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you can change, and away from traits you cannot. Red, if you wore an eye patch, that detail would stick in their minds. Vathah, I can teach you how to slouch so your height isn’t noticeable—and if you add an unusual accent, people will describe you by that. Gaz, I could put you in a tavern and have you lie on the table in a feigned drunken stupor. Nobody will notice the eye patch; they’ll ignore you as a drunkard. “That is beside the point. We must begin with observation. If you are to be useful, you need to be able to make quick assessments of a location, memorize details, and be able to report back. Now, close your eyes.” They reluctantly did so, Veil joining them. “Now,” Ishnah said. “Can any of you describe the tavern’s occupants? Without looking, mind you.” “Uh…” Gaz scratched at his eye patch. “There’s a cute one at the bar. She might be Thaylen.” “What color is her blouse?” “Hm. Well, it’s low cut, and she’s grown some nice rockbuds … uh…” “There’s this really ugly guy with an eye patch,” Red said. “Short, annoying type. Drinks your wine when you aren’t looking.” “Vathah?” Ishnah asked. “What about you?” “I think there were some guys at the bar,” he said. “They were in … Sebarial uniforms? And maybe half the tables were occupied. I couldn’t say by who.” “Better,” Ishnah said. “I didn’t expect you to be able to do this. It’s human nature to ignore these things. I’ll train you though, so that—” “Wait,” Vathah said. “What about Veil? What does she remember?” “Three men at the bar,” Veil said absently. “Older man with whitening hair, and two soldiers, probably related, judging by those hooked noses. The younger one is drinking wine; the older one is trying to pick up the woman Gaz noticed. She’s not Thaylen, but she’s wearing Thaylen dress with a deep violet blouse and a forest-green skirt. I don’t like the pairing, but she seems to. She’s confident, used to playing with the attention of men. But I think she came here looking for someone, because she’s ignoring the soldier and keeps glancing over her shoulder. “The barkeep is an older man, short enough that he stands on boxes when he fills orders. I bet he hasn’t been a barkeep long. He hesitates when someone orders, and he has to glance over the bottles, reading their glyphs before he finds the right one. There are three barmaids—one is on break—and fourteen customers other than us.” She opened her eyes. “I can tell you about them.” “Won’t be necessary,” Ishnah said as Red clapped softly. “Very impressive, Veil, though I should note that there are fifteen other customers, not fourteen.” Veil started, then glanced around the tent room again, counting—as she’d done in her head just a moment ago. Three at that table … four over there … two women standing together by the door … And a woman she’d missed, nestled into a chair by a small table at the back
of the tent. She wore simple clothing, a skirt and blouse of Alethi peasant design. Had she intentionally chosen clothing that blended in with the white of the tent and brown of the tables? And what was she doing there? Taking notes, Veil thought with a spike of alarm. The woman had carefully hidden a little notebook in her lap. “Who is she?” Veil hunkered down. “Why is she watching us?” “Not us specifically,” Ishnah said. “There will be dozens like her in the market, moving like rats, gathering what information they can. She might be independent, selling tidbits she finds, but likely she’s employed by one of the highprinces. That’s the job I used to do. I’d guess from the people she’s watching that she’s been told to gather a report on the mood of the troops.” Veil nodded and listened intently as Ishnah started training the men in memory tricks. She suggested they should learn glyphs, and use some ploy—like making marks on their hands—to help them keep track of information. Veil had heard of some of these tricks, including the one Ishnah talked about, the so-called mind museum. Most interesting were Ishnah’s tips on how to tell what was relevant to report, and how to find it. She talked about listening for the names of highprinces and for common words used as stand-ins for more important matters, and about how to listen for someone who had just the right amount of drink in them to say things they shouldn’t. Tone, she said, was key. You could sit five feet from someone sharing important secrets, but miss it because you were focused on the argument at the next table over. The state she described was almost meditative—sitting and letting your ears take in everything, your mind latching on to only certain conversations. Veil found it fascinating. But after about an hour of training, Gaz complained that his head felt like he’d had four bottles already. Red was nodding, and the way his eyes were crossed made him seem completely overwhelmed. Vathah though … he’d closed his eyes and was reeling off descriptions of everyone in the room to Ishnah. Veil grinned. For as long as she’d known the man, he’d gone about each of his duties as if he had a boulder tied to his back. Slow to move, quick to find a place to sit down and rest. Seeing this enthusiasm from him was encouraging. In fact, Veil was so engaged, she completely missed how much time had passed. When she heard the market bells she cursed softly. “I’m a storming fool.” “Veil?” Vathah asked. “I’ve got to get going,” she said. “Shallan has an appointment.” Who would have thought that bearing an ancient, divine mantle of power and honor would involve so many meetings? “And she can’t make it without you?” Vathah said. “Storms, have you watched that girl? She’d forget her feet if they weren’t stuck on. Keep practicing! I’ll meet up with you later.” She pulled on her hat and went dashing through the Breakaway. *
* * A short time later, Shallan Davar—now safely tucked back into a blue havah—strolled through the hallway beneath Urithiru. She was pleased with the work that Veil was doing with the men, but storms, did she have to drink so much? Shallan burned off practically an entire barrel’s worth of alcohol to clear her head. She took a deep breath, then stepped into the former library room. Here she found not only Navani, Jasnah, and Teshav, but a host of ardents and scribes. May Aladar, Adrotagia from Kharbranth … there were even three stormwardens, the odd men with the long beards who liked to predict the weather. Shallan had heard that they would occasionally use the blowing of the winds to foretell the future, but they never offered such services openly. Being near them made Shallan wish for a glyphward. Veil didn’t keep any handy, unfortunately. She was basically a heretic, and thought about religion as often as she did seasilk prices in Rall Elorim. At least Jasnah had the backbone to pick a side and announce it; Veil would simply shrug and