The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,102

gift to everyone, whereas a torch in the city was a selfish tool for one or two. One should weigh carefully whether the work you did by that light benefited the community more than the beauty you stole from them to do it.

With the urgent preparations to march, tonight there were more lights visible than usual, but with a cloudless sky, the scarce few lanterns of the city still barely dimmed the glory of the stars.

“Gaspar Estratega. Helane Troas. Viv Grayskin,” Kip murmured. The stars, those æthereal fires above, called to the terrestrial fires below, like to like, and mirrored the thaumaturgical lights of Kip’s war map. The vast beyond comprehension and the small beneath notice existed at once, in one city, one room, one mind.

“Zee Oakenshield. Telemachos the Bold.”

All this, all the people below, would move at Kip’s word. Though without mastery of all he should have mastered to deserve such obedience, he was their master. Where he said to go, they would go. They would live and fight and die by his will—and despite his desire, for there was no path Kip could see by which none would die, no matter what he did.

At most, he might make there be fewer deaths. At best, he might make the deaths purposeful. At the end, he might make their deaths buy victory and peace and some meager measure of justice, some semblance of stability, for a time.

Three years ago, Kip wouldn’t have believed anyone would ever follow him. A year ago, he wouldn’t have believed so many would. Now he only prayed that he would lead them well enough.

Hell, three years ago Kip never would have believed any woman would ever want him, much less one remotely like Tisis.

So why was he here, walking in the cold, trying to solve a gift as if it were a problem?

“Garibaldi Phlegethon. Euterpe Tamazight. The Chartopaíchtis.”

Was that it? Had it seemed too easy to become satrap? Like a gift rather than an adroitly seized reward?

In hardly more than a day they’d have the big signing ceremony, and the army would march. People standing around while he signed a bit of paper? Kip hated that sort of thing. He’d insisted it be a small ceremony.

Tisis had suggested perhaps a large ceremony would be preferable, given that becoming a satrap was kind of a big deal, and many witnesses would be better than few.

But knowing that he had to assert his independence and indomitable will or lose the respect of his men, Kip had defiantly insisted on a large ceremony.

That showed her who wore the claws around here.

He called the war map to mind again, its lights overlaying the lights of the stars and the campfires, one reality atop another, like glassine immortals. Powerless here. Watchers, not helpers.

Kip felt like a mere observer himself now. He ran the lights forward and back as the White King’s army invaded. In the night and the darkness, its moving colors became a universe entire. The whole map showed less than one-half of one satrapy, and he was a single splinter aflame among this constellation of torches against the darkness.

“Corvan Danavis.” Ah, he’d said that name half a dozen times. “Darayaus Khurvash.”

And that was the end of it. He couldn’t think of anyone else. He’d named every single great tactician or strategist, every famous general or admiral, every warlord and great rogue, every scoundrel, every leader who came to mind who might, maybe, possibly, have some insight that would help him now and whose Nine Kings card he might have Viewed in that chaotic, compressed rush that had taken him to the Great Library.

Surely, surely in all the cards he’d Viewed of the most important people in history, surely he’d seen at least one person whose experiences could help him. Surely, somewhere in his fat skull was some bit of borrowed genius he could trigger that could set him at ease, that would have sharper insight than his own blunt wit.

But nothing happened.

Soon—maybe too soon—he’d take possession of more than he’d ever wanted, and instead of feeling elation, for some reason it irked him. It felt like failure, and he couldn’t tell why.

Come on, Orholam, I’m fighting on Your side here. Gimme a break.

“The Master. Andross the Red,” he said, unthinking.

His scalp tingled. He sucked in a breath.

Nothing happened. Or nothing more happened. That little tingling had been just him, right? That had been a shot of fear setting fire to his brain like straight brandy would set fire