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hadn’t gathered around Stormblessed and his halo of glowing lights—lowered a spyglass. She frowned, then raised it again. Then she began to call out in the spren language. People tore themselves away from Kaladin and crowded around. Adolin stepped back, watching until Kaladin and Shallan joined him. Azure crested the steps nearby, looking concerned. “What is it?” Kaladin asked. “No idea,” Adolin said. The captain waved for the mistspren and honorspren to make space, then took the spyglass. He finally lowered it and looked back at Kaladin. “You were right, human, when you said you might be followed.” He waved Kaladin and Adolin forward. “Look low on the horizon, at two hundred ten degrees.” Kaladin looked through the spyglass, then breathed out. He extended it toward Adolin, but Shallan snatched it first. “Storms!” she said. “There’s at least six of them.” “Eight, my scout says,” the captain replied. Adolin finally got his turn. Because of the black sky, it took him forever to spot the distant specks flying toward the ship. The Fused. Re-Shephir, the Midnight Mother, is another Unmade who appears to have been destroyed at Aharietiam. —From Hessi’s Mythica, page 250 Dalinar ran his fingers along a line of red crystal embedded in the stone wall. The little vein started at the ceiling and wound all the way down the wall—within the pattern of the light green and grey strata—to the floor. It was smooth to the touch, distinct in texture from the rock around it. He rubbed his thumb across the crystal. It’s like the other strata lines ripple out from this one, getting wider as they move away from it. “What does it mean?” he asked Navani. The two of them stood in a storage room near the top of the tower. “I don’t know,” Navani said, “but we’re finding more and more of them. What do you know of Essential Theology?” “A thing for ardents and scribes,” he said. “And Soulcasters. That is a garnet.” Garnet? Let’s see … Emeralds for grain, that was the most important, and heliodors for flesh. They raised animals for their gemhearts to provide those two. He was pretty sure diamonds made quartz, and … storms, he didn’t know much about the others. Topaz made stone. They’d needed those for the bunkers on the Shattered Plains. “Garnets make blood,” Navani said. “We don’t have any Soulcasters that use them.” “Blood? That sounds useless.” “Well, scientifically, we think Soulcasters were able to use garnets to make any liquid that was soluble in water, as opposed to oil-based … Your eyes are crossing.” “Sorry.” He felt at the crystals. “Another mystery. When will we find answers?” “The records below,” Navani said, “speak of this tower like a living thing. With a heart of emerald and ruby, and now these veins of garnet.” He stood up, looking around the darkened room, which held the monarchs’ chairs between meetings. It was lit by a sphere he’d set on a stone ledge by the door. “If this tower was alive,” Dalinar said, “then it’s dead now.” “Or
sleeping. But if that’s the case, I have no idea how to wake it. We’ve tried infusing the heart like a fabrial, even had Renarin try to push Stormlight into it. Nothing’s worked.” Dalinar picked up a chair, then pushed the door open. He held the door with his foot—shooing away a guard who tried to do it for him—while Navani collected the sphere and joined him in the conference room, in front of the glass wall looking toward the Origin. He set down the chair and checked his forearm clock. Stupid thing. He was growing far too dependent upon it. The arm device had a painrial in it too: a kind of fabrial with a spren that feasted upon pain. He’d never yet remembered to use the thing. Twelve minutes left. Assuming Elthebar’s calculations were correct. With spanreeds confirming the storm’s arrival hours before in the east, the calculations were down to judging the speed of the storm. A runner arrived at the door. Creer—the duty sergeant for guards today—accepted it. He was a bridgeman from … Bridge Twenty, was it? He and his brother were both guards, though Creer wore spectacles, unlike his twin. “Message from Brightness Khal, sir,” Creer said, handing the note to Navani. It looked like it had come from a spanreed. It had marks on the sides from the clips that had held it to the board, and the tight letters covered only the center of the page. “From Fen,” Navani said. “A merchant ship vanished in the Southern Depths this morning, just off Marat. They went ashore at what they hoped was a safe distance—to use the spanreed—and reported a large number of ships at dock along the coast. Glowing figures rose from a nearby city and descended upon them, and the communication cut off.” “Confirmation,” Dalinar said, “that the enemy is building up a navy.” If that fleet launched from Marat before his own ships were ready, or if the winds were wrong when his armada did launch … “Have Teshav write back to the Thaylens,” Dalinar said. “Suggest to Queen Fen and our other allies that we hold the next meeting in Thaylen City. We’ll want to inspect fortifications and shore up the ground defenses.” He sent the guards to wait outside, then approached the window and checked his wrist clock. Just a few minutes left. He thought he could see the stormwall below, but it was difficult to be sure from this height. He wasn’t accustomed to looking down on a highstorm. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Navani asked. “The Stormfather asked me something similar this morning. I asked him if he knew the first rule of warfare.” “Is that the one about terrain, or the one about attacking where the enemy is weak?” He could pick it out now, a dark ripple surging through the sky below. “Neither,” Dalinar said. “Ah, right,” Navani said. “I should have guessed.” She was nervous, with good cause. It was the first time he’d stepped back into the visions since meeting Odium.
But Dalinar felt blind in this war. He didn’t know what the enemy wanted, or how they intended to exploit their conquests. The first rule of war. Know your enemy. He raised his chin as the storm slammed into Urithiru, roughly at the height of its third tier. All went white. Then Dalinar appeared in the ancient palace—the large open room with sandstone pillars and a balcony that looked out on an antiquated version of Kholinar. Nohadon strode through the center of the pillared chamber. This was the youthful Nohadon, not the elderly version from his recent dream. Dalinar had taken the place of a guardsman, near the doors. A slender Parshendi woman appeared beside the king, in the spot Dalinar had occupied so long ago. Her skin was marbled red and white in a complex pattern, and she had long orange-red hair. She looked down with red eyes, surprised by her sudden appearance and the robes she wore, those of an advisor to the king. Nohadon began speaking to her as if she were his friend Karm. “I don’t know what to do, old friend.” Odium sees that a vision has begun, the Stormfather warned Dalinar. The enemy is focusing on us. He comes. “Can you hold him back?” I am but a shadow of a god. His power vastly outstrips my own. He sounded smaller than Dalinar was accustomed to. Like the quintessential bully, the Stormfather didn’t know how to face someone stronger than himself. “Can you hold him back? I need time to talk to her.” I will … try. Good enough. Unfortunately, it meant that Dalinar didn’t have time to let this Parshendi woman experience the vision in full. He strode toward her and Nohadon. * * * Venli turned around. Where was she? This wasn’t Marat. Had Odium summoned her again? No. It’s the wrong storm. He doesn’t come during highstorms. A young Alethi male in robes was blathering at her. She ignored him, biting her hand to see if she could feel the pain. She could. She shook her hand and looked down at the robes she wore. This couldn’t be a dream. It was too real. “My friend?” the Alethi man asked. “Are you well? I realize that events have taken their toll on us all, but—” Footsteps rang loudly on the stone as another Alethi man approached, wearing a crisp blue uniform. White dusted the hair at his temples, and his face wasn’t as … round as other human faces. His features could almost have been those of a listener, even if that nose was wrong and the face bore far more creases than a listener’s ever would. Wait … she thought, attuning Curiosity. Is that … “Disturbance on the battlefield, sir,” the older man said to her companion. “You are needed immediately.” “What is this? I didn’t hear—” “They didn’t say what it was, Your Majesty, only that you are urgently requested.” The human king drew his lips to a tight line, and then—obviously frustrated—stalked toward the doorway. “Come,” he said to Venli.
The older man grabbed her arm above the elbow. “Don’t,” he said softly. “We need to talk.” This is the Alethi warlord. “My name is Dalinar Kholin,” the man said. “I lead the Alethi, and you’re seeing a vision of past events. Only your mind has been transported, not your body. We two are the only real people here.” She yanked her arm out of his hand and attuned Irritation. “How … why have you brought me here?” “I want to talk.” “Of course you do. Now that you’re losing, now that we’ve seized your capital, now you want to talk. What of the years spent slaughtering my people on the Shattered Plains?” It had been a game to them. Listener spy reports had shown the humans had enjoyed the sport on the Shattered Plains. Claiming wealth, and listener lives, as part of a grand contest. “We were willing to talk, when you sent your emissary,” Dalinar said. “The Shardbearer. I’m willing to talk again now. I want to forget old grievances, even those personal to me.” Venli walked away, still attuned to Irritation. “How have you brought me to this place? Is this a prison?” Is this your work, Odium? Testing my loyalty with a false vision of the enemy? She was using the old rhythms. She’d never been able to do that when Odium’s attention had been on her. “I’ll send you back soon,” Kholin said, catching up to her. Though he was not short for a human, her current form was a good six inches taller than he was. “Please, just hear me out. I need to know. What would a truce between our people cost?” “A truce?” she asked to Amusement, stopping near the balcony. “A truce?” “Peace. No Desolation. No war. What would it cost?” “Well, for a start, it would cost your kingdom.” He grimaced. His words were dead, like those of all humans, but he wore his feelings on his face. So much passion and emotion. Is that why the spren betrayed us for them? “What is Alethkar to you?” he said. “I can help you build a new nation on the Shattered Plains. I will give you laborers to raise cities, ardents to teach any skill you want. Wealth, as payment in ransom for Kholinar and its people. A formal apology. Whatever you demand.” “I demand that we keep Alethkar.” His face became a mask of pain, his brow furrowed. “Why must you live there? To you, Alethkar is a place to conquer. But it’s my homeland.” She attuned Reprimand. “Don’t you understand? The people who live there—the singers, my cousins—are from Alethkar. That is their homeland too. The only difference between them and you is that they were born as slaves, and you as their master!” He winced. “Perhaps some other accommodation, then. A … dividing of the kingdom? A parshman highprince?” He seemed shocked to be considering it. She attuned Resolve. “Your tone implies you know that would be impossible. There can be no accommodation, human. Send me from this place. We
can meet on the battlefield.” “No.” He seized her arm again. “I don’t know what the accommodation will be, but we can find one. Let me prove to you that I want to negotiate, instead of fight.” “You can start,” she said to Irritation, pulling away from him, “by not assaulting me.” She wasn’t certain she could fight him, honestly. Her current body was tall, but fragile. And in truth, she’d never been proficient at battle, even during the days when she’d taken an appropriate form. “At least let us try a negotiation,” he said. “Please.” He didn’t sound very pleading. He’d grown stern, face like a stone, glaring. With the rhythms, you could infuse your tone with the mood you wished to convey, even if your emotions weren’t cooperating. Humans didn’t have that tool. They were as dull as the dullest slave. A sudden thump resounded in the vision. Venli attuned Anxiety and rushed out onto the balcony. A half-destroyed city stretched below, where a battle had happened, dead heaped in piles. That pounding sounded again. The … the air was breaking. The clouds and sky seemed to be a mural painted on an enormous dome ceiling, and as the pounds continued, a web of cracks appeared overhead. Beyond them shone a vivid yellow light. “He’s here,” she whispered, then waved toward it. “That’s why there can’t be a negotiation, human. He knows we don’t need one. You want peace? Surrender. Give yourselves up and hope that he doesn’t care to destroy you.” A faint hope, considering what Rine had said to her about exterminating the humans. With the next pound, the sky fractured and a hole appeared overhead, a powerful light shining beyond. The very shards of the air—broken like a mirror—were sucked into that light. A pulse of power blasted from the hole, shaking the city with a terrible vibration. It tossed Venli to the balcony’s floor. Kholin reached to help her, but a second pulse caused him to fall as well. The bricks in the room’s wall separated from one another and began to float apart. The boards that made up the balcony began to lift, nails floating into the sky. A guard ran to the balcony, but stumbled, and his very skin started to separate into water and a dried husk. Everything just … came apart. A wind rose around Venli, pulling debris toward that hole in the sky, and the brilliant, terrible light beyond. Boards shredded to splinters; bricks floated past her head. She growled, the Rhythm of Resolve thumping inside her as she grabbed and clung to parts of the floor that hadn’t yet separated. That burning. She knew it well, the terrible pain of Odium’s heat scalding her skin, scorching her until her very bones—somehow still able to feel—became ash. It happened every time he gave her orders. What worse thing would he do if he found her fraternizing with the enemy? She attuned Determination and crawled away from the light. Escape! She reached the chamber beyond the balcony and lurched to her feet,
trying to run. The wind pulled at her, making each step a struggle. Overhead, the ceiling separated in a single magnificent burst—each brick exploding away from the others, then streaming toward the void. The pieces of the unfortunate guard rose after them, a sack drained of grain, a puppet with no controlling hand. Venli dropped to the ground again and continued crawling, but the stones of the floor separated, floating upward with her on them. Soon, she was scrambling precariously from one floating piece of stone to another. The Rhythm of Resolve still attuned, she dared to glance backward. The hole had widened, and the all-consuming light feasted on the streams of refuse. She turned away, desperate to do what she could to delay her own burning. Then … she stopped and looked back again. Dalinar Kholin stood on the balcony. And he was glowing. Neshua Kadal. Radiant Knight. Without meaning to, she attuned the Rhythm of Awe. Around Kholin, the balcony was stable. Boards trembled and quivered at his feet, but did not move into the sky. The balcony railing had ripped apart to either side of him, but where he held to it with a firm grip, it remained secure. He was her enemy, and yet … Long ago, these humans had resisted her gods. Yes, the enslavement of her cousins—the singers—was impossible to ignore. Still, the humans had fought. And had won. The listeners remembered this as a song sung to the Rhythm of Awe. Neshua Kadal. The calm, gentle light spread from Dalinar Kholin’s hand to the railing, then down into the floor. Boards and stones sank down from the air, reknitting. Venli’s current block of stone settled back into place. All through the city, buildings burst apart and zoomed upward, but the walls of this tower returned to their positions. Venli immediately made for the steps downward. If whatever Kholin was doing stopped, she wanted to be on solid rock. She wound her way to the ground floor, then—once on the street—she positioned herself near the balcony and Kholin’s influence. Above, Odium’s light went out. Stones and splinters rained down on the city, crashing about her. Dried bodies dropped like discarded clothing. Venli pressed back against the tower wall, attuning Anxiety, raising her arm against the dust of the debris. The hole remained in the sky, though the light was gone from behind it. Below, the rubbled remains of the city seemed … a sham. No cries of fear, no moans of pain. Bodies were just husks, skins lying empty on the ground. A sudden pounding broke the air behind her, opening another hole, lower down and near the edge of the city. The sky crumbled into the gap, revealing that hateful light again. It consumed everything near it—wall, buildings, even the ground disintegrating and flowing into the maw. Dust and debris washed over Venli in a furious wind. She pressed against the stone wall, clinging to one of the balcony’s supports. Terrible heat washed across her from the distant hole. Clamping her eyes shut, she tightened
her grip. He could come claim her, but she would not let go. And what of the grand purpose? What of the power he offers? Did she still want those things? Or was that merely something to grasp onto, now that she had brought about the end of her people? She gritted her teeth. In the distance, she heard a quiet rhythm. Somehow it sounded over the roar of the wind, the clacking of dust and stones. The Rhythm of Anxiety? She opened her eyes, and saw Timbre fighting against the wind in an attempt to reach her. Bursts of light exploded from the little spren in frantic rings. Buildings crumbled along the street. The entire city was collapsing away—even the palace broke apart, all save this one patch near the balcony. The little spren changed to the Rhythm of the Lost and began to slide backward. Venli shouted and released the pillar. She immediately was pushed with the wind—but although she wasn’t in stormform any longer, this was a form of power, incredibly nimble. She controlled her fall, going down on her side and skidding on the stones, feet toward the oppressive light. As she neared the little spren, Venli jammed her foot into a cleft in the street, then grabbed a crack in a broken stone, pulling herself to a halt. With her other hand, she twisted and snatched Timbre from the air. Touching Timbre felt like touching silk being blown by a wind. As Venli folded her left hand around the spren, she felt a pulsing warmth. Timbre pulsed to Praise as Venli pulled her close to her breast. Great, Venli thought, lowering her head against the wind, her face against the ground, holding on to the cleft in the rock with her right hand. Now we can fall together. She had one hope. To hold on, and hope that eventually … The heat faded. The wind stilled. Debris came clattering back to the ground, though the fall was less clamorous this time. Not only had the wind been pulling sideways rather than up, there simply wasn’t much debris left. Venli rose, covered in dust, her face and hands cut by chips of stone. Timbre pulsed softly in her hand. The city was basically gone. No more than the occasional outline of a building foundation and the remains of the strange rock formations known as the windblades. Even those had been weathered down to knobs five or six feet tall. The only structure in the city that remained was a quarter of the tower where Kholin had been standing. Behind her was a black, gaping hole into nothingness. The ground trembled. Oh no. Something beat against the stones underneath her. The very ground began to shake and crumble. Venli ran toward the broken palace right as everything—at last—fell apart. The ground, the remaining foundations, even the air seemed to disintegrate. A chasm opened beneath her, and Venli leaped, trying to reach the other side. She came up a few feet short, and plummeted into the hole. Falling, she twisted
in the air, reaching for the collapsing sky with one hand and clutching Timbre in the other. Above, the man in the blue uniform leaped into the chasm. He fell beside the hole’s perimeter, and stretched one hand toward Venli. His other ground against the rock wall, hand scraping the stone. Something flashed around his arm. Lines of light, a framework that covered his body. His fingers didn’t bleed as they scraped the stone. Around her, the rocks—the air itself—became more substantial. In defiance of the heat below, Venli slowed just enough that her fingers met those of Kholin. Go. She crashed to the floor of her cave back in Marat, the vision gone. Sweating, panting, she opened her left fist. To her relief, Timbre floated out, pulsing with a hesitant rhythm. * * * Dalinar dissolved into pure pain. He felt himself being ripped apart, flayed, shredded. Each piece of him removed and allowed to hurt in isolation. A punishment, a retribution, a personalized torment. It could have persisted for an eternity. Instead, blessedly, the agony faded, and he came to himself. He knelt on an endless plain of glowing white stone. Light coalesced beside him, forming into a figure dressed in gold and white, holding a short scepter. “What were you seeing?” Odium asked, curious. He tapped his scepter on the ground like a cane. Nohadon’s palace—where Dalinar had been moments before—materialized out of light beside them. “Ah, this one again? Looking for answers from the dead?” Dalinar squeezed his eyes shut. What a fool he had been. If there had ever been a hope of peace, he’d probably destroyed it by pulling that Parshendi woman into a vision and subjecting her to Odium’s horrors. “Dalinar, Dalinar,” Odium said. He settled down on a seat formed from light, then rested one hand on Dalinar’s shoulder. “It hurts, doesn’t it? Yes. I know pain. I am the only god who does. The only one who cares.” “Can there be peace?” Dalinar asked, his voice ragged. Speaking was hard. He’d felt himself being ripped apart in the light moments before. “Yes, Dalinar,” Odium said. “There can be. There will be.” “After you destroy Roshar.” “After you destroy it, Dalinar. I am the one who will rebuild it.” “Agree to a contest between champions,” Dalinar forced out. “Let us … let us find a way to…” He trailed off. How could he fight this thing? Odium patted Dalinar’s shoulder. “Be strong, Dalinar. I have faith in you, even when you don’t have it in yourself. Though it will hurt for a time, there is an end. Peace is in your future. Push through the agony. Then you will be victorious, my son.” The vision faded, and Dalinar found himself back in the upper room of Urithiru. He collapsed into the seat he’d placed there, Navani taking his arm, concerned. Through his bond, Dalinar sensed weeping. The Stormfather had kept Odium back, but storms, he had paid a price. The most powerful spren on Roshar—embodiment of the tempest that shaped all life—was crying like
a child, whispering that Odium was too strong. THIRTY-THREE YEARS AGO Dalinar danced from one foot to the other in the morning mist, feeling a new power, an energy in every step. Shardplate. His own Shardplate. The world would never be the same place. They’d all expected he would someday have his own Plate or Blade, but he’d never been able to quiet the whisper of uncertainty from the back of his mind. What if it never happened? But it had. Stormfather, it had. He’d won it himself, in combat. Yes, that combat had involved kicking a man off a cliff, but he’d defeated a Shardbearer regardless. He couldn’t help but bask in how grand it felt. “Calm, Dalinar,” Sadeas said from beside him in the mist. Sadeas wore his own golden Plate. “Patience.” “It won’t do any good, Sadeas,” Gavilar—clad in bright blue Plate—said from Dalinar’s other side. All three of them wore their faceplates up for the moment. “The Kholin boys are chained axehounds, and we smell blood. We can’t go into battle breathing calming breaths, centered and serene, as the ardents teach.” Dalinar shifted, feeling the cold morning fog on his face. He wanted to dance with the anticipationspren whipping in the air around him. Behind, the army waited in disciplined ranks, their footsteps, clinkings, coughs, and murmured banter rising through the fog. He almost felt as if he didn’t need that army. He wore a massive hammer on his back, so heavy an unaided man—even the strongest of them—wouldn’t be able to lift it. He barely noticed the weight. Storms, this power. It felt remarkably like the Thrill. “Have you given thought to my suggestion, Dalinar?” Sadeas asked. “No.” Sadeas sighed. “If Gavilar commands me,” Dalinar said, “I’ll marry.” “Don’t bring me into this,” Gavilar said. He summoned and dismissed his Shardblade repeatedly as they talked. “Well,” Dalinar said, “until you say something, I’m staying single.” The only woman he’d ever wanted belonged to Gavilar. They’d married—storms, they had a child now. A little girl. His brother must never know how Dalinar felt. “But think of the benefit, Dalinar,” Sadeas said. “Your wedding could bring us alliances, Shards. Perhaps you could win us a princedom—one we wouldn’t have to storming drive to the brink of collapse before they join us!” After two years of fighting, only four of the ten princedoms had accepted Gavilar’s rule—and two of those, Kholin and Sadeas, had been easy. The result was a united Alethkar: against House Kholin. Gavilar was convinced that he could play them off one another, that their natural selfishness would lead them to stab one another in the back. Sadeas, in turn, pushed Gavilar toward greater brutality. He claimed that the fiercer their reputation, the more cities would turn to them willingly rather than risk being pillaged. “Well?” Sadeas asked. “Will you at least consider a union of political necessity?” “Storms, you still on that?” Dalinar said. “Let me fight. You and my brother can worry about politics.” “You can’t escape this forever, Dalinar. You realize that, right? We’ll
have to worry about feeding the darkeyes, about city infrastructure, about ties with other kingdoms. Politics.” “You and Gavilar,” Dalinar said. “All of us,” Sadeas said. “All three.” “Weren’t you trying to get me to relax?” Dalinar snapped. Storms. The rising sun finally started to disperse the fog, and that let him see their target: a wall about twelve feet high. Beyond that, nothing. A flat rocky expanse, or so it appeared. The chasm city was difficult to spot from this direction. Named Rathalas, it was also known as the Rift: an entire city that had been built inside a rip in the ground. “Brightlord Tanalan is a Shardbearer, right?” Dalinar asked. Sadeas sighed, lowering his faceplate. “We only went over this four times, Dalinar.” “I was drunk. Tanalan. Shardbearer?” “Blade only, Brother,” Gavilar said. “He’s mine,” Dalinar whispered. Gavilar laughed. “Only if you find him first! I’ve half a mind to give that Blade to Sadeas. At least he listens in our meetings.” “All right,” Sadeas said. “Let’s do this carefully. Remember the plan. Gavilar, you—” Gavilar gave Dalinar a grin, slammed his faceplate down, then took off running to leave Sadeas midsentence. Dalinar whooped and joined him, Plated boots grinding against stone. Sadeas cursed loudly, then followed. The army remained behind for the moment. Rocks started falling; catapults from behind the wall hurled solitary boulders or sprays of smaller rocks. Chunks slammed down around Dalinar, shaking the ground, causing rockbud vines to curl up. A boulder struck just ahead, then bounced, spraying chips of stone. Dalinar skidded past it, the Plate lending a spring to his motion. He raised his arm before his eye slit as a hail of arrows darkened the sky. “Watch the ballistas!” Gavilar shouted. Atop the wall, soldiers aimed massive crossbowlike devices mounted to the stone. One sleek bolt—the size of a spear—launched directly at Dalinar, and it proved far more accurate than the catapults. He threw himself to the side, Plate grinding on stone as he slid out of the way. The bolt hit the ground with such force that the wood shattered. Other shafts trailed netting and ropes, hoping to trip a Shardbearer and render him prone for a second shot. Dalinar grinned, feeling the Thrill awaken within him, and recovered his feet. He leaped over a bolt trailing netting. Tanalan’s men delivered a storm of wood and stone, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Dalinar took a stone in the shoulder and lurched, but quickly regained his momentum. Arrows were useless against him, the boulders too random, and the ballistas too slow to reload. This was how it should be. Dalinar, Gavilar, Sadeas. Together. Other responsibilities didn’t matter. Life was about the fight. A good battle in the day—then at night, a warm hearth, tired muscles, and a good vintage of wine. Dalinar reached the squat wall and leaped, propelling himself in a mighty jump. He gained just enough height to grab one of the crenels of the wall’s top. Men raised hammers to pound his fingers, but he hurled himself over the lip
and onto the wall walk, crashing down amid panicked defenders. He jerked the release rope on his hammer—dropping it on an enemy behind—then swung out with his fist, sending men broken and screaming. This was almost too easy! He seized his hammer, then brought it up and swung it in a wide arc, tossing men from the wall like leaves before a gust of wind. Just beyond him, Sadeas kicked over a ballista, destroying the device with a casual blow. Gavilar attacked with his Blade, dropping corpses by the handful, their eyes burning. Up here, the fortification worked against the defenders, leaving them cramped and clumped up—perfect for Shardbearers to destroy. Dalinar surged through them, and in a few moments likely killed more men than he had in his entire life. At that, he felt a surprising yet profound dissatisfaction. This was not about his skill, his momentum, or even his reputation. You could have replaced him with a toothless gaffer and produced practically the same result. He gritted his teeth against that sudden useless emotion. He dug deeply within, and found the Thrill waiting. It filled him, driving away dissatisfaction. Within moments he was roaring his pleasure. Nothing these men did could touch him. He was a destroyer, a conqueror, a glorious maelstrom of death. A god. Sadeas was saying something. The silly man gestured in his golden Shardplate. Dalinar blinked, looking out over the wall. He could see the Rift proper from this vantage, a deep chasm in the ground that hid an entire city, built up the sides of either cliff. “Catapults, Dalinar!” Sadeas said. “Bring down those catapults!” Right. Gavilar’s armies had started to charge the walls. Those catapults—near the way down into the Rift proper—were still launching stones, and would drop hundreds of men. Dalinar leaped for the edge of the wall and grabbed a rope ladder to swing down. The ropes, of course, immediately snapped, sending him toppling to the ground. He struck with a crash of Plate on stone. It didn’t hurt, but his pride took a serious blow. Above, Sadeas looked at him over the edge. Dalinar could practically hear his voice. Always rushing into things. Take some time to think once in a while, won’t you? That had been a flat-out greenvine mistake. Dalinar growled and climbed to his feet, searching for his hammer. Storms! He’d bent the handle in his fall. How had he done that? It wasn’t made of the same strange metal as Blades and Plate, but it was still good steel. Soldiers guarding the catapults swarmed toward him while the shadows of boulders passed overhead. Dalinar set his jaw, the Thrill saturating him, and reached for a stout wooden door set into the wall nearby. He ripped it free, the hinges popping, and stumbled. It came off more easily than he’d expected. There was more to this armor than he’d ever imagined. Maybe he wasn’t any better with the Plate than some old gaffer, but he would change that. At that moment, he determined that he’d never be surprised
again. He’d wear this Plate morning and night—he’d sleep in the storming stuff—until he was more comfortable in it than out. He raised the wooden door and swung it like a bludgeon, sweeping soldiers away and opening a path to the catapults. Then he dashed forward and grabbed the side of one catapult. He ripped its wheel off, splintering wood and sending the machine teetering. He stepped onto it, grabbing the catapult’s arm and breaking it free. Only ten more to go. He stood atop the wrecked machine when he heard a distant voice call his name. “Dalinar!” He looked toward the wall, where Sadeas reached back and heaved his Shardbearer’s hammer. It spun in the air before slamming into the catapult next to Dalinar, wedging itself into the broken wood. Sadeas raised a hand in salute, and Dalinar waved back in gratitude, then grabbed the hammer. The destruction went a lot faster after that. He pounded the machines, leaving behind shattered wood. Engineers—many of them women—scrambled away, screaming, “Blackthorn, Blackthorn!” By the time he neared the last catapult, Gavilar had secured the gates and opened them to his soldiers. A flood of men entered, joining those who had scaled the walls. The last of the enemies near Dalinar fled down into the city, leaving him alone. He grunted and kicked the final broken catapult, sending it rolling backward across the stone toward the edge of the Rift. It tipped, then fell over. Dalinar stepped forward, walking onto a kind of observation post, a section of rock with a railing to prevent people from slipping over the side. From this vantage, he got his first good look down at the city. “The Rift” was a fitting name. To his right, the chasm narrowed, but here at the middle he’d have been hard-pressed to throw a stone across to the other side, even with Shardplate. And within it, there was life. Gardens bobbing with lifespren. Buildings built practically on top of one another down the V-shaped cliff sides. The place teemed with a network of stilts, bridges, and wooden walkways. Dalinar turned and looked back at the wall that ran in a wide circle around the opening of the Rift on all sides except the west, where the canyon continued until it opened up below at the shores of the lake. To survive in Alethkar, you had to find shelter from the storms. A wide cleft like this one was perfect for a city. But how did you protect it? Any attacking enemy would have the high ground. Many cities walked a risky line between security from storms and security from men. Dalinar shouldered Sadeas’s hammer as groups of Tanalan’s soldiers flooded down from the walls, forming up to flank Gavilar’s army on both right and left. They’d try to press against the Kholin troops from both sides, but with three Shardbearers to face, they were in trouble. Where was Highlord Tanalan himself? Behind, Thakka approached with a small squad of elites, joining Dalinar on the stone viewing platform. Thakka put his hands
on the railing, whistling softly. “Something’s going on with this city,” Dalinar said. “What?” “I don’t know.…” Dalinar might not pay attention to the grand plans Gavilar and Sadeas made, but he was a soldier. He knew battlefields like a woman knew her mother’s recipes: he might not be able to give you measurements, but he could taste when something was off. The fighting continued behind him, Kholin soldiers clashing with Tanalan’s defenders. Tanalan’s armies didn’t fare well; demoralized by the advancing Kholin army, the enemy ranks quickly broke and scrambled into a retreat, clogging the ramps down into the city. Gavilar and Sadeas didn’t give chase; they had the high ground now. No need to rush into a potential ambush. Gavilar clomped across the stone, Sadeas beside him. They’d want to survey the city and rain arrows upon those below—maybe even use stolen catapults, if Dalinar had left any functional. They’d siege this place until it broke. Three Shardbearers, Dalinar thought. Tanalan has to be planning to deal with us somehow.… This viewing platform was the best vantage for looking into the city. And they’d situated the catapults right next to it—machines that the Shardbearers were certain to attack and disable. Dalinar glanced to the sides, and saw cracks in the stone floor of the viewing platform. “No!” Dalinar shouted to Gavilar. “Stay back! It’s a—” The enemy must have been watching, for the moment he shouted, the ground fell out from beneath him. Dalinar caught a glimpse of Gavilar—held back by Sadeas—looking on in horror as Dalinar, Thakka, and a handful of other elites were toppled into the Rift. Storms. The entire section of stone where they’d been standing—the lip hanging out over the Rift—had broken free! As the large section of rock tumbled down into the first buildings, Dalinar was flung into the air above the city. Everything spun around him. A moment later, he crashed into a building with an awful crunch. Something hard hit his arm, an impact so powerful he heard his armor there shatter. The building failed to stop him. He tore right through the wood and continued, helm grinding against stone as he somehow came in contact with the side of the Rift. He hit another surface with a loud crunch, and blessedly here he finally stopped. He groaned, feeling a sharp pain from his left hand. He shook his head, and found himself staring upward some fifty feet through a shattered section of the near-vertical wooden city. The large section of falling rock had torn a swath through the city along the steep incline, smashing homes and walkways. Dalinar had been flung just to the north, and had eventually come to rest on the wooden roof of a building. He didn’t see signs of his men. Thakka, the other elites. But without Shardplate … He growled, angerspren boiling around him like pools of blood. He shifted on the rooftop, but the pain in his hand made him wince. His armor all down his left arm had shattered, and in falling he appeared to
