Free The Burning White by Brent Weeks

running down it to the ship’s waist, stepping over Gunner’s hand and onto a finial as his bearded, bushy head swung under her as he began to climb.
    She dropped to the deck and dodged between sailors, past the two men lifting the plank. With a heave, she leapt—
    —and she wasn’t going to make it. Her feet were going to strike the dock’s side just short of the front edge.
    She lifted her feet, tucking her knees as if in a deep squat, and barely cleared the gap, but the position left her nothing to absorb the shock of landing. She tumbled head over heels, barely having the wherewithal to swirl the cloak and cloud back over her body as she stopped.
    One of the Order sailors lifting the plank paused, staring right at where she was. He lifted a hand to shade his eyes, and Teia saw that she had jumped right between him and the rising sun—which was either brilliant or the worst possible thing she could have done. Any part of her that had been exposed would have thrown a shadow over his face. On the other hand, he was now looking directly into the rising sun.
    The sailor on the other side of the heavy plank looked over at the man, peeved he’d stopped. “You fookin’ gonna help me stow this fookin’ thing, ya beaver shite eater?”
    The man cast his eye around the dock again, puzzled, but then he said, “Man can’t appreciate a sunrise for two fookin’ heartbeats? You and your dysent’ry gams, foulin’ a liminal moment.”
    “It’ll be a
sub
liminal moment if you don’t start helping, because I’mma knock you the fook out.”
    “Take one deep breath through that poo pincher disfiguring your gob for a moment, won’tcha? It’s a sunrise.”
    “It’s Orholam’s Eye coming up. Curse it like ya ought.”
    “What kinda lead-souled, hieroproctical—”
    “Lead-soled? You’re the one with heavy feet, you laggard son of a slattern mum—”
    “Don’t you talk about our mum that way. If she’d been faithful to dad, you’d not be here. And I weren’t talking about that kind of soul, not that you’d be familiar . . .”
    Teia lost the rest as another man came to the rail with a long pole to push the ship away from the dock far enough for the slaves belowdecks to get their oars out.
    She watched as the gap between her and obedience grew until it was unbridgeable.
    She was committed.
    The Old Man’s command had been the kind of ultimatum on which a whole world turns: murder Gavin and become fully one of us and be given all you could want or hope for, or else.
    I choose ‘or else.’
    For no reason that Teia could understand, for no reason that made any sense at all, her heart suddenly soared.
    She’d failed in her every single attempt against the Order so far. But she would not fail again.
    She straightened her back and drew her powers about her. As far as the Old Man knew, she was gone for at least a month and a half, if not twice that.
    The Order didn’t have their own skimmers yet, so that meant six weeks at least before anyone could return with word of her absence—and therefore, her disobedience.
    She couldn’t tell the commander or even her friends that she lived, lest someone betray her, or let it slip to someone who would. So she must become a ghost, moving invisibly through the world of men, leaving nothing but terror and death.
    In commissioning Teia to infiltrate the Order of the Broken Eye, Karris had wanted her to destroy the Order utterly, so they wouldn’t be able to enslave and blackmail and murder ever again. Teia had always understood her mission was necessary, but now it was personal.
    She had six weeks.
    Six weeks to find someone in the Order of the Broken Eye, to follow that thread to the leadership, and that would lead her to what she needed: their papers. Even if one leader could memorize a list of all the secret members of the Order, his underlings couldn’t be expected to. Codes had to change and adjustments be made. On top of that, there would be deeds and titles, lists of