About the author
Brent Weeks
was born and raised in Montana. After getting his paper keys from Hillsdale college, Brent had brief stints walking the earth like Caine from
Kung Fu
, tending bar, and corrupting the youth. (Not at the same time.) He 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 pony-tail. Find out more about the author at
www.brentweeks.com
.
Find out more about Brent Weeks and other Orbit authors by registering for the free monthly newsletter at
www.orbitbooks.net
.
B
Y
B
RENT
W
EEKS
Perfect Shadow (e-only novella)
The Night Angel Trilogy
The Way of Shadows
Shadow’s Edge
Beyond the Shadows
The Lightbringer Series
The Black Prism
The Blinding Knife
The Broken Eye
COPYRIGHT
Published by Orbit
ISBN: 9780748116997
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.
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Orbit
Copyright © 2014 by Brent Weeks
Maps by Chad Roberts Design
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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 in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Orbit
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
Contents
Character List
Adrasteia (Teia):
A student at the Chromeria. She is slave to Lady Lucretia Verangheti of the Smussato Veranghetis; a Blackguard candidate and a drafter of paryl.
Aheyyad:
Orange drafter, grandson of Tala. A defender of Garriston, the designer of Garriston’s Brightwater Wall; dubbed Aheyyad Brightwater by Prism Gavin Guile.
Ahhanen:
A Blackguard.
Aklos:
A slave of Lady Aglaia Crassos.
Amestan:
A Blackguard at the Battle of Garriston.
Aram:
A Blackguard scrub. His parents were Blackguards, and he has been training in martial arts since he could walk.
Arana:
A drafting student, a merchant’s daughter.
Aras:
A student at the Chromeria, a Blackguard scrub.
Arash, Javid:
One of the drafters who defended Garriston.
Aravind, Lord:
Satrap of Atash. Father of Kata Ham-haldita, corregidor of Idoss.
Arias, Lord:
One of the Color Prince’s advisers. He is an Atashian in charge of spreading news about the Color Prince.
Arien:
A magister at the Chromeria. She drafts orange and tests Kip on Luxlord Black’s orders.
Ariss the Navigator:
A legendary explorer, discoverer.
Asif:
A young Blackguard.
Asmun:
A Blackguard scrub.
Atagamo:
A magister who teaches the properties of luxin at the Chromeria. He is Ilytian.
Atiriel, Karris:
A desert princess. She became Karris Shadowblinder before she married Lucidonius.
Ayrad:
A yellow drafter. He was a Blackguard scrub years before Kip entered the class. He started at the bottom of his class (forty-ninth) and worked his way up to the top, fighting everyone. It turned out he’d taken a vow. Became commander of the Blackguard and saved four different Prisms at least once before someone poisoned him.
Azmith, Caul:
A Parian general, the Parian satrapah’s younger brother.
Balder:
A Blackguard scrub who has it in for Kip.
Bas the Simple:
A Tyrean polychrome (blue/green/superviolet), handsome but a simpleton, sworn to kill the killer of the White Oak family.
Ben-hadad:
A Ruthgari student at the Chromeria. He has been accepted into the Blackguards in an earlier class. A blue/yellow bichrome who has created his own mechanical spectacles that allow blue or yellow lenses to be used, he’s highly intelligent.
Big Ros:
A slave of Aglaia.
Blademan:
A Blackguard watch captain. He leads one of the skimmers in the battle at Ruic Head, along with Gavin and Watch Captain Tempus.
Blue-Eyed Demons, the:
Mercenaries who fought for Dazen’s army.
Borig, Janus:
An old woman. She is bald, smokes a long pipe, and is apparently a Mirror.
Bursar:
The Omnichrome’s most important adviser. She is constantly doing figures with her small abacus and is in charge of one-third of the chits for the soldiers to use for prostitutes.
Burshward, Captain:
An Angari captain (from beyond the Everdark Gates).
Burshward, Gillan:
Captain Burshward’s brother.
Buskin:
Along with Tugertent and Tlatig, the best archer Commander Ironfist has on the approach to Ruic Head.
Caelia:
A dwarf servant of the Third Eye.
Carver Black:
A non-drafter, as is traditional for the Black. He is the chief administrator of the Seven Satrapies. Though he has a voice on the Spectrum, he has no vote.
Carvingen, Odess:
A drafter and defender of Garriston.
Cavair, Paz:
Commander of the Blue Bastards at the Great Pyramid of Ru.
Cezilia:
A servant/bodyguard to the Third Eye.
Clara:
A servant/bodyguard to the Third Eye.
Companions’ Mother:
Head of the Omnichrome’s army’s prostitute guild.
Coran, Adraea:
Blessed. Said “war is a horror.”
Cordelia:
A willowy female Blackguard.
Corfu, Ramia:
A powerful young blue drafter. He is one of the Color Prince’s favorites.
Corzin, Eleph:
An Abornean blue drafter, a defender of Garriston.
Counselor, the:
A legendary figure. Author of
The Counselor to Kings
, which advised such cruel methods of government that not even he followed them when he ruled.
Crassos, Aglaia:
A young noblewoman and drafter at the Chromeria. She is the youngest daughter of an important Ruthgari family, a sadist who enjoys the pain she inflicts on her slaves.
Crassos, Governor:
Elder brother of Aglaia Crassos; the last governor of Garriston.
Cruxer:
A Blackguard scrub. He’s the third generation to enter the ranks; his parents are Inana and Holdfast.
Daelos:
A Blackguard scrub.
Dagnar Zelan:
One of the original Blackguards. He served Lucidonius after converting to his cause.
Danavis, Aliviana (Liv):
Daughter of Corvan Danavis. She is a yellow and superviolet bichrome drafter from Tyrea. Her contract is owned by the Ruthgari, and she is supervised by Aglaia Crassos.
Danavis, Corvan:
A red drafter. A scion of one of the great Ruthgari families, he was also the most brilliant general of the age and the primary reason for Dazen’s success in battle.
Danavis, Ell:
The second wife of Corvan Danavis. She was murdered by an assassin three years after their marriage.
Danavis, Erethanna:
A green drafter serving Count Nassos in western Ruthgar; Liv Danavis’s cousin.
Danavis, Qora:
A Tyrean noblewoman; first wife of Corvan Danavis, mother of Aliviana Danavis.
Delara, Naftalie:
A woman Andross was going to “let” Gavin marry.
Delara Orange:
The Atashian member of the Spectrum. She represents Orange and is a forty-year-old orange/red bichrome nearing the end of her life. Her predecessor in the seat was her mother, who devised the rotating scheme for Garriston.
Delarias:
A family in Rekton.
Delauria, Katalina:
Kip’s mother. She is of Parian or Ilytian extraction and is a haze addict.
Delclara, Micael:
A quarryman and a Rekton villager.
Delclara, Miss:
The matriarch of the Delclara family in Rekton. She had six sons who are quarrymen.
Delclara, Zalo:
A quarryman, one of the Delclara sons.
Delelo, Galan:
A master sergeant in the Omnichrome’s army. He escorts Liv to the gates of Garriston.
Delmarta, Gad:
A young general of Dazen’s army who took the city of Ru and publicly massacred the royal family and their retainers.
Delucia, Neta:
A member of the ruling council of Idoss (i.e., a city mother).