The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,396

gift? On second thought, don’t answer that,” Gavin said with a weak grin.

But Orholam didn’t smile this time. “Is this what your obedience looks like?”

“I’ll die. Don’t You know what You’re asking?! I have nothing left—and You’d demand . . .” But Gavin had fought enough. He was tired.

His hands slumped down into the blood.

Maybe he’d see Sevastian now. Maybe he’d see Karris.

He’d sent Orholam rivers of blood—unasked for, he knew now, as his heart had always known. It was only right that Orholam should demand his own blood in return.

He sighed, and with his breath went out all defensiveness, all hope that he could deceive his way out of this one.

The old Gavin finally, finally breathed his last, and died.

Dazen sank into the stones and bent back his head to stare into eyes that blazed with judgment hotter than the noonday sun.

Orholam was nothing if not fast. He braced Dazen’s forehead with a hand, knotting his hair between His fingers to keep his head in place. Dazen could feel the evil eye twist and buck in his skull of its own accord, as if it were a living thing and it knew what was coming—

Then Orholam’s hand stabbed into his face, and it felt like his hand went into Dazen’s flesh whole, through and into his head.

It clamped down on the eye and wrenched.

Dazen gagged at the pain. Agony shot from eye to brain, down his neck and down his spine, everywhere through his chest and radiating through every limb. As Orholam twisted His clenched fist, as if drawing out a parasitic worm, Dazen’s body bucked of its own accord. Every muscle clenched. He gagged, and his hands flew up to fight off his persecutor—

But he willed them be still. He flung his hands out and willed them stay spread as wide as if he were nailed in place.

Something gave within him, tore.

Orholam’s fist turned over and over, like He was coiling rope around His hand. At the same time, like a wet cloth to a fevered man, Orholam’s other hand was cool on Dazen’s forehead. It was the only comfort in a world of suffering.

And then Orholam ripped the thing out of Dazen’s left eye socket and threw it on the ground.

Dazen gagged and gasped and coughed, breathing fresh air for the first time in eternity. He sank to his haunches, almost fell—but then his one good eye caught sight of the black Thing.

It twisted on the ground like a legged serpent made entirely of thorns. Every surface was a shard of obsidian, curled in hooks and barbs. And it lived.

Shocked from being torn free and flung down to the ground, it twisted its form together now, at once like a lion crouching to pounce and a snake coiling to strike. Baleful eyes, unblinking, blacker than the gathering night, stared primordial nyxian hatred at Dazen. It had been created to kill him if he removed it, and from his knees, gasping still, breathless, frozen with horror, there was no way Dazen could defend himself before it attacked.

The Thing lunged at his face—

And things happened so fast Dazen could scarcely comprehend them. Orholam flashed suddenly colossal. He was the giant from Dazen’s dream, immense beyond belief. And Dazen saw the fury in His sun-bright eyes, and a fist the size of the tower itself came crashing down in judgment.

On his knees, Dazen barely fit between the fingers of the clenched fist as it smote the entire top of the tower.

The tower shook from the concussion. Thunder crashed, but it was thunder beyond mere sound. Every hair stood on end. The air itself shouted with a triumphant yell. Lights fired in every color Dazen remembered and a myriad he didn’t know—for one instant, even his color-blinded eye could see. And a shock wave spread out, as great waves rippling in the ocean give an angle to see momentarily into the ocean’s depths, for an instant, Dazen could see into the Thousand Worlds as if here his realm and the heavenly realms overlapped. He could see figures, bloodied warriors joining a victory shout.

And then . . . all was normal once more. That shock wave disappeared into the distance in every direction, ripples in the pond of time, but Dazen still knelt here. Orholam, masked as the old prophet once more, stood again before him, now looking oddly and entirely mundane.

The black Thing, broken now in a hundred places, writhed yet.

And it twisted, relentlessly, toward Dazen.

Orholam stepped forward and crushed its