have broken a few fingers. His Shardplate leaked glowing white smoke from a hundred fractures, but the only pieces he’d lost completely were from his left arm and hand. He gingerly pried himself from the rooftop, but as he shifted, he broke through and fell into the home. He grunted as he hit, members of a family screaming and pulling back against the wall. Tanalan apparently hadn’t told the people of his plan to crush a section of his own city in a desperate attempt to deal with the enemy Shardbearers. Dalinar got to his feet, ignoring the cowering people, and shoved open the door—breaking it with the strength of his push—and stepped out onto a wooden walkway that ran before the homes on this tier of the city. A hail of arrows immediately fell on him. He turned his right shoulder toward them, growling, shielding his eye slit as best he could while he inspected the source of the attack. Fifty archers were set up on a garden platform on the other storming side of the Rift from him. Wonderful. He recognized the man leading the archers. Tall, with an imperious bearing and stark white plumes on his helm. Who put chicken feathers on their helms? Looked ridiculous. Well, Tanalan was a fine enough fellow. Dalinar had beat him once at pawns, and Tanalan had paid the bet with a hundred glowing bits of ruby, each dropped into a corked bottle of wine. Dalinar had always found that amusing. Reveling in the Thrill, which rose in him and drove away pain, Dalinar charged along the walkway, ignoring arrows. Above, Sadeas was leading a force down one of the ramps outside the path of the rockfall, but it would be slow going. By the time they arrived, Dalinar intended to have a new Shardblade. He charged onto one of the bridges that crossed the Rift. Unfortunately, he knew exactly what he would do if preparing this city for an assault. Sure enough, a pair of soldiers hurried down the other side of the Rift, then used axes to attack the support posts to Dalinar’s bridge. It had Soulcast metal ropes holding it up, but if they could get those posts down—dropping the lines—his weight would surely cause the entire thing to fall. The bottom wash of the Rift was easily another hundred feet below. Growling, Dalinar made the only choice he could. He threw himself over the side of his walkway, dropping a short distance to one below. It looked sturdy enough. Even so, one foot smashed through the wooden planks, nearly followed by his entire body. He heaved himself up and continued running across. Two more soldiers reached the posts holding up this bridge, and they began frantically hacking away. The walkway shook beneath Dalinar’s feet. Stormfather. He didn’t have much time, but there were no more walkways within jumping distance. Dalinar pushed himself to a run, roaring, his footfalls cracking boards. A single black arrow fell from above, swooping like a skyeel. It dropped one of the soldiers. Another arrow
followed, hitting the second soldier even as he gawked at his fallen ally. The walkway stopped shaking, and Dalinar grinned, pulling to a stop. He turned, spotting a man standing near the sheared-off section of stone above. He lifted a black bow toward Dalinar. “Teleb, you storming miracle,” Dalinar said. He reached the other side and plucked an axe from the hands of a dead man. Then he charged up a ramp toward where he’d seen Highlord Tanalan. He found the place easily, a wide wooden platform built on struts connected to parts of the wall below, and draped with vines and blooming rockbuds. Lifespren scattered as Dalinar reached it. Centered in the garden, Tanalan waited with a force of some fifty soldiers. Puffing inside his helm, Dalinar stepped up to confront them. Tanalan was armored in simple steel, no Shardplate, though a brutal-looking Shardblade—wide, with a hooked tip—appeared in his grasp. Tanalan barked for his soldiers to stand back and lower their bows. Then he strode toward Dalinar, holding the Shardblade with both hands. Everyone always fixated upon Shardblades. Specific weapons had lore dedicated to them, and people traced which kings or brightlords had carried which sword. Well, Dalinar had used both Blade and Plate, and if given the choice of one, he’d pick Plate every time. All he needed to do was get in one solid hit on Tanalan, and the fight would be over. The highlord, however, had to contend with a foe who could resist his blows. The Thrill thrummed inside Dalinar. Standing between two squat trees, he set his stance, keeping his exposed left arm pointed away from the highlord while gripping the axe in his gauntleted right hand. Though it was a war axe, it felt like a child’s plaything. “You should not have come here, Dalinar,” Tanalan said. His voice bore a distinctively nasal accent common to this region. The Rifters always had considered themselves a people apart. “We had no quarrel with you or yours.” “You refused to submit to the king,” Dalinar said, armor plates clinking as he rounded the highlord while trying to keep an eye on the soldiers. He wouldn’t put it past them to attack him once he was distracted by the duel. It was what he himself would have done. “The king?” Tanalan demanded, angerspren boiling up around him. “There hasn’t been a throne in Alethkar for generations. Even if we were to have a king again, who is to say the Kholins deserve the mantle?” “The way I see it,” Dalinar said, “the people of Alethkar deserve a king who is the strongest and most capable of leading them in battle. If only there were a way to prove that.” He grinned inside his helm. Tanalan attacked, sweeping in with his Shardblade and trying to leverage his superior reach. Dalinar danced back, waiting for his moment. The Thrill was a heady rush, a lust to prove himself. But he needed to be cautious. Ideally Dalinar would prolong this fight, relying on his Plate’s superior strength and the stamina
it provided. Unfortunately, that Plate was still leaking, and he had all these guards to deal with. Still, he tried to play it as Tanalan would expect, dodging attacks, acting as if he were going to drag out the fight. Tanalan growled and came in again. Dalinar blocked the blow with his arm, then made a perfunctory swing with his axe. Tanalan dodged back easily. Stormfather, that Blade was long. Almost as tall as Dalinar was. Dalinar maneuvered, brushing against the foliage of the garden. He couldn’t even feel the pain of his broken fingers anymore. The Thrill called to him. Wait. Act like you’re drawing this out as long as possible.… Tanalan advanced again, and Dalinar dodged backward, faster because of his Plate. And then when Tanalan tried his next strike, Dalinar ducked toward him. He deflected the Shardblade with his arm again, but this blow hit hard, shattering the arm plate. Still, Dalinar’s surprise rush let him lower his shoulder and slam it against Tanalan. The highlord’s armor clanged, bending before the force of the Shardplate, and the highlord tripped. Unfortunately, Dalinar was off balance just enough from his rush to fall alongside the highlord. The platform shook as they hit the ground, the wood cracking and groaning. Damnation! Dalinar had not wanted to go to the ground while surrounded by foes. Still, he had to stay inside the reach of that Blade. Dalinar dropped off his right gauntlet—without the arm piece connecting it to the rest of the armor, it was dead weight—as the two of them twisted in a heap. He’d lost the axe, unfortunately. The highlord battered against Dalinar with the pommel of his sword, to no effect. But with one hand broken and the other lacking the power of Plate, Dalinar couldn’t get a good hold on his foe. Dalinar rolled, finally positioning himself above Tanalan, where the weight of the Shardplate would keep his foe pinned. At that moment though, the other soldiers attacked. Just as he’d expected. Honorable duels like this—on a battlefield at least—always lasted only until your lighteyes was losing. Dalinar rolled free. The soldiers obviously weren’t ready for how quickly he responded. He got to his feet and scooped up his axe, then lashed out. His right arm still had the pauldron and down to the elbow brace, so when he swung, he had power—a strange mix of Shard-enhanced strength and frailty from his exposed arms. He had to be careful not to snap his own wrist. He dropped three men with a flurry of axe slices. The others backed away, blocking him with polearms as their fellows helped Tanalan to his feet. “You speak of the people,” Tanalan said hoarsely, gauntleted hand feeling at his chest where the cuirass had been bent significantly by Dalinar’s rush. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. “As if this were about them. As if it were for their good that you loot, you pillage, you murder. You’re an uncivilized brute.” “You can’t civilize war,” Dalinar said. “There’s no painting it up and making
it pretty.” “You don’t have to pull sorrow behind you like a sledge on the stones, scraping and crushing those you pass. You’re a monster.” “I’m a soldier,” Dalinar said, eyeing Tanalan’s men, many of whom were preparing their bows. Tanalan coughed. “My city is lost. My plan has failed. But I can do Alethkar one last service. I can take you down, you bastard.” The archers started to loose. Dalinar roared and threw himself to the ground, hitting the platform with the weight of Shardplate. The wood cracked around him, weakened by the fighting earlier, and he broke through it, shattering struts underneath. The entire platform came crashing down around him, and together they fell toward the tier below. Dalinar heard screams, and he hit the next walkway hard enough to daze him, even with Shardplate. Dalinar shook his head, groaning, and found his helm cracked right down the front, the uncommon vision granted by the armor spoiled. He pulled the helm free with one hand and gasped for breath. Storms, his good arm hurt too. He glanced at it and found splinters piercing his skin, including one chunk as long as a dagger. He grimaced. Below, the few remaining soldiers who had been positioned to cut down bridges came charging up toward him. Steady, Dalinar. Be ready! He got to his feet, dazed, exhausted, but the two soldiers didn’t come for him. They huddled around Tanalan’s body where it had fallen from the platform above. The soldiers grabbed him, then fled. Dalinar roared and awkwardly gave pursuit. His Plate moved slowly, and he stumbled through the wreckage of the fallen platform, trying to keep up with the soldiers. The pain from his arms made him mad with rage. But the Thrill, the Thrill drove him forward. He would not be beaten. He would not stop! Tanalan’s Shardblade had not appeared beside his body. That meant his foe still lived. Dalinar had not yet won. Fortunately, most of the soldiers had been positioned to fight on the other side of the city. This side was practically empty, save for huddled townspeople—he caught glimpses of them hiding in their homes. Dalinar limped up ramps along the side of the Rift, following the men dragging their brightlord. Near the top, the two soldiers set their burden down beside an exposed portion of the chasm’s rock wall. They did something that caused a portion of that wall to open inward, revealing a hidden door. They towed their fallen brightlord into it, and two other soldiers—responding to their frantic calls—rushed out to meet Dalinar, who arrived moments later. Helmless, Dalinar saw red as he engaged them. They bore weapons; he did not. They were fresh, and he had wounds nearly incapacitating both arms. The fight still ended with the two soldiers on the ground, broken and bleeding. Dalinar kicked open the hidden door, Plated legs functioning enough to smash it down. He lurched into a small tunnel with diamond spheres glowing on the walls. That door was covered in hardened crem on the outside, making
it seem like a part of the wall. If he hadn’t seen them enter, it would have taken days, maybe weeks to locate this place. At the end of a short walk, he found the two soldiers he’d followed. Judging by the blood trail, they’d deposited their brightlord in the closed room behind them. They rushed Dalinar with the fatalistic determination of men who knew they were probably dead. The pain in Dalinar’s arms and head seemed nothing before the Thrill. He had rarely felt it so strong as he did now, a beautiful clarity, such a wonderful emotion. He ducked forward, supernaturally quick, and used his shoulder to crush one soldier against the wall. The other fell to a well-placed kick, then Dalinar burst through the door beyond them. Tanalan lay on the ground here, blood surrounding him. A beautiful woman was draped across him, weeping. Only one other person was in the small chamber: a young boy. Six, perhaps seven. Tears streaked the child’s face, and he struggled to lift his father’s Shardblade in two hands. Dalinar loomed in the doorway. “You can’t have my daddy,” the boy said, words distorted by his sorrow. Painspren crawled around the floor. “You can’t. You … you…” His voice fell to a whisper. “Daddy said … we fight monsters. And with faith, we will win.…” * * * A few hours later, Dalinar sat on the edge of the Rift, his legs swinging over the broken city below. His new Shardblade rested across his lap, his Plate—deformed and broken—in a heap beside him. His arms were bandaged, but he’d chased away the surgeons. He stared out at what seemed an empty plain, then flicked his eyes toward the signs of human life below. Dead bodies in heaps. Broken buildings. Splinters of civilization. Gavilar eventually walked up, trailed by two bodyguards from Dalinar’s elites, Kadash and Febin today. Gavilar waved them back, then groaned as he settled down beside Dalinar, removing his helm. Exhaustionspren spun overhead, though—despite his fatigue—Gavilar looked thoughtful. With those keen, pale green eyes, he’d always seemed to know so much. Growing up, Dalinar had simply assumed that his brother would always be right in whatever he said or did. Aging hadn’t much changed his opinion of the man. “Congratulations,” Gavilar said, nodding toward the Blade. “Sadeas is irate it wasn’t his.” “He’ll find one of his own eventually,” Dalinar said. “He’s too ambitious for me to believe otherwise.” Gavilar grunted. “This attack nearly cost us too much. Sadeas is saying we need to be more careful, not risk ourselves and our Shards in solitary assaults.” “Sadeas is smart,” Dalinar said. He reached gingerly with his right hand, the less mangled one, and raised a mug of wine to his lips. It was the only drug he cared about for the pain—and maybe it would help with the shame too. Both feelings seemed stark, now that the Thrill had receded and left him deflated. “What do we do with them, Dalinar?” Gavilar asked, waving down toward the crowds of civilians the
soldiers were rounding up. “Tens of thousands of people. They won’t be cowed easily; they won’t like that you killed their highlord and his heir. Those people will resist us for years. I can feel it.” Dalinar took a drink. “Make soldiers of them,” he said. “Tell them we’ll spare their families if they fight for us. You want to stop doing a Shardbearer rush at the start of battles? Sounds like we’ll need some expendable troops.” Gavilar nodded, considering. “Sadeas is right about other things too, you know. About us. And what we’re going to have to become.” “Don’t talk to me about that.” “Dalinar…” “I lost half my elites today, my captain included. I’ve got enough problems.” “Why are we here, fighting? Is it for honor? Is it for Alethkar?” Dalinar shrugged. “We can’t just keep acting like a bunch of thugs,” Gavilar said. “We can’t rob every city we pass, feast every night. We need discipline; we need to hold the land we have. We need bureaucracy, order, laws, politics.” Dalinar closed his eyes, distracted by the shame he felt. What if Gavilar found out? “We’re going to have to grow up,” Gavilar said softly. “And become soft? Like these highlords we kill? That’s why we started, isn’t it? Because they were all lazy, fat, corrupt?” “I don’t know anymore. I’m a father now, Dalinar. That makes me wonder about what we do once we have it all. How do we make a kingdom of this place?” Storms. A kingdom. For the first time in his life, Dalinar found that idea horrifying. Gavilar eventually stood up, responding to some messengers who were calling for him. “Could you,” he said to Dalinar, “at least try to be a little less foolhardy in future battles?” “This coming from you?” “A thoughtful me,” Gavilar said. “An … exhausted me. Enjoy Oathbringer. You earned it.” “Oathbringer?” “Your sword,” Gavilar said. “Storms, didn’t you listen to anything last night? That’s Sunmaker’s old sword.” Sadees, the Sunmaker. He had been the last man to unite Alethkar, centuries ago. Dalinar shifted the Blade in his lap, letting the light play off the pristine metal. “It’s yours now,” Gavilar said. “By the time we’re done, I’ll have it so that nobody even thinks of Sunmaker anymore. Just House Kholin and Alethkar.” He walked away. Dalinar rammed the Shardblade into the stone and leaned back, closing his eyes again and remembering the sound of a brave boy crying. The Midnight Mother created monsters of shadow and oil, dark imitations of creatures she saw or consumed. Their description matches no spren I can find in modern literature. —From Hessi’s Mythica, page 252 Captain Notum gave the command, and two of the sailors unlatched a section of the hull, exposing the crashing waves of beads just beyond. Shallan put her freehand on the frame of the open cargo door and leaned out over the churning depths. Adolin tried to tug her back, but she remained in place. She’d chosen to wear Veil’s outfit today, in part for the pockets. She
carried three larger gemstones; Kaladin carried four others. Their broams had all run out of Stormlight. Even these larger, unset gems were getting close to failing. Hopefully they would last long enough to get them to Thaylen City and the Oathgate. Beyond the waves—so close that the sailors feared hidden rocks beneath the beads—a dark landscape interrupted the horizon. The inverse of Longbrow’s Straits, a place where trees grew tall, forming a black jungle of glass plants. A sailor clomped down the steps into the hold and barked something at Captain Notum. “Your enemies are close now,” the captain translated. Honor’s Path had made a heroic effort these last few hours, pushing its mandras to exhaustion—and it hadn’t been nearly enough. The Fused were slower than Kaladin could go, but they were still far faster than the ship. Shallan looked at the captain; his bearded face, which glowed with a soft, phantom light, betrayed nothing of what must have been a powerful conflict for him. Turn over the captives to the enemy and perhaps save his crew? Or set them free, and hope the Ancient Daughter could escape? A door at the back of the hold opened, and Kaladin led Syl from her cabin. The captain had only now given permission to release her, as if wishing to delay the decision until the last possible moment. Syl’s color seemed muted, and she clung to Kaladin’s arm, unsteady. Was she going to be able to make it to shore with them? She’s a spren. She doesn’t need air. She’ll be fine. Hopefully. “Go, then,” the captain said. “And be swift. I cannot promise that my crew, once captured, will be able to keep this secret for long.” Apparently it was difficult to kill spren, but hurting them was quite easy. Another sailor released Adolin’s sword spren from her cabin. She didn’t look as weathered as Syl—one place seemed as good as another to her. Kaladin led Syl over. “Ancient Daughter,” the captain said, bowing his head. “Won’t meet my eyes, Notum?” Syl said. “I suppose locking me away here isn’t too different from all those days you spent running about at Father’s whims back home.” He didn’t reply, but instead turned away. With Syl and the deadeye joining them, that only left one person. Azure lounged by the steps, wearing her breastplate and cloak, arms folded. “You sure you won’t change your mind?” Shallan asked. Azure shook her head. “Azure,” Kaladin said. “I was too harsh earlier. That doesn’t mean I—” “It’s not that,” she said. “I simply have a different thread to chase, and besides, I left my men to fight these monsters in Kholinar. Doesn’t feel right to do the same again.” She smiled. “Don’t fear for me, Stormblessed. You will have a much better chance if I stay here—as will these sailors. When you boys next meet the swordsman who taught you that morning kata, warn him that I’m looking for him.” “Zahel?” Adolin said. “You know Zahel?” “We’re old friends,” she said. “Notum, have your sailors been cutting those
bales of cloth into the shapes I requested?” “Yes,” the captain said. “But I don’t understand—” “You soon will.” She gave Kaladin a lazy salute. He returned it, sharper. Then she nodded to them and walked up toward the main deck. The ship crashed through a large wave of beads, sending some through the open cargo deck doors. Sailors with brooms started brushing them back toward the opening. “Are you going?” the captain said to Shallan. “Every moment you delay increases the danger to us all.” He still wouldn’t look at Syl. Right, Shallan thought. Well, someone had to start the party. She took Adolin by one hand and Pattern by the other. Kaladin linked hands with Pattern and Syl, and Adolin grabbed his spren. They crowded into the opening into the cargo hold, looking at the glass beads below. Churning, catching the light of a distant sun, sparkling like a million stars … “All right,” she said. “Jump!” Shallan threw herself off the ship, joined by the others. She crashed into the beads, which swallowed her. They seemed to slip too easily into them—like before, when she’d fallen into this ocean, it felt like something was pulling her down. She sank into the beads, which rolled against her skin, overwhelming her senses with thoughts of trees and rocks. She fought the sensations, struggling to keep herself from thrashing too much. She clung to Adolin, but Pattern’s hand was pulled from her grip. I can’t do this! I can’t let them claim me. I can’t— They hit the bottom, which was shallow, here near the shore. Then Shallan finally let herself draw in Stormlight. One precious gemstone’s worth. It sustained her, calmed her. She fished in her pocket for the bead she’d picked from the bucket earlier. When she fed the bead Stormlight, the other beads around her trembled, then pulled back, forming the walls and ceiling of a small room. The Stormlight curling from her skin illuminated the space with a faint glow. Adolin let go of her hand and fell to his knees, coughing and gasping. His deadeye just stood there, as always. “Damnation,” Adolin said, wheezing. “Drowning with no water. It shouldn’t be so hard, should it? All we had to do was hold our breath.…” Shallan stepped to the side of the room, listening. Yes … it was almost like she could hear the beads whispering to her beneath their clattering. She plunged her hand through the wall and her fingers brushed cloth. She grabbed hold, and a moment later Kaladin seized her arm and pulled himself into the room made from beads, stumbling and falling to his knees. He wasn’t glowing. “You didn’t use a gemstone?” Shallan asked. “Almost had to,” he said. He took a few deep breaths, then stood up. “But we need to conserve those.” He turned around. “Syl?” A disturbance at the other side of the chamber announced someone approaching. Whoever it was wasn’t able to get in until Shallan walked over and broke the surface of the bead wall with her hand.
Pattern entered and looked around the room, humming happily. “Mmm. A nice pattern, Shallan.” “Syl,” Kaladin repeated. “We jumped hand-in-hand, but she let go. Where—” “She’ll be fine,” Shallan said. “Mmm,” Pattern agreed. “Spren need no air.” Kaladin took a deep breath, then nodded. He started pacing anyway, so Shallan settled down on the ground to wait, pack in her lap. They each carried a change of clothing, three water jugs, and some of the food Adolin had purchased. Hopefully it would be enough to reach Thaylen City. Then she’d have to make the Oathgate work. They waited as long as they dared, hoping the Fused had passed them by, chasing the ship. Finally, Shallan stood up and pointed. “That way.” “You sure?” Kaladin asked. “Yes. Even the slope agrees.” She kicked at the obsidian ground, which ran at a gentle incline. “Right,” Adolin said. “Lock hands.” They did so and—heart fluttering—Shallan recovered the Stormlight from her shell of a room. Beads came crashing down, enveloping her. They started up the slope, against the tide of beads. It was more difficult than she’d imagined; the current of the shifting beads seemed determined to hold them back. Still, she had Stormlight to sustain her. They soon reached a place where the ground was too steep to walk on easily. Shallan let go of the men’s hands and scrambled up the incline. A moment after her head broke the surface, Syl appeared on the bank, reaching down and helping Shallan up the last few feet. Beads rolled off her clothing, clattering against the ground, as the others pulled themselves onto the shore. “I saw the enemy fly past,” Syl said. “I was hiding by the trees here.” At her urging, they entered the forest of glass plants before settling down to recover from their escape. Shallan immediately felt herself itching for her sketchpad. These trees! The trunks were translucent; the leaves looked like they were blown from glass in a multitude of colors. Moss drooped from one branch, like melted green glass, strands hanging down in silky lines. When she touched them, they broke off. Overhead, the clouds rippled with the mother-of-pearl iridescence that marked another highstorm in the real world. Shallan could barely see it through the canopy, but the effect on Pattern and Syl was immediate. They stood up straighter, and Syl’s wan color brightened to a healthy blue-white. Pattern’s head shifted more quickly, spinning through a dozen different cycles in a matter of minutes. Stormlight still trailed from Shallan’s skin. She’d taken in a rather large amount of it, but hadn’t lost too much. She returned it to the gemstone, a process she didn’t quite understand, but which felt natural at the same time. Nearby, Syl looked to the southwest with a kind of wistful, far-off expression. “Syl?” Shallan asked. “There’s a storm that way too…” she whispered, then shook herself and seemed embarrassed. Kaladin dug out two gemstones. “All right,” he said, “we fly.” They’d decided to use two gemstones’ worth of Stormlight to fly inward, a gamble to get
a head start on their hike—and to get away from the coast. Hopefully the Fused wouldn’t treat the honorspren too harshly. Shallan worried for them, but equally for what would happen if the Fused doubled back to search for her group. A short flight now should deposit them far enough inland that they’d be tough to locate. Once they landed, they would hike across several days’ worth of Shadesmar landscape before reaching the island of Thaylenah, which would manifest as a lake here. Thaylen City, and its Oathgate, were on the very rim of that lake. Kaladin Lashed them one at a time—and fortunately, his arts worked on the spren as they did humans. They took to the air and started the last leg of their journey. It will not take a careful reader to ascertain I have listed only eight of the Unmade here. Lore is confident there were nine, an unholy number, asymmetrical and often associated with the enemy. —From Hessi’s Mythica, page 266 Dalinar stepped out of the Oathgate control building into Thaylen City and was met by the man he most wanted to punch in all Roshar. Meridas Amaram stood straight in his House Sadeas uniform, clean-shaven, narrow-faced, square-jawed. Tall, orderly, with shining buttons and a sharp posture, he was the very image of a perfect Alethi officer. “Report,” Dalinar said, hopefully keeping the dislike out of his voice. Amaram—Sadeas—fell into step with Dalinar, and they walked to the edge of the Oathgate platform, overlooking the city. Dalinar’s guards gave them space to converse. “Our crews have done wonders for this city, Brightlord,” Amaram said. “We focused our initial attentions on the debris outside the walls. I worried that would give an invading force too much cover—not to mention rubble to construct a ramp up to the wall.” Indeed, the plain before the city walls—which had once housed the markets and warehouses of the docks—was completely clear. A killing field, interrupted by the occasional outline of a broken foundation. The Almighty only knew how the Thaylen military had allowed a collection of buildings outside the walls in the first place. That would have been a nightmare to defend. “We shored up positions where the wall was weakened,” Amaram continued, gesturing. “It’s not high by Kholinar standards, but is an impressive fortification nonetheless. We cleared out the buildings right inside to provide staging and resource dumps, and my army is camped there. We then helped with general reconstruction.” “The city looks far better,” Dalinar said. “Your men did well.” “Then maybe our penance can be over,” Amaram said. He said it straight, though angerspren—a pool of boiling blood—spread from beneath his right foot. “Your work here was important, soldier. You didn’t only rebuild a city; you built the trust of the Thaylen people.” “Of course.” Amaram added, more softly, “And I do see the tactical importance of knowing the enemy fortifications.” You fool. “The Thaylens are not our enemies.” “I misspoke,” Amaram said. “Yet I cannot ignore that the Kholin troops have been deployed to the border between our
kingdom and Jah Keved. Your men get to liberate our homeland, while mine spend their days digging in rocks. You do realize the effect this has on their morale, particularly since many of them still assume you assassinated their highprince.” “I hope that their current leader has worked to disabuse them of such false notions.” Amaram finally turned to look Dalinar in the eyes. Those angerspren were still there, though his tone was crisp and militaristic. “Brightlord. I know you for a realist. I’ve modeled my career after yours. Frankly, even if you did kill him—which I know you must deny—I would respect you for it. Torol was a liability to this nation. “Let me prove to you that I am not the same. Storms, Dalinar! I’m your best frontline general, and you know it. Torol spent years wasting me because my reputation intimidated him. Don’t make the same mistake. Use me. Let me fight for Alethkar, not kiss the feet of Thaylen merchants! I—” “Enough,” Dalinar snapped. “Follow your orders. That is how you’ll prove yourself to me.” Amaram stepped back, then—after a deliberate pause—saluted. He spun on his heel and marched down into the city. That man … Dalinar thought. Dalinar had intended to tell him that this island would host the front lines in the war, but the conversation had slipped from him. Well, Amaram might quickly get the fighting he wanted—a fact he would discover soon enough, at the planning meeting. Boots on stone sounded behind him as a group of men in blue uniforms joined him at the rim of the plateau. “Permission to stab him a little, sir,” said Teft, the bridgeman leader. “How do you stab someone ‘a little,’ soldier?” “I could do it,” Lyn said. “I’ve only started training with a spear. We could claim it was an accident.” “No, no,” Lopen said. “You want to stab him a little? Let my cousin Huio do it, sir. He’s the expert on little things.” “Short joke?” Huio said in his broken Alethi. “Be glad not short temper.” “I’m just trying to involve you, Huio. I know that most people overlook you. It’s very easy to do, you see.…” “Attention!” Dalinar snapped, though he found himself smiling. They scrambled into ranks. Kaladin had trained them well. “You’ve got”—Dalinar checked the clock on his arm—“thirty-seven minutes until the meeting, men. And, er, women. Don’t be late.” They rushed off, chatting among themselves. Navani, Jasnah, and Renarin joined him soon after, and his wife gave him a sly smile as she noticed him checking his arm clock again. Storming woman had gotten him to start arriving early for appointments just by strapping a device to his arm. As they gathered, Fen’s son climbed up onto the Oathgate platform and greeted Dalinar warmly. “We have rooms for you, above the temple where we’ll be meeting. I … well, we know you don’t need them, since you can simply Oathgate home in an instant…” “We’ll take them gladly, son,” Dalinar said. “I could use a little refreshment and time to
think.” The young man grinned. Dalinar never would get used to those spiked eyebrows. They climbed down from the platform, and a Thaylen guard gave the all clear. A scribe sent word via spanreed that the next transfer could take place. Dalinar paused to watch. A minute later a flash occurred, surrounding the Oathgate with light. The Oathgates were under almost perpetual use these days—Malata was running the device today, as was becoming her duty more often. “Uncle?” Jasnah said as he lingered. “Merely curious about who’s coming in next.” “I could pull the records for you…” Jasnah said. The new arrivals turned out to be a group of Thaylen merchants in pompous clothing. They made their way down the larger ramp, surrounded by guards and accompanied by several men carrying large chests. “More bankers,” Fen’s son said. “The quiet economic collapse of Roshar continues.” “Collapse?” Dalinar said, surprised. “Bankers all across the continent have been pulling out of cities,” Jasnah said, pointing. “See that fortress of a building at the front of the Ancient Ward down below? That’s the Thaylen Gemstone Reserve.” “Local governments are going to have difficulty financing troops after this,” Fen’s son said with a grimace. “They’ll have to write here with authorized spanreeds and get spheres shipped to them. It’s going to be a nightmare of logistics for anyone not close to an Oathgate.” Dalinar frowned. “Couldn’t you encourage the merchants to stay and support the cities they were in?” “Sir!” he replied. “Sir, force the merchants to obey military authority?” “Forget I asked,” Dalinar said, sharing a look with Navani and Jasnah. Navani smiled fondly at what was probably a huge social misstep, but he suspected Jasnah agreed with him. She’d probably have seized the banks and used them to fund the war. Renarin lingered, watching the merchants. “How big are the gemstones they’ve brought?” he asked. “Brightlord?” Fen’s son asked, glancing toward Dalinar for help. “They’ll be spheres. Normal spheres.” “Any larger gemstones?” Renarin asked. He turned toward them. “Anywhere in the city?” “Sure, lots of them,” Fen’s son said. “Some really nice pieces, like in every city. Um … why, Brightlord?” “Because,” Renarin said. He didn’t say anything more. * * * Dalinar splashed water onto his face from a basin in his rooms, which were in a villa above the temple of Talenelat, on the top tier of the city—the Royal Ward. He wiped his face with the towel and reached out to the Stormfather. “Feeling any better?” I do not feel like men. I do not sicken like men. I am. The Stormfather rumbled. I could have been destroyed, though. Splintered into a thousand pieces. I live only because the enemy fears exposing himself to a strike from Cultivation. “So she lives still, then? The third god?” Yes. You’ve met her. “I … I have?” You do not remember. But normally, she hides. Cowardice. “Perhaps wisdom,” Dalinar said. “The Nightwatcher—” Is not her. “Yes, you’ve said. The Nightwatcher is like you. Are there others, though? Spren like you, or the Nightwatcher? Spren
