The Burning White

by Brent Weeks

  “Coming in and wiping up the remnants only works if there are only remnants left. If, however, the Blood Robes take Green Haven easily, with few losses of their own, you’d be facing the White King with his experienced troops and competent leaders who would have the advantages of our defenses, our materiel, and our wealth. Right now? With us inside the walls and you outside them, and the Blood Robes exposed, our odds together are better than good. But what are your odds if you have to try to take Green Haven by yourself, from them?”

  So the man was clever after all.

  Most people didn’t even see their own weaknesses so well. Most wouldn’t have been so adept at framing the question in terms of what would be good for Kip, rather than that he simply must help them because, well, he must.

  “Any deal you make with me is binding, and you have full authority to make treaties? How do I know none will gainsay it afterward?” Kip asked. “You said yourself that you’ve promised everything to everyone.”

  “But we’ve given no one this.” Ambassador Red Leaf produced a scroll with a single sentence written on it. He read it aloud: “‘On our oaths and holy honor, any deal Bram Red Leaf signs with Kip Guile shall be fully binding on the satraps, lords, and peoples of Blood Forest now and forever.’” Below that sentence was a candle’s worth of sealing wax: the Willow Bough seal prominent, surrounded by constellations of every leading clan’s seal and all of the remaining unaffiliated smaller clans’, too.

  Kip handed it over to Tisis, who had stopped even pretending to work on her map. She looked at it carefully. “Named, signed, and sealed by the head of each family,” she said. “Every signature that I recognize—and that’s most of them—is correct. And the wording… this means exactly what it says.”

  The ambassador said nothing. The scroll said it for him. Satrap Briun Willow Bough might be no military leader, but he was clear-eyed about his situation. It was desperate, but he was taking desperate actions without panicking.

  It made Kip like the man. It took uncommon strength of character to present yourself to a foreigner, a younger man, and one of dubious birth no less, and say, ‘I’m in desperate straits. Will you please, please help?’

  “I’ll be named satrap,” Kip said. “And put in full charge of the armies. I’ll expect the resignations of everyone on the board of electors of the satrap so it can’t be stripped from me in a few months, and I’ll have the power of appointing new ones.”

  The room went dead silent.

  Kip went on, “Briun Willow Bough will be allowed to keep all of his own lands but will vacate the palace, leaving it furnished and adequately staffed. He can take his own gold, but if he raids the treasury, I’ll have him hanged. The city needs that coin and more, if we’re to keep fighting. All the nobles above the salt will give me one part in five of their lands and possessions immediately, like so: they will divide their possessions and wealth into five as they see fit, and I will choose which part I take. In cases of indivisible properties, trades will be allowed as assessed by an independent party and accepted within one year, or else the part I deem the larger reverts to me. Any hidden undeclared assets will become my property, and future possession of them by other parties considered theft.

  “All officers will resign their commissions and reapply to the same posts pending my approval—though there will be no cost for the second commission. Failure to reenlist will be considered desertion. Families I find especially helpful in the transition or the defense of the Forest will find their tax reduced to one part in seven.”

  It was even more audacious than he and Tisis had discussed, and everyone in the room froze.

  Bram looked suddenly ill. “That would make you a dictator. I would be responsible for giving away a fifth of all Blood Forest’s wealth. My lord, on behalf of my entire family, I signed that scroll myself.”

  “Then perhaps as you’re being particularly helpful, you should only give a seventh?” Kip asked.

  “No!” the ambassador said, mortified. “No, I’m sorry. We would be shamed to the tenth generation if it looked like you bought this treaty by paying us off.”

  He didn’t pat his forehead now, though. He looked up with those keen eyes hidden in his chubby face like raisins poked deep into bread dough. “But you’ll save us?”

  “I’ll certainly try,” Kip said. “Unfortunately, the White King does get a say in how that turns out.”

  “Not some halfhearted effort, though,” Bram insisted. “You’ll send everyone. Tomorrow? You’ll bind your future to ours?”

  “Tomorrow’s not going to happen. But we’re mobilizing already. The day after. But are you really worried we’ll betray you, after all we’ve done for these lands?” Tisis asked the ambassador, disbelieving.

  “Those people out there may want to make you king,” Bram said. “But you’d have to fight if you wanted to be king in anything more than name, and a civil war burns a lot of treasure and more goodwill. So maybe this agreement is your way to take the same power without having to fight for it. With what you’re asking, you’d be instantly wealthy, with complete legitimacy to your power. We couldn’t dislodge you. From there, how hard would it be for a man of your talents to make yourself king in truth? Rather than even fight at all, you might negotiate a peace with the White King. Maybe you already have.”

