Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Brent Weeks
Cover design by Lauren Panepinto
Cover illustration by Gene Mollica
Cover copyright © 2019 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Maps by Chad Roberts Design
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Orbit
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10104
orbitbooks.net
First Edition: October 2019
Simultaneously published in Great Britain by Orbit
Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
The Orbit name and logo are trademarks of Little, Brown Book Group Limited.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Weeks, Brent, author.
Title: The burning white / Brent Weeks.
Description: First edition. | New York : Orbit, 2019. | Series: Lightbringer ; book 5
Identifiers: LCCN 2019027655 | ISBN 9780316251303 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316402873 (library ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3623.E4223 B87 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019027655
ISBNs: 978-0-316-25130-3 (hardcover), 978-0-316-53474-1 (signed edition), 978-0-316-53472-7 (Barnes and Noble signed edition), 978-0-316-25128-0 (ebook)
E3-20190928-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Maps
Series Recap
Book One: The Black Prism
Book Two: The Blinding Knife
Book Three: The Broken Eye
Book Four: The Blood Mirror
Author’s Note
Epigraph
The Burning White
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
Chapter 122
Chapter 123
Chapter 124
Chapter 125
Chapter 126
Chapter 127
Chapter 128
Chapter 129
Chapter 130
Chapter 131
Chapter 132
Chapter 133
Chapter 134
Chapter 135
Chapter 136
Chapter 137
Chapter 138
Chapter 139
Chapter 140
Chapter 142
Chapter 143
Chapter 144
Chapter 145
Chapter 146
Chapter 147
Chapter 148
Chapter 149
Chapter 150
Chapter 151
Chapter 152
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2
Epilogue 3
Acknowledgments
Postlude
Discover More
By Brent Weeks
Character List
Glossary
Appendix
To my wife, Kristi, who is far too practical to have suggested I quit my job to write and far too wise to keep repeating for five years, “Let’s not have a backup plan.”
Yet she did.
&
To my stubborn readers, who deserve to be rewarded.*
Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.
Tap here to learn more.
The Lightbringer Series Recap
In the empire of the Seven Satrapies, some people are born with the ability to transform light into luxin: a physical, tangible substance th
at exists in one of nine colors. The process is known as drafting, and each drafted color has unique physical and metaphysical properties and innumerable uses, from construction to warfare. Trained at the empire’s capital, the Chromeria, drafters lead lives of privilege, with politicians and powerful families vying for their services. In exchange, they agree that once they exhaust their ability to safely use magic—signaled when the halos of their irises are broken by the colors they draft—they will be killed by the emperor, the Prism, in a ceremony on the most holy day of the year: Sun Day. Drafters who have broken the halo are called wights, and they descend into madness if they are not Freed; those who run from the ritual Freeing are hunted to their deaths. Only the Prism can draft with limitless power, and he or she alone can balance all the colors in the satrapies to prevent luxin from overwhelming the lands and creating chaos. Every seven years, or on a multiple of seven years, the Prism also gives up his or her life, and the ruling council installs a new Prism. If the Prism refuses death, he or she is likewise hunted down by the elite squadron assigned to protecting the empire: the Blackguard.
Book One: The Black Prism
Kip Delauria is scrounging for shards of luxin on a battlefield of the False Prism’s War outside Rekton. He comes upon a green wight, Gaspar Elos, bound and trying to escape. Satrap Garadul has declared himself king and is planning to lay waste to Rekton; there is an army camped not far away. Kip races to the home of red dyer Master Danavis, who urges Kip to find his friends and run. During his escape attempt, Kip inadvertently drafts. Later he finds his mother, Lina, gravely injured, hidden in a cave with one of his friends. She gives him a rosewood box containing a mysterious jewel-encrusted dagger before dying.
At the Chromeria, Prism Gavin Guile receives a message from Lina, telling him that he has a son in Rekton named Kip. Gavin soon sets off with Blackguard Karris White Oak. They make their way to Tyrea on a luxin skimmer/glider of his own creation, which allows them to cross the entire Cerulean Sea in a day. Upon their arrival they discover that Rekton has been destroyed, and they find Kip trying to defend himself from Garadul’s Mirrormen. Gavin quickly dispatches the soldiers, realizing that Garadul is trying to set up his own Chromeria and has declared himself king. Gavin recognizes Kip as his bastard and claims him; Garadul takes the dagger before they leave.