make some wisecrack. It— “Mmmm…” Pattern whispered from her skirt. “Shallan?” Right. She’d been just standing in the doorway, hadn’t she? She walked in, unfortunately passing Janala, who was acting as Teshav’s assistant. The pretty young woman stood with her nose perpetually in the air, and was the type of person whose very enunciation made Shallan’s skin crawl. The woman’s arrogance was what Shallan didn’t like—not, of course, that Adolin had been courting Janala soon before meeting Shallan. She had once tried to avoid Adolin’s former romantic partners, but … well, that was like trying to avoid soldiers on a battlefield. They were just kind of everywhere. A dozen conversations buzzed through the room: talk about weights and measures, the proper placement of punctuation, and the atmospheric variations in the tower. Once she’d have given anything to be in a room like this. Now she was constantly late to the meetings. What had changed? I know how much a fraud I am, she thought, hugging the wall, passing a pretty young ardent discussing Azish politics with one of the stormwardens. Shallan had barely perused those books that Adolin had brought her. On her other side, Navani was talking fabrials with an engineer in a bright red havah. The woman nodded eagerly. “Yes, but how to stabilize it, Brightness? With the sails underneath, it will want to spin over, won’t it?” Shallan’s proximity to Navani had offered ample opportunity to study fabrial science. Why hadn’t she? As it enveloped her—the ideas, the questions, the logic—she suddenly felt she was drowning. Overwhelmed. Everyone in this room knew so much, and she felt insignificant compared to them. I need someone who can handle this, she thought. A scholar. Part of me can become a scholar. Not Veil, or Brightness Radiant. But someone— Pattern started humming on her dress again. Shallan backed to the wall. No, this … this was her, wasn’t it? Shallan had always wanted to be a scholar, hadn’t
she? She didn’t need another persona to deal with this. Right? … Right? The moment of anxiety passed, and she breathed out, forcing herself to steady. Eventually she pulled a pad of paper and a charcoal pencil out of her satchel, then sought out Jasnah and presented herself. Jasnah cocked an eyebrow. “Late again?” “Sorry.” “I intended to ask your help understanding some of the translations we’re receiving from the Dawnchant, but we haven’t time before my mother’s meeting starts.” “Maybe I could help you—” “I have a few items to finish up. We can speak later.” An abrupt dismissal, but nothing more than Shallan had come to expect. She walked over to a chair beside the wall and sat down. “Surely,” she said softly, “if Jasnah had known that I’d just confronted a deep insecurity of mine, she’d have shown some empathy. Right?” “Jasnah?” Pattern asked. “I do not think you are paying attention, Shallan. She is not very empathetic.” Shallan sighed. “You’re empathetic though!” “The pathetic part, at least.” She steeled herself. “I belong here, Pattern, don’t I?” “Mmm. Yes, of course you do. You’ll want to sketch them, right?” “The classic scholars didn’t just draw. The Oilsworn knew mathematics—he created the study of ratios in art. Galid was an inventor, and her designs are still used in astronomy today. Sailors couldn’t find longitude at sea until the arrival of her clocks. Jasnah’s a historian—and more. That’s what I want.” “Are you sure?” “I think so.” Problem was, Veil wanted to spend her days drinking and laughing with the men, practicing espionage. Radiant wanted to practice with the sword and spend time around Adolin. What did Shallan want? And did it matter? Eventually Navani called the meeting to order, and people took seats. Scribes on one side of Navani, ardents from a variety of devotaries on the other—and far from Jasnah. As the stormwardens settled down farther around the ring of seats, Shallan noticed Renarin standing in the doorway. He shuffled, peeking in, but not entering. When several scholars turned toward him, he stepped backward, as if their stares were physically forcing him out. “I…” Renarin said. “Father said I could come … just listen maybe.” “You’re more than welcome, Cousin,” Jasnah said. She nodded for Shallan to get him a stool, so she did—and didn’t even protest being ordered about. She could be a scholar. She’d be the best little ward ever. Head down, Renarin rounded the ring of scholars, keeping a white-knuckled grip on a chain hung from his pocket. As soon as he sat, he started pulling the chain between the fingers of one hand, then the other. Shallan did her best to take notes, and not stray into sketching people instead. Fortunately, the proceedings were more interesting than usual. Navani had most of the scholars here working on trying to understand Urithiru. Inadara reported first—she was a wizened scribe who reminded Shallan of her father’s ardents—explaining that her team had been trying to ascertain the meaning of the strange shapes of the rooms and tunnels in
the tower. She went on at length, talking of defensive constructions, air filtration, and the wells. She pointed out groupings of rooms that were shaped oddly, and of the bizarre murals they’d found, depicting fanciful creatures. When she eventually finished, Kalami reported on her team, who were convinced that certain gold and copper metalworks they’d found embedded in walls were fabrials, but they didn’t seem to do anything, even with gems attached. She passed around drawings, then moved on to explaining the efforts—failed so far—they’d taken to try to infuse the gemstone pillar. The only working fabrials were the lifts. “I suggest,” interrupted Elthebar, head of the stormwardens, “that the ratio of the gears used in the lift machinery might be indicative of the nature of those who built it. It is the science of digitology, you see. You can judge much about a man by the width of his fingers.” “And this has to do with gears … how?” Teshav asked. “In every way!” Elthebar said. “Why, the fact that you don’t know this is a clear indication that you are a scribe. Your writing is pretty, Brightness. But you must give more heed to science.” Pattern buzzed softly. “I never have liked him,” Shallan whispered. “He acts nice around Dalinar, but he’s quite mean.” “So … which attribute of his are we totaling and how many people are in the sample size?” Pattern asked. “Do you think, maybe,” Janala said, “we are asking the wrong questions?” Shallan narrowed her eyes, but checked herself, suppressing her jealousy. There was no need to hate someone simply because they’d been close to Adolin. It was just that something felt … off about Janala. Like many women at court, her laughter sounded rehearsed, contained. Like they used it as a seasoning, rather than actually feeling it. “What do you mean, child?” Adrotagia asked Janala. “Well, Brightness, we