The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,121

are much more likely to be out there . . . if you are.”

He seemed at first relieved, and then at the whipcrack of the last words, stung. His face went from wounded to stoic quickly, though, give him that.

Karris wanted to be forgiving, but she’d been a Blackguard. Second-best wasn’t good enough, and if this kid couldn’t get better fast, she was going to be riding the watch captains for their bad judgment in promoting him.

Besides, she wasn’t going to get close to another Blackguard kid. She’d probably just have to kill him in the end, like she had Gavin Greyling.

He slipped out quietly and professionally.

Orholam damn this war. With all the drafting she was requiring of everyone, Karris was going to be killing a lot of Gavin Greylings before the year was out.

“Seems like a lot more chains than when we last spoke,” Karris said. She had much of the story already from others, which was good, because Quentin’s modesty kept him from giving her the full truth.

“My spiritual director told me I can’t sell them all,” Quentin said. “If I’m to be your scourge of the luxiats, they should see both their wealth and the loss of it. At least until it seems like it’s becoming a contest.”

“How’s that?” Karris asked.

He unfolded the tale succinctly. Ever since Karris had spared his life, recognizing his contrition at what he’d done was real, Quentin had taken on a unique position. She’d made him a slave—her slave—but required him to dress always in gold finery. It was both a personal penance for his own ambition and intended to be a corporate penance for all the luxiats who’d forgotten who they were supposed to be serving.

Quentin was hated and reviled by many of the luxiats, but no one dared physically harm him—as far as Karris knew at least—because he was Karris’s property, and they feared her. As well they should. But even if they hadn’t used fists, Karris was certain many luxiats had used their words to hurt Quentin.

He’d taken every abuse and accepted it.

Soon, guilt-stricken by their own cruelty, some young luxiats had come to beg his forgiveness, and ended up confessing much more. With his intellectual gifts and deep study, the old Quentin had once been on track to becoming High Luxiat. Now he was a slave. As he listened, he condemned no one who came to him, and he seemed to be able to understand everyone, from high to low. He was a convicted murderer, but oddly also the most devout luxiat they knew.

Among the young luxiats at least, he’d become an important figure.

He thought he was merely an oddity, like a good-luck charm to them, but Karris knew he was becoming more than that. The young luxiats gave him alms.

And then, as Quentin’s new reputation spread, so, too, did strangers.

It made him enemies among the older luxiats, who’d hated him already for rubbing their own shortcomings in their faces and now hated him more for being so apparently righteous, and admired (a convicted murderer, admired!) on top of it all.

Which now helped her understand what he meant about the donated jewelry he wore becoming a contest. As luxiats or lords gave to him, and saw their piece soon thereafter being worn, they might feel proud of it, but soon it would be gone—sold for another’s bread. His wearing of it was to be a reminder that they didn’t own it any longer, and if that stung, then good. If they gave without feeling a pinch, how did that help them learn to sacrifice? His no longer wearing it would be a further sign of how Orholam gives gifts, not that they may be hoarded but that they may be used. If that pained them, too, then that was good as well.

If, on the other hand, seeing him wear their jewelry started to give lords bragging rights, he would stop, and that could pain them, too.

He continued his studies—Karris had ordered him to do that, mainly so that he must always be among the luxiats—but he also volunteered in the worst precincts of Big Jasper, where he worked at charity hospitals and fed the poor, often helping in the sculleries himself. He’d been beaten and robbed several times—the gold clothing was the sign of an easy and lucrative mark. Once he’d been hit so hard he’d lost his hearing in one ear.

But he had no fear whatsoever, nor would he countenance stopping his work.

Of all people, white-bearded High