The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,114

‘Someone’s gonna do evil—but it won’t be me’?

But Sharp was still talking. “They gave me reasons at first. You know, this one had done this terrible thing, this next had done something worse. From old slaves to young, young slaves to bad old free men, old free men to young free men to bad old luxiats to . . . to anyone, without question. Without remorse.

“Eighty-nine kills now in more years than I want to remember. Not all of them assassinations, either. Jobs go wrong, or sometimes you have to grab someone so you can try out a new technique for the next job. It takes a toll, you know? You’d think it’s hardest at first, that after that you get over it. And you do, until sometimes you look back and think too much. Like I’m doing now, I guess.

“Last year, I killed Arys Sub-red in her very birthing chamber. We’d made love that morning.” He smiled with real fondness, then shook himself. “Not that she loved me. I’d been very clear that I was willing to be good company and an attentive but temporary bedmate and no more. But she treated me . . . respectful. Honorably, I guess. You don’t get that so much. We passed some of the sweetest hours of my life in each other’s arms. I was . . . uh, fond of her, I guess, in a way I’d not thought I could be after . . . whatever. But that morning I threatened to strangle her newborn’s first scream if she said the wrong thing. I would’ve done it, too.” He shook his head. “What kind of man does that? Not a whole one. Not a man at all.”

“You can still—”

“No!” he barked. “There is no redemption for men like me. And if there was, if some god would erase my crimes, I wouldn’t want to serve a god so vile. Some things can’t be forgiven. Shouldn’t be. I’ve sworn the oaths. I’ve lived them. I’ve drunk of the communal bloodwine. So I’ve this much honor left to me, this much at least. At least I obey.”

He slapped her face, shooting black stars over her vision, and then he pulled a blindfold over her face.

She heard him pull up the chair within a few feet and sit.

And as he sat with a great sigh, she could only hope he was dumber than she thought, because if the greatest evidence Murder Sharp held on to of his own goodness or honor was that he obeyed the Old Man, then every moment he let Teia live was an argument against all those things.

If he realized that her continuing existence undermined the very last thing he valued about himself? That moment would be her last.

Chapter 31

“May we have the room, please?” Tisis said. She’d just come in from one of her meetings with her spies, and was wearing attire for the forest, not the palace.

The windows of the privy council chamber were dark. Even the most ardent art aficionados had gone home. Kip had only three meetings left before he could call it a day. He’d been seated so long, his butt was going to come out of his chair square-shaped. Ferkudi’s report on provisions was next: boring, but necessary information, doubtless with money requests attached.

What was after that, another banker to beg for a loan?

Kip sighed, then realized everyone was waiting on him. Not least his wife. “Please, please,” he said.

He was not used to this ‘lord’ business.

“I could use a few more minutes with these numbers anyway,” Ferkudi said as he and some subordinates and scribes and secretaries and the rest cleared out of the room.

Only Cruxer stayed in the chamber, with some of the Mighty’s nunks outside. The man had to be even more tired than Kip, but he wasn’t ready to leave Kip alone with anyone other than the original Mighty yet.

“They told me what you did,” Tisis said.

“They did?” Kip asked stupidly. Which ‘they’? What thing?

He really probably shouldn’t be making decisions when he was this exhausted. He’d stacked the easy meetings up for the end of the day, but still.

“They did. Come with me,” Tisis said.

As Kip stood laboriously, Cruxer paused in his checking the windows. They’d just cleared the room, and now they were leaving it? He made to go with them.

Tisis waved him off. “Sorry,” she said. “Won’t be long.”

She took Kip’s hand and pulled him toward the room’s closet. She pulled out her ponytail. “I’ve been