Perfect Shadow: A Night Angel Novella

around; there was no one else in sight.
    “Why don’t you just finish it, damn you?” the prisoner said.
    Kip froze. He thought he’d approached silently.
    “Coward,” the prisoner said. “Just following your orders, I suppose? Orholam will smite you for what you’re about to do to that little town.” Kip had no idea what the man was talking about.
    Apparently his silence spoke for him.
    “You’re not one of them.” A note of hope entered the prisoner’s voice. “Please, help me!”
    Kip stepped forward. The man was suffering. Then he stopped. Looked at the dead soldier. The front of the soldier’s shirt was soaked with blood. Had this prisoner killed him? How?
    “Please, leave me chained if you must. But please, I don’t want to die in darkness.” Kip stayed back, though it felt cruel. “You killed him?”
    “I’m supposed to be executed at first light. I got away. He chased me down and got the bag over my head before he died. If dawn’s close, his replacement is coming anytime now.”
    Kip still wasn’t putting it together. No one in Rekton trusted the soldiers who came through, and the alcaldesa had told the town’s young people to give any soldiers a wide berth for a while—apparently the new satrap Garadul had declared himself free of the Chromeria’s control. Now he was King Garadul, he said, but he wanted the usual levies from the town’s young people. The alcaldesa had told his representative that if he wasn’t the satrap anymore, he didn’t have the right to raise levies. King or satrap, Garadul couldn’t be happy with that, but Rekton was too small to bother with. Still, it would be wise to avoid his soldiers until this all blew over.
    On the other hand, just because Rekton wasn’t getting along with the satrap right now didn’t make this man Kip’s friend.
    “So you are a criminal?” Kip asked.
    “Of six shades to Sun Day,” the man said. The hope leaked out of his voice. “Look, boy—you are a child, aren’t you? You sound like one. I’m going to die today. I can’t get away. Truth to tell, I don’t want to. I’ve run enough. This time, I fight.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “You will. Take off my hood.”
    Though some vague doubt nagged Kip, he untied the half-knot around the man’s neck and pulled off the hood.
    At first, Kip had no idea what the prisoner was talking about. The man sat up, arms still bound behind his back. He was perhaps thirty years old, Tyrean like Kip but with a lighter complexion, his hair wavy rather than kinky, his limbs thin and muscular. Then Kip saw his eyes.
    Men and women who could harness light and make luxin—drafters—always had unusual eyes. A little residue of whatever color they drafted ended up in their eyes. Over the course of their life, it would stain the entire iris red, or blue, or whatever their color was. The prisoner was a green drafter—or had been. Instead of the green being bound in a halo within the iris, it was shattered like crockery smashed to the floor. Little green fragments glowed even in the whites of his eyes. Kip gasped and shrank back.
    “Please!” the man said. “Please, the madness isn’t on me. I won’t hurt you.”
    “You’re a color wight.”
    “And now you know why I ran away from the Chromeria,” the man said.
    Because the Chromeria put down color wights like a farmer put down a beloved, rabid dog.
    Kip was on the verge of bolting, but the man wasn’t making any threatening moves.
    And besides, it was still dark. Even color wights needed light to draft. The mist did seem lighter, though, gray beginning to touch the horizon. It was crazy to talk to a madman, but maybe it wasn’t too crazy. At least until dawn.
    The color wight was looking at Kip oddly. “Blue eyes.” He laughed.
    Kip scowled. He hated his blue eyes. It was one thing when a foreigner like Master Danavis had blue eyes. They looked fine on him. Kip looked freakish.
    “What’s your name?” the color wight asked.
    Kip swallowed, thinking he should probably run away.
    “Oh, for Orholam’s sake, you think I’m going to hex you with your name? How ignorant is this backwater? That isn’t how chromaturgy works—”
    “Kip.”
    The color wight grinned. “Kip. Well, Kip, have you ever wondered why you were stuck in such a small life? Have you ever gotten the feeling, Kip, that you’re special?” Kip said nothing. Yes, and yes.
    “Do you know why you feel destined for something greater?”
    “Why?” Kip