Words of Radiance

Lift stared at the dying boy, who held his hands to his neck, as if to stop the blood flow. Those tears . . .

The other minion came up behind her.

“Run!” Wyndle said.

She started.

“Run!”

Lift ran.

She passed Darkness and pushed through the viziers, who gasped and yelled at the death. She barreled into the Prime’s quarters, slid across the table, snatched another roll off the platter, and burst into the bedroom. She was out the window a second later.

“Up,” she said to Wyndle, then stuffed the roll in her mouth. He streaked up the side of the wall, and Lift climbed, sweating. A second later, one of the minions leaped out the window beneath her.

He didn’t look up. He charged out onto the grounds, twisting about, searching, his Shardblade flashing in the darkness as it reflected starlight.

Lift safely reached the upper reaches of the palace, hidden in the shadows there. She squatted down, hands around her knees, feeling cold.

“You barely knew him,” Wyndle said. “Yet you mourn.”

She nodded.

“You’ve seen much death,” Wyndle said. “I know it. Aren’t you accustomed to it?”

She shook her head.

Below, the minion moved off, hunting farther and farther for her. She was free. Climb across the roof, slip down on the other side, disappear.

Was that motion on the wall at the edge of the grounds? Yes, those moving shadows were men. The other thieves were climbing their wall and disappearing into the night. Huqin had left his nephew, as expected.

Who would cry for Gawx? Nobody. He’d be forgotten, abandoned.

Lift released her legs and crawled across the curved bulb of the roof toward the window she’d entered earlier. Her vines from the seeds, unlike the ones Wyndle grew, were still alive. They’d overgrown the window, leaves quivering in the wind.

Run, her instincts said. Go.

“You spoke of something earlier,” she whispered. “Re . . .”

“Regrowth,” he said. “Each bond grants power over two Surges. You can influence how things grow.”

“Can I use this to help Gawx?”

“If you were better trained? Yes. As it stands, I doubt it. You aren’t very strong, aren’t very practiced. And he might be dead already.”

She touched one of the vines.

“Why do you care?” Wyndle asked again. He sounded curious. Not a challenge. An attempt to understand.

“Because someone has to.”

For once, Lift ignored what her gut was telling her and, instead, climbed through the window. She crossed the room in a dash.

Out into the upstairs hallway. Onto the steps. She soared down them, leaping most of the distance. Through a doorway. Turn left. Down the hallway. Left again.

A crowd in the rich corridor. Lift reached them, then wiggled through. She didn’t need her awesomeness for that. She’d been slipping through cracks in crowds since she started walking.

Gawx lay in a pool of blood that had darkened the fine carpet. The viziers and guards surrounded him, speaking in hushed tones.

Lift crawled up to him. His body was still warm, but the blood seemed to have stopped flowing. His eyes were closed.

“Too late?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” Wyndle said, curling up beside her.

“What do I do?”

“I . . . I’m not sure. Mistress, the transition to your side was difficult and left holes in my memory, even with the precautions my people took. I . . .”

She set Gawx on his back, face toward the sky. He wasn’t really anything to her, that was true. They’d barely just met, and he’d been a fool. She’d told him to go back.

But this was who she was, who she had to be.

I will remember those who have been forgotten.

Lift leaned forward, touched her forehead to his, and breathed out. A shimmering something left her lips, a little cloud of glowing light. It hung in front of Gawx’s lips.

Come on . . .

It stirred, then drew in through his mouth.

A hand took Lift by the shoulder, pulling her away from Gawx. She sagged, suddenly exhausted. Real exhausted, so much so that even standing was difficult.

Darkness pulled her by the shoulder away from the crowd. “Come,” he said.

Gawx stirred. The viziers gasped, their attention turning toward the youth as he groaned, then sat up.

“It appears that you are an Edgedancer,” Darkness said, steering her down the corridor as the crowd moved in around Gawx, chattering. She stumbled, but he held her upright. “I had wondered which of the two you would be.”

