Perfect Shadow: A Night Angel Novella

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 the day.
    Tonight, his purpose was grimmer.
    Reaching the top of the hill, Kip stood and hiked up his pants. The river behind him was hissing, or maybe that was the warriors beneath its surface, dead these sixteen years.
    He squared his shoulders, ignoring his imagination. The mists made him seem suspended, outside of time. But even if there was no evidence of it, the sun was coming.
    By the time it did, he had to get to the far side of the battlefield. Farther than he’d ever gone searching.
    Even Ramir wouldn’t come out here at night. Everyone knew Sundered Rock was haunted. But Ram didn’t have to feed his family; his mother didn’t smoke her wages.
    Gripping his little belt knife tightly, Kip started walking. It wasn’t just the unquiet dead that might pull him down to the evernight. A pack of giant javelinas had been seen roaming the night, tusks cruel, hooves sharp. They were good eating if you had a matchlock, iron nerves, and good aim, but since the Prisms’ War had wiped out all the town’s men, there weren’t many people who braved death for a little bacon. Rekton was already a shell of what it had once been. The alcaldesa wasn’t eager for any of her townspeople to throw their lives away. Besides, Kip didn’t have a matchlock.
    Nor were javelinas the only creatures that roamed the night. A mountain lion or a golden bear would also probably enjoy a well-marbled Kip.
    A low howl cut the mist and the darkness hundreds of paces deeper into the battlefield. Kip froze. Oh, there were wolves too. How’d he forget wolves?
    Another wolf answered, farther out. A haunting sound, the very voice of the wilderness. You couldn’t help but freeze when you heard it. It was the kind of beauty that made you shit your pants.
    Wetting his lips, Kip got moving. He had the distinct sensation of being followed.
    Stalked. He looked over his