The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,387

you to give me the beating I deserve quickly. And I want to keep my underthings from getting shredded. They’re my only pair, and I’m a clumsy hand with stitchery.”

Even as I lie, I know it’s not very convincing. I can’t put my heart into it.

My attitude’ll get me killed someday. They’ve all told me that.

Please not today.

I don’t dare turn around to see her face, but my heart is straining with hope that she’ll run out of time and that the execution will call her to deal with me later—Maybe I can run away!—when the cat-o’-nine-tails falls.

It’s never good . . . but this is not bad. And just the once.

“Do you know why you think you’re special?” she asks quietly, and I know we’re not even close to finished.

I should stall, but the words escape before I think of it. “Why, Mistress?”

“Because you’re an arrogant little shit,” she says. She laughs like hell’s own gatekeeper.

She whips me harder than I’ve ever been whipped in my life. My breath leaps from my throat, tears to my eyes. Then again. Forehand and backhand she strikes, as hard as she can.

The mirror slaves are dead silent. Under the fires, I feel my skin slice open. Feel hot liquid pouring down my legs.

“Ow, fuck!” she says. The lashes stop.

I fall to my knees.

When I dare to turn, I see her holding her forearm. She’s been hitting me so hard, she hurt herself.

I can’t even find thoughts, though. Not even to mock her.

“Mistress, please,” Amadis says. “It’s enough. There’s so much blood. He won’t be able to hide it from High Lord Black if you do any more. He’ll miss shifts as it is!”

“No, he won’t!” Overseer Ysabel shouts. She slaps my face and I crash to the ground.

I hear her cursing when I regain my senses. She’s still holding her forearm.

The stupid cow just hit me with the same arm she’s injured.

I stay down, weeping. There’s no pride left in me to hold back tears.

“Get up! Now! Or it’ll be forty more,” she barks at me. “Amadis, you take the ‘cat’! You get to give the rest of the lashes for your attitude.”

He moves slowly, but she knows that game. Every slave knows that game. She kicks him.

I stand as quickly as I can. I hate her. I hate living this life. I’ve only made it all worse for myself. She’ll beat me to death and push me down one of the lightwells. It’s happened before.

“Ten more, now, as hard as you can, or I’ll double it and you’ll get them, too,” the overseer says.

Amadis hits me. Hard. I almost fall down. Though he’s hit me with the side with no glass so he won’t maim me, he’s much stronger than the overseer.

I shouldn’t hate him for it, but I do.

It’s his fault. He stopped me with his warning look. I should’ve pushed her out of the tower when I had a chance. Better to die than to hold out hope.

He hits me again and I fall.

“Mistress!” one of the older women says. “There’s the signal!”

She curses aloud. “Places, everyone, places. On six! And you, Alvaro, get out of here!” she yells at me.

“Five!”

Everyone scatters back to their mirrors, pulling heavy dark spectacles over their eyes. There hasn’t been an execution on Orholam’s Glare in years. Everyone expects perfection, exact synchrony from the mirrors with steady and precise movements. Anything sloppy not only reflects poorly on all the star-keepers, but could actually end up with innocents down below being killed by the intensity and heat of the sunbeams we focus.

“Four.”

I stand, blearily. My underclothes and trousers are still at my ankles. I pull them up. It’s agony. I can’t help but put a hand on my buttocks. My hand comes away bloody.

“Three!” Then she shouts at me, “Out of the way! Get out of my tower or I’ll throw you off!” I’m not really in the way, but I’m near her and her own mirror, which is in pride of place at the east side, and I know I need to get out fast. There’s murder in her voice.

“To Position One,” she shouts. “On my mark!” She reaches up to grab the big frame at the same time everyone else does.

Then she yelps and lets go, the strain hurting her injured arm. She turns her back, cradling her arm, cursing. Everyone stops, wondering if they should continue without the count.

For an instant, I’m between her and her Great Mirror. The great disk