The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,339

he’d undressed her to put it on her? Double yuck.

Eventually, she found her own clothes, feeling a little better when she realized that she was still wearing her own underthings. Sharp had been a sick man, but at least he wasn’t that kind of sick. It took her a while to get dressed. She might have dozed off for a few minutes. Or hours. She’d never used opiates before, so she wasn’t sure how long it was going to take for them to wear off.

But there was no time to wait until she was at her full strength.

She gathered up her things, and everything of Murder Sharp’s that seemed like it might be useful. Before she went, she closed his dead eyes. There was nothing tentative or overly gentle in her motions. He was just meat now.

Giving him this last kindness wasn’t for him, it was for her. He’d become a monster, but she had the seeds of the same monster in her. And there had been something in him that hadn’t been all monster; his goodness was always poking through at the oddest moments.

But she’d killed better.

Next stop, the Order of the Broken Eye’s holiday, the Feast of the Night’s Coming Triumph. Or whatever the hell it was called.

Maybe she’d be sober by then.

Chapter 100

“Thank you for coming,” Andross said. “I know it’s been a terrible day.”

His note had politely mentioned he would withdraw all support from Kip’s martial positions tomorrow if they didn’t come, so here, late at night, the Mighty had gathered in Andross’s stateroom. Their moods ranged from sullen to stoic to jagged. The demands of duty could only block out so much grief.

Suspecting a trap, Tisis hadn’t come.

“Koios will attack at dawn, if he’s able,” Andross said.

“Most of the tacticians think he’ll wait. He’s only just setting up his siege,” Kip said.

“The tacticians have the tactics right, but the strategy wrong,” Andross said.

“It’d be a terrible move,” Kip said.

“No, not terrible. Simply not his strongest. If the White King can shut down our drafters—which he believes he can—then he is already vastly more powerful than we are. He doesn’t need to play it safe, surround us, lay siege, and summon his troops to exactly the right area to focus an attack. He can just attack.”

“He’s been patient elsewhere,” Kip said. “Why on this, the most important battle, would he rush headlong?” And why are you having this conversation with us, rather than with High General Danavis?

“Because he has to attack on Sun Day,” Andross said. “His sea battle with you slowed him. I’m sure he would have preferred to get here earlier and set up at his leisure. Now he has to rush in. There’s no other choice.”

“Wouldn’t he want to not attack on Sun Day?” Kip asked. “He’s a pagan.”

“Maybe usually. Not this time. Thumbing his nose at Orholam is worth a few thousand more dead to him,” Andross said.

“Ah,” Kip said. That made sense. Not only could Koios satisfy his personal animosity against Orholam—probably the most important reason—but he would also show the Seven Satrapies that Orholam was powerless on His holiest day, in the very center of His power.

All remaining resistance would fold after that. The old gods would have shown they were more powerful than Orholam at His greatest. Although it would make this battle more difficult, it would make reigning afterward much easier.

Koios was still playing the long game.

“So let’s win, shall we?” Andross said. “To that end, I have gifts for you.”

Kip and the others looked at one another. Gifts? Andross Guile?

“Commander Leonidas,” Andross said. A slave brought forward a huge rosewood box that he seemed to have difficulty carrying.

“Leonidas?” Kip asked. “Big Leo?”

“I know, I know, it sounds like a girl’s name,” Big Leo said sheepishly.

He opened the box.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have.” On the top was a thick black leather coat with a high collar. Across the chest was the Mighty’s sigil in white leather. He picked it up; it was obviously very heavy, with chain and plate woven in beneath the leather.

“Oh, you really shouldn’t have,” he said, looking into the rosewood box. Lifting the coat had revealed, on velvet, a hammered, heavy copper chain with links the size of fists. There were two gloves inside as well. Big Leo looked at Andross, who nodded.

Leo put on the gloves and lifted the heavy chain. Each link had a black stripe around its burnished circumference. Then he looked at the tips of the thumbs of his gloves. “Oh,