The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,28

trying to gain the initiative, I’ve blundered horribly instead. Immediately after the battle, when I sent nearly all the Nightbringers’ will-casters and their animal partners on ahead of us to attack the White King’s supply lines to disrupt their siege? Tisis has just discovered that the White King did the same to us first, weeks if not months ago. He’s blocked the Great River behind us. We don’t know where. We can’t get any intel or reinforcements from the rest of the Seven Satrapies. And now, after I’ve sent away our most powerful forces, it appears one of the bandit kings—a lovely fellow named Daragh the Coward—has gained sudden wealth and a huge number of recruits and may lay siege to us here within days. I suspect he’s been bought by the White King. So you tell me: is ‘hopeless’ a question, or the answer?”

Some of this was news even since last night, and they all took a moment to absorb it.

What would you do here, father?

Kip suddenly stood, because the first step at least was obvious.

Maybe it was time to see if he was the son of Gavin Guile after all. He looked over at Cruxer, and his commander’s throat bobbed as he saw what Kip intended.

Kip flashed him a grin.

And maybe it was the grin that did it, the intimation of confidence, for instead of raising an objection, Cruxer nodded. He was in with Kip, categorically.

Kip strode to the windows, head high, threw back the drapes, and waved to the damned crowd, smiling broadly.

They cheered. Of course they did.

Chapter 8

Teia thought there were two kinds of women most aware of how many people at a party are staring at them: a pretty one who opts for much more daring clothing than usual, and a hideous one who’s dressed the same way and only becomes aware of her mistake as her carriage pulls away, leaving her stranded. She’d never really been the former, but right now she felt a hell of a lot like the latter.

Please don’t look my way. Please don’t look my way.

She moved through the Chromeria with her heart in her throat. If the wrong eyes spotted her, she wouldn’t face scorn. She’d face death, and consign her father to it as well.

A couple hours ago, she’d felt like some kind of avenging nocturnal angel: I’ll be a ghost, haunting their dreams!

That would make them nightmares, she supposed.

I’ll haunt their nightmares! . . . But do you haunt nightmares? Why not a nice empty house? Maybe in the countryside. With cheese, maybe. And wine.

I am not good at this being-scary business.

As she ascended the Prism’s Tower invisibly, she felt less like a phantom and more like a mouse in the stables. No one noticed her, but if they did, it was far more likely to be disastrous for her than for them. And that was just on the slaves’ stairs.

An invisible assassin breaking into the White’s quarters was, after all, exactly the kind of thing that the Blackguard had been formed to stop. She’d done it before, but she’d also rushed across a busy street without looking and lived—that didn’t make it a good idea to do it repeatedly.

In the first hours after leaving Gavin Guile alive, Teia had retrieved a few of her things from the barracks—again dodging invisibly around her compatriots and friends. Because any of them might be working for the Order of the Broken Eye, she had to appear to have simply vanished. The Old Man of the Desert would check, after all.

Whoever he or she was, they had certainly not survived this long—like a tapeworm in the guts of the Chromeria itself—without being fanatically careful.

She’d had to take a few hours to plot, and to rest.

The truth was, even after training for the last year with the master cloak, the longest Teia could comfortably stay invisible was still only a couple hours.

Now, with night full upon the Jaspers and the shift change about to begin, it was time to sneak into Karris’s room and tell her that her husband, Gavin, was alive. Further, he’d been here in the Chromeria itself, mere hours ago.

And Teia hadn’t saved him. Oh, and she hadn’t reported earlier, when there might have been a good chance at rescue.

It was not a report Teia relished giving.

She made it into the room on the heels of Watch Captain Blunt and Kerea—neither of whom was a sub-red, thank Orholam. They checked the room’s balcony, the slaves’ closet, and the