that are shadows of gods?” There is … a third sibling. They are not with us. “In hiding?” No. Slumbering. “Tell me more.” No. “But—” No! Leave them alone. You hurt them enough. “Fine,” Dalinar said, setting aside the towel and leaning against the window. The air smelled of salt, reminding him of something not yet clear in his mind. One last hole in his memory. A trip by sea. And his visit to the Valley. He glanced at the dresser beside the washbasin, which held a book written in unfamiliar Thaylen glyphs. A little note beside it, in Alethi glyphs, read, “Pathway. King.” Fen had left him a gift, a copy of The Way of Kings in Thaylen. “I’ve done it,” Dalinar said. “I’ve united them, Stormfather. I’ve kept my oath, and have brought men together, instead of dividing them. Perhaps this can be penance in some small way, for the pain I’ve caused.” The Stormfather rumbled in reply. “Did he … care about what we felt?” Dalinar asked. “Honor, the Almighty? Did he truly care about men’s pain?” He did. Then, I didn’t understand why, but now I do. Odium lies when he claims to have sole ownership of passion. The Stormfather paused. I remember … at the end … Honor was more obsessed with oaths. There were times when the oath itself was more important than the meaning behind it. But he was not a passionless monster. He loved humankind. He died defending you. Dalinar found Navani entertaining Taravangian in the common area of their villa. “Your Majesty?” Dalinar asked. “You could call me Vargo, if you wish,” Taravangian said, pacing without looking at Dalinar. “It is what they called me as a youth.…” “What’s wrong?” Dalinar asked. “I’m just worried. My scholars … It is nothing, Dalinar. Nothing. Silliness. I am … I am well today.” He stopped and squeezed his pale grey eyes shut. “That’s good, isn’t it?” “Yes. But it is not a day to be heartless. So I worry.” Heartless? What did he mean? “Do you need to sit out the meeting?” Navani asked. Taravangian shook his head quickly. “Come. Let us go. I will be better … better once we’ve started. I’m sure.” * * * As Dalinar stepped into the temple’s main chamber, he found that he was looking forward to the meeting. What a strange revelation. He’d spent so much of his youth and middle years dreading politics and the endless rambling of meetings. Now he was excited. He could see the outlines of something grand in this room. The Azish delegation warmly greeted Queen Fen, with Vizier Noura even giving Fen a poem she’d written as thanks for the Thaylen hospitality. Fen’s son made a point of sitting next to Renarin and chatting with him. Emperor Yanagawn looked comfortable on his throne, surrounded by allies and friends. Bridge Four joked with the guards of Highprince Aladar, while Lift the Edgedancer perched on a windowsill nearby, listening with a cocked head. In addition to the five scout women in uniform, two women
in havahs had joined Bridge Four. They carried notepads and pencils, and had sewn Bridge Four patches to the upper sleeves of their dresses—the place where scribes commonly wore their platoon insignia. Alethi highprinces, Azish viziers, Knights Radiant, and Thaylen admirals all in one room. The prime of Emul talking tactics with Aladar, who had been aiding the beleaguered country. General Khal and Teshav speaking with the princess of Yezier, who was eyeing Halam Khal—their eldest son—standing tall in his father’s Shardplate by the door. There was talk of a political union there. It would be the first in centuries between an Alethi and a Makabaki princedom. Unite them. A voice whispered the words in Dalinar’s mind, echoing with the same resonant sound from months ago, when Dalinar had first started seeing the visions. “I’m doing so,” Dalinar whispered back. Unite them. “Stormfather, is that you? Why do you keep saying this to me?” I said nothing. It was growing hard to distinguish between his own thoughts and what came from the Stormfather. Visions and memories struggled for space in Dalinar’s brain. To clear his mind, he strode around the perimeter of the circular temple chamber. Murals on the walls—ones he had healed with his abilities—depicted the Herald Talenelat during several of his many, many last stands against the Voidbringers. A large map had been mounted on one wall depicting the Tarat Sea and surrounding areas, with markers noting the locations of their fleet. The room quieted as Dalinar stepped up and studied this. He glanced for a moment out the doors of the temple, toward the bay. Already, a few of the faster ships of their fleet had arrived, flying the flags of both Kharbranth and Azir. “Your Excellency,” Dalinar said to Yanagawn. “Could you share news of your troops?” The emperor gave leave for Noura to report. The main fleet was less than a day away. Their outriders—or scout ships, as she called them—had spotted no indications of the enemy advance. They’d worried that this window between storms would be when the enemy would move, but so far there was no sign. The admirals began to discuss how to best patrol the seas while keeping Thaylen City safe. Dalinar was pleased by the conversation, mostly because the admirals seemed to think that the real danger to Thaylen City had passed. A Veden highprince had managed to get a foot scout close enough to Marat to count the ships at the docks. Well over a hundred vessels were waiting in the various coves and ports along the coast. For whatever reason, they weren’t ready to launch yet, which was a blessing. The meeting progressed, with Fen belatedly welcoming everyone—Dalinar realized he should have let her take charge from the start. She described the defenses in Thaylen City and raised concerns from her guildmasters about Amaram’s troops. Apparently they’d been carousing. Amaram stiffened at that. For all his faults, he liked to run a tight army. Sometime near the end of this discussion, Dalinar noticed Renarin shifting uncomfortably in his seat. As
the Azish scribes began explaining their code of rules and guidelines for the coalition, Renarin excused himself in a hoarse voice, and left. Dalinar glanced at Navani, who seemed troubled. Jasnah stood to follow, but was interrupted by a scribe bringing her a small sheaf of documents. She accepted them and moved to Navani’s side so they could study them together. Should we break? Dalinar thought, checking his forearm clock. They’d only been going for an hour, and the Azish were obviously excited by their guidelines. The Stormfather rumbled. What? Dalinar thought. Something … something is coming. A storm. Dalinar stood up, looking about the room, half expecting assassins to attack. His sudden motion caught the attention of one of the Azish viziers, a short man with a very large hat. “Brightlord?” the interpreter asked at a word from the vizier. “I…” Dalinar could feel it. “Something’s wrong.” “Dalinar?” Fen asked. “What are you talking about?” Spanreeds suddenly started blinking throughout the room. A dozen flashing rubies. Dalinar’s heart sidestepped. Anticipationspren rose around him, streamers whipping from the ground, as the various scribes grabbed the blinking spanreeds from boxes or belts and set them out to begin writing. Jasnah didn’t notice that one of hers was blinking. She was too distracted by what she and Navani were reading. “The Everstorm just hit Shinovar,” Queen Fen finally explained, reading over a scribe’s shoulder. “Impossible!” Ialai Sadeas said. “It has only been five days since the last one! They come at nine-day intervals.” “Yes, well, I think we have enough confirmation,” Fen said, nodding toward the spanreeds. “The storm is too new,” Teshav said. She pulled her shawl closer as she read. “We don’t know it well enough to truly judge its patterns. The reports from Steen say it is particularly violent this time, moving faster than before.” Dalinar felt cold. “How long until it reaches us?” Fen asked. “Hours yet,” Teshav said. “It can take a full day for the highstorm to get from one side of Roshar to the other, and the Everstorm is slower. Usually.” “It’s moving faster though,” Yanagawn said through his interpreter. “How far away are our ships? How are we going to shelter them?” “Peace, Your Excellency,” Fen said. “The ships are close, and the new docks miles farther along the coast are sheltered from both east and west. We merely need to make sure the fleet goes directly there, instead of stopping here to drop off troops.” The room buzzed with conversations as the various groups received reports from their contacts in Tashikk, who in turn would be relaying information from contacts in Iri, Steen, or even Shinovar. “We should break for a short time,” Dalinar told them. The others agreed, distracted, and separated into groups scattered about the room. Dalinar settled back in his seat, releasing a held breath. “That wasn’t so bad. We can deal with this.” That wasn’t it, the Stormfather said. He rumbled, his concerned voice growing very soft as he continued, There’s more. Dalinar jumped back to his feet, instincts prompting him
to thrust his hand to the side, fingers splayed, to summon a Blade he no longer possessed. Bridge Four responded immediately, dropping food from the table of victuals, grabbing spears. Nobody else seemed to notice. But … notice what? No attack came. Conversations continued on all sides. Jasnah and Navani were still huddled side by side, reading. Navani gasped softly, safehand going to her mouth. Jasnah looked at Dalinar, lips drawn to a line. Their message wasn’t about the storm, Dalinar thought, pulling his chair over to them. “All right,” he whispered, though they were far enough from other groups to have some privacy. “What is it?” “A breakthrough was made in translating the Dawnchant,” Navani whispered. “Teams in Kharbranth and the monasteries of Jah Keved have arrived at the news separately, using the seed we provided through the visions. We are finally receiving translations.” “That’s good, right?” Dalinar said. Jasnah sighed. “Uncle, the piece that historians have been most eager to translate is called the Eila Stele. Other sources claim it is old, perhaps the oldest document in written memory, said to be scribed by the Heralds themselves. From the translation that finally came in today, the carving appears to be the account of someone who witnessed the very first coming of the Voidbringers, long, long ago. Even before the first Desolation.” “Blood of my fathers,” Dalinar said. Before the first Desolation? The last Desolation had happened more than four thousand years ago. They were speaking of events lost to time. “And … we can read it?” “ ‘They came from another world,’ ” Navani said, reading from her sheet. “ ‘Using powers that we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers, of spren and Surges. They destroyed their lands and have come to us begging. “ ‘We took them in, as commanded by the gods. What else could we do? They were a people forlorn, without home. Our pity destroyed us. For their betrayal extended even to our gods: to spren, stone, and wind. “ ‘Beware the otherworlders. The traitors. Those with tongues of sweetness, but with minds that lust for blood. Do not take them in. Do not give them succor. Well were they named Voidbringers, for they brought the void. The empty pit that sucks in emotion. A new god. Their god. “ ‘These Voidbringers know no songs. They cannot hear Roshar, and where they go, they bring silence. They look soft, with no shell, but they are hard. They have but one heart, and it cannot ever live.’ ” She lowered the page. Dalinar frowned. It’s nonsense, he thought. Is it claiming that the first parshmen who came to invade had no carapace? But how would the writer know that parshmen should have carapace? And what is this about songs.… It clicked. “That was not written by a human,” Dalinar whispered. “No, Uncle,” Jasnah said softly. “The writer was a Dawnsinger, one of the original inhabitants of Roshar. The Dawnsingers weren’t spren, as theology has often postulated. Nor were they Heralds. They were parshmen. And the people
they welcomed to their world, the otherworlders…” “Were us,” Dalinar whispered. He felt cold, like he’d been dunked in icy water. “They named us Voidbringers.” Jasnah sighed. “I have suspected this for a time. The first Desolation was the invasion of humankind onto Roshar. We came here and seized this land from the parshmen—after we accidentally used Surgebinding to destroy our previous world. That is the truth that destroyed the Radiants.” The Stormfather rumbled in his mind. Dalinar stared at that sheet of paper in Navani’s hand. Such a small, seemingly unimportant object to have created such a pit inside of him. It’s true, isn’t it? he thought at the Stormfather. Storms … we’re not the defenders of our homeland. We’re the invaders. Nearby, Taravangian argued softly with his scribes, then finally stood up. He cleared his throat, and the various groups slowly stilled. The Azish contingent had servants pull their chairs back toward the group, and Queen Fen returned to her place, though she didn’t sit. She stood, arms folded, looking perturbed. “I have had disconcerting news,” Taravangian said. “Over the spanreed, just now. It involves Brightlord Kholin. I don’t wish to be objectionable…” “No,” Fen said. “I’ve heard it too. I’m going to need an explanation.” “Agreed,” Noura said. Dalinar stood up. “I realize this is troubling. I … I haven’t had time to adjust. Perhaps we could adjourn and worry about the storm first? We can discuss this later.” “Perhaps,” Taravangian said. “Yes, perhaps. But it is a problem. We have believed that ours is a righteous war, but this news of mankind’s origins has me disconcerted.” “What are you talking about?” Fen said. “The news from the Veden translators? Ancient texts, manifesting that humans came from another world?” “Bah,” Fen said. “Dusty books and ideas for philosophers. What I want to know about is this highking business!” “Highking?” Yanagawn asked through an interpreter. “I’ve an essay,” Fen said, slapping papers against her hand, “from Zetah the Voiced claiming that before King Elhokar left for Alethkar, he swore to Dalinar to accept him as emperor.” Noura the vizier leaped to her feet. “What?” “Emperor is an exaggeration!” Dalinar said, trying to reorient toward this unexpected attack. “It’s an internal Alethi matter.” Navani stood beside him. “My son was merely concerned about his political relation to Dalinar. We have prepared an explanation for you all, and our highprinces can confirm that we are not looking to expand our influence to your nations.” “And this?” Noura said, holding up some pages. “Were you preparing an explanation for this as well?” “What is that?” Dalinar asked, bracing himself. “Accounts of two visions,” Noura said, “that you didn’t share with us. In which you supposedly met and fraternized with a being known as Odium.” Behind Dalinar, Lift gasped. He glanced toward her, and the men of Bridge Four, who were muttering among themselves. This is bad, Dalinar thought. Too much. Too fast for me to control. Jasnah leaped to her feet. “This is obviously a concentrated attempt to destroy our reputation. Someone deliberately
released all this information at the same time.” “Is it true?” Noura asked in Alethi. “Dalinar Kholin, have you met with our enemy?” Navani gripped his arm. Jasnah subtly shook her head: Don’t answer that. “Yes,” Dalinar said. “Did he,” Noura asked pointedly, “tell you you’d destroy Roshar?” “What of this ancient record?” Taravangian said. “It claims that the Radiants already destroyed one world. Is that not what caused them to disband? They worried that their powers could not be controlled!” “I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this highking nonsense,” Fen said. “How is it merely an ‘internal Alethi matter’ if you’ve allowed another king to swear to you?” Everyone started talking at once. Navani and Jasnah stepped forward, responding to the attacks, but Dalinar only sank into his seat. It was all falling apart. A sword, as keen as any on a battlefield, had been rammed into the heart of his coalition. This is what you feared, he thought. A world that turns not upon force of armies, but upon the concerns of scribes and bureaucrats. And in that world, he had just been deftly outflanked. I am certain there are nine Unmade. There are many legends and names that I could have misinterpreted, conflating two Unmade into one. In the next section, I will discuss my theories on this. —From Hessi’s Mythica, page 266 Kaladin remembered a woman’s kiss. Tarah had been special. The darkeyed daughter of an assistant quartermaster, she had grown up helping with her father’s work. Though she was a hundred percent Alethi, she preferred dresses of an old-fashioned Thaylen style, which had an apronlike front with straps over the shoulders and skirts that ended right below the knee. She’d wear a buttoned shirt underneath, often in a bright color—brighter than most darkeyes could afford. Tarah knew how to squeeze the most out of her spheres. That day, Kaladin had been sitting on a stump, shirt off, sweating. The evening was growing cold as the sun set, and he basked in the last warmth. His spear resting across his lap, he toyed with a rock of white, brown, and black. Alternating colors. The warmth from the sun was mirrored as someone warm hugged him from behind, wrapping her arms across his chest. Kaladin rested a callused hand on Tarah’s smooth one, drinking in her scent—of starched uniforms, new leather, and other clean things. “You’re done early,” he said. “I thought there were greenvines to outfit today.” “I have the new girl doing the rest.” “I’m surprised. I know how much you like this part.” “Storms,” she said, slipping around in front of him. “They get so embarrassed when you measure them. ‘Hold on, kid. I’m not making a pass at you because I’m putting a measuring tape up against your chest, I swear.…’ ” She lifted his spear, looking it over with a critical eye, testing the balance. “I wish you’d let me requisition a new one for you.” “I like that one. Took me forever to find one long enough.” She peered along the
length of the weapon, to make sure it was straight. She would never trust it, as she hadn’t personally requisitioned it for him. She wore green today, under a brown skirt, her black hair tied back in a tail. Slightly plump, with a round face and firm build, Tarah’s beauty was a subtle thing. Like an uncut gemstone. The more you saw of it—the more you discovered of its natural facets—the more you loved it. Until one day it struck you that you’d never known anything as wonderful. “Any young boys among the greenvines?” Kaladin asked, standing up and pocketing Tien’s stone. “I didn’t notice.” He grunted, waving to Gol—one of the other squadleaders. “You know I like to watch for kids who might need a little extra looking out for.” “I know, but I was busy. We got a caravan from Kholinar today.” She leaned close to him. “There was real flour in one of the packages. I traded in some favors. You know I’ve been wanting you to try some of my father’s Thaylen bread? I thought maybe we’d fix it tonight.” “Your father hates me.” “He’s coming around. Besides, he loves anyone who compliments his bread.” “I have evening practice.” “You just got done practicing.” “I just got done warming up.” He looked to her, then grimaced. “I organized the evening practice, Tarah. I can’t just skip it. Besides, I thought you were going to be busy all evening. Maybe tomorrow, lunch?” He kissed her on the cheek and reclaimed his spear. He’d taken only a step away when she spoke. “I’m leaving, Kal,” she said from behind. He stumbled over his own feet, then spun about. “What?” “I’m transferring,” she said. “They offered me a scribe’s job in Mourn’s Vault, with the highprince’s house. It’s a good opportunity, particularly for someone like me.” “But…” He gaped. “Leaving?” “I wanted to tell you over dinner, not out here in the cold. It’s something I have to do. Father’s getting older; he’s worried he’ll end up being shipped to the Shattered Plains. If I can get work, he can join me.” Kaladin put a hand to his head. She couldn’t just leave, could she? Tarah walked over, stood on the tips of her toes, and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Could you … not go?” he asked. She shook her head. “Maybe I could get a transfer?” he said. “To the highprince’s standing house guard?” “Would you do that?” “I…” No. He wouldn’t. Not while he carried that stone in his pocket, not while the memory of his brother dying was fresh in his mind. Not while lighteyed highlords got boys killed in petty fights. “Oh, Kal,” she whispered, then squeezed his arm. “Maybe someday you’ll learn how to be there for the living, not just for the dead.” After she left, he got two letters from her, talking about her life in Mourn’s Vault. He had paid someone to read them to him. He never sent responses. Because he was stupid, because he didn’t understand. Because men make
mistakes when they’re young and angry. Because she had been right. * * * Kaladin shouldered his harpoon, leading his companions through the strange forest. They’d flown part of the way, but needed to conserve what little Stormlight they had left. So, they’d spent the last two days hiking. Trees and more trees, lifespren floating among them, the occasional bobbing souls of fish. Syl kept saying that they were lucky they hadn’t encountered any angerspren or other predators. To her, this forest was strangely silent, strangely empty. The jungle-style trees had given way to taller, more statuesque ones with deep crimson trunks and limbs like burnt-red crystals that, at the ends, burst into small collections of minerals. The rugged obsidian landscape was full of deep valleys and endless towering hills. Kaladin was beginning to worry that—despite the motionless sun to provide an unerring way to gauge their heading—they were going in the wrong direction. “Storms, bridgeboy,” Adolin said, hiking up the incline after him. “Maybe a break?” “At the top,” Kaladin said. Without Stormlight, Shallan trailed farthest behind, Pattern at her side. Exhaustionspren circled in the air above, like large chickens. Though she tried to push herself, she wasn’t a soldier, and often was the biggest limitation to their pace. Of course, without her mapmaking skills and memory of Thaylen City’s exact location, they probably wouldn’t have any idea which way to go. Fortunately, there was no sign of pursuit. Still, Kaladin couldn’t help worrying that they were moving too slowly. Be there, Tarah had told him. For the living. He urged them up this hillside, past a section of broken ground, where the obsidian had fractured like layers of crem that hadn’t hardened properly. Worry pulled him forward. Step after relentless step. He had to get to the Oathgate. He would not fail like he had in Kholinar. A single glowing windspren burst alight next to him as he reached the top of the hill. Cresting it, he found himself overlooking a sea of souls. Thousands upon thousands of candle flames bobbed about in the next valley over, moving above a grand ocean of glass beads. Thaylen City. Adolin joined him, then finally Shallan and the three spren. Shallan sighed and settled to the ground, coughing softly from the effort of the climb. Amid the sea of lights were two towering spren, much like the ones they’d seen in Kholinar. One sparkled a multitude of colors while the other shimmered an oily black. Both stood tall, holding spears as long as a building. The sentries of the Oathgate, and they didn’t look corrupted. Beneath them, the device itself manifested as a large stone platform with a wide, sweeping white bridge running over the beads and to the shore. That bridge was guarded by an entire army of enemy spren, hundreds—perhaps thousands—strong. If I’m correct and my research true, then the question remains. Who is the ninth Unmade? Is it truly Dai-Gonarthis? If so, could their actions have actually caused the complete destruction of Aimia? —From Hessi’s Mythica, page 307 Dalinar stood
alone in the rooms Queen Fen had given him, staring out the window, looking west. Toward Shinovar, far beyond the horizon. A land with strange beasts like horses, chickens. And humans. He’d left the other monarchs arguing in the temple below; anything he said only seemed to widen the rifts among them. They didn’t trust him. They’d never really trusted him. His deception proved them right. Storms. He felt furious with himself. He should have released those visions, should have immediately told the others about Elhokar. There had simply been so much piling on top of him. His memories … his excommunication … worry for Adolin and Elhokar … Part of him couldn’t help but be impressed by how deftly he’d been outmaneuvered. Queen Fen worried about Dalinar being genuine; the enemy had delivered perfect proof that Dalinar had hidden political motives. Noura and the Azish worried that the powers were dangerous, whispering of Lost Radiants. To them, the enemy indicated that Dalinar was being manipulated by evil visions. And to Taravangian—who spoke so often of philosophy—the enemy suggested that their moral foundation for the war was a sham. Or maybe that dart was for Dalinar himself. Taravangian said that a king was justified in doing terrible things in the name of the state. But Dalinar … For once, he’d assumed what he was doing was right. Did you really think you belonged here? the Stormfather asked. That you were native to Roshar? “Yes, maybe,” Dalinar said. “I thought … maybe we came from Shinovar originally.” That is the land you were given, the Stormfather said. A place where the plants and animals you brought here could grow. “We weren’t able to confine ourselves to what we were given.” When has any man ever been content with what he has? “When has any tyrant ever said to himself, ‘This is enough’?” Dalinar whispered, remembering words Gavilar had once spoken. The Stormfather rumbled. “The Almighty kept this from his Radiants,” Dalinar said. “When they discovered it, they abandoned their vows.” It is more than that. My memory of all this is … strange. First, I was not fully awake; I was but the spren of a storm. Then I was like a child. Changed and shaped during the frantic last days of a dying god. But I do remember. It was not only the truth of humankind’s origin that caused the Recreance. It was the distinct, powerful fear that they would destroy this world, as men like them had destroyed the one before. The Radiants abandoned their vows for that reason, as will you. “I will not,” Dalinar said. “I won’t let my Radiants retread the fate of their predecessors.” Won’t you? Dalinar’s attention was drawn to a solemn group of men leaving the temple below. Bridge Four, spears held on slumped shoulders, heads bowed as they quietly marched down the steps. Dalinar scrambled out of his villa and ran down the steps to intercept the bridgemen. “Where are you going?” he demanded. They halted, falling into ranks at attention. “Sir,” Teft said.
“We thought we’d head back to Urithiru. We left some of the men behind, and they deserve to know about this business with the ancient Radiants.” “What we’ve discovered doesn’t change the fact that we are being invaded,” Dalinar said. “Invaded by people trying to reclaim their homeland,” Sigzil said. “Storms. I’d be mad too.” “We’re supposed to be the good guys, you know?” Leyten said. “Fighting for a good cause, for once in our storming lives.” Echoes of his own thoughts. Dalinar found he couldn’t formulate an argument against that. “We’ll see what Kal says,” Teft replied. “Sir. All respect, sir. But we’ll see what he says. He knows the right of things, even when the rest of us don’t.” And if he never returns? Dalinar thought. What if none of them return? It had been four weeks. How long could he keep pretending that Adolin and Elhokar were alive out there somewhere? That pain hid behind the rest, taunting him. The bridgemen gave Dalinar their unique cross-armed salute, then left without waiting to be dismissed. In the past, Honor was able to guard against this, the Stormfather told him. He convinced the Radiants they were righteous, even if this land hadn’t originally been theirs. Who cares what your ancestors did, when the enemy is trying to kill you right now? But in the days leading to the Recreance, Honor was dying. When that generation of knights learned the truth, Honor did not support them. He raved, speaking of the Dawnshards, ancient weapons used to destroy the Tranquiline Halls. Honor … promised that Surgebinders would do the same to Roshar. “Odium claimed the same thing.” He can see the future, though only cloudily. Regardless, I … understand now as I never did before. The ancient Radiants didn’t abandon their oaths out of pettiness. They tried to protect the world. I blame them for their weakness, their broken oaths. But I also understand. You have cursed me, human, with this capacity. The meeting in the temple seemed to be breaking up. The Azish contingent started down the steps. “Our enemy hasn’t changed,” Dalinar said to them. “The need for a coalition is as strong as ever.” The young emperor, being carried in a palanquin, didn’t look at him. Oddly, the Azish didn’t make for the Oathgate, instead taking a path down into the city. Only Vizier Noura idled to speak to him. “Jasnah Kholin might be right,” she said in Azish. “The destruction of our old world, your secret visions, this business with you being highking—it seems too great a coincidence for it all to come at once.” “Then you can see that we’re being manipulated.” “Manipulated by the truth, Kholin,” she said, meeting his eyes. “That Oathgate is dangerous. These powers of yours are dangerous. Deny it.” “I cannot. I will not found this coalition on lies.” “You already have.” He drew in a sharp breath. Noura shook her head. “We will take the scout ships and join the fleet carrying our soldiers. Then we will wait out this storm. After
that … we shall see. Taravangian has said we may use his vessels to return to our empire, without needing to use the Oathgates.” She walked off after the emperor, eschewing the palanquin waiting to carry her. Others drifted down the steps around him. Veden highprinces, who gave excuses. Thaylen lighteyes from their guild councils, who avoided him. The Alethi highprinces and scribes expressed solidarity—but Alethkar couldn’t do this on its own. Queen Fen was one of the last to leave the temple. “Will you leave me too?” Dalinar asked. She laughed. “To go where, old hound? An army is coming this way. I still need your famous Alethi infantry; I can’t afford to throw you out.” “Such bitterness.” “Oh, did it show? I’m going to check on the city’s defenses; if you decide to join us, we’ll be at the walls.” “I’m sorry, Fen,” Dalinar said, “for betraying your trust.” She shrugged. “I don’t really think you intend to conquer me, Kholin. But oddly … I can’t help wishing I did have to worry. Best I can tell, you’ve become a good man right in time to bravely sink with this ship. That’s commendable, until I remember that the Blackthorn would have long since murdered everyone trying to sink him.” Fen and her consort climbed into a palanquin. People continued to trickle past, but eventually Dalinar stood alone before the quiet temple. “I’m sorry, Dalinar,” Taravangian said softly from behind. Dalinar turned, surprised to find the old man sitting on the steps. “I assumed everyone had the same information, and that it would be best to air it. I didn’t expect all of this.…” “This isn’t your fault,” Dalinar said. “And yet…” He stood up, then walked—slowly—down the steps. “I’m sorry, Dalinar. I fear I can no longer fight beside you.” “Why?” Dalinar said. “Taravangian, you’re the most pragmatic ruler I’ve met! Aren’t you the one who talked to me about the importance of doing what was politically necessary!” “And that is what I must do now, Dalinar. I wish I could explain. Forgive me.” He ignored Dalinar’s pleas, limping down the stairs. Moving stiffly, the old man climbed into a palanquin and was carried away. Dalinar sank down on the steps. I tried my best to hide this, the Stormfather said. “So we could continue living a lie?” It is, in my experience, the thing men do best. “Don’t insult us.” What? Is this not what you’ve been doing, these last six years? Pretending that you aren’t a monster? Pretending you didn’t kill her, Dalinar? Dalinar winced. He made a fist, but there was nothing here he could fight. He dropped his hand to his side, shoulders drooping. Finally, he climbed to his feet and quietly trudged up the stone steps to his villa. THE END OF Part Four FIVE AND A HALF YEARS AGO Dalinar came to himself, gasping, in the cabin of a stormwagon. Heart pounding, he spun about, kicking aside empty bottles and lifting his fists. Outside, the riddens of a storm washed the walls with rain.
What in the Almighty’s tenth name had that been? One moment, he’d been lying in his bunk. The next, he had been … Well, he didn’t rightly remember. What was the drink doing to him now? Someone rapped on his door. “Yes?” Dalinar said, his voice hoarse. “The caravan is preparing to leave, Brightlord.” “Already? The rain hasn’t even stopped yet.” “I think they’re, um, eager to be rid of us, sir.” Dalinar pushed open the door. Felt stood outside, a lithe man with long, drooping mustaches and pale skin. Had to have some Shin blood in him, judging by those eyes. Though Dalinar hadn’t expressly said what he intended to do out here in Hexi, his soldiers seemed to understand. Dalinar wasn’t sure whether he should be proud of their loyalty, or scandalized by how easily they accepted his intention to visit the Nightwatcher. Of course, one of them—Felt himself—had been this way before. Outside, the caravan workers hitched up their chulls. They’d agreed to drop him off here, along their path, but refused to take him farther toward the Valley. “Can you get us the rest of the way?” Dalinar asked. “Sure,” Felt said. “We’re less than a day off.” “Then tell the good caravan master that we will take our wagons and split from him here. Pay him what he asked, Felt, and then some on top.” “If you say so, Brightlord. Seems that having a Shardbearer along with him should be payment enough.” “Explain that, in part, we’re buying his silence.” Dalinar waited until the rain had mostly stopped, then threw on his coat and stepped out to join Felt, walking at the front of the wagons. He didn’t feel like being cooped up any longer. He’d expected this land to look like the Alethi plains. After all, the windswept flatlands of Hexi were not unlike those of his homeland. Yet strangely, there wasn’t a rockbud in sight. The ground was covered in wrinkles, like frozen ripples in a pond, perhaps two or three inches deep. They were crusty on the stormward side, covered with lichen. On the leeward side, grass spread on the ground, flattened. The sparse trees here were scrawny, hunched-over things with thistle leaves. Their branches bent so far leeward, they almost touched the ground. It was like one of the Heralds had strolled through this place and bent everything sideways. The nearby mountainsides were bare, blasted and scoured raw. “Not far now, sir,” Felt said. The short man barely came up to the middle of Dalinar’s chest. “When you came before,” Dalinar said. “What … what did you see?” “To be frank, sir, nothing. She didn’t come to me. Doesn’t visit everyone, you see.” He clapped his hands, then breathed on them. It had been winter, lately. “You’ll want to go in right after dark. Alone, sir. She avoids groups.” “Any idea why she didn’t visit you?” “Well, best I could figure, she doesn’t like foreigners.” “I might have trouble too.” “You’re a little less foreign, sir.” Up ahead, a group of small dark
creatures burst from behind a tree and shot into the air, clumped together. Dalinar gaped at their speed and agility. “Chickens?” he said. Little black ones, each the size of a man’s fist. Felt chuckled. “Yes, wild chickens range this far east. Can’t see what they’d be doing on this side of the mountains though.” The chickens eventually picked another bent-over tree and settled in its branches. “Sir,” Felt said. “Forgive me for asking, but you sure you want to do this? You’ll be in her power, in there. And you don’t get to pick the cost.” Dalinar said nothing, feet crunching on fans of weeds that trembled and rattled when he touched them. There was so much emptiness here in Hexi. In Alethkar, you couldn’t go more than a day or two without running into a farming village. They hiked for a good three hours, during which Dalinar felt both an anxiety to be finished and—at the same time—a reluctance to progress. He had enjoyed his recent sense of purpose. Simultaneously, his decision had given him excuses. If he was going to the Nightwatcher anyway, then why fight the drink? He’d spent much of the trip intoxicated. Now, with the alcohol running out, the voices of the dead seemed to chase him. They were worst when he tried to sleep, and he felt a dull ache behind his eyes from poor rest. “Sir?” Felt eventually asked. “Look there.” He pointed to a thin strip of green painting the windswept mountainside. As they continued, Dalinar got a better view. The mountains split into a valley here, and since the opening pointed to the northeast, foothills shielded the interior from highstorms. So plant life had exploded inside. Vines, ferns, flowers, and grasses grew together in a wall of underbrush. Trees stretched above them, and these weren’t the durable stumpweights of his homeland. These were gnarled, tall, and twisted, with branches that wound together. They were overgrown with draping moss and vines, lifespren bobbing about them in plenitude. It all piled atop itself, reeds and branches sticking out in all directions, ferns so overgrown with vines that they drooped beneath the weight. It reminded Dalinar of a battlefield. A grand tapestry, depicting people locked in mortal combat, each one struggling for advantage. “How does one enter?” Dalinar asked. “How do you pass through that?” “There are some trails,” Felt said. “If you look hard enough. Shall we camp here, sir? You can scout out a path tomorrow, and make your final decision?” He nodded, and they set up at the edge of the breach, close enough he could smell the humidity inside. They set up the wagons as a barrier between two trees, and the men soon had tents assembled. They were quick to get a fire going. There was a … feeling to the place. Like you could hear all of those plants growing. The valley shivered and cracked. When wind blew out, it was hot and muggy. The sun set behind the mountains, plunging them into darkness. Soon after, Dalinar started inward.
