The Burning White

by Brent Weeks

  Karris was barely holding back tears herself.

  “Tzeddig said, ‘That little girl will run through a brick wall for you. You give her a goal and death itself won’t keep it from her. For years now I’ve trained the best fighters in the world, and I tell you that you haven’t seen a person until you’ve seen how hard they’ll push themselves and what they do after they reach their end and fail. So you tell me, when you go to war—and you will, may Orholam grant that it’s merely a metaphorical one—but when you go to war, who do you want beside you?’ And I tell you what, Karris, you weren’t there, and Aghilas was. And a lot of us were afraid of him, and we knew we’d have to spar him that afternoon, and the next day, and the next, but almost everyone in the cohort chose you anyway.”

  They did? And now Karris couldn’t stop the tears from spilling hot down her face.

  “And then Trainer Tzeddig said, ‘So now you’ve voted with your words. Let me tell you what you all already know: Karris isn’t good enough to make it. Not yet. She’ll get there: she’s not just relentless, she’s quick and she’s a damn fast drafter too. But she’s not good enough to get into the Blackguard. What you may not know is that she’s got nothing else. The False Prism’s War took it all from her: family, lands, wealth, and she’s got enemies, too, who blame her for things, who see her vulnerability and are drooling to devour her. So I don’t know where she’ll be in a year, but it won’t be here. She won’t be able to try again. This is her only chance.’ We all looked around at each other like we’d been punched in the gut. Then finally someone, maybe it was Fisk, asked, ‘What do you mean we’ve voted with our words?’ But Tzeddig didn’t answer. Some of the older Blackguards were there, enjoying watching us get reamed, and Holdfast—remember him? Cruxer’s father? Married Inana eventually?—he said, ‘You know what Blackguards do? We stand for each other. When one of us can’t make it, we carry him. You’ve all said you want to fight with Karris by your side, but the fact is, if she gets in, one of you standing here doesn’t. So each of you make your choice. Vote with your cunning and your fists. You want Karris in? Make it happen.’”

  Karris put a hand to her throat. “But—no one ever…”

  “Who was gonna tell you? If you were a lock to make it in, maybe you’d stop working so hard. And some of the kids who were on the edge really did fight you. But those at the top eased your way a bit. It wasn’t for you, Karris, you understand? It was for us. Because we knew an Aghilas would get us killed someday. You? You’d keep us alive. And that’s what you’re doing now, saving all of us, no matter what.” Sami shrugged. “Anyway, that day changed my life. That was the day I stopped hating you. I realized that if you could get in on sheer grit, I could, too. So that day you kind of became my role model, and uh, you’ve never stopped. So when I lost my hand, I had this little moment where I thought my life was over and I’d have to retire. It’d kill me, you know? This work is everything for me. But then I thought, ‘How can I quit now? I’m not pissing my muscles down my leg yet.’” Sami pursed her lips hard, but then went on as if her face weren’t streaked with tears. “And that was it. That turned me around. Sure, I was still afraid. This isn’t what I expected from my life. Death? Death I expected, someday. But living as a cripple? Seeing pity and fear in my brothers’ and sisters’ faces? This isn’t what I expected from life, but this is what life expects from me. And you know what? I don’t see myself as a cripple now. I just got a bad left hand to compensate for. And I don’t see much pity anymore, and the nunks’ fear of being me has become their fear of me. But the fact remains: I’m not what I was. A bit of my burden has to fall on someone else, but I’ve made my peace with that. Blackguards stand for each other. I can be humble enough to let ’em, even as I work to make myself useful—if not today, tomorrow. So if you need us to carry you for a day or two, we’re here. We’re here, Karris. But don’t you dare give up, because that isn’t who you are.”

  Samite studied her, then flashed a sudden smile. “You got that look on your face like my nunks get, you know? Like you’re about to ask a stupid question. So let me answer it for you before you embarrass us both.”

  “What, I was—”

  “‘Who am I, then?’” Samite mocked. “That’s what you were gonna say, wasn’t it?”

