The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,209

familial connections allowed him to bully.

She had about a week to decide how to chasten them without losing their monetary support. If all else failed, she was going to have to bring Andross in on this one. He was good at bringing the recalcitrant to heel.

But still.

She knew she shouldn’t set hopeless goals, but she couldn’t help herself.

Karris pushed her chair back. Her fingers were ink-stained. She rolled her neck.

There, now that was a good goal.

“Caleen,” Karris said, to one of her secretary’s slaves, “would you check on Rhoda’s availability to give me a massage tomorrow morning after training?”

The girl hurried out.

Moments later, there was a knock at the door.

Karris looked for her Blackguard to open the door, then realized he’d been called away to do something or other quickly.

Huh, I have to open my own door. And it feels like an inconvenience! I really am getting soft.

Karris stood and stretched. Her soreness reminded her of the morning’s training as much as of the day’s sitting. She wasn’t getting literally soft, at least. Not anymore.

She wasn’t quite back to the body she’d had at twenty—but maybe that ship had sailed, too. Dammit.

She opened the door with a grin on her face. Her son Zymun stood there, smiling thinly. There were no Blackguards at their immediate posts outside the door.

Her blood went cold.

“Mother? May I come in?”

“I’m afraid I’m terribly busy—”

“Won’t take but a moment.” He glanced down the hall, where a Blackguard was striding back toward her post. Just someone taking an unscheduled break. Overstretched forces.

Was Karris going to throw him out? Make a scene? She’d avoided him until now, and knew he was furious about it, but throwing him out would shame him and make an enemy of him forever.

“Come in,” she said reluctantly.

He looked around the room as he stepped inside, and his eyes lit with a quick, smug smile.

She turned and walked toward her desk to create space between them. She would not kiss him in greeting.

He cleared his throat, and she barely heard the scrape of wood under the sound.

Before she spun on her ankle, he’d barred the door.

“Open it,” she commanded coldly. Her eyes went wide, but her spectacles were in her pocket, and drafting green from her curtains would take time.

“Mother?” he said plaintively. His shoulders slumped. “Are you scared of me?! What have I done to deserve this? Who’s turned you against me? How have I offended you? One day we’re talking and laughing over private dinners, and then my grandfather tells me you’ve taken a secret hatred for me into your heart. He forbade me to come see you. Forbade me even to apologize for anything I might have done . . . I’m so ashamed of myself. Can you just tell me what I did?”

“Your grandfather said what?!” Karris asked.

“Mother, I hurt you somehow, and now you’re joining my enemies. I don’t understand!” His eyes filled with tears.

Andross! That bastard! He’d pretended he was going to take Karris’s side, and instead, this? Sowing more discord?

Zymun sank to a crouch, ashamed, and covered his eyes with his hands. “He said . . . he said he’d fought you for me, but you were pushing the Spectrum to get me disavowed as Prism-elect. He said he didn’t know why you hated me, but that once you hated, you never turned away from your wrath, that you never forgave anyone. Not ever in all your life. He forbade me to come speak to you of it. Told me I’d only arouse you further. But he doesn’t know you like I do. You’re not like that . . . are you?”

She stepped forward, aghast. Furious. What the hell was Andross playing at?!

Her only warning was that Zymun didn’t look up as he said the last words—‘are you?’

He didn’t search her face for any sign of forgiveness.

Her old Blackguard senses shrieked at her, but too late.

Zymun pounced, tackling her, and crushing her under his larger body. His eyes were full of color, but as devoid of feeling as a snake’s. He’d hidden them with his hands to hide that he was drafting.

Now luxin snared her hands, her throat.

He punched her hard in the stomach, but she took the blow with practiced ease. She immediately began wending a foot up for a wrestling hold—

—and stopped as he pricked a dagger point under her eyelid.

The flat, dead look in his eyes gave her no read.

If he killed her, they’d put him on Orholam’s Glare for sure. But he