Gavin and Kip make their way back to the Chromeria, where Kip is immediately tested to see what he can draft. He is discovered to be a superchromat and is revealed to be a blue/green bichrome. He also reunites with Aliviana (Liv) Danavis—a friend from his hometown and daughter of Corvan.
Meanwhile in Tyrea, Karris has set out on her own. She finds Corvan Danavis—Dazen’s greatest general in the False Prism’s War—in a basement, the lone survivor of the brutal massacre in Rekton. Karris is captured by the king’s forces, and she discovers that King Garadul’s right hand, a polychrome wight who calls himself the Color Prince, is the one inciting rebellion. He is Karris’s brother, whom she’d thought long dead. Corvan begins to make his way to Garriston to warn the governor.
Back at the Chromeria, it is revealed that Gavin is in fact Dazen, masquerading as his older brother. The real Gavin Guile (‘the prisoner’) is still alive, held in a blue luxin prison far beneath the Prism’s Tower. Prism Guile meets with the Spectrum, the governing body of the Seven Satrapies, and tells them what Garadul is planning. Gavin decides to make his way to Garriston with Kip, Blackguard Commander Ironfist, and Liv—who is to be Kip’s tutor. Once they arrive in Garriston, Gavin deposes Governor Crassos and takes command. He reunites with and reinstates General Danavis, giving his old friend command of Garriston’s defenses.
Gavin plans to build a magnificent yellow luxin wall around Garriston in an attempt to save the otherwise vulnerable city. Brightwater Wall is nearly complete when a cannonball destroys the gate as Gavin is finishing it. Meanwhile, Kip sneaks away to infiltrate Garadul’s camp as a spy to find Karris, and Liv goes with him; Kip is captured, and Liv is invited to join the Color Prince. Liv saves both Kip and Karris by agreeing to join the Color Prince if he’ll spare Kip’s and Gavin’s lives.
During the Battle of Garriston, Gavin goes down after drafting white luxin, Kip kills King Garadul, and the rest of the forces retreat to the docks. Kip helps rescue Ironfist, and they run across the ocean to one of the barges, where Kip races to meet another threat: a young polychrome, Zymun, who has been assigned to assassinate Gavin. Zymun’s attempt fails when Kip intercedes. Kip takes the dagger Zymun used and realizes it is the same blade his mother gave him; he recovers the knife, which now has a blue gem in the hilt.
Gavin realizes he has lost the ability to see or draft blue. The prisoner has broken out of the blue prison to find himself inside a green one.
Book Two: The Blinding Knife
Gavin and the refugees from Garriston are aboard the barges, and he tries to reconcile with the fact that he has lost blue. He saves the refugees from a sea demon, then departs with Karris for Seers Island, where he negotiates with the Third Eye, a powerful Seer, to get permission for the refugees to build a home on her island. The Third Eye knows who he really is and that he has already lost blue. She gives Gavin some useful advice about the bane, and Gavin later kills the blue bane by himself.
After they make their way back to the Chromeria, Kip goes through Blackguard training against the wishes of Commander Ironfist. Kip makes some friends and meets Teia, a color-blind paryl drafter and a slave. The war isn’t going well for the Chromeria, and Ironfist announces that the Blackguard will graduate the top fourteen candidates instead of the usual seven. As hard as training is, the new interest Kip’s grandfather, Andross Guile, has taken in him is worse. Andross demands Kip play Nine Kings for extremely high stakes.
Gavin and Karris return to the Chromeria after getting the refugees settled in their new home. He meets with the Spectrum, and Seers Island is renamed New Tyrea, giving it power as a satrapy and Danavis as satrap. Karris is ambushed and beaten by men hired by Andross Guile.
A librarian, Rea Siluz, introduces Kip to Janus Borig, an eccentric old artist who creates priceless original Nine Kings cards infused with magic. Janus warns Kip that her life is in danger, and soon Kip discovers Borig’s house burned and Janus mortally wounded by two mysterious assassins. Kip recovers a deck of completely new cards, kills the assassins, steals their shimmercloaks, and gives the items to Ironfist and Gavin. Kip eventually ranks fourteenth in his Blackguard testing and is revealed to be not a bichrome, but a full-spectrum polychrome.
