The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,450

Put this on. Oh, and one last thing,” Orholam said. He handed Dazen a canopy-pack and the gun-sword.

“What?” Wrestling the pack on, strapping it tight with Orholam’s help, Dazen saw a fleet of ships and the bane like floating islands dotting the waves in the first gray light of the morning. The condor was closing fast. He felt disoriented. Why had all this waited until now?

Orholam embraced him, and at first, Dazen was too stunned to even return it. For all that Orholam looked like a reedy old man, His hug redoled of an unstinting strength that was unmistakably maternal: a mother gathering her hurt child into her arms, fierce in defense, gentle in encouragement.

“Never forget,” Orholam said softly. “I see you. I hold you in My eyes.”

Then He threw Dazen off the side of the condor.

Chapter 143

“Brother! I don’t want to kill you. But I will,” Karris shouted.

Her people were doing better against vastly superior numbers than they had any right to be doing. It helped that everyone on both sides had exhausted both luxin and gunpowder, which left her with her Blackguards—not to mention the Mighty, who’d now been joined by all two dozen prospective members, and Ferkudi, and Winsen (who’d apparently destroyed the green bane by himself).

Somehow they’d followed Karris, despite everything.

Or not Karris, she knew. Ferkudi and Winsen had come to fight for Big Leo and Ben-hadad. They fought for one another, like brothers do.

But not her brother.

Koios had lost patience and joined the fray himself.

He cut a swath through all of them, his own men first, heedless, murderous, then the Blackguards as well, battering them with jets of luxin, impaling men with great spikes, even blasting Gill Greyling far off to one side.

Coming finally in front of her, he threw one hand up, and a cage of blue luxin shot up around her from the ground at her feet. Then he threw his other hand up, and the ground beneath them shot into the sky, making a craggy blue-luxin tower only wide enough for the two of them. She would have expected orange, here on the orange bane, but Koios had always been most adept with blue.

Karris snapped off one of the bars imprisoning her, and then another. But there was a lethal drop on every side. There was nowhere to go.

“Give up now,” he said. He pulsed with every color, rivulets of light cascading from his head and down his body, his luxin armor now more like a carapace than a suit. “Your people die. But you don’t have to join them.”

“You’re losing,” she said.

“Am I?” he said, and she hated that she could still hear echoes of his old voice in this monstrosity. He shook his head. “I have a dozen seed crystals in reserve. I can grow new bane in a day, and the Ilytian pirate kings’ reinforcements will arrive tomorrow. I overextended today in my eagerness. But nothing you’ve done has accomplished anything. Not a thing. You’ve delayed me by one day. Tell me, do you think your people can fight again tomorrow as they did today?”

“You’re lying,” she said, heart sinking. “It’s all lies.”

“Let’s see about that,” he said. He pulled out a brilliant green jewel, holding it with a thumb and forefinger.

He waved his other hand, and the blue bars of Karris’s cage disappeared.

Karris darted forward, but she felt the green luxin inside her body suddenly stiffen.

She skidded on her knees. Against her will, her hand opened, and the scorpion tumbled out of it.

“Worship me,” he said. “The very immortals weary of your Chromeria’s tyranny. They fight for me! I am a god of gods!”

“You’re a slave and you don’t even see it,” Karris said.

He sighed. “They’ve brainwashed you. It’s so very sad. I loved you, sister. I loved you so much. I love you still, but not like this, sister. Not like this.” As he rolled the green jewel between his fingers in the first of dawn’s light, its color flashed like a green wink. Her hands came up, palms spread as in supplication. He smiled at her, but it was an ugly smile, and in his other hand, a blade sprouted, longer and longer.

“Say the word, sister, and live. Or . . . I’ll just to have to remember you as you were, before they corrupted you.”

* * *

Dazen was drifting downward beneath his canopy, trying to slow the thudding of his heart and choke down the tightness in his throat. Without drafting, he didn’t have the