He couldn’t wait another day. The sound of it lured him. The vines rustling, moving as tiny animals scampered between them. Leaves curling. The men didn’t call after him; they understood his decision. He stepped into the musty, damp valley, vines brushing his head. He could barely see in the darkness, but Felt had been right—trails revealed themselves as vines and branches bent away from him, allowing Dalinar entrance with the same reluctance as guards allowing an unfamiliar man into the presence of their king. He had hoped for the Thrill to aid him here. This was a challenge, was it not? He felt nothing, not even a hint. He trudged through the darkness, and suddenly felt stupid. What was he doing here? Chasing a pagan superstition while the rest of the highprinces gathered to punish Gavilar’s killers? He should be at the Shattered Plains. That was where he’d change himself, where he would go back to the man he’d been before. He wanted to escape the drink? He just needed to summon Oathbringer and find someone to fight. Who knew what was out there in this forest? If he were a bandit, this was certainly where he would set up. People must flock here. Damnation! He wouldn’t be surprised to discover that someone had started all this simply to draw in unsuspecting marks. Wait. What was that? A sound different from scurries in the underbrush or vines withdrawing. He stopped in place, listening. It was … Weeping. Oh, Almighty above. No. He heard a boy weeping, pleading for his life. It sounded like Adolin. Dalinar turned from the sound, searching the darkness. Other screams and pleas joined that one, people burning as they died. In a moment of panic, he turned to run back the way he’d come. He immediately tripped in the underbrush. He collapsed against rotten wood, vines twisting under his fingers. People screamed and howled all around, the sounds echoing in the near-absolute darkness. Frantic, he summoned Oathbringer and stumbled to his feet, then began slashing, trying to clear space. Those voices. All around him! He pushed past a tree trunk, fingers digging into the hanging moss and wet bark. Was the entrance this way? Suddenly he saw himself in the Unclaimed Hills, fighting those traitorous parshmen. He saw himself killing, and hacking, and murdering. He saw his lust, eyes wide and teeth clenched in a dreadful grin. A skull’s grin. He saw himself strangling Elhokar, who had never possessed his father’s poise or charm. Dalinar took the throne. It should have been his anyway. His armies poured into Herdaz, then Jah Keved. He became a king of kings, a mighty conqueror whose accomplishments far overshadowed those of his brother. Dalinar forged a unified Vorin empire that covered half of Roshar. An unparalleled feat! And he saw them burn. Hundreds of villages. Thousands upon thousands of people. It was the only way. If a town resisted, you burned it to the ground. You slaughtered any who fought back, and you left the corpses of their loved ones to
feed the scavengers. You sent terror before you like a storm until your enemies surrendered. The Rift would be but the first in a long line of examples. He saw himself standing upon the heaped corpses, laughing. Yes, he had escaped the drink. He had become something grand and terrible. This was his future. Gasping, Dalinar dropped to his knees in the dark forest and allowed the voices to swarm around him. He heard Evi among them, crying as she burned to death, unseen, unknown. Alone. He let Oathbringer slip from his fingers and shatter to mist. The crying faded until it was distant. Son of Honor … a new sound whispered on the winds, a voice like the rustling of the trees. He opened his eyes to find himself in a tiny clearing, bathed in starlight. A shadow moved in the darkness beyond the trees, accompanied by the noise of twisting vines and blowing grass. Hello, human. You smell of desperation. The feminine voice was like a hundred overlapping whispers. The elongated figure moved among the trees ringing the clearing, stalking him like a predator. “They … they say you can change a man,” Dalinar said, weary. The Nightwatcher seeped from the darkness. She was a dark green mist, vaguely shaped like a crawling person. Too-long arms reached out, pulling her along as she floated above the ground. Her essence, like a tail, extended far behind her, weaving among tree trunks and disappearing into the forest. Indistinct and vaporous, she flowed like a river or an eel, and the only part of her with any specific detail was her smooth, feminine face. She glided toward him until her nose was mere inches from his own, her silken black eyes meeting his. Tiny hands sprouted from the misty sides of her head. They reached out, taking his face and touching it with a thousand cold—yet gentle—caresses. What is it you wish of me? the Nightwatcher asked. What boon drives you, Son of Honor? Son of Odium? She started to circle him. The tiny black hands kept touching his face, but their arms stretched out, becoming tentacles. What would you like? she asked. Renown? Wealth? Skill? Would you like to be able to swing a sword and never tire? “No,” Dalinar whispered. Beauty? Followers? I can feed your dreams, make you glorious. Her dark mists wrapped around him. The tiny tendrils tickled his skin. She brought her face right up to his again. What is your boon? Dalinar blinked tears, listening to the sounds of the children dying in the distance, and whispered a single word. “Forgiveness.” The Nightwatcher’s tendrils dodged away from his face, like splayed fingers. She leaned back, pursing her lips. Perhaps it is possessions you wish, she said. Spheres, gemstones. Shards. A Blade that bleeds darkness and cannot be defeated. I can give it to you. “Please,” Dalinar said, drawing in a ragged breath. “Tell me. Can I … can I ever be forgiven?” It wasn’t what he’d intended to request. He couldn’t remember what he’d intended to request.
The Nightwatcher curled around him, agitated. Forgiveness is no boon. What should I do to you. What should I give you? Speak it, human. I— THAT IS ENOUGH, CHILD. This new voice startled them both. If the Nightwatcher’s voice was like whispering wind, this one was like tumbling stones. The Nightwatcher backed away from him in a sharp motion. Hesitant, Dalinar turned and found a woman with brown skin—the color of darkwood bark—standing at the edge of the clearing. She had a matronly build and wore a sweeping brown dress. Mother? the Nightwatcher said. Mother, he came to me. I was going to bless him. THANK YOU, CHILD, the woman said. BUT THIS BOON IS BEYOND YOU. She focused on Dalinar. YOU MAY ATTEND ME, DALINAR KHOLIN. Numbed by the surreal spectacle, Dalinar stood up. “Who are you?” SOMEONE BEYOND YOUR AUTHORITY TO QUESTION. She strode into the forest, and Dalinar joined her. Moving through the underbrush seemed easier now, though the vines and branches pulled toward the strange woman. Her dress seemed to meld with it all, the brown cloth becoming bark or grass. The Nightwatcher curled along beside them, her dark mist flowing through the holes in the underbrush. Dalinar found her distinctly unnerving. YOU MUST FORGIVE MY DAUGHTER, the woman said. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN CENTURIES I’VE COME PERSONALLY TO SPEAK WITH ONE OF YOU. “Then this isn’t how it happens every time?” OF COURSE NOT. I LET HER HOLD COURT HERE. The woman brushed her fingers through the Nightwatcher’s misty hair. IT HELPS HER UNDERSTAND YOU. Dalinar frowned, trying to make sense of all this. “What … why did you choose to come out now?” BECAUSE OF THE ATTENTION OTHERS PAY YOU. AND WHAT DID I TELL YOU OF DEMANDING QUESTIONS? Dalinar shut his mouth. WHY HAVE YOU COME HERE, HUMAN? DO YOU NOT SERVE HONOR, THE ONE YOU CALL ALMIGHTY? LOOK UNTO HIM FOR FORGIVENESS. “I asked the ardents,” Dalinar said. “I didn’t get what I wanted.” YOU GOT WHAT YOU DESERVED. THE TRUTH YOU HAVE CRAFTED FOR YOURSELVES. “I am doomed then,” Dalinar whispered, stopping in place. He could still hear those voices. “They weep, Mother.” She looked back at him. “I hear them when I close my eyes. All around me, begging me to save them. They’re driving me mad.” She contemplated him, the Nightwatcher twining around her legs, then around Dalinar’s, then back again. This woman … she was more than he could see. Vines from her dress curled into the earth, permeating everything. In that moment he knew that he was not seeing her, but instead a fragment with which he could interact. This woman extended into eternity. THIS WILL BE YOUR BOON. I WILL NOT MAKE OF YOU THE MAN YOU CAN BECOME. I WILL NOT GIVE YOU THE APTITUDE, OR THE STRENGTH, NOR WILL I TAKE FROM YOU YOUR COMPULSIONS. BUT I WILL GIVE YOU … A PRUNING. A CAREFUL EXCISION TO LET YOU GROW. THE COST WILL BE HIGH. “Please,” Dalinar said. “Anything.” She stepped back to him.
IN DOING THIS, I PROVIDE FOR HIM A WEAPON. DANGEROUS, VERY DANGEROUS. YET, ALL THINGS MUST BE CULTIVATED. WHAT I TAKE FROM YOU WILL GROW BACK EVENTUALLY. THIS IS PART OF THE COST. IT WILL DO ME WELL TO HAVE A PART OF YOU, EVEN IF YOU ULTIMATELY BECOME HIS. YOU WERE ALWAYS BOUND TO COME TO ME. I CONTROL ALL THINGS THAT CAN BE GROWN, NURTURED. THAT INCLUDES THE THORNS. She seized him, and the trees descended, the branches, the vines. The forest curled around him and crept into the crevices around his eyes, under his fingernails, into his mouth and ears. Into his pores. A BOON AND A CURSE, the Mother said. THAT IS HOW IT IS DONE. I WILL TAKE THESE THINGS FROM YOUR MIND. AND WITH THEM, I TAKE HER. “I…” Dalinar tried to speak as plant life engulfed him. “Wait!” Remarkably, the vines and branches stopped. Dalinar hung there, speared by vines that had somehow pushed through his skin. There was no pain, but he felt the tendrils writhing inside his very veins. SPEAK. “You’ll take…” He spoke with difficulty. “You’ll take Evi from me?” ALL MEMORIES OF HER. THIS IS THE COST. SHOULD I FORBEAR? Dalinar squeezed his eyes shut. Evi … He had never deserved her. “Do it,” he whispered. The vines and branches surged forward and began to rip away pieces of him from the inside. * * * Dalinar crawled from the forest the next morning. His men rushed to him, bringing water and bandages, though strangely he needed neither. But he was tired. Very, very tired. They propped him in the shade of his stormwagon, exhaustionspren spinning in the air. Malli—Felt’s wife—quickly scribed a note via spanreed back to the ship. Dalinar shook his head, memory fuzzy. What … what had happened? Had he really asked for forgiveness? He couldn’t fathom why. Had he felt that bad for failing … He stretched for the word. For failing … Storms. His wife. Had he felt so bad for failing her by letting assassins claim her life? He searched his mind, and found that he couldn’t recall what she looked like. No image of her face, no memories of their time together. Nothing. He did remember these last few years as a drunkard. The years before, spent in conquest. In fact, everything about his past seemed clear except her. “Well?” Felt said, kneeling beside him. “I assume it … happened.” “Yes,” Dalinar said. “Anything we need to know about?” he asked. “I once heard of a man who visited here, and from then on, every person he touched fell upward instead of down.” “You needn’t worry. My curse is for me alone.” How strange, to be able to remember scenes where she had been, but not remember … um … storms take him, her name. “What was my wife’s name?” Dalinar asked. “Shshshsh?” Felt said. It came out as a blur of sounds. Dalinar started. She’d been taken completely? Had that … that been the cost? Yes … grief had caused him to suffer
these last years. He’d suffered a breakdown at losing the woman he loved. Well, he assumed that he’d loved her. Curious. Nothing. It seemed that the Nightwatcher had taken memories of his wife, and in so doing, given him the boon of peace. However, he did still feel sorrow and guilt for failing Gavilar, so he wasn’t completely healed. He still wanted a bottle to numb the grief of losing his brother. He would break that habit. When men abused drink under his command, he’d found that the solution was to work them hard, and not let them taste strong wines. He could do the same to himself. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could manage it. Dalinar relaxed, but felt like something else was missing inside of him. Something he couldn’t identify. He listened to his men breaking camp, telling jokes now that they could leave. Beyond that, he heard rustling leaves. And beyond that, nothing. Shouldn’t he have heard … He shook his head. Almighty, what a foolish quest this had been. Had he really been so weak that he needed a forest spren to relieve his grief? “I need to be in communication with the king,” Dalinar said, standing. “Tell our men at the docks to contact the armies. By the time I arrive, I want to have battle maps and plans for the Parshendi conquest.” He’d moped long enough. He had not always been the best of brothers, or the best of lighteyes. He’d failed to follow the Codes, and that had cost Gavilar his life. Never again. He straightened his uniform and glanced at Malli. “Tell the sailors that while they’re in port, they’re to find me an Alethi copy of a book called The Way of Kings. I’d like to hear it read to me again. Last time, I wasn’t in my right mind.” They came from another world, using powers that we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers, of spren and Surges. They destroyed their lands and have come to us begging. —From the Eila Stele A spry ocean wind blew in through the window, shaking Dalinar’s hair as he stood in his villa in Thaylen City. The wind was sharply chill. Crisp. It didn’t linger, but passed him by, turning the pages of his book with a quiet ruffling sound. It fled from the Everstorm. Crimson. Furious. Burning. The Everstorm’s clouds flowed in from the west. Like blood billowing in water, each new thunderhead spurted from the one behind it, hemorrhaging fits of lightning. And beneath the storm—within its shadow, and upon those tempestuous seas—ships dotted the waves. “Ships?” he whispered. “They sailed during the storm?” He controls it, the Stormfather said, his voice diminutive—like the pattering of rain. He uses it, as Honor once used me. So much for stopping the enemy in the ocean. Dalinar’s fledgling armada had fled to take shelter from the storm, and the enemy had sailed in uncontested. The coalition had shattered anyway; they wouldn’t defend this city. The storm slowed as it darkened the bay in
front of Thaylen City—then seemed to stop. It dominated the sky to the west, but strangely did not proceed. Enemy ships landed in its shadow, many ramming right up onto the shores. Amaram’s troops flooded out of the gates to seize the ground between bay and city; there wasn’t enough room for them to maneuver on top of the wall. The Alethi were field troops, and their best chance of victory would involve hitting the parshmen while they disembarked. Behind them, Thaylen troops mounted the wall, but they were not veterans. Their navy had always been their strength. Dalinar could faintly hear General Khal on the street below, shouting for runners and scribes to send word to Urithiru, calling up the Alethi reinforcements. Too slow, Dalinar thought. Suitably deploying troops could take hours, and though Amaram was hustling his men, they weren’t going to get together in time for a proper assault on the ships. And then there were the Fused, dozens of which launched into the skies from the ships. He imagined his armies bottlenecked as they left the Oathgate, assaulted from the air as they tried to fight through the streets to reach the lower portion of the city. It came together with a frightening beauty. Their armada fleeing the storm. Their armies unprepared. The sudden evaporation of support … “He’s planned for everything.” It is what he does. “You know, Cultivation warned me that my memories would return. She said she was ‘pruning’ me. Do you know why she did that? Did I have to remember?” I do not know. Is it relevant? “That depends upon the answer to a question,” Dalinar said. He carefully closed the book atop the dresser before the window, then felt the symbols on its cover. “What is the most important step that a man can take?” He straightened his blue uniform, then slipped the tome off the table. With The Way of Kings a comfortable weight in his hand, he stepped out the door and into the city. * * * “All this way,” Shallan whispered, “and they’re already here?” Kaladin and Adolin stood like two statues to either side of her, their faces twin stoic masks. She could see the Oathgate distinctly; that round platform at the edge of the bridge was the exact size of the control buildings. Hundreds upon hundreds of strange spren stood in the lake of beads that marked the shore of Thaylen City. They looked vaguely humanoid, though they were twisted and odd, like shimmering dark light. More the scribbled outlines of people, like drawings she’d done in a maddened state. On the shore, a large dark mass of living red light surged across the obsidian ground. It was something more terrible than all of these—something that made her eyes hurt to look upon. And as if that weren’t enough, a half dozen Fused passed overhead, then landed on the bridge that led to the Oathgate platform. “They knew,” Adolin said. “They led us here with that cursed vision.” “Be wary,” Shallan whispered, “of anyone who claims
to be able to see the future.” “No. No, that wasn’t from him!” Kaladin looked between them, frantic, and finally turned to Syl for support. “It was like when the Stormfather … I mean…” “Azure warned us from this path,” Adolin said. “And what else could we have done?” Kaladin said, then hushed his voice, pulling back with the rest of them into the shadowed concealment of the trees. “We couldn’t go to the Horneater Peaks, like Azure wanted. The enemy waits there too! Everyone says their ships patrol there.” Kaladin shook his head. “This was our only option.” “We don’t have enough food to return…” Adolin said. “Even if we did,” Syl whispered, “where would we go? They hold Celebrant. They’re watching this Oathgate, so they’re probably watching the others.…” Shallan sank down on the obsidian ground. Pattern put his hand on her shoulder, humming softly with concern. Her body yearned for Stormlight to wash away her fatigue. Light could make an illusion, change this world into something else—at least for a few moments—so she could pretend … “Kaladin is right,” Syl said. “We can’t back down now. Our remaining gemstones won’t last much longer.” “We have to try,” Kaladin said with a nod. “Try what, Kal?” Adolin said. “Take on an army of Voidbringers by ourselves?” “I don’t know how the portal works,” Shallan added. “I don’t even know how much Stormlight it might require.” “We’ll … we’ll try something,” Kaladin said. “We have Stormlight still. An illusion? A distraction? We could get you to the Oathgate, and you could … find out how to free us.” He shook his head. “We can make it work. We have to.” Shallan bowed her head, listening to Pattern hum. Some problems could not be fixed with a lie. * * * Jasnah carefully stepped out of the way of a troop of soldiers running for the Oathgate. She had been informed via spanreed that troops were gathering in Urithiru to come help. Unfortunately, they would soon have to acknowledge what she already knew. Thaylen City was lost. Their adversary had played this hand too well. That angered her, but she kept that emotion in check. At the very least, she hoped that Amaram’s band of malcontents would soak up arrows and spears long enough to let the Thaylen civilians evacuate. Lightning from the storm lit the city red. Focus. She had to focus on what she could do, not what she had failed to do. First, she had to see that her uncle didn’t get himself killed fighting a useless battle. Second, she needed to help evacuate Thaylen City; she had already warned Urithiru to prepare for refugees. Both these goals would wait a short time as she dealt with a matter even more pressing. “The facts align,” Ivory said. “The truth that has always been, will now soon manifest to all.” He rode upon the high collar of her dress, tiny, holding on with one hand. “You are correct. A traitor is.” Jasnah undid the buttons on her safehand sleeve and
pinned it back, exposing the gloved hand underneath. In preparation, she’d also worn a scout’s yellow and gold havah, with shorter skirts slit at the sides and front, trousers underneath. Sturdy boots. She turned out of the path of another group of cursing soldiers and strode up the steps to the doorway of the temple of Pailiah’Elin. True to the information she’d been given, she found Renarin Kholin kneeling on the floor inside, head bowed. Alone. A spren rose from his back, bright red, shimmering like the heat of a mirage. A crystalline structure, like a snowflake, though it dripped light upward toward the ceiling. In her pouch, she carried a sketch of the proper spren of the Truthwatchers. And this was something different. Jasnah put her hand to the side, then—taking a deep breath—summoned Ivory as a Shardblade. * * * Venli hopped down from the ship’s improvised gangway. The city before her was yet another marvel. Built up the side of a mountain, it looked almost like it had been cut from the stone—sculpted like the winds and rain had shaped the Shattered Plains. Hundreds of singers streamed around her. Hulking Fused walked among them, bearing carapace armor as impressive as any Shardplate. Some of the ordinary singers wore warform—but unlike their Alethi counterparts, they had not been through combat training. Azish, Thaylen, Marati … a host of nationalities, these newly awakened singers were frightened, uncertain. Venli attuned Agony. Would they force her to march to the front line? She didn’t have much battle training either; even with a form of power, she’d be cut to ribbons. Like my people, on the field of Narak, who were sacrificed to birth the Everstorm. Odium seemed very quick to expend the lives of both listener and singer. Timbre pulsed to Peace in her pouch, and Venli rested her hand on it. “Hush,” she whispered to Agony. “Hush. Do you want one of them to hear you?” Timbre reluctantly softened her pulsings, though Venli could still feel a faint vibration from her pouch. And that … that relaxed her. She almost thought that she could hear the Rhythm of Peace herself. One of the hulking Fused called for her. “You! Listener woman! Come!” Venli attuned the Rhythm of Destruction. She would not be intimidated by these, gods though they be. She stepped up to this one and kept her head high. The Fused handed her a sword in a sheath. She took it, then attuned Subservience. “I’ve used an axe before, but not—” “Carry it,” he said, eyes glowing softly red. “You may need to defend yourself.” She did not object further. There was a fine line between respectful confidence and defiance. She belted the sword on her slender body, wishing she had some carapace. “Now,” the Fused said to Conceit, striding forward and expecting her to keep up, “tell me what this little one is saying.” Venli followed him to a gathering of singers in workform, holding spears. She had been speaking to the Fused in the ancient language, but these were
speaking in Thaylen. I’m an interpreter, she thought, relaxing. That’s why they wanted me on the battlefield. “What was it,” Venli said to Derision, addressing the one the Fused had indicated, “you wished to say to the holy one?” “We…” The singer licked his lips. “We aren’t soldiers, ma’am. We’re fishers. What are we doing here?” Though a shade of the Rhythm of Anxiety laced his words, his cringing form and face were the stronger indication. He spoke and acted like a human. She interpreted. “You are here to do as you are told,” the Fused told them, through Venli. “In return, you are rewarded with further opportunities to serve.” Though his rhythm was Derision, he didn’t seem angry. More … as if he were lecturing a child. She passed that along, and the sailors looked to each other, shuffling uncomfortably. “They wish to object,” she told the Fused. “I can read it in them.” “They may speak,” he said. She prompted them, and their leader looked down, then spoke to Anxiety. “It’s just that … Thaylen City? This is our home. We’re expected to attack it?” “Yes,” the Fused said after Venli interpreted. “They enslaved you. They tore your families apart, treated you like dumb animals. Do you not thirst for vengeance?” “Vengeance?” the sailor said, looking to his fellows for support. “We’re glad to be free. But … I mean … some of them treated us pretty nice. Can’t we just go settle somewhere, and leave the Thaylens alone?” “No,” the Fused said. Venli interpreted, then jumped to follow him as he stalked off. “Great one?” she asked to Subservience. “These have the wrong Passion,” he said. “The ones who attacked Kholinar did so gladly.” “The Alethi are a warlike people, great one. It’s not surprising they passed this on to their slaves. And perhaps these were better treated?” “They were slaves for far too long. We need to show them a better way.” Venli stuck close to the Fused, happy to have found one that was both sane and reasonable. He didn’t shout at the groups they visited, many of whom shared similar complaints. He merely had her repeat the same sorts of phrases. You must seize vengeance, little ones. You must earn your Passion. Qualify yourselves for greater service, and you will be elevated to the place of a Regal, given a form of power. This land was yours long ago, before they stole it. You have been trained to be docile. We will teach you to be strong again. The Fused remained calm, but fierce. Like a smoldering fire. Controlled, but ready to burst alight. He eventually walked to join some of his fellows. Around them, the singer army formed up awkwardly, coating the land just east of the bay. Alethi troops mustered across a short battlefield, banners flapping. They had archers, heavy infantry, light infantry, even some outriders on horses. Venli hummed to Agony. This was going to be a slaughter. She suddenly felt something odd. Like a rhythm, but oppressive, demanding. It shook the very
air, and the ground beneath her feet trembled. Lightning in the clouds behind seemed to flash to this rhythm, and in a moment she saw that the area around her was filled with ghostly spren. Those are the spirits of the dead, she realized. Fused who haven’t yet chosen a body. Most were twisted to the point that she barely recognized them as singers. Two were roughly the size of buildings. One dominated even these: a creature of swirling violence, tall as a small hill, seemingly made up entirely of red smoke. She could see these overlaid on the real world, but somehow knew they would be invisible to most. She could see into the other world. That happened sometimes right before … A blistering heat shone behind her. Venli braced herself. She usually only saw him during the storms. But … this was a storm. It hovered behind, immobile, churning the seas. Light crystallized beside her, forming an ancient parshman with a face marbled gold and white, and a regal scepter he carried like a cane. For once, his presence didn’t vaporize her immediately. Venli released a relieved breath. This was more an impression than his true being. Still, power streamed from him like the tendrils of a vinebud waving in the wind, vanishing into infinity. Odium had come to personally supervise this battle. * * * Teft hid. He couldn’t face the others. Not after … after what he’d done. Rock and Bisig bleeding. Eth dead. The room destroyed. The Honorblade stolen. He had … he had on a Bridge Four … uniform.… Teft scrambled through the rock hallways, passing shamespren in bursts, looking for a place where nobody could see him. He’d done it again, to yet another group that trusted him. Just like with his family, whom he’d sold out in a misguided attempt at righteousness. Just like with his squad in Sadeas’s army, whom he’d abandoned for his addiction. And now … and now Bridge Four? He tripped on an uneven bit of stone in the dark hallway and fell, grunting, scraping his hand against the floor. He groaned, then lay there, knocking his head against the stone. Would that he could find someplace hidden, and squeeze inside, never ever to be found again. When he looked up, she was standing there. The woman made of light and air, with curls of hair that vanished into mist. “Why are you following me?” Teft growled. “Go pick one of the others. Kelek! Pick anyone but me.” He rose and pushed past her—she had barely any substance—and continued down the hallway. Light from ahead showed that he’d accidentally made his way to the outer ring of the tower, where windows and balconies overlooked the Oathgate platforms. He stopped by a stone doorway, puffing, holding on with a hand that bled from the knuckles. “Teft.” “You don’t want me. I’m broken. Pick Lopen. Rock. Sigzil. Damnation, woman. I…” What was that? Drawn by faint sounds, Teft walked into the empty room. Those sounds … Shouts? He walked out onto the
balcony. Below, figures with marbled skin flooded across one of the Oathgate platforms, the one that led to Kholinar. That was supposed to be locked, unusable. Scouts and soldiers began to shout in panic down below. Urithiru was under attack. * * * Puffing from her run, Navani scrambled up the last few steps onto the wall of Thaylen City. Here, she found Queen Fen’s retinue. Finally. She checked her arm clock. If only she could find a fabrial that would manipulate exhaustion, not just pain. Wouldn’t that be something. There were exhaustionspren, after all … Navani strode along the wall walk toward Fen. Below, Amaram’s troops flew the new Sadeas banner: the axe and the tower, white on forest green. Anticipationspren and fearspren—the eternal attendants of the battlefield—grew up around them. Sadeas’s men were still streaming through the gates, but already blocks of archers moved forward. They’d soon start pelting the disorganized parshman army. That storm though … “The enemy only keeps coming,” Fen said as Navani approached, her admirals making room. “I’ll soon get to judge your famed Alethi troops firsthand—as they fight an impossible battle.” “Actually,” Navani said, “we’re better off than it looks. The new Sadeas is a renowned tactician. His soldiers are well rested and—if lacking in discipline—known for their tenacity. We can attack the enemy before it finishes deploying. Then, if they rebound and overwhelm us with numbers, we can pull back into the city until we get reinforcements.” Kmakl, Fen’s consort, nodded. “This is winnable, Fen. We might even be able to capture some of our ships back.” The ground shook. For a moment, Navani felt that she was on a swaying ship. She cried out, grabbing the battlement to keep from falling. Out in the field, between the enemy troops and the Alethi ones, the ground shattered. Lines and cracks split the stone, and then an enormous stone arm pulled itself from the ground—the fractures having outlined its hand, forearm, elbow, and upper arm. A monster easily thirty feet tall pulled itself from the stone, dropping chips and dust on the army below. Like a skeleton made of rock, it had a wedge-shaped head with deep, molten red eyes. * * * Venli got to watch the thunderclasts awaken. Among the waiting spirits were two larger masses of energy—souls so warped, so mangled, they didn’t seem singer at all. One crawled into the stone ground, somehow inhabiting it like a spren taking residence in a gemheart. The stone became its form. Then it ripped itself free of the rock. Around her, the parshmen stumbled back in awe, so surprised that they actually drew spren. The thing loomed over the human forces, while its companion climbed into the stone ground, but didn’t rip out immediately. There was one other, mightier than even these. It was out in the water of the bay, but when she looked into the other world, she couldn’t help but glance toward it. If those two lesser souls had created such daunting stone monsters, then what was that mountain of power?
In the Physical Realm, the Fused knelt and bowed their heads toward Odium. So they could see him too. Venli knelt quickly, knocking her knees against the stone. Timbre pulsed to Anxiety, and Venli put her hand on the pouch, squeezing it. Quiet. We can’t fight him. “Turash,” Odium said, resting fingers upon the shoulder of the Fused she had been following. “Old friend, you look well in this new body.” “Thank you, master,” Turash said. “Your mind holds firm, Turash. I am proud of you.” Odium waved toward Thaylen City. “I have prepared a grand army for our victory today. What do you think of our prize?” “An excellent position of great import, even without the Oathgate,” Turash said. “But I fear for our armies, master.” “Oh?” Odium asked. “They are weak, untrained, and frightened. Many may refuse to fight. They don’t crave vengeance, master. Even with the thunderclast, we may be outmatched.” “These?” Odium asked, looking over his shoulder at the gathered singers. “Oh, Turash. You think too small, my friend! These are not my army. I brought them here to watch.” “Watch what?” Venli asked, looking up. She cringed, but Odium paid her no mind. Odium held his hands to the sides, yellow-gold power streaming behind his figure like a wind made visible. Beyond him, in the other place, that red churning power became more real. It was pulled into this realm completely, and the ocean boiled. Something came surging out. Something primeval, something Venli had felt but never truly known. Red mist. Ephemeral, like a shadow you see on a dark day and mistake for something real. Charging red horses, angry and galloping. The forms of men, killing and dying, shedding blood and reveling in it. Bones piled atop one another, making a hill upon which men struggled. The red mist climbed up from the surging waves, rolling out onto an empty section of rock, northward along the rim of the water. It brought to her a lust for the battlefield. A beautiful focus, a Thrill for the fight. * * * The largest of the spren, the roiling mass of red light, vanished from Shadesmar. Kaladin gasped and walked closer to the outer edge of the trees, feeling that power vacate this place and … go to the other? “Something’s happening,” he said to Adolin and Shallan, who were still discussing what to do. “We might have an opening!” They joined him and watched as the strange army of spren began to vanish too, winking out in waves. “The Oathgate?” Shallan asked. “Maybe they’re using it?” In moments, only the six Fused remained, guarding the bridge. Six, Kaladin thought. Can I defeat six? Did he need to? “I can challenge them as a distraction,” he said to the others. “Maybe we can use some illusions as well? We can draw them off while Shallan sneaks over and figures out how to work the Oathgate.” “I suppose we don’t have any other choice,” Adolin said. “But…” “What?” Kaladin said, urgent. “Aren’t you worried about where that army went?”
