The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,210

didn’t even seem to be aware of that. Had no concern for consequences in the least. Not in this. Not in anything.

She stopped fighting.

In moments, he’d immobilized her with luxin bonds.

“You’re scheming against me,” he said. “I know it. No seat on the Spectrum? No place in the councils of war? No honors that are due me? You treat me like a child! And it ends now.”

Quietly, calmly, despite the hand tight around her throat, Karris said, “May I speak, Zymun?”

“Son!” he said. “You call me son.”

“They warned me,” she said, her voice distant. “But I didn’t see you. Not as you are. I let my guilt blind me. For a time, but no more.”

“You’ll give me what I want,” Zymun said.

“Astonishing,” she said as if amused, though her guts squirmed. “So close to being given all you want and you can’t help but show your true colors. No. You’re no son of mine, Zymun. I disown you. Disavow you. I admit, you certainly do bear a resemblance to the worst parts of me, and perhaps you have my own father’s weak chin and venial disposition and shallow intellect, but you’re not the small, lame, petty shadow of Gavin Guile that I thought you were; you bear no likeness to him at all. I shall have to ponder that harried month when I conceived you. It seems more and more undeniable that I must have gotten very drunk and fucked a village idiot.”

“You . . . you cunt!”

“Get out,” she said, ignoring her bonds, ignoring that he was on top of her and she was helpless. “And never speak to me again.”

“I know how to break a woman,” he hissed, spit flying in her face. “I’ve done it before. It’s not so hard.”

“You’ll break nothing here,” Karris said. “You’ll walk out that door with your tail between your legs like the cur you are.”

“Oh yeah?” he said. He lifted the hand with the dagger. “You stupid bitch, I’ ll—”

He cut off as two spear blades slid into view. One sharp blade slipped beneath his wrist, so the dagger couldn’t descend without him slicing off his own hand. The other blade pressed along the side of Zymun’s neck.

Gill Greyling stood behind Zymun, spears trembling in his grip, not with fear but with rage.

Karris had never been happier to see anyone in her life.

“Give me the excuse,” Gill said. His voice was raspy. The man had been on edge perpetually since his brother died.

Zymun eased up, carefully dropping the dagger on the carpet, far out, raising his hands slowly and releasing the luxin to dust. “Could have sworn I barred that door,” he said, good-naturedly, as if it had all been a joke. He rocked back on his heels and stood slowly.

Derisively, Karris laughed at him as if he were the stupidest man she’d ever met. “As if the Blackguard doesn’t have ways to open the doors here?”

His face dropped, and the mask slipped to show the depth of the ugliness within him. He couldn’t stand disrespect.

She only hoped he’d attack.

Gill would kill him—he wouldn’t try to wound or incapacitate him, she knew. She knew her Blackguards.

She stood up and brushed the luxin dust off.

Now she was free, though, and this was all out in the open. She was honestly relieved. No more pretenses.

“Zymun,” she said. “Until tonight, I didn’t scheme against you. Not ever. But now I will. Thank you for bringing your true nature to light. History will judge me for giving birth to a monster. But at least I have the decency to hate him.”

But his dead eyes betrayed nothing even of rage now. He walked out the door, then stopped and turned. “Oh, may I have my dagger, please? It was a gift from my grandfather.”

“Try to take it,” Gill said dangerously. “See what happens.”

Zymun didn’t move.

“What’s your name again, Blackguard?” Zymun demanded.

“You don’t remember?” Gill asked, looking at him contemptuously. “A true Guile would.”

Chapter 61

“I have news about our hunt,” Quentin said. He furrowed his thick brows. “Good news, barely good news, and definitely not good news.”

Teia had managed to pull her shit together, somewhat, and hadn’t asked Quentin for a hug the other day, despite having told him the outlines of how she’d killed Ravi and what she’d learned. She’d fled then to her solitude, only giving him the name ‘Atevia Zelorn.’

She still wanted that hug, actually, but . . . Quentin was so damned awkward, and he didn’t like to be touched. It would be