  “No,” Karris lied, sounding way too much like a nunk who’d been caught out.

  But Samite laughed. She’d known Karris too long.

  “Karris, your answer for that’s never been found in words. At least not any this simple Blackguard can put together. You’ve always made yourself known by your actions. Known and loved, too. So just keep doing what you do.” Samite rolled her shoulders, as if trying to find some way to extricate herself from the messy emotions and pick up her gruff-trainer persona once more. “Now, uh, there’s a stack of messengers and a line of papers outside your door—or maybe I got that backward. Regardless, uh, given the circumstances, I’ll give you the rest of the morning off. See you at the training yards tomorrow?”

  Slowly, despite the still-churning mess of thoughts and emotions roiling head and heart and stomach, and despite the headache she had—she always got headaches when she cried—slowly, Karris nodded, and she felt a little bit of herself coming back. “Bright and early,” she promised.

  Chapter 41

  “I wanted to ask you something,” Kip said, coming into the little room that Cruxer had made his office and bedroom. It was nauseatingly tidy. Even the stacks of schedules on the desk looked just so.

  “Anything,” Cruxer said. He’d just dribbled oil onto his blade, and now he picked up his whetstone, spinning a spear point into position.

  “It’s a sore spot.”

  Cruxer didn’t waver. He began the soothing wush-wush of the whetstone.

  Kip went on. “Big Leo said something I didn’t understand. He said you were still grieving Lucia—”

  “It hasn’t been that long,” Cruxer interrupted. It was uncharacteristic of him. He’d been in love with the young Blackguard scrub, and when she’d stepped into the line of fire, taking a bullet that had been meant for Kip, Cruxer’s world had ended.

  “No. It hasn’t. And that wasn’t at all what tripped me up. It was that he thought the reason you were angry about me giving Ruadhán another chance had something to do with her. He wouldn’t say anything else when I asked him. So what’s that about?”

  “I’m fine with you giving Ruadhán another chance,” Cruxer said. “Now.”

  “That actually confuses me more,” Kip said.

  Cruxer paused in his sharpening, then said, “You’re the… you’re the Breaker, not me. Different rules apply to you. I’m not a man who does new things. I’m a man who does the old things as well as they can be done. But here? I’m doing new things all the time. I’m making decisions over other people’s lives, like I’ve got any right to do that. I’m worried all the time, Breaker. I keep looking around waiting to be punished,” Cruxer said.

  “Punished? For what?”

  “Breaker, I’m eighteen years old. I’m styling myself a commander? I’m not even eligible to be a watch captain. I keep thinking Orholam’s gonna give me what I deserve any moment.”

  “Is that who Orholam is to you?” Kip asked. “An Andross Guile waiting for you to transgress, so that He can expose you at the worst possible moment? Isn’t He instead like Ironfist, who will correct your form, not because He enjoys showing you how you’re messing up but because doing it wrong might get you hurt or killed someday?”

  But Cruxer wasn’t even hearing him. “I’m not the man anyone thinks I am. I’m a fraud. I had a hundred chances to come clean, and I never did. And do you know what punishment I got for that?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “None. She paid for it.”

  “Lucia?” Kip said. “Her dying wasn’t your fault!”

  “She wasn’t good enough to make it into the Blackguard—”

  Kip accepted that. They’d all known it was true. “She absolute
ly had the spirit of the best of us, Crux. She saved my life. If this is on anyone, it’s on—”

  “She had the spirit, yes, but not the skills. She shouldn’t have been there. Wouldn’t have…” His face contorted.

  “Wouldn’t have?”

  “I fell for her. Hard. Like, before we even talked. There was…” Cruxer’s face brightened at the memory. “There was something radiant about her. Like you just want to watch her across the room and watch how spirits lighten as people talk to her. I started training her extra right away, not just to be near her, either. I knew, brother, I knew so early that she’d never make it in. I don’t think she did. And I couldn’t bear to be away from her.”

  He took a breath, steadying himself against his grief.