* * * “Passion,” Odium said. “There is great Passion here.” Venli felt cold. “I’ve prepared these men for decades,” Odium said. “Men who want nothing so much as something to break, to gain vengeance against the one who killed their highprince. Let the singers watch and learn. I’ve prepared a different army to fight for us today.” Ahead of them on the battlefield, the human ranks slumped, their banner wavering. A man in glittering Shardplate, sitting upon a white horse, led them. Deep within his helm, something started glowing red. The dark spren flew toward the men, finding welcoming bodies and willing flesh. The red mist made them lust, made their minds open. And the spren, then, bonded to the men, slipping into those open souls. “Master, you have learned to inhabit humans?” Turash said to Subservience. “Spren have always been able to bond with them, Turash,” Odium said. “It merely requires the right mindset and the right environment.” Ten thousand Alethi in green uniforms gripped their weapons, their eyes glowing a deep, dangerous red. “Go,” Odium whispered. “Kholin would have sacrificed you! Manifest your anger! Kill the Blackthorn, who murdered your highprince. Set your Passion free! Give me your pain, and seize this city in my name!” The army turned and—led by a Shardbearer in gleaming Plate—attacked Thaylen City. We took them in, as commanded by the gods. What else could we do? They were a people forlorn, without a home. Our pity destroyed us. For their betrayal extended even to our gods: to spren, stone, and wind. —From the Eila Stele Kaladin thought he could hear the wind as he stepped from beneath the obsidian trees. Syl said this place had no wind. Yet was that the tinkling of glass leaves as they quivered? Was that the sigh of cool, fresh air coursing around him? He’d come far in the last half year. He seemed a man distant from the one who carried bridges against Parshendi arrows. That man had welcomed death, but now—even on the bad days, when everything was cast in greys—he defied death. It could not have him, for while life was painful, life was also sweet. He had Syl. He had the men of Bridge Four. And most importantly, he had purpose. Today, Kaladin would protect Dalinar Kholin. He strode toward the sea of souls that marked the existence of Thaylen City on the other side. Many of those souls’ flames, in ranks, had turned sharply red. He shivered to think what that meant. He stepped up onto the bridge, beads churning below, and reached the highest point in its arc before the enemy noticed him. Six Fused turned and rose into the air, arraying to regard him. They raised long spears, then looked to the sides, seeming shocked. One man, alone? Kaladin set one foot back—gently scraping the tip of his boot against the white marble bridge—and fell into a combat posture. He hooked the harpoon in a one-handed underarm grip, letting out a long breath. Then he drew in all of his Stormlight,
and burst alight. Within the power’s embrace, a lifetime’s worth of moments seemed to snap into place. Throwing Gaz to the ground in the rain. Screaming in defiance while charging at the front of a bridge. Coming awake in the practice grounds during the Weeping. Fighting the assassin on the stormwall. The Fused leaped for him, trailing long cloaks and robes. Kaladin Lashed himself straight upward, and took to the sky for the first time in what had been far, far too long. * * * Dalinar stumbled as the ground shook again. A second sequence of cracks sounded outside. He was too low down in the city now to see past the city wall, but he feared he knew what that breaking stone must signify. A second thunderclast. Violet fearspren sprouted from the streets all around as civilians shouted and screamed. Dalinar had made his way down through the central section of the city—the part called the Ancient Ward—and had just entered the Low Ward, the bottom portion nearest the city wall. The steps behind him were filling with people who fled upward, toward the Oathgate. As the trembling subsided, Dalinar grabbed the arm of a young mother who was pounding frantically on the door of a building. He sent her running up the steps with her child in her arms. He needed these people off the streets, preferably taking shelter at Urithiru, so they wouldn’t get caught between clashing armies. Dalinar felt his age as he jogged past the next row of buildings, still clutching The Way of Kings under his arm. He had barely any spheres on him, an oversight, but neither did he have Plate or Blade. This would be his first battle in many, many years without Shards. He’d insisted on stepping out of those boots, and would have to let Amaram and other Shardbearers command the field. How was Amaram faring? Last Dalinar had seen, the highprince had been arranging his archers—but from this low in the city, Dalinar couldn’t see the troops outside. A sudden feeling slammed into him. It was focus and passion. An eager energy, a warmth, a promise of strength. Glory. Life. To Dalinar, this thirst for the battle felt like the attentions of a lover you’d turned away long ago. The Thrill was here. His old, dear friend. “No,” he whispered, sagging against a wall. The emotion struck him harder than the earthquake had. “No.” The taste was so, so appealing. It whispered that he could save this city all on his own. Let the Thrill in, and the Blackthorn could return. He didn’t need Shards. He only needed this passion. Sweeter than any wine. No. He shoved the Thrill aside, scrambling to his feet. As he did, however, a shadow moved beyond the wall. A monster of stone, one of the beasts from his visions, standing some thirty feet tall—looming over the twenty-foot city wall. The thunderclast clasped its hands together, then swung them low, crashing them through the city wall, flinging out chunks of stone. Dalinar leaped toward cover,
but a falling boulder pounded into him, crushing him into a wall. Blackness. Falling. Power. He gasped, and Stormlight flooded into him—he shook awake to find his arm pinned by the boulder, rocks and dust falling on a rubble-strewn street before him. And … not just rubble. He coughed, realizing some of those lumps were bodies coated in dust, lying motionless. He struggled to pull his arm from under the boulder. Nearby, the thunderclast kicked at the broken wall, opening a hole. Then it stepped through, footfalls shaking the ground, approaching the shelf that made up the front of the Ancient Ward. A massive stone foot thumped to the ground by Dalinar. Storms! Dalinar hauled on his arm, heedless of the pain or the damage to his body, and finally got it free. The Stormlight healed him as he crawled away, ducking as the monster ripped the roof off a building at the front of the Ancient Ward and sent debris raining down. The Gemstone Reserve? The monster cast the roof aside, and several Fused that he’d missed before—they were riding on its shoulders—slipped down into the building. Dalinar was torn between heading for the battlefield outside, and investigating whatever was going on here. Any idea what they’re after? he asked the Stormfather. No. This is odd behavior. In a flash decision, Dalinar yanked his book out from under some rubble nearby, then went running back up the now-empty steps to the Ancient Ward, dangerously close to the thunderclast. The monster released a sudden piercing roar, like a thunderclap. The shock wave almost knocked Dalinar off his feet again. In a fit of rage, the titanic creature attacked the Gemstone Reserve, ripping apart its walls and innards, tossing chunks backward. A million sparkling bits of glass caught the sunlight as they fell over the city, the wall, and beyond. Spheres and gemstones, Dalinar realized. All the wealth of Thaylenah. Scattered like leaves. The thing seemed increasingly angry as it pounded the area around the reserve. Dalinar put his back to a wall as two Fused darted past, led by what appeared to be a glowing yellow spren. These two Fused didn’t seem to be able to fly, but there was a startling grace to their motion. They slid along the stone street with no apparent effort, as if the ground were greased. Dalinar gave chase, squeezing past a group of scribes huddled in the street, but before he could catch up, the Fused attacked one palanquin among the many trying to move through the crowds. They knocked it over, shoving aside the porters, and dug inside. The Fused ignored Dalinar’s shouts. They soon streaked away—one tucking a large object under its arm. Dalinar drew in Stormlight from some fleeing merchants, then ran the rest of the distance to the palanquin. Amid the wreckage he found a young Thaylen woman alongside an elderly man who appeared to have been previously wounded, judging by the bandages. Dalinar helped the dazed young woman to a sitting position. “What did they want?” “Brightlord?” she said in
Thaylen. She blinked, then seized his arm. “The King’s Drop … a ruby. They tried to steal it before, and now, now they’ve taken it!” A ruby? A simple gemstone? The porters attended to the old man, who was barely conscious. Dalinar looked over his shoulder at the retreating thunderclast. The enemy had ignored the wealth of the Gemstone Reserve. Why would they want a specific ruby? He was about to press for more details when something else drew his attention. From this higher vantage, he could see through the hole the thunderclast had broken in the wall. Figures outside with glowing red eyes arrayed themselves on the battlefield—but they weren’t parshmen. Those were Sadeas uniforms. * * * Jasnah moved into the temple, gripping her Shardblade, stepping on slippered feet. The red spren rising from Renarin—like a snowflake made of crystal and light—seemed to sense her and panicked, disappearing into Renarin with a puff. A spren is, Ivory said. The wrong spren is. Renarin Kholin was a liar. He was no Truthwatcher. That is a spren of Odium, Ivory said. Corrupted spren. But … a human, bonded to one? This thing is not. “It is,” Jasnah whispered. “Somehow.” She was now close enough to hear Renarin whispering. “No … Not Father. No, please…” * * * Shallan wove Light. A simple illusion, recalled from the pages of her sketchpad: some soldiers from the army, people from Urithiru, and some of the spren she’d sketched on her trip. Around twenty individuals in total. “Taln’s nails,” Adolin said as Kaladin shot upward through the sky. “The bridgeboy is really into it.” Kaladin drew away four of the Fused, but two remained behind. Shallan added an illusion of Azure to her group, then some of the Reachers she’d drawn. She hated using up so much Stormlight—what if she didn’t have enough left to get through the Oathgate? “Good luck,” she whispered to Adolin. “Remember, I won’t be controlling these directly. They will make only rudimentary motions.” “We’ll be fine.” Adolin glanced at Pattern, Syl, and the spren of his sword. “Right, guys?” “Mmmm,” Pattern said. “I do not like being stabbed.” “Wise words, friend. Wise words.” Adolin gave Shallan a kiss, then they took off running toward the bridge. Syl, Pattern, and the deadeye followed—as did the illusions, which were bound to Adolin. This force drew the attention of the last two Fused. As those were distracted, Shallan slipped over to the base of the bridge, then eased herself down into the beads. She crossed silently beneath the bridge, using precious Stormlight to make herself a safe walking platform with one of the beads she’d found while on Honor’s Path. She made her way across to the small island platform that represented the Oathgate on this side. Two enormous spren stood above it. Judging by the shouting on the bridge, Adolin and the others were doing their job. But could Shallan do hers? She stepped up beneath the two sentinels, which stood tall as buildings, reminiscent of statues in armor. One mother-of-pearl, the other
black with a variegated oily shimmer. Did they guard the Oathgate, or did they—somehow—facilitate its workings? At a loss for what else to do, Shallan simply waved her hand. “Um, hello?” Steadily, two heads turned down toward her. * * * The air around Venli—once crowded by the spirits of the dead—was now empty save for the single black figure of swirling smoke. She’d missed that one at first, as it was the size of a normal person. It stood near Odium, and she did not know what it represented. The second thunderclast dragged arms as long as its body, with hands like hooks. It crossed the field eastward, toward the city walls and the human army of turncoats. Just behind Venli, to the west, the common singers stood arrayed before their ships. They stayed far from the red mist of the Unmade coating the north side of the battlefield. Odium stood beside Venli, a glowing force of burning gold. The first thunderclast left the city and placed something down on the ground: two of the Fused—gods with lithe bodies and little armor. They skirted the turncoat army, sliding along the rock with an uncanny grace. “What is that they carry?” Venli asked. “A gemstone? Is that why we came here? A rock?” “No,” Odium said. “That is merely a precaution, a last-minute addition I made to prevent a potential disaster. The prize I claim today is far greater—even more grand than the city itself. The conduit of my freedom. The bane of Roshar. Forward, child. To the gap in the wall. I may need you to speak for me.” She swallowed, then started hiking toward the city. The dark spirit followed, the one of swirling mists, the last who had yet to inhabit a body. * * * Kaladin soared through this place of black heavens, haunted clouds, and a distant sun. Only four of the Fused had chosen to take off after him. Adolin would have to deal with the other two. The four flew with precision. They used Lashings like Kaladin did, though they didn’t seem to be able to vary their speed as much as he could. It took them longer to build up to greater Lashings, which should have made it easy to stay ahead of them. But storms, the way they flew! So graceful. They didn’t jerk this way or that, but flowed lithely from one motion to the next. They used their entire bodies to sculpt the wind of their passing and control their flight. Even the Assassin in White hadn’t been so fluid as these, so like the winds themselves. Kaladin had claimed the skies, but storms, it looked like he’d moved into territory where someone had a prior entitlement. I don’t have to fight them, he thought. I only have to keep them busy long enough for Shallan to figure out how to activate the portal. Kaladin Lashed himself upward, toward those strange, too-flat clouds. He twisted in the air, and found one of the Fused almost upon him—a male with pale white
skin swirled through with a single marbling of red, like smoke blown across the cheeks. The creature stabbed its long spear at him, but Kaladin Lashed himself to the side just in time. Lashing wasn’t flying, and that was part of its strength. Kaladin didn’t have to be facing any specific direction to move in the air. He fell up and slightly to the north, but fought while facing downward, battering away the enemy lance with his harpoon. The Fused’s weapon was far longer, with sharpened sides rather than a single fine point. Kaladin’s harpoon was at a severe disadvantage. Right. Time to change that. As the Fused rammed the lance upward again, Kaladin reached out with both hands on his harpoon’s haft, holding it sideways. He let the enemy spear pass into the opening between his arms, chest, and harpoon. He Lashed his own weapon downward with multiple Lashings. Then he dropped it. It slid along the length of the lance and smacked into the Fused’s arms. The creature shouted in pain, letting go of his weapon. At the same moment Kaladin dove, canceling all upward Lashings and binding himself downward instead. The sudden, jarring change made his stomach lurch and his vision go black. Even with Stormlight, this was almost too much. His ears ringing, he gritted his teeth, riding the momentary loss of sight until—blessedly—his vision returned. He spun in the air, then pulled up and snatched the falling lance as it dropped past him. The four Fused swooped after him, more cautious. The wind of his passing chilled the sweat on his face from his near blackout. Let’s … not try that again, Kaladin thought, hefting his new weapon. He’d practiced with things like this in pike walls, but they were normally too long to maneuver in one-on-one combat. Flying would negate that. The Fused he’d disarmed swooped down to fetch the harpoon. Kaladin waved his hand toward the others palm upward, then took off toward some nearby dark obsidian mountains, forested on the sides—the direction he and the others had come. Down below, he could see Shallan’s illusions engaging the two Fused on the bridge. Eyes forward, Kaladin thought as the four others chased after him. He belonged in the skies with these creatures. Time to prove it. * * * Prime Aqasix Yanagawn the First, emperor of all Makabak, paced in the cabin of his ship. He was actually starting to feel like an emperor. He wasn’t embarrassed talking to the viziers and scions any longer. He understood much of what they discussed now, and didn’t jump when someone called him “Your Majesty.” Remarkably, he was starting to forget that he’d ever been a frightened thief sneaking through the palace. But then, even an emperor had limits to his rule. He paced back the other way. Regal robes—of Azish patterns—weighed him down, along with the Imperial Yuanazixin: a fancy hat with sweeping sides. He’d have taken the thing off, but he felt he needed its authority when talking to his three most important advisors. “Lift thinks
we should have stayed,” he said. “War is coming to Thaylen City.” “We’re merely protecting our fleet from the storm,” Noura said. “Pardon, Vizier, but that’s a load of chull dung, and you know it. We left because you’re worried that Kholin is being manipulated by the enemy.” “That is not the only reason,” Scion Unoqua said. He was an old man with a full paunch. “We have always been skeptical of the Lost Radiants. The powers that Dalinar Kholin wishes to harness are extremely dangerous, as now proven by the translations of an ancient record!” “Lift says—” Yanagawn said. “Lift?” Noura said. “You listen to her far too much, Your Imperial Majesty.” “She’s smart.” “She once tried to eat your cummerbund.” “She … thought it sounded like a type of dessert.” Yanagawn took a deep breath. “Besides, she’s not that kind of smart. She’s the other kind.” “What other kind, Your Imperial Majesty?” Vizier Dalksi asked. Her hair was powder white, peeking out beneath her formal headdress. “The kind that knows when it’s wrong to betray a friend. I think we should go back. Am I emperor or not?” “You are emperor,” Noura said. “But, Your Majesty, remember your lessons. The thing that separates us from the monarchies of the east—and the chaos they suffer—is that our emperor is held in check. Azir can, and will, withstand a change in dynasty. Your power is absolute, but you do not exercise it all. You must not.” “You were chosen,” Unoqua said, “by Yaezir himself to lead—” “I was chosen,” Yanagawn cut in, “because nobody would shed a tear if the Assassin in White came for me! Let’s not play games, all right?” “You performed a miracle,” Unoqua said. “Lift performed a miracle. Using powers you now say are too dangerous to trust!” The three—two viziers, one scion—looked to each other. Unoqua was their religious leader, but Noura had most seniority by year of passing the tests for master office, which she’d done—remarkably—at age twelve. Yanagawn stopped by the cabin window. Outside, waves chopped, churning, rocking their ship. His smaller ship had met up with the main fleet, then joined them in taking shelter in Vtlar Cove, along the Thaylen coast. But reports via spanreed said that the Everstorm had stopped near Thaylen City. A knock came at the door. Yanagawn let Dalksi—least senior, despite her age—call admittance. Yanagawn settled in his regal chair as a guardsman with light brown skin entered. Yanagawn thought he recognized the man, who held a cloth to the side of his face and winced as he gave the formal bow of admittance to the emperor. “Vono?” Noura asked. “What happened to your charge? You were to keep her busy and distracted, yes?” “I was, Your Grace,” Vono said. “Until she kicked me in my spheres and stuffed me under the bed. Um, Your Grace. Don’t right know how she moved me. She’s not real big, that one.…” Lift? Yanagawn thought. He almost cried out, demanding answers, but that would have shamed this man. Yanagawn held himself back
with difficulty, and Noura nodded to him in appreciation of a lesson learned. “When was this?” Noura asked. “Right before we left,” the guard said. “Sorry, Your Grace. I’ve been down since then, only now recovered.” Yanagawn turned toward Noura. Surely now she would see the importance of returning. The storm had yet to advance. They could go back if … Another figure approached the door, a woman in the robes and pattern of a second-level scribe, seventh circle. She entered and quickly gave the formal bows to Yanagawn, so hasty she forgot the third gesture of subservient obedience. “Viziers,” she said, bowing in turn to them, then to Unoqua. “News from the city!” “Good news?” Noura asked hopefully. “The Alethi have turned against the Thaylens, and now seek to conquer them! They’ve been allied with the parshmen all along. Your Grace, by fleeing, we have narrowly avoided a trap!” “Quickly,” Noura said. “Separate our ships from any that bear Alethi troops. We must not be caught unaware!” They left, abandoning Yanagawn to the care of a dozen young scribes who were next in line for basking in his presence. He settled into his seat, worried and afraid, feeling a sickness in his gut. The Alethi, traitors? Lift had been wrong. He had been wrong. Yaezir bless them. This really was the end of days. * * * We are the gatekeepers, the two enormous spren said to Shallan, speaking with voices that overlapped, as if one. Though their mouths did not move, the voices reverberated through Shallan. Lightweaver, you have no permission to use this portal. “But I need to get through,” Shallan cried up to them. “I have Stormlight to pay!” Your payment will be refused. We are locked by the word of the parent. “Your parent? Who?” The parent is dead now. “So…” We are locked. Travel to and from Shadesmar was prohibited during the parent’s last days. We are bound to obey. Behind Shallan, on the bridge, Adolin had devised a clever tactic. He acted like an illusion. Her false people had instructions to act like they were fighting—though without her direct attention, that meant they just stood around and slashed at the air. To avoid revealing himself, Adolin had chosen to do the same, slashing about with his harpoon randomly. Pattern and Syl did likewise, while the two Fused hovered overhead. One held her arm, which had been hit—but now seemed to be healing. They knew someone in that mass was real, but they couldn’t ascertain who. Shallan’s time was short. She looked back up at the gatekeepers. “Please. The other Oathgate—the one at Kholinar—let me through.” Impossible, they said. We are bound by Honor, by rules spren cannot break. This portal is closed. “Then why did you let those others through? The army that stood around here earlier?” The souls of the dead? They did not need our portal. They were called by the enemy, pulled along ancient paths to waiting hosts. You living cannot do the same. You must seek the perpendicularity to transfer. The
enormous spren cocked their heads in concert. We are apologetic. We have been … alone very long. We would enjoy granting passage to men again. But we cannot do that which was forbidden. * * * Szeth of the Skybreakers hovered far above the battlefield. “The Alethi have changed sides, aboshi?” Szeth asked. “They have seen the truth,” Nin said, hovering beside him. Only the two of them watched; Szeth did not know where the rest of the Skybreakers had gone. Nearby, the Everstorm rumbled its discontent. Red lightning rippled across the surface, passing from one cloud to the next. “All along,” Szeth said, “this world belonged to the parshmen. My people watched not for the return of an invading enemy, but for the masters of the house.” “Yes,” Nin said. “And you sought to stop them.” “I knew what must happen if they returned.” Nin turned toward him. “Who has jurisdiction over this land, Szeth-son-Neturo? A man can rule his home until the citylord demands his taxes. The citylord controls his lands until the highlord, in turn, comes to him for payment. But the highlord must answer to the highprince, when war is called in his lands. And the king? He … must answer to God.” “You said God was dead.” “A god is dead. Another won the war by right of conquest. The original masters of this land have returned, as you so aptly made metaphor, with the keys to the house. So tell me, Szeth-son-Neturo—he who is about to swear the Third Ideal—whose law should the Skybreakers follow? That of humans, or that of the real owners of this land?” There seemed to be no choice. Nin’s logic was sound. No choice at all … Don’t be stupid, the sword said. Let’s go fight those guys. “The parshmen? They are the rightful rulers of the land,” Szeth said. Rightful? Who has a right to land? Humans are always claiming things. But nobody asks the things, now do they? Well, nobody owns me. Vivenna told me. I’m my own sword. “I have no choice.” Really? Didn’t you tell me you spent a thousand years following the instructions of a rock? “More than seven years, sword-nimi. And I didn’t follow the rock, but the words of the one who held it. I…” … Had no choice? But it had always been nothing more than a rock. * * * Kaladin swooped downward and passed above the treetops, rattling the glass leaves, sending a spray of broken shards behind himself. He turned upward with the slope of the mountain, adding another Lashing to his speed, then another. When he passed the tree line, he Lashed himself closer to the rock, skimming with obsidian only inches from his face. He used his arms to sculpt the wind around himself, angling toward a crack through the glossy black rock where two mountains met. Alive with Light and wind, he didn’t care if the Fused were gaining on him or not. Let them watch. His angle was wrong to get through the crack, so Kaladin
Lashed himself back away from the mountain slope in an enormous loop, continuously changing his Lashings one after another. He made a circle in the air, then darted past the Fused and straight through the crack, close enough to the walls that he could feel them pass. He broke out the other side, exhilarated. Should he have run out of Stormlight by now? He didn’t use it up as quickly as he had during his early months training. Kaladin dove along the slopes as three Fused popped out of the crack to follow him. He led them around the base of the obsidian mountain, then wound back toward the Oathgate to check on Shallan and the others. As he approached, he let himself drop among the trees, still moving at incredible speed. He oriented himself as if he were diving through the chasms. Dodging these trees wasn’t so different from that. He wove between them, using his body more than Lashings to control his direction. His wake caused a melody of breaking glass. He exploded free of the forest, and found the fourth Fused—the one with his harpoon—waiting. The creature attacked, but Kaladin dodged and tore across the ground until he was passing over the sea of beads. A quick glance showed him Shallan on the platform, waving her hands over her head—the prearranged signal that she needed more time. Kaladin continued out over the sea, and beads reacted to his Stormlight, rattling and surging like a wave behind him. The last Fused slowed to hover in place, and the other three slowly emerged from the forest. Kaladin spun in another loop, beads rising in the air behind him like a column of water. He curved in an arc and came in toward the harpoon-wielding Fused. Kaladin slapped the parshman’s weapon aside, then swung the butt of his own lance up, catching the harpoon on the haft while he kicked his enemy in the chest. The harpoon went upward. The Fused went backward. The creature pulled himself to a stop in the air with a Lashing, then looked down at his hands, dumbfounded as Kaladin caught the harpoon in his free hand. The disarmed enemy barked something, then shook his head and took out his sword. He glided backward to join the other three, who approached with fluttering robes. One of these—the male with the white face swirled with red—moved forward alone, then pointed at Kaladin with his lance and said something. “I don’t speak your language,” Kaladin called back. “But if that was a challenge, you against me, I accept. Gladly.” At that moment, his Stormlight ran out. * * * Navani finally got the rock unwedged, and shoved it out of the remnants of the doorway. Other stones fell around it, opening a path out onto the wall. What was left of it. About fifteen feet from where she stood, the wall ended in a ragged, broken gap. She coughed, then tucked back a lock of hair that had escaped her braid. They’d run for cover inside one of the
stone guard towers along the wall, but one side had collapsed in the shaking. It had fallen on the three soldiers who had come to protect the queen. The poor souls. Behind, Fen led her consort—who nursed a cut scalp—out over the rubble. Two other scribes had taken shelter with Navani and the queen, but most of the admirals had run in the other direction, taking shelter in the next guard tower along. That tower was now missing. The monster had swept it away. Now the creature stomped across the plain outside, though Navani couldn’t see what had drawn its attention. “The stairway,” Fen said, pointing. “Looks like it survived.” The stairway down was fully enclosed in stone, and would lead into a small guard chamber at the bottom. Maybe they could find soldiers to help the wounded and search the rubble for survivors. Navani pulled open the door, letting Fen and Kmakl head down first. Navani moved to follow, but hesitated. Damnation, that sight beyond the wall was mesmerizing. The red lightning storm. The two monsters of stone. And the boiling, churning red mist along the right coast. It had no distinct shape, but somehow gave the impression of charging horses with the flesh ripped away. One of the Unmade, certainly. An ancient spren of Odium. A thing beyond time and history. Here. A company of soldiers had just finished pouring into the city through the gap. Another formed up outside to enter next. Navani felt a growing chill as she looked at them. Red eyes. Gasping softly, she left the stairwell and stumbled along the wall, reaching the broken stone edge. Oh, dear Almighty, no … The ranks outside split, making way for a single parshwoman. Navani squinted, trying to see what was so special about her. One of the Fused? Behind her, the red mist surged, sending tendrils to weave among the men—including one wearing Shardplate, riding a brilliant white stallion. Amaram had changed sides. He joined an overwhelming force of Voidbringers in all shapes and sizes. How could they fight this? How could anyone ever fight this? Navani fell to her knees above the broken edge of the wall. And then she noticed something else. Something incongruous, something her mind refused—at first—to accept. A solitary figure had somehow gotten around the troops who had already entered the city. He now picked his way across the rubble, wearing a blue uniform, carrying a book tucked under his arm. Unaided and defenseless, Dalinar Kholin stepped into the gap in the broken wall, and there faced the nightmare alone. Beware the otherworlders. The traitors. Those with tongues of sweetness, but with minds that lust for blood. Do not take them in. Do not give them succor. Well were they named Voidbringers, for they brought the void. The empty pit that sucks in emotion. A new god. Their god. —From the Eila Stele Dalinar stepped onto the rubble, boots scraping stone. The air felt too still out here near the red storm. Stagnant. How could the air be so motionless? Amaram’s army
hesitated outside the gap. Some men had already gotten in, but the bulk had been forming up to wait their turn. When you rushed a city like this, you wanted to be careful not to push your own forces too hard from behind, lest you crush them up against the enemy. These kept uneven ranks, snarling, eyes red. More telling, they ignored the wealth at their feet. A field of spheres and gemstones—all dun—that had been thrown out onto this plain by the thunderclast that destroyed the reserve. They wanted blood instead. Dalinar could taste their lust for the fight, the challenge. What held them back? Twin thunderclasts stomped toward the wall. A red haze drifted among the men. Images of war and death. A deadly storm. Dalinar faced it alone. One man. All that remained of a broken dream. “So…” a sudden voice said from his right. “What’s the plan?” Dalinar frowned, then looked down to find a Reshi girl with long hair, dressed in a simple shirt and trousers. “Lift?” Dalinar asked in Azish. “Didn’t you leave?” “Sure did. What’s wrong with your army?” “They’re his now.” “Did you forget to feed them?” Dalinar glanced at the soldiers, standing in ranks that felt more like packs than they did true battle formations. “Perhaps I didn’t try hard enough.” “Were you … thinkin’ you’d fight them all on your own?” Lift said. “With a book?” “There is someone else for me to fight here.” “… With a book?” “Yes.” She shook her head. “Sure, all right. Why not? What do you want me to do?” The girl didn’t match the conventional ideal of a Knight Radiant. Not even five feet tall, thin and wiry, she looked more urchin than soldier. She was also all he had. “Do you have a weapon?” he asked. “Nope. Can’t read.” “Can’t…” Dalinar looked down at his book. “I meant a real weapon, Lift.” “Oh! Yeah, I’ve got one a those.” She thrust her hand to the side. Mist formed into a small, glittering Shardblade. … Or no, it was just a pole. A silver pole with a rudimentary crossguard. Lift shrugged. “Wyndle doesn’t like hurting people.” Doesn’t like … Dalinar blinked. What kind of world did he live in where swords didn’t like hurting people? “A Fused escaped from this city a short time ago,” Dalinar said, “carrying an enormous ruby. I don’t know why they wanted it, and I’d rather not find out. Can you steal it back?” “Sure. Easy.” “You’ll find it with a Fused who can move with a power similar to your own. A woman.” “Like I said. Easy.” “Easy? I think you might find—” “Relax, grandpa. Steal the rock. I can do that.” She took a deep breath, then exploded with Stormlight. Her eyes turned a pearly, glowing white. “It’s just us two, then?” “Yes.” “Right. Good luck with the army.” Dalinar looked back at the soldiers, where a figure materialized, wearing gold, holding a scepter like a cane. “It’s not the army that worries me,” Dalinar said. But Lift
had already scampered away, hugging the wall and running quickly to round the outside of the army. Odium strolled up to Dalinar, trailed by a handful of Fused—plus the woman Dalinar had sucked into his visions—and a shadowy spren that looked like it was made of twisting smoke. What was that? Odium didn’t address Dalinar at first, but instead turned to his Fused. “Tell Yushah I want her to stay out here and guard the prison. Kai-garnis did well destroying the wall; tell her to return to the city and climb toward the Oathgate. If the Tisark can’t secure it, she is to destroy the device and recover its gemstones. We can rebuild it as long as the spren aren’t compromised.” Two Fused left, each running toward one of the towering thunderclasts. Odium placed both hands on the top of his scepter and smiled at Dalinar. “Well, my friend. Here we are, and the time has arrived. Are you ready?” “Yes,” Dalinar said. “Good, good. Let us begin.” * * * The two Fused hovered near Adolin, out of easy reach, admiring Shallan’s illusory handiwork. He did his best to blend in, waving his harpoon around crazily. He wasn’t sure where Syl had gone, but Pattern seemed to be enjoying himself, humming pleasantly and swinging a glass branch. One of the Fused nudged the other, then pointed at Shallan, whom they’d just noticed. Neither appeared worried that she’d open the Oathgate—which was a bad sign. What did they know about the device that Adolin’s team did not? The Fused turned from Shallan and continued a conversation in a language Adolin couldn’t understand. One pointed at each illusion in turn, then thrust with his spear. The other shook her head, and Adolin could almost interpret her answer. We tried stabbing each one. They keep mixing about, so it’s hard to keep track. Instead, the female took out a knife and cut her hand, then flung it toward the illusions. Orange blood fell through the illusions, leaving no stain, but splattered against Adolin’s cheek. Adolin felt his heart flutter, and he tried to covertly wipe the blood off, but the female gestured toward him with a satisfied grin. The male saluted her with a finger to his head, then lowered his lance and flew straight toward Adolin. Damnation. Adolin scrambled away, passing through an illusion of Captain Notum and causing it to diffuse. It formed back together, then blew apart a second later as the Fused soared through it, lance pointed at Adolin’s back. Adolin spun and flung his harpoon up to block, deflecting the lance, but the Fused still smashed into him, tossing him backward. Adolin hit the stone bridge hard, smacking his head, seeing stars. Vision swimming, he reached for his harpoon, but the Fused slapped the weapon away with the butt of his lance. The creature then alighted softly on the bridge, billowing robes settling. Adolin yanked out his belt knife, then forced himself to his feet, unsteady. The Fused lowered its lance to a two-handed, underarm grip, then waited. Knife
against spear. Adolin breathed in and out, worried about the other Fused—who had gone for Shallan. He tried to dredge up Zahel’s lessons, remembering days on the practice yard running this exact exchange. Jakamav had refused the training, laughing at the idea that a Shardbearer would ever fight knife to spear. Adolin flipped the knife to grip it point down, then held it forward so he could deflect the spear thrusts. Zahel whispered to him. Wait until the enemy thrusts with the spear, deflect it or dodge it, then grab the spear with your left hand. Pull yourself close enough to ram the knife into the enemy’s neck. Right. He could do that. He’d “died” seven times out of ten doing it against Zahel, of course. Winds bless you anyway, you old axehound, he thought. Adolin stepped in, testing, and waited for the thrust. When it came, Adolin shoved the lance’s point aside with his knife, then grabbed at— The enemy floated backward in an unnatural motion, too fast—no ordinary human could have moved in such a way. Adolin stumbled, trying to reassess. The Fused idly brought the lance back around, then fluidly rammed it right through Adolin’s stomach. Adolin gasped at the sharp spike of pain, doubling over, feeling blood on his hands. The Fused seemed almost bored as he yanked the lance out, the tip glistening red with Adolin’s blood, then dropped the weapon. The creature landed and instead unsheathed a wicked-looking sword. He advanced, slapped away Adolin’s weak attempt at a parry, and raised the sword to strike. Someone leaped onto the Fused from behind. A figure in tattered clothing, a scrabbling, angry woman with brown vines instead of skin and scratched-out eyes. Adolin gaped as his deadeye raked long nails across the Fused’s face, causing him to stumble backward, humming of all things. He rammed his sword into the spren’s chest, but it didn’t faze her in the least. She just let out a screech like the one she’d made at Adolin when he’d tried to summon his Blade, and kept attacking. Adolin shook himself. Flee, idiot! Holding his wounded gut—each step causing a shock of pain—he lurched across the bridge toward Shallan. * * * Employing subterfuge will not deceive us or weaken our resolve, Lightweaver, the guardians said. For indeed, this is not a matter of decision, but one of nature. The path remains closed. Shallan let the illusion melt around her, then slumped down, exhausted. She’d tried pleading, cajoling, yelling, and even Lightweaving. It was no use. She had failed. Her illusions on the bridge were wavering and vanishing, their Stormlight running out. Through them shot a Fused trailing dark energy, lance leveled directly toward Shallan. She dove to the side, barely getting out of the way. The creature passed in a whoosh, then slowed and turned for another pass. Shallan leaped to her feet first. “Pattern!” she yelled, sweeping her hands forward by instinct, trying to summon the Blade. A part of her was impressed that was her reaction. Adolin would be proud. It
didn’t work, of course. Pattern shouted in apology from the bridge, panicked. And yet in that moment—facing the enemy bearing down, its lance pointed at her heart—Shallan felt something. Pattern, or something like him, just beyond her mental reach. On the other side, and if she could just tug on it, feed it … She screamed as Stormlight flowed through her, raging in her veins, reaching toward something in her pocket. A wall appeared in front of her. Shallan gasped. A sickening smack from the other side of the wall indicated that the Fused had collided with it. A wall. A storming wall of worked stones, broken at the sides. Shallan looked down and found that her pocket—she was still wearing Veil’s white trousers—was connected to the strange wall. What on Roshar? She pulled out her small knife and sawed the pocket free, then stumbled back. In the center of the wall was a small bead, melded into the stone. That’s the bead I used to cross the sea down below, Shallan thought. What she’d done felt like Soulcasting, yet different. Pattern ran up to her, humming as he left the bridge. Where were Adolin and Syl? “I took the soul of the wall,” Shallan said, “and then made its physical form appear on this side.” “Mmm. I think these beads are more minds than souls, but you did manifest it here. Very nice. Though your touch is unpracticed. Mmm. It will not stay for long.” The edges were already starting to unravel to smoke. A scraping sound on the other side indicated that the Fused had not been defeated, merely stunned. Shallan turned from it and scrambled over the bridge, away from the towering sentinels. She passed some of her illusions and recovered a little of their Stormlight. Now, where was— Adolin. Bleeding! Shallan dashed over and grabbed him by the arm, trying to keep him upright as he stumbled. “It’s just a little cut,” he said. Blood seeped out between his fingers, which were pressed to his gut, right below the navel. The back of his uniform was bloody too. “Just a little cut? Adolin! You—” “No time,” he said, leaning against her. He nodded toward the Fused she’d fought, who rose into the air over Shallan’s wall. “The other one is back behind me somewhere. Could be on us at any moment.” “Kaladin,” Shallan said. “Where—” “Mmm…” Pattern said, pointing. “He ran out of Stormlight and fell into the beads over that way.” Great. “Take a deep breath,” Shallan said to Adolin, then pulled him off the bridge with her and leaped for the beads. * * * Lift became awesome. Her powers manifested as the ability to slide across objects without truly touching them. She could become really, really slick—which was handy, because soldiers tried to snatch her as she rounded the Alethi army. They grabbed at her unbuttoned overshirt, her arm, her hair. They couldn’t hold her. She just slid away. It was like they were trying to grab hold of a song. She burst from their
ranks and fell to her knees, which she’d slicked up real good. That meant she kept going, sliding on her knees away from the men with the glowing red eyes. Wyndle—who she knew by now was almost certainly not a Voidbringer—was a little snaking line of green beside her. He looked like a fast-growing vine, jutting with small crystals here and there. “Oh, I don’t like this,” he said. “You don’t like nothin’.” “Now, that is not true, mistress. I liked that nice town we passed back in Azir.” “The one that was deserted?” “So peaceful.” There, Lift thought, picking out a real Voidbringer—the type that looked like parshmen, only big and scary. This one was a woman, and moved across the rock smoothly, like she was awesome too. “I’ve always wondered,” Lift said. “Do you suppose they got those marble colorings on all their parts?” “Mistress? Does it matter?” “Maybe not now,” Lift admitted, glancing at the red storm. She kept her legs slick, but her hands not slick, which let her paddle and steer herself. Going about on your knees didn’t look as deevy as standing up—but when she tried being awesome while standing, she usually ended up crashed against a rock with her butt in the air. That Fused did seem to be carrying something large in one hand. Like a big gemstone. Lift paddled in that direction—which was taking her dangerously close to that parshman army and their ships. Still, she got up pretty close before the Voidbringer woman turned and noticed. Lift slid to a halt, letting her Stormlight run out. Her stomach growled, so she took a bite of some jerky she’d found in her guard’s pocket. The Voidbringer said something in a singsong voice, hefting the enormous ruby—it didn’t have any Stormlight, which was good, since one that big would have been bright. Like, redder and brighter than Gawx’s face when Lift told him about how babies was made. He should know stuff like that already. He’d been a starvin’ thief! Hadn’t he known any whores or anything? Anyway … how to get that ruby? The Voidbringer spoke again, and while Lift couldn’t figure out the words, she couldn’t help feeling that the Voidbringer sounded amused. The woman pushed off with one foot, then slid on the other, easy as if she were standing on oil. She coasted for a second, then looked over her shoulder and grinned before kicking off and sliding to the left, casually moving with a grace that made Lift seem super stupid. “Well starve me,” Lift said. “She’s more awesome than I am.” “Do you have to use that term?” Wyndle asked. “Yes, she appears to be able to access the Surge of—” “Shut it,” Lift said. “Can you follow her?” “I might leave you behind.” “I’ll keep up.” Maybe. “You follow her. I’ll follow you.” Wyndle sighed but obeyed, streaking off after the Voidbringer. Lift followed, paddling on her knees, feeling like a pig trying to imitate a professional dancer. * * * “You must choose, Szeth-son-Neturo,” Nin said.
