The Black Star (Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

afternoons instead. Soon enough, he was waiting for the toll of the midday bells. The drink brought relief from the curse of memory. It punished him, too, and when he allowed himself to dwell on this, he discovered he wanted that as well.
    Blays could feel himself falling apart, but the hole in his chest welcomed it.
    Thirteen months after debarking in Whetton, Blays woke in an inn with bloody hands. After a few minutes, he remembered he'd killed a man in a duel, but couldn't recall what the dispute had been about. Afraid of a hanging—and of what he'd become—he retreated into the woods. Wandered north, living off the land, dimly aware he was retracing old steps. After a couple weeks, he stumbled upon the town of Shay. He strolled about, vaguely happy to see no sign of Samarand's rebellion that had burned whole sections of the town, and found himself in the yard of a monastery.
    It was Gabe's. Gabe, the norren monk who'd helped Cally retake his place at the head of the Council of Narashtovik. For that aid, Cally had rewarded him with the Chainbreakers' War. It had freed the norren. And taken the lives of thousands.
    When Blays announced himself to the acolyte, he wasn't certain what he intended to do. Kill Gabe on sight, maybe. Harangue him, at the very least, to wound him with guilt and leave him festering. Instead, when Gabe ducked through the doorway, seven feet tall and as hairy as a bear, Blays found himself too weary to do more than wave.
    He grunted his way through the conversation, but Gabe sussed him out easily enough. He led Blays to his cell, sat down, and asked what was wrong.
    "What isn't?" Blays said. Not very witty, but he hadn't felt light enough for wit since leaving Whetton bloody-handed.
    Gabe's voice rumbled through the close space. "Did you come here for counsel?"
    "You churchboys have it all figured out, don't you? That's why you live your lives in a room smaller than a water closet. Very easy to be wise when you never step out to face the world."
    Gabe clasped his hands, leaned forward, and frowned at the floor of his cell. "The soul is a piece of paper. It starts life blank and pure. In time, it gets dark with age, especially if it is left to face the elements. With care and correct process, however, you may wash it clean again. And even if it's crushed—crumpled in a cruel fist—once that fist finally lets go, what does the paper do?"
    "Gets thrown away?"
    "It unfolds. All by itself."
    "Time," Blays muttered. "That's everyone's answer to everything."
    He left two minutes later. The gods' highest wisdom was no different than what peasants told each other after a house fire or the loss of a child. It wasn't true, though. Time didn't build a thing up. It eroded it. Eventually, it killed it. This "advice" wasn't even meant for the recipient. A man with an arrow through his leg doesn't want to hear that it won't hurt that much after he's had a year to heal. That information is worthless to him. It's insulting. Cruel. And impossible to know. The wound might never heal, leaving him with a limp for the rest of his life. It could become infected, killing him in days. That was what pain meant: something is very wrong and you had better do something to fix it. If you're standing in a fire, you don't wait for time to put it out.
    He wintered in a cave in the woods near Shay. Sometimes he slept in the open, as if daring the wolves or the elements. Hunting and fire-building occupied most of his time, but when he had open hours, he walked aimlessly through the snows, enjoying the silence and stillness, the sensation of being so close to the edge.
    The snows disappeared and he was still there. He knew that he could live like that that for decades, if he chose. Like a one-man norren clan. Aside from the romanticism of being a forest hermit, however, it held no meaningful appeal. What was he supposed to do, contemplate the leaves for thirty years? They were leaves. That was it.
    Yet having lived like a norren, and