The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,270

mother.”

“Well, if you want Karris’s real story, you’ll have to ask her yourself. I think there are some things you might learn about the woman who called herself Katalina Delauria that might change how you feel about her.”

“What do you mean by that? What do you know about my mother?” Kip demanded. He’d sworn he didn’t care about her anymore, but his emotions went so hot so fast that he saw he’d only been fooling himself.

“Quite a lot more now than I did even a month ago. I had a visit with Lina’s father. Most illuminating.”

“I have another grandfather?!”

“Tragic story. Lina and Asafa were very close. They corresponded until she became convinced it was too dangerous for her to continue doing so. That, of course, was long after she’d run away. He’d love to meet you. Would you like to meet him?”

Run away?

Too dangerous?

Kip had a whole other family?

His grandfather’s name was Asafa? Kip could meet him?

The questions piled on top of each other, throwing Kip’s heart to the winds—until he saw Andross’s coolly smug smirk.

This was Andross Guile’s favorite thing in the world, wasn’t it? Knocking people off balance, then lording his greater knowledge over them, then manipulating them with it: this was his real game.

“There’s a battle coming. This is all moot,” Kip said.

“I like to plan for the future, even if it looks like there is none. That’s what makes us emerge from them stronger.”

“Are you going to cheat?” Kip asked.

“Only if you let me,” Andross said. “Are you familiar with Keffel’s Variant?”

“I know what it is,” Kip said. It was a set of custom rules that made for a faster game. He’d never played it.

“It’s good for an analogy,” Andross said. “And it’ll give you a chance for luck to help you.”

“Classic decks?” Kip asked. The variant started the game at noon rather than morning, when the most powerful cards could be played immediately, and had an initial mechanic where you drew seven cards but had to discard down to four. Using classic decks, you had some idea what your opponent would be going for. Typical games were a quick slugfest.

“No, my decks,” Andross said.

Instantly, Grinwoody began sweeping cards from the surface of the table as if they’d been there for nothing.

Of course. Asshole. With the many cards out on the table, Andross had misled Kip into believing that Kip would be constructing his own deck. Instead, this was just another way of the old man putting him off balance.

“It’s traditional that the guest be allowed to choose the deck pairing, isn’t it?”

“I am . . . familiar with that tradition,” Andross admitted.

“Hoped I wouldn’t be, huh?” Kip asked with a quick grin.

Andross took a deep breath. “Beating you is going to be such fun. Do you know, I once stooped to playing Grinwoody? So capable in so many duties, and has surely seen me play a thousand times. Yet hopeless.”

“Almost as bad as I am?” Kip asked.

Again Andross smiled.

Grinwoody said nothing, but now brought over a heavy tray, seeming to struggle with the weight with the infirmity of his age. He set it on the playing table and pulled back the top. It unfolded to reveal a score of decks, each nicely inset in a samite surface.

“You choose the pairing. I choose which deck.”

“May I take a moment?” Kip asked as he started going through the decks.

“As you were so adamant to point out, we don’t have all day,” Andross said when Kip paused halfway through rifling through the second deck.

“Of course, grandfather,” Kip said. “It’s just been a while. Green Apple’s Gambit?” he asked, gesturing to the deck in his hand.

“With four substitutions,” Andross said. “As usually constructed, that deck’s a little slow, I always thought it needed a tertiary path to victory, though in my games I’ve never used it.”

“Never needed it?” Kip said.

“I’ve tended to be lucky,” Andross said. It was, perhaps, the first modest thing Kip had ever heard come out of his mouth.

Dammit. Andross had here collected the legendary decks of history, but then made his own adjustments.

“Brier and Fire. Good one,” Kip said, rifling. “But . . . lots of substitutions.” He frowned.

He was at a greater disadvantage than he’d thought. It didn’t matter how good his memory was, not with a time pressure like this. Studying each deck, recalling how close it was to the classic decks and rating its strengths, and then discarding most of the commentary he’d memorized to evaluate how strong it would be in