“The Skybreakers will swear to the Dawnsingers and their law. And you? Will you join us?” Wind rippled Szeth’s clothing. All those years ago, he’d been correct. The Voidbringers had returned. Now … now he was to simply accept their rule? “I don’t trust myself, aboshi,” Szeth whispered. “I cannot see the right any longer. My own decisions are not trustworthy.” “Yes,” Nin said, nodding, hands clasped behind his back. “Our minds are fallible. This is why we must pick something external to follow. Only in strict adherence to a code can we approximate justice.” Szeth inspected the battlefield far below. When are we going to actually fight someone? asked the sword on his back. You sure do like to talk. Even more than Vasher, and he could go on and on and on.… “Aboshi,” Szeth said. “When I say the Third Ideal, can I choose a person as the thing I obey? Instead of the law?” “Yes. Some of the Skybreakers have chosen to follow me, and I suspect that will make the transition to obeying the Dawnsingers easier for them. I would not suggest it. I feel that … I am … am getting worse.…” A man in blue barred the way into the city below. He confronted … something else. A force that Szeth could just barely sense. A hidden fire. “You followed men before,” Nin continued. “They caused your pain, Szeth-son-Neturo. Your agony is because you did not follow something unchanging and pure. You picked men instead of an ideal.” “Or,” Szeth said, “perhaps I was simply forced to follow the wrong men.” * * * Kaladin thrashed in the beads, suffocating, coughing. He wasn’t that deep, but which way … which way was out? Which way was out? Frantic, he tried to swim toward the surface, but the beads didn’t move like water, and he couldn’t propel himself. Beads slipped into his mouth, pushed at his skin. Pulled at him like an invisible hand. Trying to drag him farther and farther into the depths. Away from the light. Away from the wind. His fingers brushed something warm and soft among the beads. He thrashed, trying to find it again, and a hand seized his arm. He brought his other arm around and grabbed hold of a thin wrist. Another hand took him by the front of the coat, pulling him away from the darkness, and he stumbled, finding purchase on the bottom of the sea. Lungs burning, he followed, step by step, eventually bursting from the beads to find Syl pulling him by the front of the coat. She led him up the bank, where he collapsed in a heap, spitting out spheres and wheezing. The Fused he’d been fighting landed on the Oathgate platform near the two they’d left behind. As Kaladin was recovering his breath, beads nearby pulled back, revealing Shallan, Adolin, and Pattern crossing the seafloor through some kind of passage she’d made. A hallway in the depths? She was growing in her ability to manipulate the beads. Adolin was wounded. Kaladin gritted his
teeth, forcing himself to his feet and stumbling over to help Shallan get the prince up onto the shore. The prince lay on his back, cursing softly, holding his gut with bloodied hands. “Let me see it,” Kaladin said, prying Adolin’s fingers out of the way. “The blood—” Shallan started. “The blood is the least of his worries,” Kaladin said, prodding at the wound. “He’s not going to bleed out from a gut wound anytime soon, but sepsis is another story. And if internal organs got cut…” “Leave me,” Adolin said, coughing. “Leave you to go where?” Kaladin said, moving his fingers in the wound. Storms. The intestines were cut. “I’m out of Stormlight.” Shallan’s glow faded. “That was the last of what I had.” Syl gripped Kaladin’s shoulder, looking toward the Fused, who launched up and flew toward them, lances held high. Pattern hummed softly. Nervously. “What do we do then?” Shallan asked. No … Kaladin thought. “Give me your knife,” Adolin said, trying to sit up. It can’t be the end. “Adolin, no. Rest. Maybe we can surrender.” I can’t fail him! Kaladin looked over his shoulder toward Syl, who held him lightly by the arm. She nodded. “The Words, Kaladin.” * * * Amaram’s soldiers parted around Dalinar, flooding into the city. They ignored him—and unfortunately, he had to ignore them. “So, child…” Odium nodded toward the city, and took Dalinar by the shoulder. “You did something marvelous in forging that coalition. You should feel proud. I’m certainly proud.” How could Dalinar fight this thing, who thought of every possibility, who planned for every outcome? How could he face something so vast, so incredible? Touching it, Dalinar could sense it stretching into infinity. Permeating the land, the people, the sky and the stone. He would break, go insane, if he tried to comprehend this being. And somehow he had to defeat it? Convince him that he can lose, the Almighty had said in vision. Appoint a champion. He will take that chance.… This is the best advice I can give you. Honor had been slain resisting this thing. Dalinar licked his lips. “A test of champions,” he said to Odium. “I demand that we clash over this world.” “For what purpose?” Odium asked. “Killing us won’t free you, will it?” Dalinar said. “You could rule us or destroy us, but either way, you’d still be trapped here.” Nearby, one of the thunderclasts climbed over the wall and entered the city. The other stayed behind, stomping around near the rearguard of the army. “A contest,” Dalinar said to Odium. “Your freedom if you win, our lives if humans win.” “Be careful what you request, Dalinar Kholin. As Bondsmith, you can offer this deal. But is this truly what you wish of me?” “I…” Was it? * * * Wyndle followed the Voidbringer, and Lift followed him. They slipped back among the men of the human army. The front ranks were pouring into the city, but the opening wasn’t big enough for them to all go at once. Most waited out
here for their turn, cursing and grumbling at the delay. They took swipes at Lift as she tried to follow the trail of vines Wyndle left. Being little helped her avoid them, fortunately. She liked being little. Little people could squeeze into places others couldn’t, and could go unnoticed. She wasn’t supposed to get any older; the Nightwatcher had promised her she wouldn’t. The Nightwatcher had lied. Just like a starvin’ human would have. Lift shook her head and slipped between the legs of a soldier. Being little was nice, but it was hard not to feel like every man was a mountain towering overhead. They smashed weapons about her, speaking guttural Alethi curses. I can’t do this on my knees, she thought as a sword chopped close to her shirt. I have to be like her. I have to be free. Lift zipped over the side of a small rise in the rock, and managed to land on her feet. She ran for a moment, then slicked the bottoms of her feet and went into a slide. The Voidbringer woman passed ahead. She didn’t slip and fall, but performed this strange walking motion—one that let her control her smooth glide. Lift tried to do the same. She trusted in her awesomeness—her Stormlight—to sustain her as she held her breath. Men cursed around her, but sounds slid off Lift as she coated herself in Light. The wind itself couldn’t touch her. She’d been here before. She’d held for a beautiful moment between crashes, sliding on bare feet, moving free, untouched. Like she was gliding between worlds. She could do it. She could— Something crashed to the ground nearby, crushing several soldiers, throwing Lift off balance and sending her into a heap. She slid to a stop and rolled over, looking up at one of the huge stone monsters. The skeletal thing raised a spiked hand and slammed it down. Lift threw herself out of the way, but the shaking from the impact sent her sprawling again. Soldiers nearby didn’t seem to care that their fellows had been crushed. Eyes glowing, they scrambled for her, as if it were a contest to see who could kill her first. Her only choice was to dodge toward the stone monster. Maybe she could get so close that it— The creature pounded again, mashing three soldiers, but also slamming into Lift. The blow snapped her legs in the blink of an eye, then crushed her lower half, sending her into a screaming fit of pain. Eyes watering, she curled up on the ground. Heal. Heal. Just had to weather the pain. Just had to … Stones ground against one another overhead. She blinked away tears, looking up at the creature raising its spike high in the sky, toward the sun, which was slipping behind the clouds of the deadly storm. “Mistress!” Wyndle said. His vines climbed over her, as if trying to cradle her. “Oh, mistress. Summon me as a sword!” The pain in her legs started to fade. Too slowly. She was growing hungry again,
her Stormlight running low. She summoned Wyndle as a rod, twisting against the pain and holding him toward the monster, her eyes watering with the effort. An explosion of light appeared overhead, a ball of expanding Radiance. Something dropped from the middle of it, trailing smoke both black and white. Glowing like a star. “Mother!” Wyndle said. “What is—” As the monster raised its fist to strike Lift, the spear of light hit the creature in the head and cut straight through. It divided the enormous thing in two, sending out an explosion of black smoke. The halves of the monster fell to the sides, crashing into the stone, then burned away, evaporating into blackness. Soldiers cursed and coughed, backing up as something resolved in the center of the tempest. A figure in the smoke, glowing white and holding a jet-black Shardblade that seemed to feed on the smoke, sucking it in, then letting it pour down beneath itself as a liquid blackness. White and black. A man with a shaved head, eyes glowing a light grey, Stormlight rising from him. He straightened and strode through the smoke, leaving an afterimage behind. Lift had seen this man before. The Assassin in White. Murderer. And apparently savior. He stopped beside her. “The Blackthorn assigned you a task?” “Uh … yeah,” Lift said, wiggling her toes, which seemed to be working again. “There’s a Voidbringer who stole a large ruby. I’m supposed to get it back.” “Then stand,” the assassin said, raising his strange Shardblade toward the enemy soldiers. “Our master has given us a task. We shall see it completed.” * * * Navani scrambled across the top of the wall, alone except for crushed corpses. Dalinar, don’t you dare become a martyr, she thought, reaching the stairwell. She pulled open the door at the top and started down the dark steps. What was he thinking? Facing an entire army on his own? He wasn’t a young man in his prime, outfitted in Shardplate! She fumbled for a sphere in her safepouch, then eventually undid the clasp on her arm fabrial instead, using its light to guide her down the steps and into the room at the base. Where had Fen and— A hand grabbed her, pulling her to the side and slamming her against the wall. Fen and Kmakl lay here, gagged, bound tightly. A pair of men in forest green, eyes glowing red, held knives to them. A third one, wearing the knots of a captain, pressed Navani against the wall. “What a handsome reward you’ll earn me,” the man hissed at Navani. “Two queens. Brightlord Amaram will enjoy this gift. That almost makes up for not being able to kill you personally, as justice for what your husband did to Brightlord Sadeas.” * * * Ash stumbled to a stop before a brazier. It bore delicate metalwork around the rim, a finer piece than one expected to find in such a common location. This improvised camp was where the Alethi troops had bivouacked while repairing the city; it clogged multiple
streets and squares of the Low Ward. The unlit brazier that had stopped Ash was in front of a tent, and had perhaps been used for warmth on cold Thaylen nights. Ten figures ringed the bowl. Her fingers itched. She couldn’t move on, no matter how desperate her task, until she’d done it. She seized the bowl and turned it until she found the woman depicting her, marked by the iconography of the brush and the mask, symbols of creativity. Pure absurdity. She pulled out her knife and sawed at the metal until she’d managed to scratch out the face. Good enough. Good enough. She dropped the brazier. Keep going. What that man, Mraize, had told her had better be true. If he had lied … The large tent near the wall was completely unguarded, though soldiers had run past her a short time ago, eyes glowing with the light of corrupted Investiture. Odium has learned to possess men. A dark, dangerous day. He’d always been able to tempt them to fight for him, but sending spren to bond with them? Terrible. And how had he managed to start a storm of his own? Well, this land was finally doomed. And Ash … Ash couldn’t find it inside herself to care any longer. She pushed into the tent, forcibly keeping herself from looking at the rug in case it bore depictions of the Heralds. There she found him, sitting alone in the dim light, staring ahead sightlessly. Dark skin, even darker than hers, and a muscled physique. A king, for all the fact that he’d never worn a crown. He was the one of the ten who was never supposed to have borne their burden. And he’d borne it the longest anyway. “Taln,” she whispered. * * * Renarin Kholin knew he wasn’t actually a Knight Radiant. Glys had once been a different kind of spren, but something had changed him, corrupted him. Glys didn’t remember that very well; it had happened before they had formed their bond. Now, neither knew what they’d become. Renarin could feel the spren trembling inside him, hiding and whispering about the danger. Jasnah had found them. Renarin had seen that coming. He knelt in the ancient temple of Pailiah, and to his eyes it was full of colors. A thousand panes of stained glass sprouted on the walls, combining and melting together, creating a panorama. He saw himself coming to Thaylen City earlier in the day. He saw Dalinar talking to the monarchs, and then he saw them turning against him. She will hurt us! She will hurt us! “I know, Glys,” he whispered, turning toward a specific section of stained glass. This showed Renarin kneeling on the floor of the temple. In the sequence of stained glass panels, Jasnah approached him from behind, sword raised. And then … she struck him down. Renarin couldn’t control what he saw or when he saw it. He had learned to read so he could understand the numbers and words that appeared under some of the images. They had
shown him when the Everstorm would come. They had shown him how to find the hidden compartments in Urithiru. Now they showed his death. The future. Renarin could see what was forbidden. He wrenched his eyes away from the glass pane showing himself and Jasnah, turning toward one even worse. In it, his father knelt before a god of gold and white. “No, Father,” Renarin whispered. “Please. Not that. Don’t do it.…” He will not be resisted, Glys said. My sorrow, Renarin. I will give you my sorrow. * * * A pair of gloryspren swung down from the skies, golden spheres. They floated and spun around Dalinar, brilliant like drops of sunlight. “Yes,” Dalinar said. “This is what I wish.” “You wish a contest of champions?” Odium repeated. “This is your true desire, not forced upon you? You were not beguiled or tricked in any way?” “A contest of champions. For the fate of Roshar.” “Very well,” Odium said, then sighed softly. “I agree.” “That easily?” “Oh, I assure you. This won’t be easy.” Odium raised his eyebrows in an open, inviting way. A concerned expression. “I have chosen my champion already. I’ve been preparing him for a long, long time.” “Amaram.” “Him? A passionate man, yes, but hardly suited to this task. No, I need someone who dominates a battlefield like the sun dominates the sky.” The Thrill suddenly returned to Dalinar. The red mist—which had been fading—roared back to life. Images filled his mind. Memories of his youth spent fighting. “I need someone stronger than Amaram,” Odium whispered. “No.” “A man who will win no matter the cost.” The Thrill overwhelmed Dalinar, choking him. “A man who has served me all his life. A man I trust. I believe I warned you that I knew you’d make the right decision. And now here we are.” “No.” “Take a deep breath, my friend,” Odium whispered. “I’m afraid that this will hurt.” These Voidbringers know no songs. They cannot hear Roshar, and where they go, they bring silence. They look soft, with no shell, but they are hard. They have but one heart, and it cannot ever live. —From the Eila Stele “No,” Dalinar whispered again, voice ragged as the Thrill thrummed inside of him. “No. You are wrong.” Odium gripped Dalinar’s shoulder. “What does she say?” She? He heard Evi crying. Screaming. Begging for her life as the flames took her. “Don’t blame yourself,” Odium said as Dalinar winced. “I made you kill her, Dalinar. I caused all of this. Do you remember? I can help. Here.” Memories flooded Dalinar’s mind, a devastating onslaught of images. He lived them all in detail, somehow squeezed into a moment, the Thrill raging inside of him. He saw himself stab a poor soldier in the back. A young man trying to crawl to safety, crying for his mother … “I was with you then,” Odium said. He killed a far better man than himself, a highlord who had held Teleb’s loyalty. Dalinar knocked him to the ground, then slammed a poleaxe into his
chest. “I was with you then.” Dalinar fought atop a strange rock formation, facing another man who knew the Thrill. Dalinar dropped him to the ground with burning eyes, and called it a mercy. “I was with you then.” He raged at Gavilar, anger and lust rising as twin emotions. He broke a man in a tavern, frustrated that he’d been held back from enjoying the fight. He fought on the borders of Jah Keved, laughing, corpses littering the ground. He remembered every moment of the carnage. He felt each death like a spike driven into his soul. He began to weep for the destruction. “It’s what you needed to do, Dalinar,” Odium said. “You made a better kingdom!” “So … much … pain.” “Blame me, Dalinar. It wasn’t you! You saw red when you did those things! It was my fault. Accept that. You don’t have to hurt.” Dalinar blinked, meeting Odium’s eyes. “Let me have the pain, Dalinar,” Odium said. “Give it to me, and never feel guilty again.” “No.” Dalinar hugged The Way of Kings close. “No. I can’t.” “Oh, Dalinar. What does she say?” No … “Have you forgotten? Here, let me help.” And he was back in that day. The day he killed Evi. * * * Szeth found purpose in wielding the sword. It screamed at him to destroy evil, even if evil was obviously a concept that the sword itself could not understand. Its vision was occluded, like Szeth’s own. A metaphor. How was a twisted soul like his to decide who should die? Impossible. And so he put his trust in someone else, someone whose light peeked through the shadow. Dalinar Kholin. Knight Radiant. He would know. This choice was not perfect. But … Stones Unhallowed … it was the best he could manage. It brought him some small measure of peace as he swept through the enemy army. The sword screamed at him. DESTROY! Anyone he so much as nicked popped into black smoke. Szeth laid waste to the red-eyed soldiers, who kept coming, showing no fear. Screaming, as if they thirsted for death. It was a drink that Szeth was all too good at serving. He wielded Stormlight in one hand, Lashing any men who drew too close, sending them flipping into the air or crashing backward into their fellows. With the other hand he swept the sword through their ranks. He moved on nimble feet, his own body Lashed upward just enough to lighten him. Skybreakers didn’t have access to all of the Lashings, but the most useful—and most deadly—were still his. Remember the gemstone. A phantom sense called to him, a desire to continue killing, to revel in the butchery. Szeth rejected it, sick. He had never enjoyed this. He could never enjoy this. The Voidbringer with the gemstone had slipped away, moving on too-swift feet. Szeth pointed the sword—a piece of him terrified by how quickly it was chewing through his own Stormlight—and Lashed himself to follow. He plowed through soldiers, men bursting into smoke, seeking that one individual.