Meanwhile, Liv has sworn fealty to the Color Prince and his cause. His army begins to make their way from Garriston toward Ru, a large city in Atash. Gavin travels to Ru with Kip and a team of Blackguards. They go on scouting missions. Gavin reveals his skimmer to the Blackguards, and together they sink the Gargantua, an enormous ship owned by pirate king Pash Vecchio.
Gavin and Karris reconcile and marry just before they go to war against the Color Prince. With the new Blackguard inductees and the Chromeria’s forces, they must destroy a green bane that is birthing a new god, Atirat. Ironfist and Teia lead a team in an assault on a watchtower. The green bane emerges from the sea; Gavin, Kip, and Karris fight their way to it, killing wights in their wake. Amid the chaos, Gavin realizes he has lost the ability to see or draft green. Liv directs a huge beam of light to the bane spire, awakening the new green god Atirat.
Back at the watchtower, Teia, Ironfist, and company aim cannon fire at the bane, causing the spire to explode. Using the explosion as a distraction, Kip drives his dagger—the powerful Blinding Knife—into the green god Atirat, killing it. They have killed a god and sunk a bane, but ultimately lose Ru to the Color Prince.
After the battle, while still on a Chromeria ship, Kip and Gavin meet with Andross Guile. Kip realizes that Andross is a color wight and moves to confront his grandfather. Kip draws the Blinding Knife and stabs Andross in the shoulder. Gavin tries to intervene but can only redirect the knife into his own body. Gavin falls overboa
rd, and Kip jumps after him.
They are quickly picked up by the Bitter Cob, led by pirate captain Gunner, a crazed cannoneer who was on a ship Gavin had earlier destroyed; the Blinding Knife has grown into a huge gun-sword. Gunner decides to keep Gavin and the gun-sword, throwing Kip back into the ocean as a tribute to Ceres.
Andross discovers he is no longer a wight.
Kip is picked up in a small boat by Zymun, Gavin and Karris’s long-lost illegitimate son.
Gavin wakes to find he can’t draft, is completely color-blind… and a slave rower.
Book Three: The Broken Eye
Kip and Zymun are adrift at sea until Kip escapes and swims his way to shore. He struggles to survive, withstanding dehydration, injury, and hallucinations for several weeks as he attempts to return home to the Jaspers.
Ironfist and the other Blackguards have returned to the Chromeria, where Kip is presumed dead. The Spectrum meet to decide what to do about the war and Gavin’s absence; Andross is made promachos, commander in chief of the Chromeria’s military. Teia is recruited by Murder Sharp, a skilled paryl assassin for the Order of the Broken Eye. Karris, who is now married to the Prism, is removed from the Blackguard to become spymistress for the White.
Upon his homecoming, Kip tells the Spectrum and Karris that Gavin is still alive and forges a tenuous alliance with Andross. He trains and studies under Karris and reunites with his old Blackguard squad: Cruxer, Ben-hadad, Big Leo, Teia, Ferkudi, Winsen, Goss, and Daelos. Andross grants the group access to restricted libraries so they can research heretical Nine Kings cards and the Lightbringer, a long-prophesied savior of the satrapies, hoping they’ll gain information to win the war. The group meets and befriends Quentin Naheed, a humble and brilliant young luxiat and scholar.
Back across the ocean, Gavin—color-blind and unable to draft—is a galley slave on Gunner’s pirate ship. His oarmate is an old prophet nicknamed Orholam. After months of sailing on the open sea, Gavin is freed by Antonius Malargos, a naïve young Ruthgari noble. They sail for Rath, a large port city in Ruthgar, where Gavin is handed over to Antonius’s cousin Eirene. She imprisons Gavin and plots with the Nuqaba of Paria (who possesses the orange seed crystal). They decide to spare Gavin’s life but plan to burn out his eyes.
Teia confesses to Ironfist and the White that she had been stealing for her owner, Aglaia Crassos, and that she has been ensnared by the Order of the Broken Eye. Under the White’s orders, Teia becomes a double agent for the Chromeria, infiltrating the Order; she immediately undertakes various missions to prove her loyalty to the Order. Teia soon gets a message from Karris that someone is planning to kill Kip, and she hurries with Cruxer and Winsen to try to help their friend. They save Kip and kill the Blackguards who were trying to assassinate him.