Perfect Shadow: A Night Angel Novella

with me,” Kip said. “If what you said is true—”
    “How close do you think I’d get to your town before someone came running with a musket? Besides, once the sun comes up… I’m ready for it to be done.” The color wight took a deep breath, staring at the horizon. “Tell me, Kip, if you’ve done bad things your whole life, but you die doing something good, do you think that makes up for all the bad?”
    “No,” Kip said, honestly, before he could stop himself.
    “Me neither.”
    “But it’s better than nothing,” Kip said. “Orholam is merciful.”
    “Wonder if you’ll say that after they’re done with your village.” There were other questions Kip wanted to ask, but everything had happened in such a rush that he couldn’t put his thoughts together.
    In the rising light Kip saw what had been hidden in the fog and the darkness.
    Hundreds of tents were laid out in military precision. Soldiers. Lots of soldiers. And even as Kip stood, not two hundred paces from the nearest tent, the plain began winking.
    Glimmers sparkled as broken luxin gleamed, like stars scattered on the ground, answering their brethren in the sky.
    It was what Kip had come for. Usually when a drafter released luxin, it simply dissolved, no matter what color it was. But in battle, there had been so much chaos, so many drafters, some sealed magic had been buried and protected from the sunlight that would break it down. The recent rain had uncovered more.
    But Kip’s eyes were pulled from the winking luxin by four soldiers and a man with a stark red cloak and red spectacles walking toward them from the camp.
    “My name is Gaspar, by the by. Gaspar Elos.” The color wight didn’t look at Kip.
    “What?”
    “I’m not just some drafter. My father loved me. I had plans. A girl. A life.”
    “I don’t—”
    “You will.” The color wight put the green spectacles on; they fit perfectly, tight to his face, lenses sweeping to either side so that wherever he looked, he would be looking through a green filter. “Now get out of here.”
    As the sun touched the horizon, Gaspar sighed. It was as if Kip had ceased to exist. It was like watching his mother take that first deep breath of haze. Between the sparkling spars of darker green, the whites of Gaspar’s eyes swirled like droplets of green blood hitting water, first dispersing, then staining the whole. The emerald green of luxin ballooned through his eyes, thickened until it was solid, and then spread. Through his cheeks, up to his hairline, then down his neck, standing out starkly when it finally filled his lighter fingernails as if they’d been painted in radiant jade.
    Gaspar started laughing. It was a low, unreasoning cackle, unrelenting. Mad. Not a pretense this time.
    Kip ran.
    He reached the funerary hill where the sentry had been, taking care to stay on the far side from the army. He had to get to Master Danavis. Master Danavis always knew what to do.
    There was no sentry on the hill now. Kip turned around in time to see Gaspar change, transform. Green luxin spilled out of his hands onto his body, covering every part of him like a shell, like an enormous suit of armor. Kip couldn’t see the soldiers or the red drafter approaching Gaspar, but he did see a fireball the size of his head streak toward the color wight, hit his chest, and burst apart, throwing flames everywhere.
    Gaspar rammed through it, flaming red luxin sticking to his green armor. He was magnificent, terrible, powerful. He ran toward the soldiers, screaming defiance, and disappeared from Kip’s view.
    Kip fled, the vermilion sun setting fire to the mists.
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    COPYRIGHT
    Published by Hachette Digital
    ISBN: 978-0-74813-216-4
    All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
    Copyright © 2011 by Brent Weeks
    Excerpt from Black Prism copyright © 2010 by Brent Weeks All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission