The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,55

the time my armada arrives, it will be. Everyone on Big and Little Jasper will know they need this young Guile—that their own prophecies, written by one of their most credible prophets, say they need him.”

“You’ll be making things even easier for Kip, then. If you position him as the only hope for the satrapies, you’ll be helping unite the satrapies behind him. Do you not see that as more than a little dangerous? I’m no strategist, but maybe uniting our enemies isn’t the best idea?”

Actually saying she was no strategist was a bit difficult. It was only partly true. Far more difficult still was accepting the look he gave her: like she was stupid.

“The loyalists will know that their sole and slim hope of victory rests on Kip being there when I arrive—and he won’t be. So they’ll know they’re doomed. Do you know what happens when people know that if they fight you, they’re doomed to certain death and gruesome tortures? I do. I’ve tested it out.”

“So you have priests on the Jaspers to spread your messages.”

“I’ve got more than that, but you don’t need to know all my plans.”

“And you’re certain Kip can’t get there?”

“I know how long it takes to move an army a lot better than he does. Even moving at the greatest possible speed, he can’t arrive here in time to stop us unless he marches from Dúnbheo in the next two days. And I’ve arranged for that to be impossible.”

She didn’t know how he intended to do that, but at the least it meant the White King had people in Dúnbheo, and a way to communicate with them rapidly, exactly as she’d suspected.

“And how do you have any idea who he is at all? He’s surprised you again and again. He’s destroyed your forces at every turn. You’ve never even met him.”

“You think I underestimate your friend?”

“He is a Guile,” Liv said.

“A Guile made me this!” the king roared, and his skin flared hot and red.

But he calmed suddenly. The fierce heat died down. Liv saw one of the king’s bodyguards gulp.

“Pardon,” Koios said. “I misspoke. I made myself into this regal shape before you, carved of pure will. But a Guile made it necessary. Kip’s uncle Dazen, when he was about Kip’s age. Or had you forgotten?”

“I only knew there was a fire,” Liv said, and her voice came out softer than she’d have liked.

“Dazen planned to elope with my sister Karris. The family needed her to marry Gavin, the elder brother. Love be damned. And we might remarry her after forcing a divorce, of course. But not to her ex-husband’s brother. It would smack of old taboos, and our family honor couldn’t take that. Nor could we give Andross Guile such power over us. So we set a trap for Dazen. Sealed the windows. Chained the doors and gates shut after he got in. He was only a blue/green bichrome, and it was after midnight. We got Karris’s maid to take his lenses under some pretense, to pack with Karris’s things or some such. He was disarmed.” His eyes took on a distant look, red pain outlined with spiky black hatred, or black hatred impregnated with red pain, such that the two had mingled to a hue that stained the soul forever.

“We set upon him. Started beating him. It got out of hand. All the years of White Oaks being humiliated and outmaneuvered. Those smiling, beautiful, adored and entitled and deified fucking Guile brothers. There was this moment when Rodin tried to stop us, and my brothers and I looked at each other . . . and without a word, the rest of us decided to kill Dazen. And in that split second where we hesitated? That son of a bitch split light. He was a natural Prism, as the world hadn’t seen since Vician’s Sin. Four hundred years—and we stumble upon a true Prism. I remember the look in his eyes as it happened. I think he was as surprised as we were.

“Rodin threw up a shield—trying to help the Guile, against his own brothers. That’s what Guiles do, Aliviana. They turn brother against brother. Rodin went down first in the crossfire.”

You mean you killed him. Or one of your brothers did. Otherwise you’d blame Dazen for that murder, too.

“But it was still one bloodied man against all the rest of us, and we were drafters all. And he had no light! Around corners so he couldn’t draft off them,