  Kip said, “You’re standing in a city I liberated from the Blood Robes. We killed thousands of them, this week.”

  “I know, I know. I’m just—I just need to know that you’ll save us. I can’t give you everything and get only words in return.”

  “Of course we’ll march to save Green Haven,” Kip said, and he could see the relief wash over the man’s face. “So we’re agreed?”

  The ambassador took a deep breath, but he’d already decided, Kip could tell. He wasn’t even patting his sweat. “We’re agreed,” he said.

  Someone in the room whooped.

  “We are going to go kick some Blood Robe ass, my friends,” Ben-hadad said.

  “Satrap’s Guard,” Winsen said, testing it out. “Meh, it’s not quite as good as King’s Guard, but I’ll take it.”

  Several others in the room—locals—looked stricken. Kip was going to abandon the city to Daragh the Coward?

  Kip had no hope that word of that wouldn’t get out quickly. He only hoped it didn’t get to Daragh before their meeting. The timing here could get dicey.

  “Bring in the scribes,” Kip said. “I’ll want twelve copies made to distribute throughout the satrapies. Lady Guile, would you look over the language?”

  There you go, grandfather. I don’t know if you could have done better yourself.

  Maybe Kip was learning something about this diplomacy business after all.

  ‘Kip’? Make that ‘Satrap Guile.’

  Chapter 15

  “You still don’t trust me,” Aliviana said.

  The White King didn’t even turn from the mortal he was conversing with, some engineer or something. “You can’t lie, my dear. Why would I trust you?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” She let the ‘my dear’ go this time.

  He shot her that deprecatory look again. “You’re honest. You have to be, so I trust you not to lie to me. I also trust you to be lousy at lying to anyone else.”

  “I’m not a child,” she said.

  Still not turning toward her, he said, “What do you want, Liv?” exactly as one would address a child.

  The engineer made to withdraw.

  “Why have I been denied being in charge of communications? I’m Ferrilux, goddess of superviolet. It is what I do.”

  “It is what you will do,” Koios said. “Integrating our forces will take time, and I can’t risk you bungling anything at this juncture.”

  “So you don’t trust me not to bungle things?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly it,” he said.

  “Fuck you,” she said.

  He made no move toward her, but the papers in his hands suddenly went up in flames.
The engineer staggered backward and fell with a yelp.

  “My apologies,” Koios said to the man finally.

  “No trouble at all, Your Majesty,” he said, slowly getting up and retreating. “I’ll redraw the schematics and bring them back immediately.”

  “No need. It looks excellent. You may go.”

  Koios turned toward her. “Not in front of the mortals, please?”

  “Done,” she said. “I want access to all your research as you promised, and my bane. It’s been two days since we took our oath—”

  “You were supposed to show me how to make my own oath stones!”

  “I did.”

  “You know my superviolets couldn’t follow what you did.”

  Of course she did.

  “You will know how to make oath stones before I leave, this I promise. After the battle. I couldn’t very well hand you chains you could so easily put on me, now, could I?”

  He took a deep breath. “You won. I shan’t underestimate you again.”

  “We both win, Your Majesty,” she said. “Now, let me help us win the real war. My research and my bane. Please. And if you’d tell me the plan, I could actually help it succeed. Which is, after all, the whole point, isn’t it?”

  He weighed her with his color-knotted eyes, waves of different luxins rising and falling within them as he called on each in turn. “Apology accepted,” he said. “You’ll have the superviolet research and command, and the bane.”

  She didn’t leave.

  “Today,” he said. “By my word.”

  He glanced at the oath stone; she carried it at her neck. Last year, he’d tried to chain her with a black luxin necklace. Now, it pleased her to remind him of it with a chain that bound them both instead.

  “You’re really going to throw it in the sea?” he asked.

  “When I leave. As I promised.”

  “What would happen if I destroyed it instead?”

  “That would be very difficult. But if you succeeded… You bound your will to it, utterly. Break one, break the other. I’ve told you all this. It should not be news.”

  “It isn’t. I wanted you to repeat it in different words so I could tell if you meant what your words seemed to mean before.”

  He strode over to a map.