talk about the lifts, the strange fabrial column, the twisting hallways. We try to understand these things merely from their designs. Maybe instead we should figure out the tower’s needs, and then work backward to determine how these things might have met them.” “Hmmm,” Navani said. “Well, we know that they grew crops outside. Did some of these wall fabrials provide heat?” Renarin mumbled something. Everyone in the room looked at him. Not a few seemed surprised to hear him speak, and he shrank back. “What was that, Renarin?” Navani asked. “It’s not like that,” he said softly. “They’re not fabrials. They’re a fabrial.” The scribes and scholars shared looks. The prince … well, he often incited such reactions. Discomforted stares. “Brightlord?” Janala asked. “Are you perhaps secretly an artifabrian? Studying engineering by night, reading the women’s script?” Several of the others chuckled. Renarin blushed deeply, lowering his eyes farther. You’d never laugh like that at any other man of his rank, Shallan thought, feeling her cheeks grow hot. The Alethi court could be severely polite—but that didn’t mean they were nice. Renarin always had been a more acceptable target than Dalinar or Adolin. Shallan’s anger was
a strange sensation. On more than one occasion, she’d been struck by Renarin’s oddness. His presence at this meeting was just another example. Was he thinking of finally joining the ardents? And he did that by simply showing up at a meeting for scribes, as if he were one of the women? At the same time, how dare Janala embarrass him? Navani started to say something, but Shallan cut in. “Surely, Janala, you didn’t just try to insult the son of the highprince.” “What? No, no of course I didn’t.” “Good,” Shallan said. “Because, if you had been trying to insult him, you did a terrible job. And I’ve heard that you’re very clever. So full of wit, and charm, and … other things.” Janala frowned at her. “… Is that flattery?” “We weren’t talking of your chest, dear. We’re speaking of your mind! Your wonderful, brilliant mind, so keen that it’s never been sharpened! So quick, it’s still running when everyone else is done! So dazzling, it’s never failed to leave everyone in awe at the things you say. So … um…” Jasnah was glaring at her. “… Hmm…” Shallan held up her notebook. “I took notes.” “Could we have a short break, Mother?” Jasnah asked. “An excellent suggestion,” Navani said. “Fifteen minutes, during which everyone should consider a list of requirements this tower would have, if it were to somehow become self-sufficient.” She rose, and the meeting broke up into individual conversations again. “I see,” Jasnah said to Shallan, “that you still use your tongue like a bludgeon rather than a knife.” “Yeah.” Shallan sighed. “Any tips?” Jasnah eyed her. “You heard what she said to Renarin, Brightness!” “And Mother was about to speak to her about it,” Jasnah said, “discreetly, with a judicious word. Instead, you threw a dictionary at her head.” “Sorry. She gets on my nerves.” “Janala is a fool, just bright enough to be proud of the wits she has, but stupid enough to be unaware of how outmatched they are.” Jasnah rubbed her temples. “Storms. This is why I never take wards.” “Because they give you so much trouble.” “Because I’m bad at it. I have scientific evidence of that fact, and you are but the latest experiment.” Jasnah shooed her away, rubbing her temples. Shallan, feeling ashamed, walked to the side of the room, while everyone else got refreshments. “Mmmm!” Pattern said as Shallan leaned against the wall, notebook held closer to her chest. “Jasnah doesn’t seem angry. Why are you sad?” “Because I’m an idiot,” Shallan said. “And a fool. And … because I don’t know what I want.” Hadn’t it been only a week or two ago that she’d innocently assumed she had it figured out? Whatever “it” was? “I can see him!” said a voice to her side. Shallan jumped and turned to find Renarin staring at her skirt and the pattern there, which blended into her embroidery. Distinct if you knew to look, but easy to miss. “He doesn’t turn invisible?” Renarin said. “He says he can’t.” Renarin nodded, then
looked up at her. “Thank you.” “For?” “Defending my honor. When Adolin does that, someone usually gets stabbed. Your way was pleasanter.” “Well, nobody should take that tone with you. They wouldn’t dare do it to Adolin. And besides, you’re right. This place is one big fabrial.” “You feel it too? They keep talking about this device or that device, but that’s wrong, isn’t it? That’s like taking the parts of a cart, without realizing you’ve got a cart in the first place.” Shallan leaned in. “That thing that we fought, Renarin. It could stretch its tendrils all the way up to the very top of Urithiru. I felt its wrongness wherever I went. That gemstone at the center is tied to everything.” “Yes, this isn’t only a collection of fabrials. It’s many fabrials put together to make one big fabrial.” “But what does it do?” Shallan asked. “It does being a city.” He frowned. “Well, I mean, it bees a city.… It does what the city is.…” Shallan shivered. “And the Unmade was running it.” “Which let us discover this room and the fabrial column,” Renarin said. “We might not have accomplished that without it. Always look on the bright side.” “Logically,” Shallan said, “the bright side is the only side you can look on, because the other side is dark.” Renarin laughed. It brought to mind how her brothers would laugh at what she said. Maybe not because it was the most hilarious thing ever spoken, but because it was good to laugh. That reminded her of what Jasnah had said, though, and Shallan found herself glancing at the woman. “I know my cousin is intimidating,” Renarin whispered to her. “But you’re a Radiant too, Shallan. Don’t forget that. We could stand up to her if we wanted to.” “Do we want to?” Renarin grimaced. “Probably not. So often, she’s right, and you just end up feeling like one of the ten fools.” “True, but … I don’t know if I can stand being ordered around like a child again. I’m starting to feel crazy. What do I do?” Renarin shrugged. “I’ve found the best way to avoid doing what Jasnah says is to not be around when she’s looking for someone to give orders to.” Shallan perked up. That made a lot of sense. Dalinar would need his Radiants to go do things, right? She needed to get away, just until she could figure things out. Go somewhere … like on that mission to Kholinar? Wouldn’t they need someone who could sneak into the palace and activate the device? “Renarin,” she said, “you’re a genius.” He blushed, but smiled. Navani called the meeting together again, and they sat to continue discussing fabrials. Jasnah tapped Shallan’s notebook and she did a better job of taking the minutes, practicing her shorthand. It wasn’t nearly as irksome now, as she had an exit strategy. An escape route. She was appreciating that when she noticed a tall figure striding through the door. Dalinar Kholin cast a shadow, even when he wasn’t standing in
