The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,311

course. What are the odds she’d have a stroke the same night?”

“Zero,” Karris said.

“Excuse me?” Andross asked. Then, sharper, “What did you say?”

“I had her killed. She was the Nuqaba’s spymaster. I found out that you’d ordered the Nuqaba murdered, and I judged Azmith an even greater threat.”

He looked at her with those tired eyes, and she couldn’t tell if the brief flicker of life in them was surprise that she’d learned of his own contract, that she was capable of ordering a murder herself, or surprise that she would admit it.

Then Andross snorted. “Of course you did. And you used some goddam amateur to do the deed. My assassin does his job professionally—then yours comes along and bungles everything mine was accomplishing. Of course Azmith was the spymaster! That’s how I knew she was practical enough to deal with.”

Karris wasn’t about to tell him that his assassin not only wasn’t a man but was also the same assassin as hers.

But still, how could I have sent Teia into that?

I didn’t, though. She was already being sent. I was just trying to take advantage of a bad situation and turn it into an opportunity. I was trying to be someone other than who I am, and I’ve reaped . . . this.

Andross had murdered the Nuqaba; it was his fault that Ironfist was furious. But Karris had murdered Azmith; it was her fault that Ironfist had become king.

“There was a moment there,” Andross said, “when Ironfist demanded blood, and I swear I saw relief on your face.”

“Relief?” Karris said. “You think I’d choose blood over marriage? Especially this marriage? Ironfist has been my dear friend for many years, and in case you hadn’t noticed, is quite a handsome and powerful man. If I cannot have my Gavin, I could hardly hope for a better marriage.”

Andross narrowed his eyes at her for a long moment, then said grudgingly, “I suppose so.”

“It should be you,” she said, “who dies.”

He laughed. Waited. Then chuckled. “That’s all you’re going to say? You’re not even going to make a case for it? Tell me how old I am, maybe? How I’ve ‘lived my life already’? Surely you can dig deep and find some reason why the actual promachos is less important than a White.”

“You know all the reasons I could bring up, but there’s only one that matters.”

“Oh?” Genuine curiosity filled his face. He stood up straighter, and something of Gavin Guile appeared in him.

Karris said, “You should volunteer to die because you love Kip. I know you do. I know there’s something more than avarice and power in you.”

At that very moment, there was a crack of thunder and lightning, the faint sizzle from the antennae above the tower as it was hit.

Andross laughed immediately. Immediately he laughed. “Love? Kip?” He laughed again.

That goddam lightning. A surge of hatred at this old man had coursed through her as fast as the lightning strike, but it had also been illuminated by that lightning striking at exactly the wrong moment: she doubted her words for a moment even as she said them—and he saw it.

“You didn’t leave things so well with Kip, did you?” he asked.

She had no answer for him. But he caught the guilt in her eyes.

He said, “I’m the promachos. This is a matter of war. I could simply choose. I could make my life easier for once and choose that you die. But I won’t do that. That’d make things too easy for you. When you were young, your choices ruined my family, and you’ve pretended ever since then that they weren’t your choices at all. Now it’s your family on the line, your boy, and your choice. I choose this much: Ironfist won’t have my blood. So. You’re the hard-ass; you’re the Iron White. You choose who dies. This is your fault, so as I recall you telling me once with such great glee, ‘You shit the bed, you clean it up.’ ”

Chapter 90

It was time. It was all for this.

Ironfist had demanded apartments in the Prism’s Tower befitting his high status and bullied an underchatelaine until he was moved to the one with the secret exit he’d discovered years ago.

The execution was scheduled for midnight. He guessed that tonight’s outing might take an hour. Maybe even two. But there was no way he was going to cut it too close, so he was giving himself four hours. A king didn’t have to explain himself to anyone, so he’d simply retired