Teia couldn’t breathe. She hadn’t drafted paryl since that night, when she’d used the barest sliver necessary to make the master cloak work—and only for the few moments necessary to attack Liv and later Abaddon. The latter had left her shivering and puking, certain she was going to die. But this . . . Maybe Teia wouldn’t be able to draft the paryl cloud that made her invisible to even sub-red drafters, but she could suddenly—maybe? maybe!—do everything else.
She felt like a champion sprinter going from losing a leg to merely having a limp.
She tried to change the spectrum she was seeing. The goggles worked flawlessly, instantly, dimming and focusing the light so she could see once more.
Dumbstruck, she glanced at her father—and looked away fast.
He was blubbering. Oh hell, she was gonna lose it, too.
“I dunno,” Winsen said, resigned. “I voted against taking you back. But the others said, ‘It isn’t a vote, Winsen. Once you’re one of the Mighty, you’re one of us forever, Winsen.’ Bah!”
Oh, nine hells.
Her boys. Her brothers hadn’t forgotten her. As she’d been blind, they’d seen her. As she’d been in the dark, they’d found her. They’d known. They’d understood. As she’d pulled away, they’d pursued her. They’d all been working to restore her. They’d saved her, body and soul. Her brothers—abrasive, idiotic, absentminded, cranky, wonderful, beautiful, brilliant, steadfast, and self-sacrificing as they were—her brothers had worked tirelessly to make her whole.
—And then they’d sent Winsen to give her the news. He was the worst!
A sharp little laugh burst from her lips. Winsen! Of course it had to be Winsen. Because they couldn’t treat it like it was a big deal.
“Win?” Teia said.
“Yeah?”
“You know, for the longest time I used to think you were an asshole.”
“Oh yeah?” he said, waggling his eyebrows. “And now?”
“Oh, I still do. I just used to, too.”
Epilogue 3
Dazen waved his empty hands around the corner before he entered the hidden room. “Please don’t shoot,” he said. “It’d feel ridiculous to die now in some silly accident.” He poked his head around the corner.
Ironfist lowered the flintlock unsteadily, grumbling, “What makes you think it’d be an accident?” He looked like what he was: a man who’d recently lain on the brink of death. They’d hidden Ironfist away in Murder Sharp’s old lair.
“Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?” Ironfist asked. Maybe he’d just woken.
“No. It’s all fireworks and celebrating now. Kip and Tisis are good and hitched. Re-hitched? Anyway, I’d just be a distraction right now. Don’t want to steal the spotlight.”
“Still got the old magic, don’t you?” Ironfist said. Then his brow furrowed. “Poor choice of words.”
Dazen waved it away. He came in, ignoring Ironfist’s frown at the big, wrapped-up sword he was carrying. “So, are you enjoying your time . . . uh, resting, or do you have one more adventure in ya?”
“Weddings and hobbling around watching sycophants rush to kiss the royal . . . ahem, ring isn’t exactly an adventure.”
“You seem to be forgetting what happened the first time I tried to marry Karris. You know, when our eloping somehow turned into the Prisms’ War?”
“I actually did mean to come to Kip’s ceremony,” Ironfist confessed. “How long have I been here?”
“Long enough for Gill to get bored watching you sleep.”
“That’s not really an answer,” Ironfist said.
“Well, you didn’t answer me, either.”
The two men stared at each other. Then Dazen waggled his eyebrows. They both knew Ironfist was a man of action. He had to be bored out of his mind. He wasn’t in any shape for a battle of wills. “What’s the adventure?” Ironfist asked grudgingly.
“Epic derring-do. Legendary opponents. And total secrecy. Even afterward. I expect you to be too weak and say no, but I thought you’d be furious with me for going to face so much danger without asking you. ‘I would have come,’ you’ll say later. ‘If you’d waited for me, you’d still have your legs,’ you’ll say. Pfft.”
“Have I ever told you that you’re a real piece of . . . work?” Ironfist asked.
“Look, they told me you were cranky, and I knew you were going to be too weak to come. But I just knew someone would be mad if I didn’t at least ask my old friend along.”
“Friend?” Ironfist asked. He swallowed, but then growled, “I don’t even like you.”
“A sadly common malady among my friends,” Dazen said.
Ironfist laughed despite himself, then winced at his wounds. “Orholam’s beard, mercy.”
“You know what I came for?” Dazen said.
“Figured there’d be an ulterior motive. It’s yours anyway. Always planned to give it to you.” Ironfist pulled open a drawer on his bedside table and tossed a white stone tied on a leather thong to him.
Dazen caught the white luxin and looked at the lambent stone, then lifted his white eye patch and stared at it more. “I really drafted this at Garriston, huh?”
“Why’re you still wearing the eye patch?” Ironfist asked.
“It’s a bit intense to see everything without it. Maybe I’ll be able to build up some tolerance to it eventually, but for the time being it looks like I’m going to have to labor under the burden of having a slight aura of mystery about me.”
“You can make anything look good, can’t you? It’s annoying. Not to mention the getting-healed-instantly thing. Everything works out for you, doesn’t it? No wonder you don’t have friends.”
“It’s true, there’s just not many people with the ego strength for it. That’s why I’ve had to go for pirates and prophets and beautiful women and Blackguards and traitors and kings. Sometimes traitorous kings even—king, really. Singular. Don’t want to exaggerate. The other king wasn’t as friendly as you are.”
Ironfist only shook his head.
“I figured it out,” Dazen said.
“ ‘It’?”
“History.”
“A suitably humble claim.”
“Not all of it. Just the relevant bits,” Dazen said. He took out the sword from where he’d propped it carelessly on the ground and unwrapped the cloths around it.
Ironfist goggled at it. The Blinding Sword didn’t look at all the same as he remembered. A dark, molten and shimmering iridescence swept down the entire blade. There was a depth to it, like staring into the night sky, with all the colors of creation seen twinkling in the muted seven stars on the blade. Entire sections of it dulled though as it turned, as if it were covered in a polarizing lens.
Dazen started tapping the white luxin on the blade, then on the pommel. He rubbed it down its length like a whetstone.
“What are you doing?”
“Well, she told me not to draft or I’d draw the wrong kind of attention. Not that I’m eager to draft just now. You ever run a long race and it wipes you out, and then a few days later you think you’ve recovered and you run again and then you realize, no, you really, really haven’t recovered? That’s how I feel about drafting right now. Like I don’t know if I tore some muscles or if they’re really tired, but either way, I hurt like hell.”