  “Kip is here,” he said, not bothering to wait for her to reach him before he started. “We’re here. Dúnbheo has massive numbers of ships and excellent docks, so coming down the Great River and turning up the coast here could take Kip’s Nightbringers possibly as little as two weeks. Less if they pack only essentials and don’t expect a protracted fight. Coming overland would likely take four weeks, three at best.”

  “And you said we’re about three weeks from launching the armada,” she said. It was significantly later than she’d first assumed, and that meant she might have to hedge this bet of joining Koios. “So if he doesn’t figure out what you’re doing for another week or two, he can’t possibly make it?”

  “He’s got less time than that, actually,” Koios said. His grin was skeletal under the hard blue luxin.

  She raised her hands palm up.

  “We’ve seized the Great River,” the White King said, “right behind his back.”

  “You what? How’d you manage that?”

  He looked immensely pleased with himself. “In many ways, my wights are inferior to the Chromeria’s drafters. But they’re also fearless. We’ve made great strides with magics long buried.”

  “What? Some kind of night magic?”

  “No luck with that. The caoránaigh.”

  “What is that? Sea monsters?”

  “Wights who’ve transformed their bodies as much as possible for the water. They took the names of old monsters to make people fear them. Actually, though, I wonder if what they are is exactly what those old monsters were. They can go wherever the rivers go, unseen, and board boats before anyone knows they’re there.”

  “How many do you have?” Aliviana asked.

  “Enough. Mercenaries on the shores for fortifications and intel. Wights in the woods, wights in the waters. No one escapes. The silence won’t hold forever, but it’s already held longer than I’d dared hope. Long enough.”

  “And if he figures out your little plan? What if—”

  “Hardly ‘little.’ No one’s ever done it before.”

  “For good reason!” she said. “What if Kip moves faster than you imagine? He’s done it before, I hear. Surprising you time and again, defeating your forces over and over?”

  “And always pushing deeper and deeper into Blood Forest as he did so.”

  “And why do you care? The capital’s there, and you’ll never hold the satrapy without Green Haven. Not for long. These people—”

  “The people of this satrapy believe Kip is the Lightbringer. Their Luíseach.”

  She put her hands to her cheeks in mock horror. “Oh no, the Lightbringer! Whatever shall we do?” She shook her head. “Are we really going to start listening to what desperate peasants say? Do you know what they say about you?”

  “I believe it, too.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He didn’t seem to be joking.

  “This is Kip Delauria we’re talking about, right? Of Rekton? I’ve known him all his life. He’s not some mystical being, Lucidonius reborn or something. He’s a fat kid. A cringing whinger. There’s nothing in him of—”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care how you cover for your old boyfriend—”

  “I’m not covering and he’s not—”

  “You misunderstand. I don’t care if he really is the Lightbringer.”

  She couldn’t follow that at all. Either he’d gone mad, or…“You know something I don’t,” she said.

  He looked at her as if surprised by her astuteness.

  That rankled. Underestimating me? Still? I will burn you.

  The White King said, “As long as the Lightbringer’s not on the Jaspers when I arrive, the Jaspers will fall.”

  “How do you know that? Because some prophecy says so? I thought all this superstitious horseshit was just a put-on until you fully seized power, like your ‘freeing’ of the slaves.”

  “Silence!” he roared.

  His guards shifted uncomfortably, looking at each other uncertainly. Oh, hadn’t everyone seen through that foolishness by now?

  She turned her attention to Koios. She couldn’t tell if he’d yelled because she was right or because she was wrong. Even as she was getting better at divining the tells that showed this emotion or that, her own emotions were growing more distant, more mysterious, and her intuition getting worse. Reading anger and fear didn’t tell her for which reasons he was angry and afraid.

  “You don’t understand how this works at all, do you?” he sneered. “Hell, it could be real.”

  “This prophecy?” she asked.

  “Since Guile burned me, I’ve seen things that bent my mind in half. The Chromeria’s too quick to dismiss what it doesn’t control. I’m sorry to see that you do the same. Maybe you didn’t escape their tutelage soon enough. Maybe their weakness infected you.”

  “How dare you!” she said, but he didn’t even stop.

  Him talking about things that had bent his mind in half didn’t bode well. Even if the Chromeria oversold the dangers of going wight, this man was a wight seven times over, and was trying for nine.

  “But the accuracy of the prophecy doesn’t matter,” he went on. “The belief in it is what matters. The prophecy I’m talking about is not well-known—but by 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 ide
a?”

  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.