  “She came from one of the slave-training houses, you know? If she failed out of Blackguard training, we both knew her owners would look for some other way to recoup their investment. Decent men who just want a domestic don’t bid as much at the auction as men who want a domestic for whom they have… other uses as well. Good women who just want a domestic don’t often bring a pretty one into their homes.” He shook his head. “Have you ever seen the light in a girl’s eyes die?” Cruxer met Kip’s gaze for the first time in a while. “No, they didn’t have slaves where you grew up, did they? That disgusting brutality isn’t considered normal in oh-so-backward Tyrea, is it?” he said bitterly. “Well, I couldn’t let it happen. Not to her.”

  “Oh, Cruxer.” Kip covered his face.

  “I thought, if I could just keep her in until the final testing, I could take my Blackguard price the next day and buy out her contract before her owners sold her. To free her, of course. I mean, I was nervous that maybe… even though she’d never acted like it, that maybe she’d attached herself to me hoping that would happen. You know, that she knew I was her only hope to get out. I wouldn’t blame her for it. But as long as she was a slave, the worry’s there, right? The infernal institution perverts everything it touches. So, I get my price, I free her. Maybe she loves me, too, and sticks around for a while. I mean, I was thinking marriage, but I wasn’t going to put that on her. I wanted her to be free to go, if she wanted. But maybe someday…” He swallowed.

  “So I cheated to keep her in. Our cohort was solid at the top places, but not at the bottom. A couple deep muscle bruises delivered during training the week before testing—hard kicks to a thigh or calf, not anything that would disable anyone, you know? Those kids were going to wash out anyway. What’s the harm? I thought.”

  “Cruxer, everyone does that kind of thing, trying to keep their friends with them, and everyone knows it. It’s part of—”

  “It’s cheating. It’s wrong.”

  Except it wasn’t. Not exactly.

  The trainers and the watch captains and the Blackguards’ commander all knew such scheming happened, and they didn’t stop it. In fact, they didn’t even mind, because allowing it rewarded cunning and alliance-making over pure technical fighting skill. Only fighters as incredibly skilled as Cruxer could be unaware of how the others schemed together; fighters as good as Cruxer always made it in regardless.

  The rest of the scrubs stayed awake at night, wondering what they could possibly do to make it in. The commander and trainers accepted all the schemes and backstabbing because full Blackguards needed to know how cunning minds worked if they were to guard against such minds, addressing not only external threats but also internal political machinations.

  But Kip wasn’t going to convince Cruxer out of his guilt with justifications that others were cheating, too.

  Cruxer said, “But of course, like every fraud, I got greedy. Keeping her in the Blackguard until the final testing wasn’t good enough. I wanted to be around her all the time. There was no way she belonged in Aleph squad. I demanded it. Commander Ironfist took one look at me, and he knew. I never felt so naked and foolish in my life. He told me it was gonna lead to grief. He told me! He even offered to buy her contract himself if she failed out early—and I angrily denied everything. Breaker, he gave me a chance to have everything I wanted except that I wouldn’t be the big hero in her eyes, and I lied to his face. I broke faith. I was a man under authority, and in my cowardice and weakness, I ripped myself out of my place in the Great Chain of Being. I stepped outside of Orholam’s protection, and leader that I am, I brought Lucia with me. And she got killed for my sins. Orholam is good and merciful, so I’ve had many blessings since then. But the lesson remains. Those who break faith bring grief to those who love them most. And the sooner they’re stopped, the better.”

  “So you didn’t want mercy for Ruadhán, because you’re afraid he’ll hurt us.”

  “How many second chances does a man get? I would’ve said one, and that then he deserves everything he gets and worse. But you give Conn Arthur a third chance—and it feels right. You confuse me, and I can’t tell if things work out for you because different rules apply to you, or if you’re just the only person I know brave enough to try them.”

  So that was why Cruxer had almost stopped Kip from stepping in front of the window that day: anyone else, he would have stopped, but Kip?

