The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,75

as soon as Karris had the thought, she realized how hypocritical it was. She was the one who’d made that job vastly more difficult by ordering Teia to assassinate the Parian satrapah as well. She was the one who’d knowingly sent a young woman—hardly more than a child—to do a job that even a master assassin might’ve botched. It was her fault in sending Teia at all that Teia had been unmasked by Ironfist. If the Nuqaba (and no one else) had simply died that night, Ironfist might never have known it was an assassination at all. He might have guessed it was some aggrieved local.

It was Karris, not just Andross, who’d turned Ironfist into an enemy.

“Thus,” Andross said as if it were merely an interesting tidbit, “as far as I can presume, the only way Ironfist thinks he can keep himself safe from me—”

“You’re really gifted at this, aren’t you?” she said.

“What?” he asked, distracted.

“Putting yourself into other people’s minds, figuring out how they think, figuring out what they know, and what they must be planning given what they know, and then using it to destroy them.”

“Gifted! Gifted? I’m skilled. People call others ‘gifted’ when they don’t want to believe they’re worse at something because they’re not willing to put in the work excellence requires. Regardless—I mean, if I have your permission to finish my thought?”

That. That was gratuitous. “By all means, please do,” she said, nearly politely.

“Actually, let me qualify that. I spoke too soon. The rest stands, but the destroying them part? You’re right. That’s my gift.” He flashed his eyebrows, as if it were all interesting, but tangential. “Now, where was I? Oh yes. If I guess correctly, given what he thinks he knows, Ironfist believes that the only way he can be safe from me . . .” Andross smiled, savoring the moment, “. . . is if he marries you.”

“What?!” Surely Karris hadn’t heard that right.

“How long has he been in love with you?”

“What, what? Never!”

“Well,” Andross said with a shrug. “Perhaps it’s solely political, then. We’ll hope it doesn’t come to it regardless. We’ll hope he shows up with fewer soldiers and ships and drafters than rumored. These numbers often do get exaggerated. And he’s a political novice, after all. We might yet outmaneuver him.”

But Karris knew Ironfist, and Ironfist knew both her and Andross.

Ironfist wouldn’t come here unless he was certain he could win. And implacable, righteous rage tends to make up for a lot of limitations.

“But if all goes poorly,” Andross said, stepping off the lift. “I guess it’s good news that you’ve accepted that Gavin’s dead. You’re a widow; your time of mourning is finished, and you’re free to remarry.”

Her mouth made an O, but no sound came out.

“After all,” Andross said, “you just told me: you’re willing to do whatever it takes to save your people, aren’t you?”

He’d set her up. Somehow.

She’d never seen it coming.

It was like that time he’d hired those men to ambush and beat her. This time he was doing it with nothing more than his words, and this time, he got to watch her take the beating.

She couldn’t muster any defense. She only looked at him, stricken as if she were down on the paving stones of that street again, taking kicks.

“You know, there’s one good thing about my son dying,” Andross said, timing his words perfectly with the closing of the lift’s doors. “He didn’t live to see you give up on him.”

Chapter 20

“So, boss, remind me why we’re going up here?” Winsen said as they ascended a bone-white spiral ramp to the roof of the Palace of the Divines.

“Two reasons,” Kip said. “Ben really wanted to see the mechanism, and the Divines really, really didn’t want him to.”

“Good enough for me,” Big Leo said. “Why so many of us? Are we expecting a hostile reception, or you just giving the nunks a chance to fail?”

Chagrined after the assassination attempt, Cruxer had been screening prospective new members for the Mighty. Fifteen of them followed the Mighty today. Kip shrugged and said quietly, “Every day’s a new chance to fail.”

Cruxer gave him a disapproving glance.

“What I meant is,” Kip said more loudly, “if I had any idea what’s so secret about their big secret, I might have an answer to that question.”

“But you don’t, because it’s secret,” Ferkudi said, nodding.

“It’s just a big mirror, right?” Winsen asked.

“Like the Blue Falcon is just a boat,” Ben-hadad said.

“Well . . . it is,” Winsen said flatly.

Ben-hadad