front of the light. Everyone immediately hushed. “Apologies for my tardiness.” He glanced at his wrist, and the forearm timepiece that Navani had given him. “Please don’t stop because of me.” “Dalinar?” Navani asked. “You’ve never attended a meeting of scribes before.” “I just thought I should watch,” Dalinar said. “Learn what this piece of my organization is doing.” He settled down on a stool outside the ring. He looked like a warhorse trying to perch on a stand meant for a show pony. They started up again, everyone obviously self-conscious. She’d have thought that Dalinar would know to stay away from meetings like this, where women and scribes … Shallan cocked her head as she saw Renarin glance at his father. Dalinar responded with a raised fist. He came so Renarin wouldn’t feel awkward, Shallan realized. It can’t be improper or feminine for the prince to be here if the storming Blackthorn decides to attend. She didn’t miss the way that Renarin actually raised his eyes to watch the rest of the proceedings. As the waves of the sea must continue to surge, so must our will continue resolute. Alone. The Voidbringers carried Moash to Revolar, a city in central Alethkar. Once there, they dropped him outside the city and shoved him toward a group of lesser parshmen. His arms ached from being carried. Why hadn’t they used their powers to Lash him upward and make him lighter, as Kaladin would have? He stretched his arms, looking around. He’d been to Revolar many times, working a regular caravan to Kholinar. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean he’d seen much of the city. Every city of size had a little huddle of buildings on the outskirts for people like him: modern-day nomads who worked caravans or ran deliveries. The people of the eaves, some had called them. Men and women who hovered close enough to civilization to get out of the weather when it turned bad, but who never really belonged. From the looks of things, Revolar had quite the eaves culture now—too much of one. The Voidbringers seemed to have taken over the entire storming place, exiling the humans to the outskirts. The Voidbringers left him without a word, despite having lugged him all this distance. The parshmen who took custody of him here looked like a hybrid between Parshendi warriors and the normal, docile parshmen he’d known from many a caravan run. They spoke perfect Alethi as they shoved him toward a group of humans in a little pen. Moash settled in to wait. Looked like the Voidbringers had patrols scouting the area, grabbing human stragglers. Eventually, the parshmen herded him and the others toward one of the large storm bunkers outside the city—used for housing armies or multiple caravans during highstorms. “Don’t make trouble,” a parshwoman said, specifically eyeing Moash. “Don’t fight, or you’ll be killed. Don’t run, or you’ll be beaten. You’re the slaves now.” Several of the humans—homesteaders, from the looks of it—started weeping. They clutched meager bundles, which parshmen searched through. Moash could read the signs of their
loss in their reddened eyes and ragged possessions. The Everstorm had wiped out their farm. They’d come to the big city looking for refuge. He had nothing on him of value, not any longer, and the parshmen let him go in before the others. He walked into the bunker, feeling a surreal sense of … abandonment? He’d spent the trip here alternately assuming he’d be executed or interrogated. Instead, they’d made a common slave of him? Even in Sadeas’s army, he’d never technically been a slave. Assigned to bridge runs, yes. Sent to die. But he’d never worn the brands on his forehead. He felt at the Bridge Four tattoo under his shirt, on his left shoulder. The vast, high-ceilinged storm bunker was shaped like a huge stone loaf. Moash ambled through it, hands stuffed in his coat pockets. Huddled groups of people regarded him with hostility, even though he was just another refugee. He’d always been met with hostility, no matter where he storming went. A youth like him, too big and obviously too confident for a darkeyes, had been considered a threat. He’d joined the caravans to give himself something productive to do, encouraged by his grandparents. They’d been murdered for their kindly ways, and Moash … he’d spent his life putting up with looks like that. A man on his own, a man you couldn’t control, was dangerous. He was inherently frightening, just because of who he was. And nobody would ever let him in. Except Bridge Four. Well, Bridge Four had been a special case, and he’d failed that test. Graves had been right to tell him to cut the patch off. This was who he really was. The man everyone looked at with distrust, pulling their children tight and nodding for him to move along. He stalked down the middle of the structure, which was so wide it needed pillars to hold up the ceiling. Those rose like trees, Soulcast right into the rock below. The edges of the building were crowded with people, but the center was kept clear and patrolled by armed parshmen. They’d set up stations with wagons as perches, where parshmen were addressing crowds. Moash went over to one. “In case we missed any,” the parshman shouted, “experienced farmers should report to Bru at the front end of the chamber. He will assign you a plot of land to work. Today, we also need workers to carry water in the city, and more to clear debris from the last storm. I can take twenty of each.” Men started calling out their willingness, and Moash frowned, leaning toward a man nearby. “They offer us work? Aren’t we slaves?” “Yeah,” the man said. “Slaves who don’t eat unless they work. They let us choose what we want to do, though it’s not much of a storming choice. One kind of drudgery or another.” With a start, Moash realized that the man had pale green eyes. Yet he still raised his hand and volunteered to carry water—something that had once been parshman work. Well, that was
