The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,268

what I hear, you’d not have fared nearly so well as you did if she were only a nice body. Can’t tell you how pleased I am with that. It seemed terribly unjust that Eirene Malargos’s sister had a reputation for being deeply stupid. I hoped and gambled that it wasn’t true.”

What am I really doing here? How had Kip forgotten what it was like to bear the full brunt of Andross Guile’s abrasive personality? “As above, so below, huh?” Kip said.

“How’s that?” Andross asked. He gestured. “Please, sit, sit.”

“Like Orholam, you set the course before me. I merely ran it.” Were they really going to pretend Andross had meant Kip well? That all the blessings Kip had enjoyed from his marriage were the point of what Andross had done? Taking a seat in a chair that probably cost more than a house in Rekton, Kip said, “I’m just so glad that the marriage also cemented the Malargos family to us, and kept Ruthgar from making a separate peace with Koios.”

“Well, not everyone can start marriage with love, certainly not poor fat boys from the farthest reaches of the empire.”

“Actually, poor fat boys from Tyrea have a pretty good chance of marrying for love. It’s everything else they don’t get.”

Andross paused. “I’ll yield to your greater experience on that. Regardless, good work making what I gave you your own.”

And suddenly Kip wanted to bury his fist in his grandfather’s pleasant, patronizing face.

“She’s been a joy to me. Thank you,” Kip said instead, smiling as if the old man were in his dotage and needed to be humored.

Andross caught it, and the jovial superiority drained from his face. But then he recovered. He wagged a finger and turned away. Grinwoody rolled a table over to them, covered with labeled decks and scores of cards spread faceup for modifying any of the decks.

“Have you had any chance to play?” Andross asked.

“None,” Kip said. “But I feel I have a different perspective on some of the cards now. Not sure if that’ll help me in the game, but it’s been quite valuable in life.”

“They’re not so different,” Andross said, “life and the game.”

“Here I thought we were working to prevent that,” Kip said.

“How so?” Andross asked. It was actually a bit of a relief that he wasn’t tracking exactly with Kip’s thoughts today. The old man was unnerving.

“We’re trying to prevent there being nine kings again?” Kip said.

“Ha! Well. True,” Andross said.

“Promachos Guile, we both know you’re better at Nine Kings than I am. You’re also the promachos. You can ask or order almost anything of me, and I’ll simply have to give it to you. I’d love to play you sometime—without stakes other than perhaps my bruised ego. But not today. Maybe you’ve done everything you need to do to prepare for the coming battle, but I haven’t. Every game I play against you is for stakes I can’t afford, and with the decks stacked against me. I won’t play.”

Andross looked amused. “A good play itself.”

“Thank you.”

“Which is why I preemptively took it away from you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Kip, do you think you’re the first young man to see that the games of his elders are stacked against him? Do you think you’re the first to rage against the game upon finding out that you’re not much of a player?”

“Look, old man—”

“Yes, I am old, and how old are you now? Even out of your teens yet?”

That caught Kip up short. But he didn’t bother to answer.

“Even in our world, where drafters, and the children of noble families, and most of all those who are both, must mature early, you are still very, very young.”

“My uncle Dazen set the world on fire by the time he was my age,” Kip countered. “And my—”

“You consider that an achievement?” Andross interrupted before Kip could start on his father’s deeds.

“He moved the world by his will.”

“No, he didn’t. He didn’t even set the world afire. He provided a spark to one powder keg among hundreds. He invited other fire throwers to his banners because he was so desperate for support, and they came because the old grievances were so strong.”

“You backed him into a corner,” Kip said. “And you did nothing to disperse all that powder, though you were in a position to do so. It was your failure.”

“Perhaps you know less about that history than you think. You ascribe more power to me than I had at the time.”

“Do I?” Kip said.

“I came from the outside