The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,474

nothing cynical in that recognition, nor at all resigned to eventual stagnation: they were, simply, in the first great thaw of spring, and they were enjoying the warmth of the sun, without demanding that it never rain or snow again.

The ceremony went on, with more speakers and more prayers than Dazen would have liked (one of the trifling conflicts), and he kept stealing glances at her as if to memorize every detail of her irrepressible smile.

Then they faced each other, held each other’s hands, and renewed their vows.

As they finished, he said, “Do you mind if I maybe show off a little?”

“Dazen Guile,” she said. “If I was bothered by you showing off, I wouldn’t have married you. Twice.”

“So I had this dream last night,” he said.

“You’re telling me about this now? We’re supposed to process out.”

“They’ll wait,” Dazen said. As if twenty thousand people weren’t watching. “So this dream . . . Orholam was talking to me and He said, He said that because I asked a boon for others and not for myself, that He wanted me to carry a new message for Him in a special way for all those wounded and left bereft by this war. He said with Him, sometimes the healing is fast and sometimes it’s slow, and oftentimes it’s not finished while we still live. But with Him, it’s never, ever partial.”

“That’s a good message, honey.” She smiled and squeezed his hand. His maimed hand.

First her expression flashed apologetic, then she looked down, confused. That was the hand whose fingers were illusions.

But the illusions had held.

“So yeah,” he said. “I kind of lied? I didn’t really forget my wedding gift to you. Orholam’s really?”

“What!?”

He locked his gaze with hers, and as if they were all alone, not in front of thousands, he pulled off his eye patch.

He’d thought this moment was going to be a gift for her, but instead he was awestruck anew by the unmerited favor he’d been shown. For he didn’t simply see his bride through the new eye as well as he would have seen her through the old eye he’d lost. He saw his bride through eyes made new. He saw her truly, lit by an unstinting compassionate light, and he knew her every strength and every fight and every wound as he had never known them before, and his heart swelled as if to cover every hurt and rejoice in every joy.

His feelings for her had smoldered for most of his life, banked patiently as if against his will, a stubborn affliction almost, a strong but by now unsurprising love—but now it surprised him, after all, as his love leapt up at seeing this divine creation before him, a jewel with more facets and color and depth than he’d ever imagined, and his love was suddenly burning white-hot, as when they were young, but with an abiding strength beneath it like old oak, tested and true.

Her eyes went wide with wonder and alight with such joy as he would have never dared hope for her.

Finally, he rejoined the stream of time, and took a breath, and realized it was his first breath in some time. And he squeezed her hand with the hand Orholam had made whole.

“Now, for the fun part,” he said, grinning reckless foolishness. His body felt so full of hope and light he couldn’t contain it. “I’m not sure how this is gonna go. Or if, honestly. You ready?” he asked.

She didn’t know what he was talking about, but her grip was as strong as iron and her face was radiant.

“Whatever it is . . . Hell yeah!” she said.

The high drapes opened and bathed them in Orholam’s light.

Dazen raised his hands and it was as if all the goodness that had been pouring into him through these days came bubbling out to bless everyone he loved here—and his love had grown a dozen times over—and with skill and brilliance and no small amount of audacity, never stopping to consider whether he could really do what he was about to attempt, without giving it a little test first just in case, but simply believing, as if he were Prism once more, about to dazzle the thousands with spectacle and wonder, he called the colors to him.

He called. And they came.

Epilogue 1

An hour before his second wedding, Kip looked in the full-length mirror on the wall of the small parlor and marveled: part of him supposed that most anyone could look presentable if they were