The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,11

wanted wine with dinner but then decided he’d really wanted beer. “Saffron. Not cloves. I meant I smelled saffron. Paryl smells like saffron. Superviolet is cloves. Always get those two mixed up.”

“You confused saffron and cloves? They don’t smell anything alike!”

“They’re both yummy.”

Big Leo rubbed his face with a big hand. “Ferk, you are the dumbest smart guy I know.”

“No I’m not!” Ferkudi said, a big grin spreading over his face. “I’m the smartest dumb guy you know.”

“Yeah,” Ben-hadad said, “I’m the dumbest smart guy you know. I smelled saffron half an hour ago, out by the palace’s front doors. Didn’t even think about it. Breaker, my apologies.” He knuckled his forehead. “I think it’s customary to offer my resignation?”

“None of that,” Cruxer said. “This is none of your faults. It’s mine. You’ve all been right. The Mighty’s too small. We’re spread too thin. And that’s on me.” Kip had kept it secret that Teia was infiltrating the Order of the Broken Eye, but he had mentioned that Karris was afraid the Order had people even in the Blackguard itself, which had made Cruxer stop any talk of adding to the Mighty, fearing that whoever they welcomed in might be a traitor.

‘How can you be certain one of us isn’t with the Order already?’ Winsen had asked. ‘I say we add people. Might as well get a few shifts’ rest while we wait to get stabbed in the back.’

As if they weren’t already sometimes nervous about Winsen, what with his alien gaze, total disregard for danger, and overeagerness to shoot.

“You all did your part,” Cruxer continued. “And you all did your parts brilliantly. I mean, except Winsen, who I think might be angling for a Blackguard name. What do you think of Dead Weight?”

The Mighty were all just starting to laugh, delighted, turning toward Winsen, when Kip saw something go cruel and hungry in the little man’s eyes. Win had never taken mockery well.

Win’s obsidian arrow point swept left as the archer drew the nocked arrow fully, pointing straight at Cruxer, who was standing tall, flat-footed.

There was no time for him to evade. Win’s move was as fast as a man stepping in a hole while expecting solid ground. The bowstring came back to his lips in the swift kiss of a departing parent and then leapt away.

He couldn’t miss—

—but he did.

He loosed another arrow and was drawing a third before the Mighty dove left and right. Kip was throwing a green shield in front of himself—I always knew it would be Win. That saurian calm. That unnatural detachment.

Big Leo crushed Kip to the ground, disrupting his drafting and blotting out all vision as he offered his own body as a shield.

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Winsen shouted. “Easy, Ferk! Ben! Easy, Ben!”

Kip unearthed himself from the living mountain that was Big Leo and saw Winsen with bow lifted high in surrender.

Ben-hadad had his crossbow leveled at the archer, his fingers heavy on the trigger plate. Ferkudi was slowing down, already having charged over most of the distance, closing off Winsen’s view of Kip—and therefore angle of fire—with his own bulk. Cruxer had his arm drawn back, blue luxin boiling, hardening into a lance.

“I know one thing about the Shadows,” Winsen said loudly. He dropped the arrows from his right hand to show he was no threat. “They often work in pairs.”

There was a clatter behind the Mighty. Metal hitting stone—not three paces behind them.

War-blinded by the threat in front of them, not one of them had looked back. But they did now.

A cloaked figure was shimmering back into visibility, Winsen’s two arrows protruding from his chest. A Shadow. He pitched facedown.

None of them said a word as the Shadow twitched in death.

The Mighty fanned out, securing Kip, checking that the dead assassin was really dead.

Then Commander Cruxer cleared his throat. “Did I say Dead Weight? I meant, uh, Dead Eye.”

They chuckled. It was an apology.

Except Ferkudi. “You can’t call him Dead Eye. There’s already an Archer from a year behind us called that. Beat Win’s score at the three hundred paces by four p—”

“Ferk!” Cruxer said, not looking at him, his smile cracking. “Dead Shot it is.”

“Oh, definitely not, Commander,” Ferkudi said. “That’s been used like seven times. Most recent one’s retired now, but still alive. Very disrespectful to take a living Blackguard’s n—”

“Ferk,” Cruxer said, his smile tightening.

“I’d settle for you calling me ‘Your Holiness,’ ” Win offered.

“No,” Cruxer said.

“ ‘Commander Winsen’?” Winsen suggested.

Cruxer sighed.

Chapter 3

Maybe it isn’t treason.

Teia ghosted