The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,347

today in droves. Orholam hasn’t asked me to pick up a sword for that battle.

He asks not what we are unable to do.

He has asked me to fulfill this duty.

Ergo, this duty is a duty that I am able to fulfill.

Of course, Orholam never promised we shan’t soil ourselves in the fulfillment of said duties.

For some reason, that lightened Quentin’s heart.

‘Just pretend to be Gavin Guile, but . . . you know, holy,’ Kip had told him.

It wasn’t quite a ringing endorsement of Kip’s father, but it was good advice.

This’ll be my first sermon, Quentin thought. Most likely my last, too, the not-so-encouraging part of him added.

As far as prophetic sermons go, this really is cheating, isn’t it?

But then, if the prophecy doesn’t come true, I’m going to look like a fool immediately. And fatally.

Oooh boy. His heart hadn’t felt like this since he’d walked out before the crowd to face Orholam’s Glare.

Gavin Guile. Just put on your Gavin Guile.

Taking a deep breath, Quentin walked toward the soldiers stationed at the bottom of the steps.

Chapter 105

In the first light of what would be his final Sun Day, Gavin was circling to where his sword and his death lay, when he beheld an impossibility.

Directly opposite where the stair had spilled Gavin out onto the tower’s crown, the sun was rising, but now, the sun in all its brilliance, bearable only in small glances, seemed to widen. Blinking, he shaded his own eye against Orholam’s with a hand. His pace slowed.

What the hell is going on? But Gavin wet his lips and kept moving.

The sun in the sky split into twin orbs, as if they were Orholam’s own orisons glaring judgment across the horizon. As if, most times, He gave the world only half His attention, and now Gavin had all of it.

Both of God’s eyes, open, burning white.

Just as Gavin had given up on finding Him, He was here—and He was angry.

Fear threw shackles at Gavin’s heavy limbs, but he staggered forward. He would not be a man who cowered—not even before God Himself.

And those few extra steps back toward his sword were all it took. The second eye moved out and out, and then was halved, eclipsed by nothing Gavin could see. Then it disappeared entirely.

Gavin stopped, shaken from his fear by curiosity. He stepped back, and the second celestial eye reappeared. Then he stepped back farther, to where the second eye had split from the first, and in a few steps, they merged once more.

He knew he should get the blade before he investigated any mysteries, but he took a few more steps back to the stairs where he’d entered.

Now there was nothing visible at the crown of the hill.

But it had to be there.

The sword, you moron. Arm yourself, then investigate mysteries.

Gavin circled the promontory once more, quickly now, keeping his distance.

Orholam’s single eye split again, and again both eyes glowered down at Gavin in judgment.

Gavin gritted his teeth and took a step—up the hill. And then another, climbing the hill at an angle with the sun.

There was something off about those burning eyes.

Then all the pressure on his heart released at once, and he blew out a huge breath.

There weren’t two eyes up there at all. It was a mirror!

God damn.

A mirror, set atop this hill at just the right angle so that pilgrims coming here at dawn on Sun Day and following the path Gavin had would see exactly what Gavin had seen. It was just a bloody mirror! Up on the hilltop, casting that illusion with every sunrise, the angle worked out precisely: the path, it seemed, even had markings that had to be a calendar, so that the priests could have pilgrims stand at exactly the right spot each day.

It was all religious flimflam, a swindle, chicanery. A con for the desperate and credulous.

But still . . . an impossibly thin, huge, perfectly clean mirror? Clean, after centuries and doubtless thousands of storms? That in itself was well-nigh miraculous.

Granted, it was still a lot more credible than that God Himself was staring at him.

Gavin approached the mirror, the time and angle of the hill making the ‘eyes’ hold steady. He squinted against the brightness to study the fraud.

But as soon as he did, they moved. Not the way they should have, given his own motion.

His steps faltered.

No, surely not. They must’ve only seemed to move wrongly.

But Gavin was frozen, his muscles going taut as a bowstring fully drawn.

Heart thudding, mind screaming that he should