The Voidbringer turned at the last moment, dancing away from his sword. Szeth Lashed himself downward, then spun in a sweeping arc, towing black smoke—almost liquid—behind his sword as he destroyed men in a grand circle. EVIL! the sword cried. Szeth leaped for the Voidbringer woman, but she dropped to the ground and slid on the stone as if it were greased. His sword swung over her head, and she pushed herself backward toward him, sliding right past his legs. There, she swept gracefully to her feet and seized the sheath off Szeth’s back, where he’d tied it for safekeeping. It broke free. When Szeth turned to attack, she blocked the sword with its own sheath. How had she done that? Was there something about the silvery metal that Szeth didn’t know? She blocked his next few attacks, then ducked away from his attempts to Lash her. The sword was growing frustrated. DESTROY, DESTROY, DESTROY! Black veins began to grow around Szeth’s hand, creeping toward his upper arm. He struck again, but she simply slipped away, moving across the ground as if natural laws had no purchase on her. Other soldiers piled in, and the pain started up Szeth’s arm as he worked death among them. * * * Jasnah stopped one pace behind Renarin. She could hear his whispers clearly now. “Father. Oh, Father…” The young man whipped his head in one direction, then another, seeing things that weren’t there. “He sees not what is, but what is to come,” Ivory said. “Odium’s power, Jasnah.” * * * “Taln,” Ash whispered, kneeling before him. “Oh, Taln…” The Herald stared forward with dark eyes. “I am Talenel’Elin, Herald of War. The time of the Return, the Desolation, is near at hand.…” “Taln?” Ash took his hand. “It’s me. It’s Ash.” “We must prepare. You will have forgotten much.…” “Please, Taln.” “Kalak will teach you to cast bronze.…” He just continued on, repeating the same words over and over and over. * * * Kaladin fell to his knees on the cold obsidian of Shadesmar. Fused descended around them, six figures in brilliant, flapping clothing. He had a single slim hope. Each Ideal he’d spoken had resulted in an outpouring of power and strength. He licked his lips and tried whispering it. “I … I will…” He thought of friends lost. Malop. Jaks. Beld and Pedin. Say it, storm you! “I…” Rod and Mart. Bridgemen he’d failed. And before them, slaves he’d tried to save. Goshel. Nalma, caught in a trap like a beast. A windspren appeared near him, like a line of light. Then another. A single hope. The Words. Say the Words! * * * “Oh, Mother! Oh, Cultivation!” Wyndle cried as they watched the assassin murder his way across the field. “What have we done?” “We’ve pointed him away from us,” Lift said as she perched on a boulder, her eyes wide. “You’d rather he was close by?” Wyndle continued to whimper, and Lift kinda understood. That was a lot of killing that the assassin did. Red-eyed men who seemed
to have no light left in them, true, but … storms. She’d lost track of the woman with the gemstone, but at least the army seemed to be flowing away from Szeth, leaving him fewer people to kill. He stumbled, slowing, then dropped to his knees. “Uh-oh.” Lift summoned Wyndle as a rod in case the assassin lost his starvin’ mind—what was left of it—and attacked her. She slipped off the rock, then ran over. He held the strange Shardblade before himself. It continued to leak black liquid that vaporized as it streamed toward the ground. His hand had gone all black. “I…” Szeth said. “I have lost the sheath.…” “Drop the sword!” “I … can’t.…” Szeth said, teeth gritted. “It holds to me, feasting upon my … my Stormlight. It will soon consume me.” Stormsstormsstormsstorms. “Right. Right. Ummmmm…” Lift looked around. The army was flooding into the city. The second stone monster was stomping across the Ancient Ward, stepping on buildings. Dalinar Kholin still stood before the gap. Maybe … maybe he could help? “Come on,” Lift said. * * * “Kill the man,” said the captain holding Navani. He swept his hand toward old Kmakl, Fen’s consort. “We don’t need him.” Fen screamed against her gag, but she was held tightly. Navani carefully wiggled her safehand fingers out of her sleeve, then touched her other arm and the fabrial there, flipping a latch. Small knobs extended from the front of the device, just above her wrist. Kmakl struggled to stand. He seemed to want to face his death with dignity, but the other two soldiers didn’t give him that honor. They pushed him back against the wall, one pulling out a dagger. Navani seized the arm of the man holding her, then pressed the knobs of her pain fabrial against his skin. He screamed and dropped, writhing in agony. One of the others turned toward her, and she pressed the painrial against his uplifted hand. She’d tested the device on herself, of course, so she knew what it felt like. A thousand needles being shoved into your skin, under your nails, into your eyes. The second man wet himself as he dropped. The last one managed to cut a gash in her arm before she sent him to the ground, spasming. Bother. She flipped the switch on the painrial, drawing away the agony of the cut. Then she took the knife and quickly cut Fen’s bonds. As the queen freed Kmakl, Navani bound her painless wound. “These will recover soon,” Navani said. “We may need to dispatch them before that happens.” Kmakl kicked the man who had almost slit his throat, then cracked the door into the city. A troop of men with glowing eyes rushed past. The entire area was overrun with them. “These are the least of our trouble, it seems,” the aging man said, shutting the door. “Back up to the wall, then,” Fen said. “We might be able to spot friendly troops from that vantage.” Navani nodded, and Fen led the way up. At the top,
they barred the door. There were bars on both sides; you wanted to be able to lock out enemies who had seized the wall, and also ones who had broken through the gates. Navani surveyed their options. A quick glance revealed that the streets were indeed held by Amaram’s troops. Some groups of Thaylens held ground farther up, but they were falling quickly. “By Kelek, storms, and Passions alike,” Kmakl said. “What is that?” He’d noticed the red mist on the north side of the battlefield, with its horrific images forming and breaking apart. Shadows of soldiers dying, of skeletal features, of charging horses. It was a grand, intimidating sight. But Dalinar … Dalinar drew her eyes. Standing alone, surrounded by enemy soldiers, and facing something she could just barely sense. Something vast. Something unimaginable. Something angry. * * * Dalinar lived in two places. He saw himself crossing a darkened landscape, dragging his Shardblade behind him. He was on the field at Thaylen City with Odium, but he was also in the past, approaching Rathalas. Urged on by the boiling red anger of the Thrill. He returned to the camp, to the surprise of his men, like a spren of death. Coated in blood, eyes glowing. Glowing red. He ordered the oil brought. He turned toward a city where Evi was imprisoned, where children slept, where innocent people hid and prayed and burned glyphwards and wept. “Please…” Dalinar whispered in Thaylen City. “Don’t make me live it again.” “Oh, Dalinar,” Odium said. “You will live it again and again until you let go. You can’t carry this burden. Please, give it to me. I drove you to do this. It wasn’t your fault.” Dalinar pulled The Way of Kings close against his chest, clutching it, like a child with his blanket in the night. But a sudden flash of light blasted in front of him, accompanied by a deafening crack. Dalinar stumbled backward. Lightning. That had been lightning. Had it struck him? No. It had somehow struck only the book. Burned pages fluttered around him, singed and smoldering. It had been blasted right from his hands. Odium shook his head. “The words of a man long dead, long failed.” Overhead, the sun finally passed behind the clouds of the storm, and all fell into darkness. Slowly, the flames of the burning pages went out. * * * Teft huddled someplace dark. Maybe the darkness would hide his sins. But in the distance, he heard shouting. Men fighting. Bridge Four dying. * * * Kaladin stuttered, the Words stumbling. He thought of his men from Amaram’s army. Dallet and his squad, slain either by Shallan’s brother or by Amaram. Such good friends who had fallen. And then, of course, he thought of Tien. * * * Dalinar fell to his knees. A few gloryspren swirled around him, but Odium batted them away, and they faded. In the back of his mind, the Stormfather wept. He saw himself step up to where Evi was imprisoned. That tomb in the rock. Dalinar tried to
look away, but the vision was everywhere. He didn’t merely see it, he lived it. He ordered Evi’s death, and listened to her screams. “Please…” Odium wasn’t done with him. Dalinar had to watch the city burn, hear the children die. He gritted his teeth, groaning in agony. Before, his pains had driven him to drink. There was no drink now. Just the Thrill. He had always craved it. The Thrill had made him live. Without it … he’d … he’d been dead.… He slumped, bowing his head, listening to the tears of a woman who had believed in him. He’d never deserved her. The Stormfather’s weeping faded as Odium somehow shoved the spren away, separating them. That left Dalinar alone. “So alone…” “You’re not alone, Dalinar,” Odium said, going down on one knee beside him. “I’m here. I’ve always been here.” The Thrill boiled within. And Dalinar knew. He knew he’d always been a fraud. He was the same as Amaram. He had an honest reputation, but was a murderer on the inside. A destroyer. A child killer. “Let go,” Odium whispered. Dalinar squeezed his eyes shut, trembling, hands tense as he hunched over and clawed the ground. It hurt so badly. To know that he’d failed them. Navani, Adolin, Elhokar, Gavilar. He couldn’t live with this. He couldn’t live with her tears! “Give it to me,” Odium pled. Dalinar ripped his fingernails off, but the pain of the body couldn’t distract him. It was nothing beside the agony of his soul. Of knowing what he truly was. * * * Szeth tried to walk toward Dalinar. The darkness had grown up his arm, and the sword drank his last wisps of Stormlight. There was … was a lesson in this … wasn’t there? There had to be. Nin … Nin wanted him to learn.… He fell to the ground, still holding the sword as it screamed mindlessly. DESTROY EVIL. The little Radiant girl scrambled to him. She looked toward the sky as the sun vanished behind clouds. Then she took Szeth’s head in her hands. “No…” he tried to croak. It will take you too.… She breathed life into him somehow, and the sword drank of it freely. Her eyes went wide as the black veins began to grow up her fingers and hands. * * * Renarin didn’t want to die. But strangely, he found himself welcoming Jasnah’s strike. Better to die than to live to see what was happening to his father. For he saw the future. He saw his father in black armor, a plague upon the land. He saw the Blackthorn return, a terrible scourge with nine shadows. Odium’s champion. “He’s going to fall,” Renarin whispered. “He’s already fallen. He belongs to the enemy now. Dalinar Kholin … is no more.” * * * Venli shivered on the plain, near Odium. Timbre had been pulsing to Peace, but now she quieted. Twenty or thirty yards away, a figure in white clothing collapsed to the ground, a little girl at his side. Nearer to her, Dalinar Kholin—the
man who had resisted—slumped forward, head bowed, holding one hand against his chest and trembling. Odium stepped back, his appearance that of a parshman with golden carapace. “It is done,” he said, looking toward Venli and the gathered group of Fused. “You have a leader.” “We must follow one of them?” Turash asked. “A human?” Venli’s breath caught. There had been no respect in that tone. Odium smiled. “You will follow me, Turash, or I will reclaim that which gives you persistent life. I care not for the shape of the tool. Only that it cuts.” Turash bowed his head. Stone crunched as a figure in glittering Shardplate walked up to them, carrying a Shardblade in one hand and—strangely—an empty sheath in the other. The human had his faceplate up, exposing red eyes. He tossed the silvery sheath to the ground. “I was told to deliver that to you.” “Well done, Meridas,” Odium said. “Abaray, could you provide this human with an appropriate housing for Yelig-nar?” One of the Fused stepped forward and proffered a small, uncut smokestone toward the human, Meridas. “And what is this?” Meridas asked. “The fulfillment of my promise to you,” Odium said. “Swallow it.” “What?” “If you wish for the promised power, ingest that—then try to control the one who follows. But be warned, the queen at Kholinar tried this, and the power consumed her.” Meridas held up the gemstone, inspecting it, then glanced toward Dalinar Kholin. “So, you’ve been speaking to him all this time too?” “Even longer than I’ve been speaking to you.” “Can I kill him?” “Someday, assuming I don’t let him kill you.” Odium rested his hand on the shoulder of the huddled Dalinar Kholin. “It’s done, Dalinar. The pain has passed. Stand up and claim the station you were born to obtain.” * * * Kaladin thought, finally, of Dalinar. Could Kaladin do it? Could he really say these Words? Could he mean them? The Fused swept close. Adolin bled. “I…” You know what you need to do. “I … can’t,” Kaladin finally whispered, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I can’t lose him, but … oh, Almighty … I can’t save him.” Kaladin bowed his head, sagging forward, trembling. He couldn’t say those Words. He wasn’t strong enough. Syl’s arms enfolded him from behind, and he felt softness as her cheek pressed against the back of his neck. She pulled him tight as he wept, sobbing, at his failure. * * * Jasnah raised her Blade over Renarin’s head. Make it quick. Make it painless. Most threats to a dynasty came from within. Renarin was obviously corrupted. She’d known there was a problem the moment she’d read that he had predicted the Everstorm. Now, Jasnah had to be strong. She had to do what was right, even when it was so, so hard. She prepared to swing, but then Renarin turned and looked at her. Tears streaming down his face, he met her eyes, and he nodded. Suddenly they were young again. He was a trembling child, weeping on her shoulder for
a father who didn’t seem to be able to feel love. Little Renarin, always so solemn. Always misunderstood, laughed at and condemned by people who said similar things about Jasnah behind her back. Jasnah froze, as if standing at the edge of a cliff. Wind blew through the temple, carrying with it a pair of spren in the form of golden spheres, bobbing in the currents. Jasnah dismissed her sword. “Jasnah?” Ivory said, appearing back in the form of a man, clinging to her collar. Jasnah fell to her knees, then pulled Renarin into an embrace. He broke down crying, like he had as a boy, burying his head in her shoulder. “What’s wrong with me?” Renarin asked. “Why do I see these things? I thought I was doing something right, with Glys, but somehow it’s all wrong.…” “Hush,” Jasnah whispered. “We’ll find a way through it, Renarin. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it. We’ll survive this, somehow.” Storms. The things he’d said about Dalinar … “Jasnah,” Ivory said, becoming full size as he stepped free of her collar. He leaned down. “Jasnah, this is right. Somehow it is.” He seemed completely stunned. “It is not what makes sense, yet it is still right. How. How is this thing?” Renarin pulled back from her, his tearstained eyes going wide. “I saw you kill me.” “It’s all right, Renarin. I’m not going to.” “But don’t you see? Don’t you understand what that means?” Jasnah shook her head. “Jasnah,” Renarin said. “My vision was wrong about you. What I see … it can be wrong.” * * * Alone. Dalinar held a fist to his chest. So alone. It hurt to breathe, to think. But something stirred inside his fist. He opened bleeding fingers. The most … the most important … Inside his fist, he somehow found a golden sphere. A solitary gloryspren. The most important step a man can take. It’s not the first one, is it? It’s the next one. Always the next step, Dalinar. Trembling, bleeding, agonized, Dalinar forced air into his lungs and spoke a single ragged sentence. “You cannot have my pain.” As I began my journey, I was challenged to defend why I insisted on traveling alone. They called it irresponsible. An avoidance of duty and obligation. Those who said this made an enormous mistake of assumption. —From The Way of Kings, postscript Odium stepped back. “Dalinar? What is this?” “You cannot have my pain.” “Dalinar—” Dalinar forced himself to his feet. “You. Cannot. Have. My. Pain.” “Be sensible.” “I killed those children,” Dalinar said. “No, it—” “I burned the people of Rathalas.” “I was there, influencing you—” “YOU CANNOT HAVE MY PAIN!” Dalinar bellowed, stepping toward Odium. The god frowned. His Fused companions shied back, and Amaram raised a hand before his eyes and squinted. Were those gloryspren spinning around Dalinar? “I did kill the people of Rathalas,” Dalinar shouted. “You might have been there, but I made the choice. I decided!” He stilled. “I killed her. It hurts so much, but I did it. I accept
that. You cannot have her. You cannot take her from me again.” “Dalinar,” Odium said. “What do you hope to gain, keeping this burden?” Dalinar sneered at the god. “If I pretend … If I pretend I didn’t do those things, it means that I can’t have grown to become someone else.” “A failure.” Something stirred inside of Dalinar. A warmth that he had known once before. A warm, calming light. Unite them. “Journey before destination,” Dalinar said. “It cannot be a journey if it doesn’t have a beginning.” A thunderclap sounded in his mind. Suddenly, awareness poured back into him. The Stormfather, distant, feeling frightened—but also surprised. Dalinar? “I will take responsibility for what I have done,” Dalinar whispered. “If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” * * * Renarin ran after Jasnah through the Loft Wards of the city. People clogged the streets, but she didn’t use those. She leaped off buildings, dropping onto rooftops of the tiers below. She ran across each of these, then leaped down to the next street. Renarin struggled to follow, afraid of his weakness, confused by the things he’d seen. He dropped to a rooftop, feeling sudden pain at the fall—though Stormlight healed that. He limped after her until the pain left. “Jasnah!” he called. “Jasnah, I can’t keep up!” She stopped at the edge of a rooftop. He reached her, and she took his arm. “You can keep up, Renarin. You’re a Knight Radiant.” “I don’t think I’m a Radiant, Jasnah. I don’t know what I am.” An entire stream of gloryspren flew past them, hundreds in a sweeping formation that curved toward the base of the city. Something was glowing down there, a beacon in the dim light of an overcast city. “I know what you are,” Jasnah said. “You’re my cousin. Family, Renarin. Hold my hand. Run with me.” He nodded, and she towed him after her, leaping from the rooftop, ignoring the monstrous creature that climbed up nearby. Jasnah seemed focused on only one thing. That light. * * * Unite them! Gloryspren streamed around Dalinar. Thousands of golden spheres, more spren than he’d ever seen in one place. They swirled around him in a column of golden light. Beyond it, Odium stumbled back. So small, Dalinar thought. Has he always looked that small? * * * Syl looked up. Kaladin turned to see what had drawn her attention. She looked past the Fused who had landed to attack. She was staring toward the ocean of beads, and the trembling lights of souls above it. “Syl?” She pulled him tight. “Maybe you don’t have to save anyone, Kaladin. Maybe it’s time for someone to save you.” * * * UNITE THEM! Dalinar thrust his left hand to the side, plunging it between realms, grabbing hold of the very fabric of existence. The world of minds, the realm of thought. He thrust his right hand to the other side, touching something vast, something that wasn’t a place—it was all places in one. He’d seen this before,
in the moment when Odium had let him glimpse the Spiritual Realm. Today, he held it in his hand. The Fused scrambled away. Amaram pushed down his faceplate, but that wasn’t enough. He stumbled back, arm raised. Only one person remained in place. A young parshwoman, the one that Dalinar had visited in the visions. “What are you?” she whispered as he stood with arms outstretched, holding to the lands of mind and spirit. He closed his eyes, breathing out, listening to a sudden stillness. And within it a simple, quiet voice. A woman’s voice, so familiar to him. I forgive you. Dalinar opened his eyes, and knew what the parshwoman saw in him. Swirling clouds, glowing light, thunder and lightning. “I am Unity.” He slammed both hands together. And combined three realms into one. * * * Shadesmar exploded with light. Fused screamed as a wind blasted them away, though Kaladin felt nothing. Beads clattered and roared. Kaladin shaded his eyes with his hand. The light faded, leaving a brilliant, glowing pillar in the middle of the sea. Beneath it, the beads locked together, turning into a highway of glass. Kaladin blinked, taking Shallan’s hand as she helped him to his feet. Adolin had forced himself to sit up, holding his bloodied stomach. “What … what is it?” “Honor’s Perpendicularity,” Syl whispered. “A well of power that pierces all three realms.” She looked to Kaladin. “A pathway home.” * * * Taln gripped Ash’s hand. Ash looked at his fingers, thick and callused. Thousands of years could come and pass, and she could lose lifetimes to the dream, but those hands … she’d never forget those hands. “Ash,” he said. She looked up at him, then gasped and raised her fingers to her lips. “How long?” he asked. “Taln.” She gripped his hand in both of hers. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” “How long?” “They say it’s been four millennia. I don’t always … note the passing of time.…” “Four thousand years?” She held his hand tighter. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He pulled his hand from hers and stood up, walking through the tent. She followed, apologizing again—but what good were words? They’d betrayed him. Taln brushed aside the front drapes and stepped out. He looked up at the city expanding above them, at the sky, at the wall. Soldiers in breastplates and chain rushed past to join a fight farther along. “Four thousand years?” Taln asked again. “Ash…” “We couldn’t continue— I … we thought…” “Ash.” He took her hand again. “What a wonderful thing.” Wonderful? “We left you, Taln.” “What a gift you gave them! Time to recover, for once, between Desolations. Time to progress. They never had a chance before. But this time … yes, maybe they do.” “No, Taln. You can’t be like this.” “A wonderful thing indeed, Ash.” “You can’t be like this, Taln. You have to hate me! Hate me, please.” He turned from her, but still held her hand, pulling her after him. “Come. He’s waiting.” “Who?” she asked. “I don’t know.” *
* * Teft gasped in the darkness. “Can you see it, Teft?” the spren whispered. “Can you feel the Words?” “I’m broken.” “Who isn’t? Life breaks us, Teft. Then we fill the cracks with something stronger.” “I make myself sick.” “Teft,” she said, a glowing apparition in the darkness, “that’s what the Words are about.” Oh, Kelek. The shouts. Fighting. His friends. “I…” Storm you! Be a man for once in your life! Teft licked his lips, and spoke. “I will protect those I hate. Even … even if the one I hate most … is … myself.” * * * Renarin fell to the last level of the city, the Low Ward. He stumbled to a stop there, his hand slipping from Jasnah’s. Soldiers marched through these streets, with eyes like embers. “Jasnah!” he called. “Amaram’s soldiers changed sides. They serve Odium now! I saw it in vision!” She ran right toward them. “Jasnah!” The first soldier swung his sword at her. Jasnah ducked the weapon, then shoved her hand against him, throwing him backward. He crystallized in the air, slamming into the next man, who caught the transformation like a disease. He slammed into another man, knocking him back, as if the full force of Jasnah’s shove had transferred to him. He crystallized a moment later. Jasnah spun, a Shardblade forming in her gloved safehand, her skirt rippling as she sliced through six men in one sweep. The sword vanished as she slapped her hand into the wall of a building behind her, and that wall puffed away into smoke, causing the roof to crash down, blocking the alley between buildings, where other soldiers had been approaching. She swept her hand upward, and air coalesced into stone, forming steps that she took—barely breaking her stride—to climb to the rooftop of the next building. Renarin gaped. That— How— It will be … great … vast … wonderful! Glys said from within Renarin’s heart. It will be beautiful, Renarin! Look! A well blossomed inside of him. Power like he’d never before felt, an awesome, overwhelming strength. Stormlight unending. A source of it so vast, he was stunned. “Jasnah?” he shouted, then belatedly ran up the steps she’d created, feeling so alive that he wanted to dance. Wouldn’t that be a sight? Renarin Kholin dancing on a rooftop while … He slowed, gaping again as he looked through a gap in the wall and saw a column of light. Rising higher and higher, it stretched toward the clouds. * * * Fen and her consort backed away from the storm of light. Navani exulted in it. She leaned out far over the side of the wall, laughing like a fool. Gloryspren streamed around her, brushing her hair, flowing toward the already impossible number that coursed around Dalinar in a pillar that stretched hundreds of feet into the air. Then lights sparked to life in a wave across the field, the top of the wall, the street below. Gemstones that had been lying ignored, scattered from the broken bank, drank in Stormlight from Dalinar.
They lit the ground with a thousand pinpricks of color. * * * “No!” Odium screamed. He stepped forward. “No, we killed you. WE KILLED YOU!” Dalinar stood within a pillar of light and spinning gloryspren, one hand to each side, clutching the realms that made up reality. Forgiven. The pain he’d so recently insisted that he would keep started to fade away on its own. These Words … are accepted, the Stormfather said, sounding stunned. How? What have you done? Odium stumbled back. “Kill him! Attack him!” The parshwoman didn’t move, but Amaram lethargically lowered his hand from his face, then stepped forward, summoning his Shardblade. Dalinar took his hand from the glowing pillar and held it out. “You can change,” he said. “You can become a better person. I did. Journey before destination.” “No,” Amaram said. “No, he’ll never forgive me.” “The bridgeman?” “Not him.” Amaram tapped his chest. “Him. I’m sorry, Dalinar.” He raised a familiar Shardblade. Dalinar’s Shardblade, Oathbringer. Passed from tyrant to tyrant to tyrant. A portion of light split from Dalinar’s column. Amaram swung Oathbringer with a shout, but the light met the Shardblade with an explosion of sparks, throwing Amaram backward—as if the strength of Shardplate were no more than that of a child. The light resolved into a man with shoulder-length wavy hair, a blue uniform, and a silvery spear in his hand. A second glowing form split off into Shallan Davar, brilliant red hair streaming behind her, a long thin Shardblade with a slight curve forming in her hands. And then, blessedly, Adolin appeared. * * * “Mistress!” Wyndle said. “Oh, mistress!” For once, Lift didn’t have the will to tell him to shut up. She focused everything on those tendrils creeping up her arms, like deep, dark vines. The assassin lay on the ground, staring upward, practically covered in those vines. Lift held them at bay, teeth gritted. Her will against the darkness until … Light. Like a sudden detonation, a force of light flashed across the field. Gemstones on the ground flared up, capturing Stormlight, and the assassin screamed, drawing in Light like glowing mist. The vines shriveled, as the sword’s thirst was slaked by the Stormlight. Lift fell back on the stone and pried her hands off Szeth’s head. I knew I liked you, a voice said in Lift’s mind. The sword. So it was a spren? “You almost ate him,” Lift said. “You almost starvin’ ate me!” Oh, I wouldn’t do that, the voice said. She seemed completely baffled, voice growing slow, like she was drowsy. But … maybe I was just really, really hungry.… Well, Lift supposed she couldn’t blame someone for that. The assassin climbed unsteadily to his feet. His face was crisscrossed with lines where the vines had been. That somehow left his skin grey in streaks, the color of stone. Lift’s arms bore the same. Huh. Szeth walked toward the glowing column of light, leaving an afterimage behind him. “Come,” he said. * * * Elhokar? Dalinar thought. But no one else came through the
column of light. And he knew. Knew, somehow, that the king was not coming. He closed his eyes, and accepted that grief. He had failed the king in many ways. Stand up, he thought. And do better. He opened his eyes, and slowly his column of gloryspren faded. The power within him withdrew, leaving him exhausted. Fortunately, the field was covered in glittering gemstones. Stormlight in plenty. A direct conduit to the Spiritual Realm, the Stormfather said. You renew spheres, Dalinar? “We are Connected.” I was bonded to men before. This never happened then. “Honor was alive then. We are something different. His remnants, your soul, my will.” Kaladin Stormblessed stepped up beside Dalinar before the rubble of the wall, and Shallan Davar stood on the other side. Jasnah emerged from the city and surveyed the scene with a critical air, while Renarin popped out behind her, then cried out and ran for Adolin. He grabbed his older brother in an embrace, then gasped. Adolin was wounded? Good lad, Dalinar thought as Renarin immediately set to healing his brother. Two more people crossed the battlefield. Lift he had anticipated. But the assassin? Szeth scooped the silvery sheath off the ground and slammed his black Shardblade into it, before stepping up to join Dalinar. Skybreaker, Dalinar thought, counting them off. Edgedancer. That was seven. He would have expected three more. There, the Stormfather said. Behind your niece. Two more people appeared in the shadow of the wall. A large, powerful man with an impressive physique, and a woman with long, dark hair. Their dark skin marked them as Makabaki, perhaps Azish, but their eyes were wrong. I know them, the Stormfather said, sounding surprised. I know them from long, long ago. Memories of days when I did not fully live. Dalinar, you are in the presence of divinities. “I’ve grown accustomed to it,” Dalinar said, turning back toward the field. Odium had retreated into nothingness, though his Fused remained, as did most of the troops, and one strange spren—the one like black smoke. Beyond it, of course, the Thrill still encompassed the north side of the landing, near the water. Amaram had ten thousand men, and maybe half of those had made it into the city so far. They had wilted before Dalinar’s display, but now … Wait. Those two only make nine, he thought to the Stormfather. Something told him there should be one more. I don’t know. Perhaps they haven’t been found yet. Regardless, even with the bond you are just one man. Radiants are not immortal. How do you face this army? “Dalinar?” Kaladin said. “Orders, sir?” The enemy ranks were recovering. They lifted weapons, eyes glowing deep red. Amaram stirred as well, some twenty feet away. The Thrill had Dalinar most worried, however. He knew what it could do. He glanced down at his arm, and noticed something. The lightning that had struck him earlier, shredding The Way of Kings, had broken his arm fabrial. The clasp was undone, and Dalinar could see the tiny gemstones Navani had placed
to power it. “Sir?” Kaladin asked again. “The enemy is trying to crush this city, Captain,” Dalinar said, lowering his arm. “We’re going to hold it against his forces.” “Seven Radiants?” Jasnah said, skeptical. “Uncle, that seems a tall order, even if one of us is—apparently—the storming Assassin in White.” “I serve Dalinar Kholin,” Szeth-son-son-Vallano whispered. His face, for some reason, was streaked with grey. “I cannot know truth, so I follow one who does.” “Whatever we do,” Shallan said, “we should do it quickly. Before those soldiers—” “Renarin!” Dalinar barked. “Sir!” Renarin said, scrambling forward. “We need to hold out until troops arrive from Urithiru. Fen doesn’t have the numbers to fight alone. Get to the Oathgate, stop that thunderclast up there from destroying it, and open the portal.” “Sir!” Renarin saluted. “Shallan, we don’t have an army yet,” Dalinar said. “Lightweave one up for us, and keep these soldiers busy. They’re consumed by a bloodlust that I suspect will make them easier to distract. Jasnah, the city we’re defending happens to have a big storming hole in its wall. Can you hold that hole and stop anyone who tries to get through?” She nodded, thoughtful. “What about me?” Kaladin asked. Dalinar pointed at Amaram, who was climbing to his feet in his Shardplate. “He’s going to try to kill me for what I do next, and I could use a bodyguard. As I recall, you have a score to settle with the highlord.” “You could say that.” “Lift, I believe I already gave you an order. Take the assassin and get me that ruby. Together, we hold this city until Renarin returns with troops. Any questions?” “Um…” Lift said. “Could you maybe … tell me where to get something to eat…?” Dalinar glanced at her. Something to eat? “There … should be a supply dump just inside the wall.” “Thanks!” Dalinar sighed, then started walking toward the water. “Sir!” Kaladin called. “Where are you going?” “The enemy brought a very big stick to this battle, Captain. I’m going to take it away.” I ask not that you forgive me. Nor that you even understand. —From Oathbringer, preface Dalinar stood beside the glass windows in an upper-floor room of Urithiru, hands clasped behind his back. He could see his reflection hinted in the window, and beyond it vast openness. The sky cloud-free, the sun burning white. Windows as tall as he was—he’d never seen anything like them. Who would dare build something of glass, so brittle, and face it toward the storms? But of course, this city was above the storms. These windows seemed a mark of defiance, a symbol of what the Radiants had meant. They had stood above the pettiness of world politics. And because of that height, they could see so far.… You idealize them, said a distant voice in his head, like rumbling thunder. They were men like you. No better. No worse. “I find that encouraging,” Dalinar whispered back. “If they were like us, then it means we can be like them.” They eventually betrayed us.
Do not forget that. “Why?” Dalinar asked. “What happened? What changed them?” The Stormfather fell silent. “Please,” Dalinar said. “Tell me.” Some things are better left forgotten, the voice said to him. You of all men should understand this, considering the hole in your mind and the person who once filled it. Dalinar drew in a sharp breath, stung by the words. “Brightlord,” Brightness Kalami said from behind. “The emperor is ready for you.” Dalinar turned. Urithiru’s upper levels held several unique rooms, including this amphitheater. Shaped like a half-moon, the room had windows at the top—the straight side—then rows of seats leading down to a speaking floor below. Curiously, each seat had a small pedestal beside it. For the Radiant’s spren, the Stormfather told him. Dalinar started down the steps toward his team: Aladar and his daughter, May. Navani, wearing a bright green havah, sitting in the front row with feet stretched out before her, shoes off and ankles crossed. Elderly Kalami to write, and Teshav Khal—one of Alethkar’s finest political minds—to advise. Her two senior wards sat beside her, ready to provide research or translation if needed. A small group, prepared to change the world. “Send my greetings to the emperor,” Dalinar instructed. Kalami nodded, writing. Then she cleared her throat, reading the response that the spanreed—writing as if on its own—relayed. “You are greeted by His Imperial Majesty Ch.V.D. Yanagawn the First, Emperor of Makabak, King of Azir, Lord of the Bronze Palace, Prime Aqasix, grand minister and emissary of Yaezir.” “An imposing title,” Navani noted, “for a fifteen-year-old boy.” “He supposedly raised a child from the dead,” Teshav said, “a miracle that gained him the support of the viziers. Local word is that they had trouble finding a new Prime after the last two were murdered by our old friend the Assassin in White. So the viziers picked a boy with questionable lineage and made up a story about him saving someone’s life in order to demonstrate a divine mandate.” Dalinar grunted. “Making things up doesn’t sound very Azish.” “They’re fine with it,” Navani said, “as long as you can find witnesses willing to fill out affidavits. Kalami, thank His Imperial Majesty for meeting with us, and his translators for their efforts.” Kalami wrote, and then she looked up at Dalinar, who began to pace the center of the room. Navani stood to join him, eschewing her shoes, walking in socks. “Your Imperial Majesty,” Dalinar said, “I speak to you from the top of Urithiru, city of legend. The sights are breathtaking. I invite you to visit me here and tour the city. You are welcome to bring any guards or retinue you see fit.” He looked to Navani, and she nodded. They’d discussed long how to approach the monarchs, and had settled on a soft invitation. Azir was first, the most powerful country in the west and home to what would be the most central and important of the Oathgates to secure. The response took time. The Azish government was a kind of beautiful mess, though Gavilar
had often admired it. Layers of clerics filled all levels—where both men and women wrote. Scions were kind of like ardents, though they weren’t slaves, which Dalinar found odd. In Azir, being a priest-minister in the government was the highest honor to which one could aspire. Traditionally, the Azish Prime claimed to be emperor of all Makabak—a region that included over a half-dozen kingdoms and princedoms. In reality, he was king over only Azir, but Azir did cast a long, long shadow. As they waited, Dalinar stepped up beside Navani, resting his fingers on one of her shoulders, then drew them across her back, the nape of her neck, and let them linger on the other shoulder. Who would have thought a man his age could feel so giddy? “ ‘Your Highness,’ ” the reply finally came, Kalami reading the words. “ ‘We thank you for your warning about the storm that blew from the wrong direction. Your timely words have been noted and recorded in the official annals of the empire, recognizing you as a friend to Azir.’ ” Kalami waited for more, but the spanreed stopped moving. Then the ruby flashed, indicating that they were done. “That wasn’t much of a response,” Aladar said. “Why didn’t he reply to your invitation, Dalinar?” “Being noted in their official records is a great honor to the Azish,” Teshav said, “so they’ve paid you a compliment.” “Yes,” Navani said, “but they are trying to dodge the offer we made. Press them, Dalinar.” “Kalami, please send the following,” Dalinar said. “I am honored, though I wish my inclusion in your annals could have been due to happier circumstances. Let us discuss the future of Roshar together, here. I am eager to make your personal acquaintance.” They waited as patiently as they could for a response. It finally came, in Alethi. “ ‘We of the Azish crown are saddened to share mourning for the fallen with you. As your noble brother was killed by the Shin destroyer, so were beloved members of our court. This creates a bond between us.’ ” That was all. Navani clicked her tongue. “They’re not going to be pushed into an answer.” “They could at least explain themselves!” Dalinar snapped. “It feels like we’re having two different conversations!” “The Azish,” Teshav said, “do not like to give offense. They’re almost as bad as the Emuli in that regard, particularly with foreigners.” It wasn’t only an Azish attribute, in Dalinar’s estimation. It was the way of politicians worldwide. Already this conversation was starting to feel like his efforts to bring the highprinces to his side, back in the warcamps. Half answer after half answer, mild promises with no bite to them, laughing eyes that mocked him even while they pretended to be perfectly sincere. Storms. Here he was again. Trying to unite people who didn’t want to listen to him. He couldn’t afford to be bad at this, not any longer. There was a time, he thought, when I united in a different way. He smelled smoke, heard men screaming in
pain. Remembered bringing blood and ash to those who defied his brother. Those memories had become particularly vivid lately. “Another tactic maybe?” Navani suggested. “Instead of an invitation, try an offer of aid.” “Your Imperial Majesty,” Dalinar said. “War is coming; surely you have seen the changes in the parshmen. The Voidbringers have returned. I would have you know that the Alethi are your allies in this conflict. We would share information regarding our successes and failures in resisting this enemy, with hope that you will report the same to us. Mankind must be unified in the face of the mounting threat.” The reply eventually came: “ ‘We agree that aiding one another in this new age will be of the utmost importance. We are glad to exchange information. What do you know of these transformed parshmen?’ ” “We engaged them on the Shattered Plains,” Dalinar said, relieved to make some kind of headway. “Creatures with red eyes, and similar in many ways to the parshmen we found on the Shattered Plains—only more dangerous. I will have my scribes prepare reports for you detailing all we have learned in fighting the Parshendi over the years.” “ ‘Excellent,’ ” the reply finally came. “ ‘This information will be extremely welcome in our current conflict.’ ” “What is the status of your cities?” Dalinar asked. “What have the parshmen been doing there? Do they seem to have a goal beyond wanton destruction?” Tensely, they waited for word. So far they’d been able to discover blessed little about the parshmen the world over. Captain Kaladin sent reports using scribes from towns he visited, but knew next to nothing. Cities were in chaos, and reliable information scarce. “ ‘Fortunately,’ ” came the reply, “ ‘our city stands, and the enemy is not actively attacking any longer. We are negotiating with the hostiles.’ ” “Negotiating?” Dalinar said, shocked. He turned to Teshav, who shook her head in wonder. “Please clarify, Your Majesty,” Navani said. “The Voidbringers are willing to negotiate with you?” “ ‘Yes,’ ” came the reply. “ ‘We are exchanging contracts. They have very detailed demands, with outrageous stipulations. We hope that we can forestall armed conflict in order to gather ourselves and fortify the city.’ ” “They can write?” Navani pressed. “The Voidbringers themselves are sending you contracts?” “ ‘The average parshman cannot write, so far as we can tell,’ ” the reply came. “ ‘But some are different—stronger, with strange powers. They do not speak like the others.’ ” “Your Majesty,” Dalinar said, stepping up to the spanreed writing table, speaking more urgently—as if the emperor and his ministers could hear his passion through the written word. “I need to talk to you directly. I can come myself, through the portal we wrote of earlier. We must get it working again.” Silence. It stretched so long that Dalinar found himself grinding his teeth, itching to summon a Shardblade and dismiss it, over and over, as had been his habit as a youth. He’d picked it up from his brother. A response finally came.
