why did you choose the one who betrayed you? “And how do you feel about that?” “I despise him for his weakness.” “Rather than admire him for his goodness. Interesting.” “Is it goodness to do nothing when wronged?”

“She wasn’t the only one blackmailing me,” Teia blurted out. “There’s another. Worse.” And she told them about Master Sharp. And about the spy, and the murder, and the flight, and Kip seeing her, and the theft of her papers, and their return. And when she was done speaking, then, finally, she felt free. She could take a full breath. Oddly, the White looked, if anything, younger and more alive than ever. Her eyes lit with a readiness to fight. “Teia,” she said, “how brave are

The Chromeria liked to cloak unpleasantness in soft ritual. Liv would have her truths served in hard light, thank

She couldn’t leave too soon. She fingered the black jewel in her pocket. Black luxin, the prince claimed. She didn’t really believe it. It was likely obsidian only, though threads of darkness seemed to swim in the jewel. She didn’t know how the Color Prince had gotten it. Regardless, he believed that it was a means of control. She’d first thought that perhaps he spied through it, but simply seeing wouldn’t be enough to stop a god, would it? Surely it was something more dangerous.

There was one near the Everdark Gates—and hopefully not beyond them. That point was Liv’s goal. The superviolet bane was there, somewhere, on land or in the sea. It was still there today. Liv was sure of it. Her mission was simple: she and her guards were to find either what the Color Prince called a seed crystal or the bane that would form around it, and take it for him.

“The stones are related, lady. The old stories aren’t lies, but they’ve been corrupted. Obsidian is black luxin, dead black luxin. It is said that all the obsidian in the world is the last remnant of a great war, thousands of years before Lucidonius.

“Forbidden!” Magister Kadah snapped. “And at your level, forbidden to even discuss!” “We’re at war!” Ben-hadad said. “I just heard that the last fort below Ruic Neck fell. From there, there’s nothing to stop the Color Prince until they reach the Ao River. Even if you won’t teach the oranges to craft hexes, you should be teaching us all how to resist them, and certainly how to recognize them.”

He threw himself at the door—through the door. The blue wight snarled, standing over Sevastian’s bed, all blue skin and red blood. It jumped up to the window and disappeared into the night. Dazen only saw his little brother’s bloodied, broken body. He screamed. The smell of blood washed over him as he picked up Sevastian. He was dead. The

Atash had fallen as fast as a bard’s pants, barely slowing the Color Prince’s advance.

“I need your vote, and your silence. When the Spectrum next meets, they will take up the matter of voting to make Andross Guile the promachos. You will vote for him. In return, when it is time, Andross will help make one of your sons or daughters a Color, and he will send help immediately for your family and your country against the Color Prince. It’s a generous offer. There will be no counter. He also buys your silence about this visit. If you ever break this silence, I will personally kill all of your children, your sisters, and your brother. I will be a plague that sweeps through your house. In fact, that will be the excuse we use for so many deaths in one family—a plague.”

“And my blessing on you, Arys. I will make it painless.” “Tell Andross Guile to fuck himself,” she said. She rang the bell.

As always, he was dressed carefully, looked wrinkled as an old apple, and had a demeanor as pleasant as a night of diarrhea.

“Light cannot be chained,” they intoned with him. “A small group of us fled into the Atashian desert, across the Cracked Lands, pursued for more than a month into the wastes, until our pursuers gave up and we found ourselves without enough water to make the trip back home. So we pressed on. We found the Great Rift the day after we’d drank the last of our water. We climbed down it, losing two more brothers in the hike. And at the bottom, we found an ancient, abandoned city, carved into the faces of the cliffs themselves. We found great cisterns of water, renewed by a small stream, and we found wild goats to eat, and we found luxin the likes of which we couldn’t believe, but most precious of all, we found truth.”

But Ora’lem was killed when he faced a sub-red—for his cloak only hid him from the visible spectrum.

“Diakoptês the Shadow had killed for us in every one of the nine kingdoms. As famous for his temper as he was for his skill with blade and bludgeon. He began experimenting with black luxin, a color that can only be drafted by those with great evil in their hearts. He grew corrupt, and he lusted after power. We sent people to him, old friends to entreat with him. He slew them. He stole his people’s designs, the very jewel of Braxian industry and two hundred years of innovation, and he equipped an army with it. And with his armies, he brought the bloodiest war the nine kingdoms had ever seen. He crushed them under his boot, and called himself a savior. He named free men heretics and brilliant women beasts. We know him by his true name: Diakoptês, his name was.”

