The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,473

his right hand.

“The other one. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? What is that?”

He looked down at his left hand and wiggled his fingers. “Just think of it as a bit of, uh, cosmetics. Surely today of all days, you’re not going to object to a little harmless hex-casting, are you?” he asked.

“ ‘Harmless’?” she whispered loudly. “You can’t go out there with a hex-crafted fake hand.”

“Honey . . .” he said. And he gave her the most innocently charming Dazen Guile smile she’d ever seen. Or at least he hoped it was. “I just didn’t want anything about me to distract anyone from you.”

She actually blushed, and straightened her dress. It was a gorgeous something with lots of details that he couldn’t really notice except for the fact that they united together beautifully to heighten his eagerness to take it off her.

Then she looked back at him sharply. “Wait . . . the tooth, too? You did not!”

He gave a lopsided grin to bare his dogtooth. “Go on, try to guess. Denture or hex?”

“Honey! I am the White,” she whispered, looking around at the various attendants who were trying to give them a few private moments before they went out together. “You can’ t—”

“Relax,” he said. “C’mon, it’s what I said last night, and that worked out, didn’t it?”

She shook her head, blushing again. “I am gonna make you pay for that. And this.”

“I look forward to it,” he said. He looked at the shut great doors, with the Blackguards ready to open them at their signal. “Shall we?”

“No, wait,” she said. “I have something for you.”

“Hmm?”

“A wedding gift.”

“A wedding gift? Well, now I feel like the louse,” Dazen said.

“Don’t worry. At first I planned to give you something truly awful, like make you Nuqaba,” she said.

“Endless rituals and bumping into the people who burned out my eye in the first place? I’m not sure how happy I could’ve pretended to be about that.”

“Yeah, I thought it might be too awkward. Too many Guiles at the top as it is,” she said.

“High Lord, High Lady,” a steward said. “Whenever you’re ready. Or . . . the musicians can loop this song another fifteen times, as you will.”

“Oooh, I love the sassy ones,” Dazen said.

“But . . . now I’m lousing this up because I’m pressured,” Karris said. “Anyway, it did make me think of your eye patch. And your eye. All you’ve given for these satrapies. I couldn’t stop thinking of that Parian metaphor about the evil eye and justice and mercy. And I can’t stop thinking how you had that harsh kind of retributive justice burned out of you. You gave up the evil eye. You have no condemnation to give. And I thought there’s something beautiful in that.

“And I don’t want people to look away from your eye patch because you’ve been wounded. I want them to see it and be reminded of what you sacrificed for them.” She took out a white silk eye patch with subtle embroidery, white on white. “I’m having others made. Jeweled ones nearly as prismatic as your eyes used to be. Different expressions. I figured I can play dress-up with you every day.” She looked up at him, nervous. “I’m kidding. I mean, I am having some made, but you don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it. You don’t have to wear any of them if you don’t like.”

“I love it.” He took off his black eye patch and closed his eye, ducking his head while she put the white eye patch in place.

“Ready?” she asked.

The great doors opened. They processed forward together, but the cheers and the music and the voices were all hushed to Dazen’s ears. These first days with her had been full of such wonder he could hardly believe it. He felt like he was continually being reminded of things he adored about her that he’d somehow forgotten in the time they’d been apart. He felt so united, so whole.

They’d wanted to stay up late last night, just talking—so they did. Talking, connected, they wanted to make love—so they did. Resting safe in each other’s arms, they wanted to tell each other everything, so they did.

In these first days, conflicts seemed but trifles easily overcome, and all the demands on their time were somehow met, and only heightened their joy of reunion at the end of the day.

They weren’t children; they knew this was a special time and a fleeting one, but there was