The Blood Mirror (Lightbringer, #4)

by Brent Weeks

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