a sight that couldn’t help but brighten a man’s day. Moash shoved hands back in pockets and continued through the room, checking each of the three stations where parshmen offered jobs. Something about these parshmen and their perfect Alethi unsettled him. The Voidbringers were what he’d expected, with their alien accents and dramatic powers. But the ordinary parshmen—many of them looked like Parshendi now, with those taller builds—seemed almost as bewildered at their reversal in fortune as the humans were. Each of the three stations dealt with a different category of labor. The one at the far end was looking for farmers, women with sewing skill, and cobblers. Food, uniforms, boots. The parshmen were preparing for war. Asking around, Moash learned they’d already grabbed the smiths, fletchers, and armorers—and if you were found hiding skill in any of these three, your whole family would be put on half rations. The middle station was for basic labor. Hauling water, cleaning, cooking food. The last station was the most interesting to Moash. This was for hard labor. He lingered here, listening to a parshman ask for volunteers to pull wagons of supplies with the army when it marched. Apparently, there weren’t enough chulls to move wagons for what was coming. Nobody raised their hands for this one. It sounded like ghastly work, not to mention the fact that it would mean marching toward battle. They’ll need to press the people into this, Moash thought. Maybe they can round up some lighteyes and make them trudge across the rock like beasts of burden. He’d like to see that. As he left this last station, Moash spotted a group of men with long staffs, leaning against the wall. Sturdy boots, waterskins in holsters tied to their thighs, and a walking kit sewn into the trousers on the other side. He knew from experience what that would carry. A bowl, spoon, cup, thread, needle, patches, and some flint and tinder. Caravaneers. The long staffs were for slapping chull shells while walking beside them. He’d worn an outfit like that many times, though many of the caravans he’d worked had used parshmen to pull wagons instead of chulls. They were faster. “Hey,” he said, strolling over to the caravaneers. “Is Guff still around?” “Guff?” one of the caravaneers said. “Old wheelwright? Half a reed tall? Bad at cussing?” “That’s him.” “I think he’s over there,” the young man said, pointing with his staff. “In the tents. But there ain’t work, friend.” “The shellheads are marching,” Moash said, thumbing over his shoulder. “They’ll need caravaneers.” “Positions are full,” another of the men said. “There was a fight to see who got those jobs. Everyone else will be pulling wagons. Don’t draw too much attention, or they’ll slap a harness on you. Mark my words.” They smiled in a friendly way to Moash, and he gave them an old caravaneers’ salute—close enough to a rude gesture that everyone else mistook it—and strode in the direction they’d pointed. Typical. Caravaneers were a big family—and, like a family, prone to squabbling. The
“tents” were really some sections of cloth that had been stretched from the wall to poles driven into buckets of rocks to keep them steady. That made a kind of tunnel along the wall here, and underneath, a lot of older people coughed and sniffled. It was dim, with only the occasional chip on an overturned box giving light. He picked out the caravaneers by their accents. He asked after Guff—who was one of the men he’d known back in the day—and was allowed to penetrate deeper along the shadowy tent tunnel. Eventually, Moash found old Guff sitting right in the middle of the tunnel, as if to keep people from going farther. He had been sanding a piece of wood—an axle, by the looks of it. He squinted as Moash stepped up. “Moash?” he said. “Really? What storming storm brought you here?” “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Moash said, squatting down beside the old man. “You were on Jam’s caravan,” Guff said. “Off to the Shattered Plains; gave you all up for dead. Wouldn’t have bet a dun chip on you returning.” “A wise enough bet,” Moash said. He hunched forward, resting his arms on his knees. In this tunnel, the buzz of people outside seemed a distant thing, though only cloth separated them. “Son?” Guff asked. “Why you here, boy? What do you want?” “I just need to be who I was.” “That makes as much sense as the storming Stormfather playing the flute, boy. But you wouldn’t be the first to go off to those Plains and come back not all right. No you wouldn’t. That’s the Stormfather’s storming own truth, that storming is.” “They tried to break me. Damnation, they did break me. But then he made me again, a new man.” Moash paused. “I threw it all away.” “Sure, sure,” Guff said. “I always do that,” Moash whispered. “Why must we always take something precious, Guff, and find ourselves hating it? As if by being pure, it reminds us of just how little we deserve it. I held the spear, and I stabbed myself with it.…” “The spear?” Guff asked. “Boy, you a storming soldier?” Moash looked at him with a start, then stood up, stretching, showing his patchless uniform coat. Guff squinted in the darkness. “Come with me.” The old wheelwright rose—with difficulty—and set his piece of wood on his chair. He led Moash with a rickety gait farther into the cloth tunnel, and they entered a portion of the tented area that was more roomlike, the far corner of the large bunker. Here, a group of maybe a dozen people sat in furtive conversation, chairs pulled together. A man at the door grabbed Guff by the arm as he shuffled in. “Guff? You’re supposed to be on guard, fool man.” “I’m storming on storming guard, you pisser,” Guff said, shaking his arm free. “The bright wanted to know if we found any soldiers. Well I found a storming soldier, so storm off.” The guard turned his attention to Moash, then flicked his
eyes to Moash’s shoulder. “Deserter?” Moash nodded. It was true in more ways than one. “What’s this?” One of the men stood up, a tall fellow. Something about his silhouette, that bald head, that cut of clothing … “Deserter, Brightlord,” the guard said. “From the Shattered Plains,” Guff added. The highlord, Moash realized. Paladar. Vamah’s kinsman and regent, a notoriously harsh man. In years past, he had nearly run the city to the ground, driving away many darkeyes who had the right of travel. Not a caravan had passed when someone hadn’t complained about Paladar’s greed and corruption. “From the Shattered Plains, you say?” Paladar said. “Excellent. Tell me, deserter, what news is there from the highprinces? Do they know of my plight here? Can I expect aid soon?” They put him in charge, Moash thought, spotting other lighteyes. They wore fine clothing—not silks of course, but well-trimmed uniforms. Exceptional boots. There was food aplenty set out at the side of this chamber, while those outside scrounged and did heavy labor. He’d begun to hope … But of course that had been stupid. The arrival of the Voidbringers hadn’t cast the lighteyes down; the few Moash had seen outside were merely the sacrifices. The fawning darkeyes at the periphery confirmed this. Soldiers, guards, some favored merchants. To Damnation with them! They’d been given a chance to escape from the lighteyes, and it had only made them more eager to be servants! In that moment—surrounded by the pettiness that was his own kind—Moash had a revelation. He wasn’t broken. All of them were broken. Alethi society—lighteyed and dark. Maybe all of humankind. “Well?” the regent demanded. “Speak up, man!” Moash remained silent, overwhelmed. He wasn’t the exception, always