The Blood Mirror (Lightbringer, #4)

by Brent Weeks

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. —ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM

Quentin had been trying to repent for literally as long as they’d known him. But it wasn’t real repentance. Not when you wouldn’t face justice.

Quentin killed Lucia

“Because between them, her brothers included drafters of every color. Because black is emptiness, but emptiness can be filled. Darkness may be filled with light. Black can hold every color. You went to the White Oak estate to murder those young men, to steal their powers. Because that’s what black drafters do.” “No.” But it came out a whisper. “And that’s why you had to hunt wights. You’ve been running out of power from the very first day, and it had to be replenished with the blood of drafters. In her weakness and her love, your mother denied it. Your father and brother knew the truth. They held off as long as they could, but when you murdered all those people at the White Oak estate, they knew you were a monster. They knew you had to be stopped. You, Dazen, are the Black Prism.”

“Daimhin Web?” Kip asked. There was an odd buzzing low in his ears at the name. “Young man. Scary. Way over on the other side of Green Haven last I heard, though. In the old tongue, they call him Sealgaire na Scian.” “He Who Hunts with Knives?” Tisis asked. Conn Arthur said, “I know it doesn’t sound very imposing, but—” But it hit Kip between the eyes.

“There’s a slave down there. An old man. Won’t be missed. Practice on him. The paralysis pinches, the lung clots, the seizures. When you’ve learned as much as you can before your next shift, kill him. With paryl if you can. There’ll be a new slave down there every few weeks. Do try to learn fast. Murder practice ain’t like other practice. Every body we have to get rid of puts someone’s life in danger.”

Daimhin Web was from a village long lauded for its skillful hunters. Among the best of them, there was a test, an impossible test, to sneak up on a deer and touch it with your bare hand. Many young men tried for years, learning everything from their elders about scent and silence and silhouettes and the sweet subterfuge of stalking; they meditated on water and wind and all the ways of the wood and weather. They became satraps of silence, conns of camouflage, paragons of patience.

He was content to live alone, and he had become a beast. And now Kip was doing his best to emulate him,

it gets violent, for it’s been changed, been violated. They kill people. We have many stories of attempts to save the soul-trapped, Lord Guile. None of them end happily.” “The Briseid?” Tisis asked. “Tamar and Heraklos?” “Indeed. Though perhaps told quite differently than you remember. The Chromeria has ways of crushing knowledge, but some truth always leaks out.”

Together we are strong. Together we will hunt. In darkness, we will usher them into the final darkness. Alone we were weak and frightened. That time is past. Together, today, we are the Nightbringers.” It ended with cheers, and tears, and not a single accusation that this person or that was disloyal or heretical or dangerous. Somehow it ended with a hundred and twenty will-casters, two hundred thirty Cwn y Wawr, and two hundred civilians swearing fealty to Kip. And Kip’s fool dream that he might destroy the White King was like a babe stillborn, lying pallid and cold in his hands—taking sudden breath, stirring, squalling; thus was born his army.

I made this? An entire cell of black luxin, a dark mirror of the others. Why?

Gavin said, “What happened at Sundered Rock?” “I think you know by now,” the dead man said. “Fragments only. I want to hear it all.” Gavin could see no expression, of course, and eventually the dead man spoke: “Our plan worked, mostly. I—we—decided that some of the friends I’d made and allies I’d promised myself to were worse than who we were fighting. You remember this much, right?” That was where the plan to replace the real Gavin had come in. Gavin said, “If I won, I wouldn’t really win. As it was, the war was traumatic, but brief. If I won as Dazen, I’d have gained the upper hand against the Chromeria, but I would still have had to subdue five of the Seven Satrapies. I might have beaten them eventually, but it was the wrong victory. My general Gad Delmarta had killed eighty thousand people in Garriston, and my army was full of Gad Delmartas. I remember what I planned with Corvan before the battle. What I don’t remember is what happened during and immediately after it.”

Reason for stealing real Gavin's identity

Aliviana had become the superviolet goddess, Ferrilux.

“Go with my love, Corvan Danavis, my Titan of the Great Fountain.”

Andross said, “She took the name Katalina Delauria when she fled, apparently. Lina. Kip isn’t your brother’s son. He’s mine.”

There’s a key ingredient in the Blinder’s Knife that is extinct.” Of course. “White luxin,” Gavin said. He cursed. The dead man was a liar—or at least wrong. “Indeed. The stories say that before Vician’s Sin, things were different. Drafters of white luxin were born every generation. A piece like the Blinder’s Knife was a stunning achievement, but not unique. In the intervening centuries, all of the others have been lost.”

Andross said, “All this devastation, caused by one bitter librarian who seduced your brother in a vain attempt at revenge on me, and then stole the knife while he slept. That was why I wasn’t at Sundered Rock. I was going after her and the knife. I’d heard she had people in Blood Forest. Never guessed she’d double back to Tyrea. Smart, going back to the very center of the devastation. I never figured she’d be that canny, or that a woman with a treasure literally worth all the gold in the Seven Satrapies would keep it in a closet in a shack. Never figured you’d stab yourself with the knife and then jump in the sea, either.”