  The young commander scrubbed his fingers through his short curly hair. “It’s different, right? Up near the top of the Great Chain, the lines get fuzzy. I know the Lightbringer is going to upend everything. You have to obey Orholam, and you have to figure out if following the Chromeria’s will fits with that. Me? I hate that kind of thing. I’m not equipped for that stuff. Not made for it. You decide where Orholam calls us to go. Me? I follow you, unless you do something that outrages the light of conscience Orholam gave me.”

  “Or if I put myself in danger,” Kip said.

  “Well, I do get to save your dumb ass from yourself, yes,” he said with a short-lived smile. “But that’s not quite the same thing.”

  Kip nodded agreement, but his heart ached. How do you save a friend who’s had a trauma burn the wrong lesson onto their heart in words of fire? “Cruxer… This rigidity in you, this fear? That’s still the wound. Not the healing. You know that, right?”

  “No. It’s not. This is righteousness, and a man must fear he’ll lose his integrity in a world like this or he’ll never keep it.”

  “True… true,” Kip said. And entirely beside the point. He tried another tack. “There were two brothers. During a siege of an enemy city, they heroically broke through a burning sally port door. The city was taken, but they fell wounded and later shared a room as they convalesced from their burns,” Kip said. “Day after day, they spoke as they were able.

  “‘Fire’s hot,’ the first observed.

  “‘Still hot, weeks later,’ the second agreed.

  “‘Burns are the worst,’ the first said.

  “‘The absolute worst,’ the second agreed.

  “‘Bravest thing I ever did,’ the first said.

  “‘Dumbest thing I ever did,’ the second said.

  “The first said, ‘If we’d waited, a defender might’ve extinguished that fire, and many more of our friends would have gotten killed trying to take the city.’

  “The second replied, ‘If we’d waited, that burning door might’ve fallen down by itself, and we wouldn’t be here, and no one would have gotten hurt saving us when we fell wounded.’

  “‘There’ll be another battle next month or next year, but we did what we had to, and we did it as well as we could,’ the first said.

  “‘There’ll be another battle next month or next year, so we didn’t really accomplish anything,’ the second replied.

  “Which one’s right, Cruxer?” Kip asked.

  Chapter 42

  Dawn hadn’t yet rolled over in her bed, much less brushed the horizon with groggy fingers to see if her lover still attended her. But despite the darkness, the armor-bearers and bakers and coal-carriers and dungboys and the egglers and the fletchers were already up, their diurnal labors slowly displacing the stubborn nocturnal revelry of those soon leaving to greet death. The ga
rrulous and the hateful and the inquisitive and the jocular would come later to see them off. Kin and lovers would trail behind, some mothers following for a league or more, unwilling to turn their faces from sons and daughters they might never see again.

  Kip had come down from the wall and the mirror and his angry wife to walk from campfire to campfire, clapping shoulders and admiring weapons and offering a ready ear. Being seen, mostly, though it meant even more to those he touched and nodded to and questioned. A hundred times, he’d raised some offered skin, but had let neither beer nor brandy nor more exotic brews beyond his lips.

  A hundred times, he saw a man he barely recognized in his people’s eyes, and he didn’t know if he could maintain the image of that hero and yet remain himself.

  “There’s a sadness about you,” a logistics officer in her forties said. “You got respect, wealth, position, beautiful wife, friends—whole world in your purse. What’s that about?”

  She was one to know sorrow. When she’d refused to hand over the location of her daughter and several of her grandchildren, the Blood Robes had burned her brewery down—after locking two of her other grandchildren inside. The daughter who’d been saved couldn’t forgive her for it, so she’d left it all and joined up.

  Kip met her gaze. “I want to lead as well as you all deserve, and I’m afraid I won’t.”

  Her eyes widened briefly at his honesty, and he could see her tuck that away to share it with others later.

  They would love him more for it, he knew, but that hadn’t been why he said it. Somewhere, oddly, he’d displaced some essential part of his fear. He wasn’t, perhaps, fully the man they thought he was, but neither was he a fraud.