ruining what he was given. Men like Kaladin were the exception—the very, very rare exception. These people proved it. There was no reason to obey lighteyes. They had no power, no authority. Men had taken opportunity and cast it to the crem. “I … I think there’s something wrong with him, Brightlord,” the guard said. “Yeah,” Guff added. “Should maybe have mentioned, he’s storming strange in the head now, storming pisser.” “Bah!” the regent said, pointing at Moash. “Have that one thrown out. We haven’t time for foolishness if we are to restore my place!” He pointed at Guff. “Have that one beaten, and post a competent guard next time, Ked, or you’ll be next!” Old Guff cried out as they seized him. Moash just nodded. Yes. Of course. That was what they would do. The guards took him under the arms and dragged him to the side of the tent. They parted the cloth and hauled him out. They passed a frazzled woman trying to divide a single piece of flatbread between three young, crying children. You could probably hear their weeping from the brightlord’s tent, where he had a stack of bread piled high. The guards threw him back out into the “street” that ran down the middle of the large bunker. They told him to stay away, but Moash barely heard. He
picked himself up, dusted himself off, then walked to the third of the work stations—the one seeking hard laborers. There, he volunteered for the most difficult job they had, pulling wagons of supplies for the Voidbringer army. Did you expect anything else from us? We need not suffer the interference of another. Rayse is contained, and we care not for his prison. Skar the bridgeman ran up one of the ramps outside Urithiru, breath puffing in the cold air as he silently counted his steps to maintain focus. The air was thinner up here at Urithiru, and that made running harder, though he really only noticed it outside. He wore full marching pack and gear: rations, equipment, helmet, jerkin, and a shield tied to the back. He carried his spear, and even had some greaves stuck to his legs, held in place by the shape of the metal. All of that weighed almost as much as he did. He finally hit the top of the Oathgate platform. Storms, but the center building looked farther away than he remembered. He tried to pick up his pace anyway, and jogged for all he was worth, the pack clinking. Finally—sweating, breath growing ragged—he reached the control building and dashed inside. He finally pulled to a stop, dropping his spear and resting his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. Most of Bridge Four waited here, some glowing with Stormlight. Of them all, Skar was the only one who—despite two weeks of practice—still hadn’t figured out how to draw it in. Well, except for Dabbid and Rlain. Sigzil checked the clock they’d been allocated by Navani Kholin, a device the size of a small box. “That was about ten minutes,” he said. “Just under.” Skar nodded, wiping his brow. He’d run over a mile from the center of the market, then crossed the plateau and charged the ramp. Storms. He’d pushed himself too hard. “How long,” he said, gasping, “how long did it take Drehy?” The two had set out together. Sigzil glanced at the tall, muscled bridgeman who still glowed with residual Stormlight. “Under six minutes.” Skar groaned, sitting down. “The baseline is equally important, Skar,” Sigzil said, marking glyphs in his notebook. “We need to know a normal man’s abilities to make comparisons. Don’t worry though. I’m sure you’ll figure out Stormlight soon.” Skar flopped backward, looking up. Lopen was walking around on the ceiling of the room. Storming Herdazian. “Drehy, you used a quarter of a Basic Lashing, by Kaladin’s terminology?” Sigzil continued, still making notes. “Yeah,” Drehy said. “I … I know the precise amount, Sig. Strange.” “Which made you half as heavy as usual, when we put you on the scale back in the rooms. But why does a quarter Lashing make you half as heavy? Shouldn’t it make you twenty-five percent as heavy?” “Does it matter?” Drehy asked. Sigzil looked at him as if he were crazy. “Of course it does!” “I want to try a Lashing at an angle next,” Drehy said. “See if I can make it feel
like I’m running downhill, no matter which direction I go. Might not need it. Holding Stormlight … it made me feel like I could run forever.” “Well, it’s a new record…” Sigzil mumbled, still writing. “You beat Lopen’s time.” “Did he beat mine?” Leyten called from the side of the small room where he was inspecting the tiling on the floor. “You stopped for food on the way, Leyten,” Sigzil said. “Even Rock beat your time, and he was skipping like a girl the last third.” “Was Horneater dance of victory,” Rock said from near Leyten. “Is very manly.” “Manly or not, it threw off my test,” Sigzil said. “At least Skar is willing to pay attention to proper procedure.” Skar remained lying on the ground as the others chatted—Kaladin was supposed to come and transport them to the Shattered Plains, and Sigzil had decided to run some tests. Kaladin, as usual, was late. Teft sat down next to Skar, inspecting him with dark green eyes with bags underneath. Kaladin had named the two of them lieutenants, along with Rock and Sigzil, but their roles had never really settled into that ranking. Teft was the perfect definition of a platoon sergeant. “Here,” Teft said, handing over a chouta—meatballs wrapped in flatbread, Herdazian style. “Leyten brought food. Eat something, lad.” Skar forced himself to sit up. “I’m not that much younger than you, Teft. I’m hardly a lad.” Teft nodded to himself, chewing on his own chouta. Finally, Skar started into his. It was good, not spicy like a lot of Alethi food, but still good. Flavorful. “Everyone keeps telling me that I’ll ‘get it soon,’ ” Skar said. “But what if I don’t? There won’t be room in the Windrunners for a lieutenant who has to walk everywhere. I’ll end up cooking lunch with Rock.” “Ain’t nothing wrong with being on the support team.” “Pardon, Sarge, but storm that! Do you know how long I waited to hold a spear?” Skar picked up the weapon from beside his pack and laid it across his lap. “I’m good at it. I can fight. Only…” Lopen left the ceiling, rotating to get his legs under him and floating gently to the floor. He laughed as Bisig in turn tried flying up to the ceiling and crashed headfirst into it. Bisig hopped to his feet, looking down at them all, embarrassed. But what did he have to be embarrassed about? He was standing on the ceiling! “You were in the military before,” Teft guessed. “No, but not for lack of trying. You heard of the Blackcaps?” “Aladar’s personal guards.” “Let’s just say they didn’t think much of my application.” Yes, we let darkeyes in. But not runts. Teft grunted, chewing on his chouta. “Said they might reconsider if I equipped myself,” Skar said. “Do you know how much armor costs? I was a stupid rocksplitter with visions of battlefield glory.” It used to be they’d never speak about their pasts. That had changed, though Skar couldn’t specify exactly when. It came out, as part of
