Perfect Shadow_ A Night Angel Novella - Brent Weeks [22]
“This was my first face. My real face, you could say, if such a thing had any meaning for me.” Acaelus Thorne’s face. A whimsical choice, perhaps a dangerous choice, but a shadow should bear some resemblance to the shape that cast it.
“Handsome, before the scars. A bit grim, with them,” she says.
He grunts. What looks like pockmarks actually came from the acid blood spray of a monster in the last battle, where Jorsin Alkestes died, when Trayethell fell. The mages at the time hadn’t been able to heal them. Now, he doesn’t want to erase that last memento of the man who might have been his friend.
From downstairs, he can hear little kids shouting, playing. Street kids, guild rats, the slave-born who have no place to go. Gwinvere takes them in sometimes. They call her Momma K. Right now, the wretches are bickering—not exactly what you hope for when you’re showing kindness, but often all you get when you show kindness to those who can’t return it.
Gwinvere says, “The captain of the city guard has reported you dead, without reporting your name. Anyone who digs will figure out that Gaelan Starfire was killed in a fire in the Warrens. There will be some rumors that Gaelan ran afoul of the previous Shinga. Since deceased. A literal dead end.”
“Very satisfying,” the nameless emptiness says.
“So what’s your new name?” Gwinvere asks.
“Durzo,” he says into his flagon as he raises it for another drink. “Durzo Flint.” He’d often carried surnames that meant something, and it seems to be a tradition among some of the wetboys as well. Flint: sharp, dangerous, brittle. Fair enough.
“Durzo Blint?” she asks, misunderstanding him.
From Flint to Blint. A portmanteau of flint and blunt, perhaps. The sharp and the blunt. A paradox smashed together. Or just smashed. A descent from meaning to meaninglessness. It seems appropriate. He suddenly remembers Polus Merit’s prophecy. Polus had said Blint, too, hadn’t he? “That’s right,” he says. “Durzo Blint.” He drinks. Here’s to you, Polus Merit. You fat pain in the ass.
“Well, Durzo, I’ve got a job for you,” Gwinvere says. “Someone who needs killing.”
Gwinvere Kirena is strength incarnate. Perfection in flesh. Utterly flawless, and somehow thereby utterly sterile, impervious. When he looks at Gwinvere, he doesn’t see a woman who will ever be caught off her guard. She will never be hanged, or strangled, or have her throat cut, or have her brains beaten out. She’s too strong for that, too smart.
Gwinvere doesn’t need him, so he can’t fail her. She is the cold safety of a lean-to in the rain, not the false comfort of a stone castle that will fall on your head and destroy you utterly. She extends a scrap of paper.
Gwinvere likes kids. An odd juxtaposition. A scrap of humanity.
This is what I get. This is what I deserve. Scraps.
He doesn’t look at the paper. He doesn’t take his eyes off of hers, mirroring him. He doesn’t care whose name is on the note. He doesn’t care what they’ve done. “I’ll take it,” he says.
Meet the Author
Brent Weeks was born and raised in Montana. After getting his paper keys from Hillsdale College, Brent started writing on bar napkins, then on lesson plans, then full time. Eventually, someone paid him for it. Brent lives in Oregon with his wife, Kristi. He doesn’t own cats or wear a ponytail.
Author Brent Weeks. Photo © Travis Johnson Photography.
Also by Brent Weeks
THE NIGHT ANGEL TRILOGY
The Way of Shadows
Shadow’s Edge
Beyond the Shadow
LIGHTBRINGER
The Black Prism
If you enjoyed PERFECT SHADOW,
look out for
THE BLACK PRISM
Lightbringer Book One
by Brent Weeks
Chapter 1
Kip crawled toward the battlefield in the darkness, the mist pressing down, blotting out sound, scattering starlight. Though the adults shunned it and the children were forbidden to come here, he’d played on the open field a hundred times—during