“Miracle!” one vizier said.

“Yaezir has spoken!” said one of the scions.

“Edgedancer,” Lift said. “I don’t know what that is.”

“They were once a glorious order,” Darkness said, walking her down the hallway. Everyone ignored them, focused instead on Gawx. “Where you blunder, they were elegant things of beauty. They could ride the thinnest rope at speed, dance across rooftops, move through a battlefield like a ribbon on the wind.”

“That sounds . . . amazing.”

“Yes. It is unfortunate they were always so concerned with small-minded things, while ignoring those of greater import. It appears you share their temperament. You have become one of them.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Lift said.

“I realize this.”

“Why . . . why do you hunt me?”

“In the name of justice.”

“There are tons of people who do wrong things,” she said. She had to force out every word. Talking was hard. Thinking was hard. So tired. “You . . . you coulda hunted big crime bosses, murderers. You chose me instead. Why?”

“Others may be detestable, but they do not dabble in arts that could return Desolation to this world.” His words were so cold. “What you are must be stopped.”

Lift felt numb. She tried to summon her awesomeness, but she’d used it all up. And then some, probably.

Darkness turned her and pushed her against the wall. She couldn’t stand, and slumped down, sitting. Wyndle moved up beside her, spreading out a starburst of creeping vines.

Darkness knelt next to her. He held out his hand.

“I saved him,” Lift said. “I did something good, didn’t I?”

“Goodness is irrelevant,” Darkness said. His Shardblade dropped into his fingers.

“You don’t even care, do you?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

“You should,” she said, exhausted. “You should . . . should try it, I mean. I wanted to be like you, once. Didn’t work out. Wasn’t . . . even like being alive . . .”

Darkness raised his Blade.

Lift closed her eyes.

“She is pardoned!”

Darkness’s grip on her shoulder tightened.

Feeling completely drained—like somebody had held her up by the toes and squeezed everything out of her—Lift forced her eyes to open. Gawx stumbled to a stop beside them, breathing heavily. Behind, the viziers and scions moved up as well.

Clothing bloodied, his eyes wide, Gawx clutched a piece of paper in his hand. He thrust this at Darkness. “I pardon this girl. Release her, constable!”

“Who are you,” Darkness said, “to do such a thing?”

“I am the Prime Aqasix,” Gawx declared. “Ruler of Azir!”

“Ridiculous.”

“The Kadasixes have spoken,” said one of the scions.

“The Heralds?” Darkness said. “They have done no such thing. You are mistaken.”

“We have voted,” said a vizier. “This young man’s application was the best.”

“What application?” Darkness said. “He is a thief!”

“He performed the miracle of Regrowth,” said one of the older scions. “He was dead and he returned. What better application could we ask for?”

“A sign has been given,” said the lead vizier. “We have a Prime who can survive the attacks of the One All White. Praise to Yaezir, Kadasix of Kings, may he lead in wisdom. This youth is Prime. He has been Prime always. We have only now realized it, and beg his forgiveness for not seeing the truth sooner.”

“As it always has been done,” the elderly scion said. “As it will be done again. Stand down, constable. You have been given an order.”

Darkness studied Lift.

She smiled tiredly. Show the starvin’ man some teeth. That was the right of it.

His Shardblade vanished to mist. He’d been bested, but he didn’t seem to care. Not a curse, not even a tightening of the eyes. He stood up and pulled on his gloves by the cuffs, first one, then the other. “Praise Yaezir,” he said. “Herald of Kings. May he lead in wisdom. If he ever stops drooling.”

Darkness bowed to the new Prime, then left with a sure step.

“Does anyone know the name of that constable?” one of the viziers asked. “When did we start letting officers of the law requisition Shardblades?”

Gawx knelt beside Lift.

“So you’re an emperor or something now,” she said, closing her eyes, settling back.

“Yeah. I’m still confused. It seems I performed a miracle or something.”

“Good for you,” Lift said. “Can I eat your dinner?”