the catharsis of having become something greater. Teft was an addict. Drehy had struck an officer. Eth had been caught planning to desert with his brother. Even simple Hobber had been part of a drunken brawl. Knowing Hobber, he’d probably only gone along with what his squad was doing, but a man had ended up dead. “You’d think,” Teft said, “that our high and mighty leader would have gotten here by now. I swear, Kaladin acts more like a lighteyes every day.” “Don’t let him hear you say that,” Skar said. “I’ll say what I want,” Teft snapped. “If that boy’s not going to come, maybe I should be going. I have things to do.” Skar hesitated, glancing up at Teft. “Not that,” Teft growled. “I’ve barely touched the stuff in days. You’d think a man had never had a wild night out, the way you’re all treating me.” “Didn’t say a thing, Teft.” “Knowing what we’ve suffered, it’s insane to think that we wouldn’t need something to get us through the day. The moss isn’t the problem. It’s the storming world going all crazy. That’s the problem.” “Sure is, Teft.” Teft eyed him, then studied his chouta roll intently. “So … how long have the men known? I mean, did anyone…” “Not long,” Skar said quickly. “Nobody’s even thinking about it.” Teft nodded, and didn’t see through the lie. Truth was, most of them had noticed Teft sneaking off to grind a little moss now and then. It wasn’t uncommon in the army. But doing what he’d done—missing duty, selling his uniform, ending up in an alley—that was different. It was the sort of thing that could get you discharged, at best. At worst … well, it might get you assigned to bridge duty. Trouble was, they weren’t common soldiers anymore. They weren’t lighteyes either. They were something strange, something that nobody understood. “I don’t want to talk about this,” Teft said. “Look, weren’t we discussing how to get you to glow? That’s the problem at hand.” Before he could press further, Kaladin Stormblessed finally deigned to arrive, bringing with him the scouts and hopefuls from other bridge crews who had been trying to draw in Stormlight. So far, nobody except men from Bridge Four had managed it, but that included a few that had never actually run bridges: Huio and Punio—Lopen’s cousins—and men like Koen from the old Cobalt Guard, who had been recruited into Bridge Four a couple months back. So there was still hope that others could manage it. Kaladin had brought roughly thirty people beyond those who had already been training with the team. Judging by their uniform patches, this thirty had come from other divisions—and some were lighteyed. Kaladin had mentioned asking General Khal to round up the most promising potential recruits from throughout the Alethi army. “All here?” Kaladin said. “Good.” He strode to the side of the single-roomed control building, a sack of glowing gemstones slung over his shoulder. His magnificent Shardblade appeared in his hand, and he slid it into the keyhole in
the chamber wall. Kaladin engaged the ancient mechanism, pushing the sword—and the entire inner wall, which could rotate—toward a specific point marked by murals. The floor began to glow, and outside, Stormlight rose in a swirl around the entire stone plateau. Kaladin locked the Blade into place at the mark on the floor designating the Shattered Plains. When the glow faded, they’d come to Narak. Sigzil left his pack and armor leaning against the wall, and strode out. Best they could determine, the entire stone top of the platform had come with them, swapping places with the one that had been out here. At the platform edge, a group of people climbed across a ramp to meet them. A short Alethi woman named Ristina counted out the bridgemen and soldiers as they passed, marking on her ledger. “Took you long enough, Brightlord,” she noted to Kaladin—whose eyes glowed faintly blue. “The merchants were beginning to complain.” It took Stormlight to power the device—some of the gemstones in Kaladin’s sack would have been drained by the process—but curiously, it didn’t take much more to swap two groups than it did to travel one way. So they tried to run the Oathgates when they had people on both sides wanting to exchange places. “Tell the merchants when they next come through,” Kaladin said, “that the Knights Radiant are not their doormen. They’ll want to accustom themselves to waiting, unless they find a way to swear the oaths themselves.” Ristina smirked and wrote it down, as if she were going to pass on that exact message. Skar smiled at that. Nice to see a scribe with a sense of humor. Kaladin led the way through the city of Narak, once a Parshendi stronghold, now an increasingly important human waystop between the warcamps and Urithiru. The buildings here were surprisingly sturdy: well constructed of crem and carved greatshell carapace. Skar had always assumed the Parshendi to be like the nomads who roved between Azir and Jah Keved. He imagined Parshendi who were wild and ferocious, without civilization, hiding in caves for storms. Yet here was a well-built, carefully laid-out city. They’d found a building full of artwork of a style that baffled the Alethi scribes. Parshman art. They’d been painting even while they fought a war. Just like … well, just like ordinary people. He glanced at Shen—no, Rlain, it was hard to remember—walking with spear to his shoulder. Skar forgot he was there most of the time, and that made him ashamed. Rlain was as much a member of Bridge Four as anyone else, right? Would he rather have been painting than fighting? They passed sentry posts full of Dalinar’s soldiers, along with many in red and light blue. Ruthar’s colors. Dalinar was putting some of the other soldiers to work, trying to prevent more dustups between soldiers from different princedoms. Without the fighting on the Shattered Plains to keep them focused, the men were getting restless. They passed a large group of soldiers practicing with bridges on a nearby plateau. Skar couldn’t hold back
