The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,368

not your fault. I don’t blame you.”

“You fuck!” Gavin nearly leapt to attack him, sword be damned. “I said don’t you dare—”

The creature who pretended to be Sevastian did the last thing Gavin expected: Sevastian tossed the sword to him—or at him, somewhat, for though hilt-first, it was no gentle toss.

Gavin cut his fingers as he bobbled the blade. He retreated, stunned back into recognition of their fight and the blade and the peril he was in.

But ‘Sevastian’ made no move to attack, nor even to close the gap between them.

Gavin came down with the blade in his right hand, without his adversary so much as attacking. He was so stunned that his adversary had given up every advantage that they’d fought for throughout the entire, long day that he nearly forgot his rage, Guile though he was.

“Before any of us were born, father came to believe he was the Lightbringer,” Sevastian said.

“Stop it now,” Gavin said. “I have the monopoly on the madness here.”

“He thought only he could save the world. That he was the most important person in history.”

“Well, that much does sound like father,” Gavin admitted.

“He thought that if he didn’t save the world, no one would. He laid out a path, and as he always did, he pushed through every obstacle. But one time, he got outmaneuvered, outplayed at the great game. High Lord Ulbear Rathcore saw the size of father’s ambition. Before father was even on the Spectrum, Rathcore pushed an obscure rule change about the Prism sacrifice through the Spectrum that he thought would stop father’s ambitions.”

Ulbear Rathcore? Gavin had barely known the older man, only that he resigned from the Spectrum and left the Chromeria around the time when his wife, Orea Pullawr, had become the White. That was decades ago. Orea had only spoken of him with fondness, which had seemed odd, given that they’d lived apart for as long as Gavin could remember. Rathcore had never even visited the Chromeria again, and as the White, Orea couldn’t leave it.

“Wait. What? What? The Prism what?”

“Centuries ago now, Vician was the last true Prism. Born, not made. But when it came time to step down and surrender his powers, he murdered his successor instead. And then he murdered all those he could find with the gift, renewing his own powers—for a time—with theirs. He cowed and bought off the Magisterium and the Spectrum, and they helped him, rather than fighting him. But true Prisms stopped being born, even after Vician was gone. Some say those with the gift were still being born, but that a faithful luxiat had used black luxin to destroy the knowledge of how to find them. Others said it was Orholam’s own punishment for the Magisterium’s faithlessness.

“But by repeating Vician’s murders, the Magisterium found they could make a Prism, and instead of an outsider upending their power every generation, they could choose one of their own to be the new Prism, which they liked very much indeed. Unfortunately, unlike a true Prism’s powers, this made-Prism’s powers would fade over the course of at most seven years. They knew what they made was a fraud, but some thought if Orholam wouldn’t save the world from the luxin storms and warring gods, they would do it themselves. So they renamed their murders sacrifices. They found when they sacrificed adults, it might take dozens to fill a single jewel of the Blinding Knife with a color. It was as if days of life and power were being transferred. Then one had the diabolical idea to sacrifice a child, one whose gift for drafting had just awakened. And to the world’s sorrow, it worked. Perhaps it was yet another test for the High Magisters: would they stoop so low?

“Of course they did. With a child, they’d get a full color from one murder, sometimes two. And it was so much easier to hide the death of one child, separated from her parents for tutelage at the Chromeria. A sudden illness, the High Luxiats would claim. With all the influx of pilgrims around Sun Day—often bringing the ill, hoping to be cured—who would notice the deaths of seven or ten children every seven years? The High Magisters never chose their victims from important families. Like predators, they hunted the weak and outcast children, the friendless ones. As if Orholam, who commands the exalted to bring succor to the lowly, would have them bring death instead.”

The pieces were snapping together for Gavin. He remembered some