“ ‘We regret to inform you that the device you mention,’ ” Kalami read, “ ‘is not functional in our city. We have investigated it, and have found that it was destroyed long ago. We cannot come to you, nor you to us. Many apologies.’ ” “He’s telling us this now?” Dalinar said. “Storms! That’s information we could have used as soon as he learned it!” “It’s a lie,” Navani said. “The Oathgate on the Shattered Plains functioned after centuries of storms and crem buildup. The one in Azimir is a monument in the Grand Market, a large dome in the center of the city.” Or so she’d determined from maps. The one in Kholinar had been incorporated into the palace structure, while the one in Thaylen City was some kind of religious monument. A beautiful relic like this wouldn’t simply be destroyed. “I agree with Brightness Navani’s assessment,” Teshav said. “They are worried about the idea of you or your armies visiting. This is an excuse.” She frowned, as if the emperor and his ministers were little more than spoiled children disobeying their tutors. The spanreed started writing again. “What does it say?” Dalinar said, anxious. “It’s an affidavit,” Navani said, amused. “That the Oathgate is not functional, signed by imperial architects and stormwardens.” She read further. “Oh, this is delightful. Only the Azish would assume you’d want certification that something is broken.” “Notably,” Kalami added, “it only certifies that the device ‘does not function as a portal.’ But of course it would not, not unless a Radiant were to visit and work it. This affidavit basically says that when turned off, the device doesn’t work.” “Write this, Kalami,” Dalinar said. “Your Majesty. You ignored me once. Destruction caused by the Everstorm was the result. Please, this time listen. You cannot negotiate with the Voidbringers. We must unify, share information, and protect Roshar. Together.” She wrote it and Dalinar waited, hands pressed against the table. “ ‘We misspoke when we mentioned negotiations,’ ” Kalami read. “ ‘It was a mistake of translation. We agree to share information, but time is short right now. We will contact you again to further discuss. Farewell, Highprince Kholin.’ ” “Bah!” Dalinar said, pushing himself back from the table. “Fools, idiots! Storming lighteyes and Damnation’s own politics!” He stalked across the room, wishing he had something to kick, before forcing his temper under control. “That’s more of a stonewall than I expected,” Navani said, folding her arms. “Brightness Khal?” “In my experiences with the Azish,” Teshav said, “they are extremely proficient at saying very little in as many words as possible. This is not an unusual example of communication with their upper ministers. Don’t be put off; it will take time to accomplish anything with them.” “Time during which Roshar burns,” Dalinar said. “Why did they pull back regarding their claim to have had negotiations with the Voidbringers? Are they thinking of allying themselves to the enemy?” “I hesitate to guess,” Teshav said. “But I would say that they simply decided they’d given away more information
than intended.” “We need Azir,” Dalinar said. “Nobody in Makabak will listen to us unless we have Azir’s blessing, not to mention that Oathgate.…” He trailed off as a different spanreed on the table started blinking. “It’s the Thaylens,” Kalami said. “They’re early.” “You want to reschedule?” Navani asked. Dalinar shook his head. “No, we can’t afford to wait another few days before the queen can spare time again.” He took a deep breath. Storms, talking to politicians was more exhausting than a hundred-mile march in full armor. “Proceed, Kalami. I’ll contain my frustration.” Navani settled down on one of the seats, though Dalinar remained standing. Light poured in through the windows, pure and bright. It flowed down, bathing him. He breathed in, almost feeling as if he could taste the sunlight. He’d spent too many days inside the twisting stone corridors of Urithiru, lit by the frail light of candles and lamps. “ ‘Her Royal Highness,’ ” Kalami read, “ ‘Brightness Fen Rnamdi, queen of Thaylenah, writes to you.’ ” Kalami paused. “Brightlord … pardon the interruption, but that indicates that the queen holds the spanreed herself rather than using a scribe.” To another woman, that would have been intimidating. To Kalami, it was merely one of many footnotes—which she added copiously to the bottom of the page before preparing the reed to relay Dalinar’s words. “Your Majesty,” Dalinar said, clasping his hands behind his back and pacing the stage at the center of the seats. Do better. Unite them. “I send you greetings from Urithiru, holy city of the Knights Radiant, and extend to you our humblest invitation. This tower is truly a sight to behold, matched only by the glory of a sitting monarch. I would be honored to present it for you to experience.” The spanreed quickly scribbled a reply. Queen Fen was writing directly in Alethi. “ ‘Kholin,’ ” Kalami read, “ ‘you old brute. Quit spreading chull scat. What do you really want?’ ” “I always did like her,” Navani noted. “I’m being sincere, Your Majesty,” Dalinar said. “My only desire is for us to meet in person, and to talk to you and show you what we’ve discovered. The world is changing around us.” “ ‘Oh,’ ” came the reply, “ ‘the world is changing, is it? What led you to this incredible conclusion? Was it the fact that our slaves suddenly became Voidbringers, or was it perhaps the storm that blew the wrong way,’—She wrote that twice as large as the line around it, Brightlord—‘ripping our cities apart?’ ” Aladar cleared his throat. “Her Majesty seems to be having a bad day.” “She’s insulting us,” Navani said. “For Fen, that actually implies a good day.” “She’s always been perfectly civil the few times I’ve met her,” Dalinar said with a frown. “She was being queenly then,” Navani said. “You’ve got her talking to you directly. Trust me, it’s a good sign.” “Your Majesty,” Dalinar said, “please tell me of your parshmen. The transformation came upon them?” “ ‘Yes,’ ” she replied. “ ‘Storming monsters
stole our best ships—almost everything in the harbor from single-masted sloops on up—and escaped the city.’ ” “They … sailed?” Dalinar said, again shocked. “Confirm. They didn’t attack?” “ ‘There were some scuffles,’ ” Fen wrote, “ ‘but most everyone was too busy dealing with the effects of the storm. By the time we got things somewhat sorted out, they were sailing away in a grand fleet of royal warships and private trading vessels alike.’ ” Dalinar drew a breath. We don’t know half as much about the Voidbringers as we assumed. “Your Majesty,” he continued. “You might remember that we warned you about the imminent arrival of that storm.” “ ‘I believed you,’ ” Fen said. “ ‘If only because we got word from New Natanan confirming it. We tried to prepare, but a nation cannot upend four millennia worth of tradition at a snap of the fingers. Thaylen City is a shambles, Kholin. The storm broke our aqueducts and sewer systems, and ripped apart our docks—flattened the entire outer market! We have to fix all our cisterns, reinforce our buildings to withstand storms, and rebuild society—all without any parshman laborers and in the middle of the storming Weeping. I don’t have time for sightseeing.’ ” “It’s hardly sightseeing, Your Majesty,” Dalinar said. “I am aware of your problems, and dire though they are, we cannot ignore the Voidbringers. I intend to convene a grand conference of kings to fight this threat.” “ ‘Led by you,’ ” Fen wrote in reply. “ ‘Of course.’ ” “Urithiru is the natural location for a meeting,” Dalinar said. “Your Majesty, the Knights Radiant have returned—we speak again their ancient oaths, and bind the Surges of nature to us. If we can restore your Oathgate to functionality, you can be here in an afternoon, then return the same evening to direct the needs of your city.” Navani nodded at this tactic, though Aladar folded his arms, looking thoughtful. “What?” Dalinar asked him as Kalami wrote. “We need a Radiant to travel to the city to activate their Oathgate, right?” Aladar asked. “Yes,” Navani said. “A Radiant needs to unlock the gate on this side—which we can do at any moment—then one has to travel to the destination city and undo the lock there as well. That done, a Radiant can initiate a transfer from either location.” “Then the only one we have that can theoretically get to Thaylen City is the Windrunner,” Aladar said. “But what if it takes him months to get back here? Or what if he’s captured by the enemy? Can we even make good on our promises, Dalinar?” A troubling problem, but one that Dalinar thought he might have an answer to. There was a weapon that he’d decided to keep hidden for now. It might work as well as a Radiant’s Shardblade in opening the Oathgates—and might let someone reach Thaylen City by flight. That was moot for the time being. First he needed a willing ear on the other side of the spanreed. Fen’s reply came. “ ‘I will
admit that my merchants are intrigued by these Oathgates. We have lore surrounding them here, that the one most Passionate could cause the portal of worlds to open again. I think every girl in Thaylenah dreams of being the one to invoke it.’ ” “The Passions,” Navani said with a downward turn of her lips. The Thaylens had a pagan pseudo-religion, and that had always been a curious aspect in dealing with them. They would praise the Heralds one moment, then speak of the Passions the next. Well, Dalinar wasn’t one to fault another for unconventional beliefs. “ ‘If you want to send me what you know about these Oathgates, well, that sounds great,’ ” Fen continued. “ ‘But I’m not interested in some grand conference of kings. You let me know what you boys come up with, because I’m going to be here frantically trying to rebuild my city.’ ” “Well,” Aladar said, “at least we finally got an honest response.” “I’m not convinced this is honest,” Dalinar said. He rubbed his chin, thinking. He’d only met this woman a few times, but something seemed off about her responses. “I agree, Brightlord,” Teshav said. “I think any Thaylen would jump at the chance to come pull strings at a meeting of monarchs, if only to see if she can find a way to get trade deals out of them. She is most certainly hiding something.” “Offer troops,” Navani said, “to help her rebuild.” “Your Majesty,” Dalinar said, “I am deeply grieved to hear of your losses. I have many soldiers here who are currently unoccupied. I would gladly send you a battalion to help repair your city.” The reply was slow in coming. “ ‘I’m not sure what I think of having Alethi troops on my stone, well intentioned or not.’ ” Aladar grunted. “She’s worried about invasion? Everyone knows Alethi and ships don’t mix.” “She’s not worried about us arriving on ships,” Dalinar said. “She’s worried about an army of troops suddenly materializing in the center of her city.” A very rational worry. If Dalinar had the inclination, he could send a Windrunner to secretly open a city’s Oathgate, and invade in an unprecedented assault that appeared right behind enemy lines. He needed allies, not subjects, so he wouldn’t do it—at least not to a potentially friendly city. Kholinar, however, was another story. They still didn’t have reliable word of what was happening in the Alethi capital. But if the rioting was still going on, he’d been thinking that there might be a way to get armies in and restore order. For now, he needed to focus on Queen Fen. “Your Majesty,” he said, nodding for Kalami to write, “consider my offer of troops, please. And as you do, might I suggest that you begin searching among your people for budding Knights Radiant? They are the key to working Oathgates. “We have had a number of Radiants manifest near the Shattered Plains. They are formed through an interaction with certain spren, who seem to be searching for worthy candidates. I
can only assume this is happening worldwide. It is entirely likely that among the people of your city, someone has already spoken the oaths.” “You’re giving up quite an advantage, Dalinar,” Aladar noted. “I’m planting a seed, Aladar,” Dalinar said. “And I’ll plant it on any hill I can find, regardless of who owns it. We must fight as a unified people.” “I don’t dispute that,” Aladar said, standing up and stretching. “But your knowledge of the Radiants is a bargaining point, one that can perhaps draw people to you—force them to work with you. Give up too much, and you might find a ‘headquarters’ for the Knights Radiant in every major city across Roshar. Rather than working together, you’ll have them competing to recruit.” He was right, unfortunately. Dalinar hated turning knowledge into bargaining chips, but what if this was why he’d always failed in his negotiations with the highprinces? He wanted to be honest, straightforward, and let the pieces fall where they may. But it seemed that someone better at the game—and more willing to break the rules—always snatched the pieces from the air as he dropped them, then set them down the way they wanted. “And,” he said quickly for Kalami to add, “we would be happy to send our Radiants to train those you discover, then introduce them to the system and fraternity of Urithiru, to which each of them has a right by nature of their oaths.” Kalami added this, then twisted the spanreed to indicate they were done and waiting for a reply. “ ‘We will consider this,’ ” Kalami read as the spanreed scribbled across the page. “ ‘The crown of Thaylenah thanks you for your interest in our people, and we will consider negotiations regarding your offer of troops. We have sent some of our few remaining cutters to track down the fleeing parshmen, and will inform you of what we discover. Until we speak again, Highprince.’ ” “Storms,” Navani said. “She reverted to queenspeak. We lost her somewhere in there.” Dalinar sat down in the seat next to her and let out a long sigh. “Dalinar…” she said. “I’m fine, Navani,” he said. “I can’t expect glowing commitments to cooperation on my first attempt. We’ll just have to keep trying.” The words were more optimistic than he felt. He wished he could talk to these people in person, instead of over spanreed. They talked to the princess of Yezier next, followed by the prince of Tashikk. They didn’t have Oathgates, and were less essential to his plan, but he wanted to at least open lines of communication with them. Neither gave him more than vague answers. Without the Azish emperor’s blessing, he wouldn’t be able to get any of the smaller Makabaki kingdoms to commit. Perhaps the Emuli or the Tukari would listen, but he’d only ever get one of those two, considering their long-standing feud. At the end of the last conference, Aladar and his daughter excusing themselves, Dalinar stretched, feeling worn down. And this wasn’t the end of it. He would
have discussions with the monarchs of Iri—it had three, strangely. The Oathgate at Rall Elorim was in their lands, making them important—and they held sway over nearby Rira, which had another Oathgate. Beyond that, of course, there were the Shin to deal with. They hated using spanreeds, so Navani had poked at them through a Thaylen merchant who had been willing to relay information. Dalinar’s shoulder protested as he stretched. He had found middle age to be like an assassin—quiet, creeping along behind him. Much of the time he would go about his life as he always had, until an unexpected ache or pain gave warning. He was not the youth he had once been. And bless the Almighty for that, he thought idly, bidding farewell to Navani—who wanted to sift through information reports from various spanreed stations around the world. Aladar’s daughter and scribes were gathering them in bulk for her. Dalinar collected several of his guards, leaving others for Navani should she need some extra hands, and climbed up along the rows of seats to the room’s exit at the top. Hovering just outside the doorway—like an axehound banished from the warmth of the fire—stood Elhokar. “Your Majesty?” Dalinar said, starting. “I’m glad you could make the meeting. Are you feeling better?” “Why do they refuse you, Uncle?” Elhokar asked, ignoring the question. “Do they think perhaps you will try to usurp their thrones?” Dalinar drew in his breath sharply, and his guards looked embarrassed to be standing nearby. They backed up to give him and the king privacy. “Elhokar…” Dalinar said. “You likely think I say this in spite,” the king said, poking his head into the room, noting his mother, then looking back at Dalinar. “I don’t. You are better than I am. A better soldier, a better person, and certainly a better king.” “You do yourself a disservice, Elhokar. You must—” “Oh, save your platitudes, Dalinar. For once in your life, just be honest with me.” “You think I haven’t been?” Elhokar raised his hand and lightly touched his own chest. “Perhaps you have been, at times. Perhaps the liar here is me—lying to tell myself I could do this, that I could be a fraction of the man my father was. No, don’t interrupt me, Dalinar. Let me have my say. Voidbringers? Ancient cities full of wonder? The Desolations?” Elhokar shook his head. “Perhaps … perhaps I’m a fine king. Not extraordinary, but not an abject failure. But in the face of these events, the world needs better than fine.” There seemed a fatalism to his words, and that sent a worried shiver through Dalinar. “Elhokar, what are you saying?” Elhokar strode into the chamber and called down to those at the bottom of the rows of seats. “Mother, Brightness Teshav, would you witness something for me?” Storms, no, Dalinar thought, hurrying after Elhokar. “Don’t do this, son.” “We all must accept the consequences of our actions, Uncle,” Elhokar said. “I’ve been learning this very slowly, as I can be as dense as a stone.” “But—”
“Uncle, am I your king?” Elhokar demanded. “Yes.” “Well, I shouldn’t be.” He knelt, shocking Navani and causing her to pull to a stop three-quarters of the way up the steps. “Dalinar Kholin,” Elhokar said in a loud voice, “I swear to you now. There are princes and highprinces. Why not kings and highkings? I give an oath, immutable and witnessed, that I accept you as my monarch. As Alethkar is to me, I am to you.” Dalinar breathed out, looking to Navani’s aghast face, then down to his nephew, kneeling as a vassal on the floor. “You did ask for this, Uncle,” Elhokar said. “Not specifically in words, but it is the only place we could have gone. You have slowly been taking command ever since you decided to trust those visions.” “I’ve tried to include you,” Dalinar said. Silly, impotent words. He should be better than that. “You are right, Elhokar. I’m sorry.” “Are you?” Elhokar asked. “Are you really?” “I’m sorry,” Dalinar said, “for your pain. I’m sorry that I didn’t handle this better. I’m sorry that this … this must be. Before you make this oath, tell me what you expect that it entails?” “I’ve already said the words,” Elhokar said, growing red faced. “Before witnesses. It is done. I’ve—” “Oh, stand up,” Dalinar said, grabbing him by the arm and hauling him to his feet. “Don’t be dramatic. If you really want to swear this oath, I’ll let you. But let’s not pretend you can sweep into a room, shout a few words, and assume it’s a legal contract.” Elhokar pulled his arm free and rubbed it. “Won’t even let me abdicate with dignity.” “You’re not abdicating,” Navani said, joining them. She shot a glare at the guards, who stood watching with slack jaws, and they grew white at the glare. She pointed at them as if to say, Not a word of this to anyone else. “Elhokar, you intend to shove your uncle into a position above you. He’s right to ask. What will this mean for Alethkar?” “I…” Elhokar swallowed. “He should give up his lands to his heir. Dalinar is a king of somewhere else, after all. Dalinar, Highking of Urithiru, maybe the Shattered Plains.” He stood straighter, speaking more certainly. “Dalinar must stay out of the direct management of my lands. He can give me commands, but I decide how to see them accomplished.” “It sounds reasonable,” Navani said, glancing at Dalinar. Reasonable, but gut-wrenching. The kingdom he’d fought for—the kingdom he’d forged in pain, exhaustion, and blood—now rejected him. This is my land now, Dalinar thought. This tower covered in coldspren. “I can accept these terms, though at times I might need to give commands to your highprinces.” “As long as they’re in your domain,” Elhokar said, a hint of stubbornness to his voice, “I consider them under your authority. While they visit Urithiru or the Shattered Plains, command as you wish. When they return to my kingdom, you must go through me.” He looked to Dalinar, and then glanced down, as
if embarrassed to be making demands. “Very well,” Dalinar said. “Though we need to work this out with scribes before we make the change officially. And before we go too far, we should make certain there is still an Alethkar for you to rule.” “I’ve been thinking the same thing. Uncle, I want to lead our forces to Alethkar and recapture our homeland. Something is wrong in Kholinar. More than these riots or my wife’s supposed behavior, more than the spanreeds going still. The enemy is doing something in the city. I’ll take an army to stop it, and save the kingdom.” Elhokar? Leading troops? Dalinar had been imagining himself leading a force, cutting through the Voidbringer ranks, sweeping them from Alethkar and marching into Kholinar to restore order. Truth was, though, it didn’t make sense for either of them to lead such an assault. “Elhokar,” Dalinar said, leaning in. “I’ve been considering something. The Oathgate is attached to the palace itself. We don’t need to march an army all the way to Alethkar. All we need to do is restore that device! Once it works, we can transport our forces into the city to secure the palace, restore order, and fend off the Voidbringers.” “Get into the city,” Elhokar said. “Uncle, to do that we might need an army in the first place!” “No,” Dalinar said. “A small team could reach Kholinar far faster than an army. As long as there was a Radiant with them, they could sneak in, restore the Oathgate, and open the way for the rest of us.” Elhokar perked up. “Yes! I’ll do it, Uncle. I’ll take a team and reclaim our home. Aesudan is there; if the rioting is still happening, she’s fighting against it.” That wasn’t what the reports—before they’d cut off—had suggested to Dalinar. If anything, the queen was the cause of the riots. And he certainly hadn’t been intending Elhokar to go on this mission himself. Consequences. The lad was earnest, as he’d always been. Besides, Elhokar seemed to have learned something from his near death at the hands of assassins. He was certainly humbler now than he’d been in years past. “It is fitting,” Dalinar said, “that their king should be the one who saves them. I will see that you have whatever resources you need, Elhokar.” Glowing gloryspren orbs burst around Elhokar. He grinned at them. “I only seem to see those when I’m around you, Uncle. Funny. For all that I should resent you, I don’t. It’s hard to resent a man who is doing his best. I’ll do it. I’ll save Alethkar. I need one of your Radiants. The hero, preferably.” “The hero?” “The bridgeman,” Elhokar said. “The soldier. He needs to go with me, so if I screw up and fail, someone will be there to save the city anyway.” Dalinar blinked. “That’s very … um…” “I’ve had ample chances to reflect lately, Uncle,” Elhokar said. “The Almighty has preserved me, despite my stupidity. I’ll bring the bridgeman with me, and I’ll observe him. Figure out why
he’s so special. See if he’ll teach me to be like him. And if I fail…” He shrugged. “Well, Alethkar is in safe hands regardless, right?” Dalinar nodded, bemused. “I need to make plans,” Elhokar said. “I’ve only just recovered from my wounds. But I can’t leave until the hero returns anyway. Could he fly me and my chosen team to the city? That would certainly be the fastest way. I will want every report we’ve had from Kholinar, and I need to study the Oathgate device in person. Yes, and have drawings done comparing it to the one in the city. And…” He beamed. “Thank you, Uncle. Thank you for believing in me, if only this small amount.” Dalinar nodded to him, and Elhokar retreated, a spring in his step. Dalinar sighed, feeling overwhelmed by the exchange. Navani hovered by his side as he settled down in one of the seats for the Radiants, beside a pedestal for a little spren. On one side, he had a king swearing to him an oath he didn’t want. On the other, he had an entire group of monarchs who wouldn’t listen to his most rational of suggestions. Storms. “Dalinar?” Kalami said. “Dalinar!” He leaped to his feet, and Navani spun. Kalami was watching one of the spanreeds, which had started writing. What was it now? What terrible news awaited him? “ ‘Your Majesty,’ ” Kalami read from the page, “ ‘I consider your offer generous, and your advice wise. We have located the device you call an Oathgate. One of my people has come forward, and—remarkably—claims to be Radiant. Her spren directed her to speak with me; we plan to use her Shardblade to test the device. “ ‘If it works, I will come to you in all haste. It is well that someone is attempting to organize a resistance to the evils that befall us. The nations of Roshar must put aside their squabbles, and the reemergence of the holy city of Urithiru is proof to me that the Almighty guides your hand. I look forward to counseling with you and adding my forces to yours in a joint operation to protect these lands.’ ” She looked up at him, amazed. “It was sent by Taravangian, king of Jah Keved and Kharbranth.” Taravangian? Dalinar hadn’t expected him to reply so quickly. He was said to be a kindly, if somewhat simple man. Perfect for ruling a small city-state with the help of a governing council. His elevation to king of Jah Keved was widely seen as an act of spite from the former king, who hadn’t wanted to give the throne to any of his rivals’ houses. The words still warmed Dalinar. Someone had listened. Someone was willing to join him. Bless that man, bless him. If Dalinar failed everywhere else, at least he would have King Taravangian at his side. If the journey itself is indeed the most important piece, rather than the destination itself, then I traveled not to avoid duty—but to seek it. —From The Way of Kings, postscript
Kaladin rose into the sky, alive with Stormlight. Below him, Dalinar walked toward the red mist. Though tendrils of it moved among the soldiers of Amaram’s army, the bulk of it swirled closer to the coast, to the right of the bay and the destroyed docks. Storms, Kaladin felt good to be in the real world again. Even with the Everstorm dominating the sun, this place felt so much more bright than Shadesmar. A group of windspren dodged around him, though the air was relatively still. Perhaps they were the ones who had come to him on the other side, the ones he had failed. Kaladin, Syl said. You don’t need another reason to berate yourself. She was right. Storms, he could be down on himself sometimes. Was that the flaw that had prevented him from speaking the Words of the Fourth Ideal? For some reason, Syl sighed. Oh, Kaladin. “We’ll talk about it later,” he said. For now, he’d been given a second chance to protect Dalinar Kholin. Stormlight raging inside of him, the Sylspear a comfortable weight in his hand, he Lashed himself downward and crashed to the stones near Amaram. The highlord, in turn, fell to his knees. What? Kaladin thought. Amaram was coughing. He tipped his head back, faceplate up, and groaned. Had he just swallowed something? * * * Adolin prodded at his stomach. Beneath the bloodstained rip, he felt only smooth, new skin. Not even a hint of an ache. For a time, he’d been sure he would die. He’d been there before. Months ago, he’d felt it when Sadeas had withdrawn, leaving the Kholin troops alone and surrounded on the Shattered Plains. This had been different. Staring up at that black sky and those unnatural clouds, feeling suddenly, appallingly fragile … And then light. His father—the great man Adolin could never match—somehow embodying the Almighty himself. Adolin couldn’t help feeling that he hadn’t been worthy to step into that light. Here he was anyway. The Radiants broke apart to do Dalinar’s bidding, though Shallan knelt to check on Adolin. “How do you feel?” “Do you realize how fond I was of this jacket?” “Oh, Adolin.” “Really, Shallan. Surgeons should take more care with the clothing they cut open. If a man’s going to live, he’ll want that shirt. And if he dies … well, he should at least be well dressed on his deathbed.” She smiled, then glanced over her shoulder toward the troops with red eyes. “Go,” he said. “I’ll be fine. Save the city. Be Radiant, Shallan.” She kissed him, then turned and stood. That white clothing seemed to glow, the red hair a striking swatch, as Stormlight rose from her. Pattern appeared as a Shardblade with a faint, almost invisible latticework running up the length. She wove her power, and an army climbed from the ground around her. In Urithiru, she’d made an army of a score to distract the Unmade. Now, hundreds of illusions rose around her: soldiers, shopkeepers, washwomen, scribes, all drawn from her pages. They glowed brilliantly, Light streaming
from them—as if each were a Knight Radiant. Adolin climbed to his feet, and came face-to-face with an illusion of himself wearing a Kholin uniform. The illusory Adolin glowed with Stormlight and floated a few inches off the ground. She’d made him a Windrunner. I … I can’t take that. He turned toward the city. His father had been focused on the Radiants, and had neglected to give Adolin a specific duty. So maybe he could help the defenders inside. Adolin picked his way across the rubble and through the broken wall. Jasnah stood right inside, hands on hips, as if she were surveying a mess left by rampaging children. The gap opened into an unremarkable city square dominated by barracks and storehouses. Fallen troops wearing either Thaylen or Sadeas uniforms indicated a recent clash here, but most of the enemy seemed to have moved on. Shouts and clangs sounded from nearby streets. Adolin reached for a discarded sword, then paused, and—feeling a fool—summoned his Shardblade. He braced himself for a scream, but none came, and the Blade fell into his hand after ten heartbeats. “I’m sorry,” he said, lifting the glistening weapon. “And thank you.” He headed toward one of the nearby clashes, where men were shouting for help. * * * Szeth of the Skybreakers envied Kaladin, the one they called Stormblessed, in the honor of protecting Dalinar Kholin. But of course, he would not complain. He had chosen his oath. And he would do as his master demanded. Phantoms appeared, created from Stormlight by the woman with the red hair. These were the shadows in the darkness, the ones he heard whispering of his murders. How she brought them to life, he did not know. He landed near the Reshi Surgebinder, Lift. “So,” she said to him. “How do we find that ruby?” Szeth pointed with his sheathed Shardblade toward the ships docked in the bay. “The creature carrying it ran back that way.” The parshmen still clustered there, deep within the shadow of the Everstorm. “Figures,” Lift said, then glanced at him. “You aren’t gonna try to eat me again, right?” Don’t be silly, said the sword in Szeth’s hand. You aren’t evil. You’re nice. And I don’t eat people. “I will not draw the sword,” Szeth said, “unless you are already dead and I decide to accept death myself.” “Greaaaaaaaaaaat,” Lift said. You’re supposed to contradict me, Szeth, the sword said, when I say I don’t eat people. Vasher always did. I think he was joking. Anyway, as people who have carried me go, you aren’t very good at this. “No,” Szeth said. “I am not good at being a person. It is … a failing of mine.” It’s all right! Be happy. Looks like there’s a lot of evil to slay today! That’s greaaaaaaaaaaat, right? Then the sword started humming. * * * The brands on Kaladin’s head seemed a fresh pain as he dove to strike Amaram. But Amaram recovered quickly from his fit, then slammed his faceplate down. He rebuffed Kaladin’s attack with an
armored forearm. Those red eyes cast a crimson glow through the helm’s slit. “You should thank me, boy.” “Thank you?” Kaladin said. “For what? For showing me that a person could be even more loathsome than the petty lighteyes who ruled my hometown?” “I created you, spearman. I forged you.” Amaram pointed at Kaladin with the wide, hook-ended Shardblade. Then he extended his left hand, summoning a second Blade. Long and curved, the back edge rippled like flowing waves. Kaladin knew that Blade well. He’d won it—saving Amaram’s life—then refused to bear it. For when he looked at his reflection in the silvery metal, all he could see were the friends it had killed. So much death and pain, caused by that rippling Blade. It seemed a symbol of all he’d lost, particularly held now in the hand of the man who had lied to him. The man who had taken Tien away. Amaram presented a sword stance, holding two Blades. One taken in bloodshed, at the cost of Kaladin’s crew. The other, Oathbringer. A sword given to ransom Bridge Four. Don’t be intimidated! Syl whispered in Kaladin’s mind. History notwithstanding, he’s only a man. And you’re a Knight Radiant. The vambrace of Amaram’s armor pulsed suddenly on his forearm, as if something were pushing it from beneath. The red glow from the helm deepened, and Kaladin got the distinct impression of something enveloping Amaram. A black smoke. The same that Kaladin had seen surrounding Queen Aesudan at the end, as they’d fled the palace. Other sections of Amaram’s armor began to rattle or pulse, and he suddenly moved with a violent burst of speed, swinging with one Shardblade, then the other. * * * Dalinar slowed as he approached the main core of the Thrill. The red mist churned and boiled here, nearly solid. He saw familiar faces reflected in it. He watched the old highprince Kalanor fall from the heights of a rock formation. He saw himself fight alone on a field of stone after a rockslide. He watched as he caught the claw of a chasmfiend on the Shattered Plains. He could hear the Thrill. A thrumming, insistent, warming pulse. Almost like the beating of a drum. “Hello, old friend,” Dalinar whispered, then stepped into the red mist. * * * Shallan stood with arms outstretched. Stormlight expanded from her on the ground, a pool of liquid light, radiant mist swirling above it. It became a gateway. From it, her collection emerged. Every person she’d ever sketched—from the maids in her father’s house to the honorspren who had held Syl captive—grew from Stormlight. Men and women, children and grandparents. Soldiers and scribes. Mothers and scouts, kings and slaves. Mmm, Pattern said as a sword in her hand. MMMMMMM. “I’ve lost these,” Shallan said as Yalb the sailor climbed from the mist and waved to her. He drew a glowing Shardspear from the air. “I lost these pictures!” You are close to them, Pattern said. Close to the realm of thought … and beyond. All the people you’ve Connected to,

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