The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,413

suicidal fanatic with a musket could prevail against the entire Blackguard itself, Zymun was rendering moot all the long-term, careful plans of those more skilled and better trained than he was.

The Chromeria’s drafters were locked down now by the bane. Cowed by the shock of being separated from the power that defined them. None of them were going to step forward against the thugs of the Lightguard, not now.

And thus Kip passed through the gates from the Chromeria.

Footstep followed footstep, dozens of Lightguards walking beside him, before him, behind him. One of them had even had the wit to throw a red cloak around Kip’s shoulders to hide his bound hands behind his back. Many of those they passed now wouldn’t even know Kip was a prisoner.

Everywhere around the walls of the city, the battle continued, even as the sun sank low in the sky. The attention of everyone sane in this city was turned to the walls and to the horrors that lay outside them. Every friend Kip had was off fighting, doing vital work to save the islands.

Zymun, overconfident in victory, wasn’t even manning the mirror array.

Orholam’s Glare came into view, perched as it was at the base of the Lily’s Stem, just on the Big Jasper side of the bridge. There would be no rescue. Kip knew how far away all the people who would come to his aid were now: too far.

I knew this would happen, he thought. I knew I was going to die on this island.

He’d had the temerity to think it would be a heroic death, that he might accomplish something as he died. Hell, he could’ve died on the mirror array ten minutes ago and counted it a good death. A noble death.

This? A traitor’s death on the Glare?

How could anyone find meaning in that?

When the Chromeria used the Glare, they did it at noon. It was a horrible death, burning—but it was done in half a minute. How long would it take Kip to die, with the sun low in the horizon? How much torture would he endure?

And then they arrived. The simple walk was finished without any theatrics, without any attempts at rescue, without anyone even crying out for them to stop—a brisk walk across the Lily’s Stem like Kip had made hundreds of times before.

No one even knew.

The Lightguards had found Tisis somewhere, though she was supposed to be on the far side of the city. Maybe she’d come when she saw him on the array. Kip didn’t think her presence was a mercy.

He felt pulled away from himself, watching himself walk, watching himself look at his wife.

He didn’t know what to say to her. She was going to see him die, like this. She was going to watch him burn to death, rave, shriek. It was not the last view anyone should have of someone they loved.

“You can look away,” he said. “When it gets awful.”

“You did not just say that to me,” she said, her voice jagged as hell-stone.

“I wanted to see that fire in you. You know, since you’re going to see fire in me soon.”

She didn’t even smile, her face falling. “Goddammit, Kip.”

“I always prided myself on being able to do hard things,” he said, forcing a little smile. “But you know, I’m not coming to this fresh . . .”

She was right on the verge of tears, and he was afraid he was, too. He looked away. He’d seen men die by fire. There was no stoicism equal to it. Such a death was never less than ugliness itself.

He said, “Please don’t judge me for . . . for how I go.”

“Judge you?” she asked, her voice cracking, and he dared a single glimpse, seeing her tears of loss and rage and impotence streaming down her face. “Never!”

His hands were bound behind his back, so he said, “There’s a, uh, card in my pocket. Can you take that out for me?”

The Lightguards let her. Indeed, a couple of the young men—kids really—among them looked sickened by what they were about to do. If there had only been five or six Lightguards, Kip might’ve been able to turn that to his advantage. But not with forty.

“Can you press it against my forearm?” he asked. “I owe a favor to someone.”

She looked at the card. “This asshole? You owe Andross Guile nothing!”

“I owe him our marriage,” Kip said simply. He didn’t look at her, still. He thought maybe he had enough residual luxin in his body