“Good! There’s a man spouting heresy on a street corner, calls himself Lord Arias. Ain’t no lord I ever heard of. He’s one block south of Verrosh. Find him, and beat the hell out of him. Not in your Blackguard garb. Regular clothes.”

“Orholam,” Gavin said, “do I have your full attention?” “Always.” “Good.” He cracked his neck right and left. “Because fuck you.” He dove into the water.

Gavin kept swimming as the dolphin slipped right up to him. But at the last moment, it turned and stabbed its beak into his ribs. His breath shot out and he inhaled water. Before he could even cough it out, the dolphin emerged again from nowhere and hit him again, cracking a rib. He flailed, gasping for breath. Then it hit him again, this time smacking his head. Dazed, he sucked up a lungful of water. He lost consciousness.

“My name is Gavin Guile!” he roared, shouting toward the servants, toward the open door. “And my father will give a fortune to whoever reports my presence here! My father is Andross Guile! Any who aid in this torture will pay the price!” As soon as he started shouting, the servants panicked. They didn’t immediately see Eirene’s sign to slam the door, and he got almost all of it out before they did so. For his part, Gavin sank to the floor, tears leaking from his eyes. He tried to breathe in tiny little gulps. Maybe not cracked ribs. Maybe fully broken. “What the hell was that?” Eirene demanded. “That was me giving you the finger.”

Teia told her everything, and Karris did her best—using the mnemonic tricks the White had taught her—to memorize every word. Karris thought she could see the outlines of how the lightsplitter test must have worked, and was surprised that Teia didn’t.

With an uncertain hand, Karris pulled open the curtain. Teia looked up, jaw clenched. Scared. Karris unsnapped the voice-modifying choker. She took off the mail cowl and aventail. “So,” she said. “Now we’re in this together.” Tears welled up in Teia’s eyes. “I hoped it would be you,” she said.

For one moment, Kip was struck by how different this was than learning under Magister Kadah. Where she mocked and belittled and ruled through fear, with Ironfist—a man whom the squad actually should fear—learning was like being yoked together with him. Everyone had to push as hard as they could to keep up with him, but one always felt that he was working, too. In comparison, Magister Kadah put the yoke on you alone, and then criticized how unevenly you pulled it by yourself.

Kip looked at the faces of his squadmates. They were intent, utterly focused, fearful of letting the commander down, but not fearful. He had them heart and soul and strength, not because he gave them a respect they didn’t deserve, but because he expected them to deliver the best they were able to deliver, always, and he thought their best was better than they thought it was.

Ironfist hadn’t known. All these years, he had thought his brother had merely had an off day when they fought that exhibition. All these years, he thought his brother had chosen to be called Tremblefist because of his own brokenness. All these years, and he hadn’t known what his brother had sacrificed for him, how Tremblefist loved him. Kip stepped out silently—and found himself face-to-face with Tremblefist. Kip swallowed, looking up at the giant, but the big man merely put a hand on his shoulder, squeezed it briefly, and went inside. Kip closed the door behind him. They never heard what was said between the brothers, but after that day, Tremblefist seemed to emerge from the shadows. He took over the training of Squad Aleph, and from time to time, he smiled.

But the words didn’t make it to completed thought, much less out of her mouth. There was a sudden stiffness in Marissia’s spine, a grief in her eyes at all that was denied her. As Karris had been a warrior in the Chromeria’s open battles, so had Marissia been one in its secret battles, and perhaps neither was content anymore to fight alone. Karris started over. “Sharing a glass with you is the best thing I’ve done in months.”

The pre-Lucidonian philosopher said, ‘Every act intends some good.’

Eirene’s father Dervani had joined the Color Prince.

She wore the small tattoos of her position as Nuqaba, almost invisible against her rich black skin: one just below her lower lip, and one under each eye in decorative Old Parian script. Under the left eye, it read, “Cursed Accuser,” and under the right “Blessed Redeemer.” “Greetings, Gavin,” the leader of Paria said, “do you know what this is?” She held up a metallic chain with a large jewel on it like living fire captured in amber. “This is the seed crystal of the orange bane. Among other things, it detects lies, and you, you glorious fuck, you are a liar.”