Kip studied the darkness, but saw nothing. They believe, but I don’t. Maybe I need a bit more of the Guile arrogance.
Can a humble man do great things?
“That obvious, huh?” he asked, faking a grin.
Big Leo pursed his lips and finally met Kip’s gaze. He shook his head slightly. Not that obvious.
“You always measure yourself by them,” Big Leo said.
“Them?”
The warrior looked at him as if trying to determine whether he was being obtuse on purpose or simply by default. “Your father. Your grandfather.”
“Oh. Them, them.”
“Breaker?”
“Yeah?”
“Stop talking.”
“Right.”
Big Leo heaved a Big Leo–sized sigh, as if so many words were exhausting him. “Breaker, you got it all backward. I don’t follow you because you’re almost them. I follow you because you’re not them.”
So it was true: even the perfect man, Gavin Guile, had his detractors.
Find me the perfect man, and I will find you someone who dislikes him. Kip tried not to let the thought show on his face. It was a mental dodge, and it would infuriate his friend. He’d seen Big Leo angry—and it wasn’t something he really wanted directed at himself.
“You know what I like about you?” Big Leo asked.
“Well, I hope more than one thing, but I’m always ready to hear anoth—”
“Words with you are never wasted.”
A clear compliment? “Well, thank you!”
“You know what I hate about you?” Big Leo asked.
And here it had seemed like this was going so well. “Actually,” Kip said, “I’m not that curious to—”
“It always seems like they are.”
“Um. Well, thanks?” You dick. “Thanks for that, uh, deeply felt and oblique set of compliments.”
“I wasn’t done.” Deep dissatisfaction had settled into resignation on Big Leo’s face.
“Oh, I’d love to hear more compliments,” Kip said.
It might have come out a little sarcastic.
“I am done with those.”
I figured. “Go on.”
“My favorite description of the Lightbringer? Says he’ll be a man unmirrored.”
“What’s that even mean?” Kip asked.
“That’s why I like it. It could be almost literal, although poetic. Don’t know what the hell is wrong with prophets. Can’t just say what they mean.”
“I still don’t get it.” And why haven’t I heard all of these things before?
“Unmirrored: like, a man who walks in front of a mirror, and it doesn’t show him.”
Kip had to think about it. Big Leo gave him time. “That person would just be invisible.”
Big Leo sighed. “And who do we know—”
“Oh! Oh, so someone like Teia. Not invisible all the time, necessarily. Someone who can use a shimmercloak. Hmm.”
It occurred to him then that he couldn’t use a shimmercloak.
“Yeah, that would be too bad if that were true, huh?” Big Leo said.
“Since you can’t use a shimmercloak.”
“You’re doing wonders for my confidence, big guy.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Kip, of course, was suddenly very worried.
Big Leo said, “Lightsplitting is supposedly one of the gifts bestowed by Orholam during the installment of a Prism. So those who think you’re the Lightbringer, and who also believe that interpretation, simply think you’ll be installed as Prism sooner or later. Not really a big leap to think the Lightbringer would also be a Prism, eh? But usually—and maybe this is just because these scholars didn’t know about shimmercloaks—usually the phrase is taken as a, uh, what do you call it, idiom. A man unmirrored could be a man unequaled. There’s no one out there exactly like him, right?”
“Sure, that makes sense. It’s pretty good—”
“No, it’s not. It’s a stupid descriptor. It’s redundant. He’s the Light-bringer. Of course he’s unequaled. You don’t need to say he’s the most one-of-a-kind unique Lightbringer out there. In a set of one, he’s the most one of the whole set? That makes no sense. There’s just one.”
“Prophecies can’t have filler?” Kip asked.
“That’s . . . actually a good question.” Big Leo looked troubled. He started to turn away.
“No, wait. What were you going to say before?”
Big Leo stopped and seemed to chew his next words. “How I took it was that it could mean he’s unequaled, or it could mean he’s honest, because every reflection imparts loss and distortion from the original, or it could mean he’s different. He’s true . . . in that he is his own self. Every mirror presents a flattened, pale copy, an image of a real thing. So maybe the Lightbringer is simply not like other people. In every set, he’s the odd one, the exception. You know, like maybe he’s the noble who’s not a noble, the bastard who’s not a bastard, the Tyrean who doesn’t quite fit with the Tyreans, the Blackguard who doesn’t quite fit the Blackguards, the unschooled kid who somehow got educated, the poor kid who got rich, the rich kid who doesn’t act rich, the full-spectrum polychrome who’s sort of Chromeria-trained and sort of not trained at all, the guy who’s entitled to the highest horse but barely knows how to ride, yet always somehow gets where he needs to go, and fast.”
I’d like to think ‘barely knows how to ride’ has been mostly remedied in this past year, Kip thought. But he didn’t say it.
His tongue still escaped his control with some regularity, but not as often as it used to.
“And?” Kip asked. Big Leo obviously wanted to know that he had Kip’s full attention.
“Brother, we need the Lightbringer. Desperately. This army, this satrapy, all the satrapies, the Chromeria, your friends. We all need you to be the Lightbringer, and those of us who stand with you here? We’re betting our lives that you are. And that’s why you’re pissing me off.”
“Huh?”
“You think you were powerful against Daragh the Coward or against Ambassador Red Leaf or with the Divines? You were stronger by far when you saw the Keeper and took pity on her, or when you saw Conn Arthur and showed him even greater pity by showing him none.”
“Sure pissed off Cruxer,” Kip said. The commander had said, ‘You can forgive a man who breaks under a charge once out of weakness, but a man who lies to you day after day after day? He’s not only a coward, he’s disloyal. You’re making a huge mistake.’
Big Leo waved it away. “Cruxer’s still a mess over Lucia. He’ll outgrow it. Now, shut up. I’m trying to lecture you.”
“Please, proceed,” Kip said, grinning.
Big Leo held his gaze until Kip’s grin collapsed, then said, “Andross and Gavin couldn’t have done what you did—because they’re men invested in their own greatness. It makes them small next to you. Breaker, you didn’t get this far by being like anyone else. So. If the Lightbringer’s a man unmirrored, why the hell do you keep trying to be a mirror?”