a grin as he saw their black uniforms and helms. Plateau runs had been started again, but with more structure, and the spoils were shared equally among the highprinces. Today, it was the Blackcaps’ turn. Skar wondered if any of them would recognize him. Probably not, even if he had caused quite a ruckus among them. There had been only one logical way to get the equipment he needed for his application: He’d stolen it from the Blackcap quartermaster. Skar had thought they would praise his ingenuity. He was so eager to be a Blackcap that he’d go to great lengths to join them, right? Wrong. His reward had been a slave brand and eventual sale to Sadeas’s army. He brushed his fingers across the scars on his forehead. Stormlight had healed the brands of the other men—they’d covered them all up with tattoos anyway—but it seemed another little dig, dividing him from the others. Right now, he was the only fighting man in Bridge Four who still had his slave brand. Well, him and Kaladin, whose scars wouldn’t heal for some reason. They reached the training plateau, crossing the old Bridge Four, which was held in place with some Soulcast rock guideposts. Kaladin called a meeting of the officers as several of Rock’s children set up a water station. The tall Horneater seemed beyond enthused to have his family working with him. Skar joined Kaladin, Sigzil, Teft, and Rock. Though they stood close, there was a conspicuous gap where Moash should have been. It felt so wrong to have a member of Bridge Four completely unaccounted for, and Kaladin’s silence on the topic hung over them like an executioner’s axe. “I’m worried,” Kaladin said, “that nobody practicing with us has begun breathing Stormlight.” “It’s only been two weeks, sir,” Sigzil said. “True, but Syl thinks several ‘feel right,’ though she won’t tell me who, as she says it would be wrong.” Kaladin gestured toward the newcomers. “I asked Khal to send me another batch of hopefuls because I figured the more people we had, the better our chances of finding new squires.” He paused. “I didn’t specify they couldn’t be lighteyed. Perhaps I should have.” “Don’t see why, sir,” Skar said, pointing. “That’s Captain Colot—good man. He helped us explore.” “Just wouldn’t feel right, having lighteyed men in Bridge Four.” “Other than you?” Skar asked. “And Renarin. And, well, any of us who earn our own Blades, and maybe Rock, who I think might have been lighteyed among his people, even if he has dark—” “Fine, Skar,” Kaladin said. “Point made. Anyway, we don’t have a lot of time left before I leave with Elhokar. I’d like to push the recruits harder, see if they’re likely to be able to swear the oaths. Any thoughts?” “Shove them off edge of plateau,” Rock said. “Those who fly, we let in.” “Any serious suggestions?” Kaladin asked. “Let me run them through some formations,” Teft said. “A good idea,” Kaladin said. “Storms, I wish we knew how the Radiants used to handle expansion. Were
there recruitment drives, or did they just wait until someone attracted a spren?” “That wouldn’t make them a squire though,” Teft said, rubbing his chin. “But a full Radiant, right?” “A valid point,” Sigzil said. “We have no proof that we squires are a step toward becoming full Radiants. We might always be your support team—and in that case, it’s not individual skill that matters, but your decision. Maybe that of your spren. You choose them, they serve under you, and then they start drawing in Stormlight.” “Yeah,” Skar said, uncomfortable. They all glanced at him. “The first of you that says something placating,” Skar said, “gets a fist in the face. Or the stomach, if I can’t reach your storming stupid Horneater face.” “Ha!” Rock said. “You could hit my face, Skar. I have seen you jump very high. Almost, you seem as tall as regular person when you do that.” “Teft,” Kaladin said, “go ahead and run those potential recruits through formations. And tell the rest of the men to watch the sky; I’m worried about more raids on the caravans.” He shook his head. “Something about those raids doesn’t add up. The warcamps’ parshmen, by all reports, have marched to Alethkar. But why would those Fused keep harrying us? They won’t have the troops to take advantage of any supply problems they cause.” Skar shared a glance with Sigzil, who shrugged. Kaladin talked like this sometimes, differently from the rest of them. He’d trained them in formations and the spear, and they could proudly call themselves soldiers. But they’d only actually fought a few times. What did they know of things like strategy and battlefield tactics? They broke, Teft jogging off to drill the potential recruits. Kaladin set Bridge Four to studying their flying. They practiced landings, and then did sprints in the air, zipping back and forth in formation, getting used to changing directions quickly. It was a little distracting, seeing those glowing lines of light shoot through the sky. Skar attended Kaladin as he observed the recruits doing formations. The lighteyes didn’t voice a single complaint about being filed into ranks with darkeyes. Kaladin and Teft … well, all of them really … had a tendency to act as if every lighteyed man was in some way regal. But there were far, far more of them who did normal jobs—though granted, they got paid better for those jobs than a darkeyed man did. Kaladin watched, then glanced at the Bridge Four men in the sky. “I wonder, Skar,” he said. “How important are formations going to be for us, going forward? Can we devise new ones to use in flying? Everything changes when your enemy can attack from all sides.…” After about an hour, Skar went for water, and enjoyed some good-natured ribbing from the others, who landed to grab something to drink. He didn’t mind. What you had to watch out for was when Bridge Four didn’t torment you. The others took off a short time later, and Skar watched them go, launching into the sky.
He took a long draught of Rock’s current refreshment—he called it tea, but it tasted like boiled grain—and found himself feeling useless. Were these people, these new recruits, going to start glowing and take his place in Bridge Four? Would he be shuffled off to other duties, while someone else laughed with the crew and got ribbed for their height? Storm it, he thought, tossing aside his cup. I hate feeling sorry for myself. He hadn’t sulked when the Blackcaps had turned him down, and he wouldn’t sulk now. He was fishing in his pocket for gemstones, determined to practice some more, when he spotted Lyn sitting on a rock nearby, watching the recruits run formations. She was slouching, and he read frustration in her posture. Well, he knew that feeling. Skar shouldered his spear and sauntered over. The four other scout women had gone to the water station; Rock let out a bellowing laugh at what one of them said. “Not joining in?” Skar asked, nodding toward the new recruits marching past. “I don’t know formations, Skar. I’ve never done drills—never even held a storming spear. I ran messages and scouted the Plains.” She sighed. “I didn’t pick it up fast enough, did I? He’s gone and gotten some new people to test, since I failed.” “Don’t be stupid,” Skar said, sitting beside her on the large rock. “You’re not being forced out. Kaladin just wants to have as many potential recruits as possible.” She shook her head. “Everyone knows that we’re in a new world now—a world where rank and eye color don’t matter. Something glorious.” She looked up at the sky, and the men training there. “I want to be part of it, Skar. So badly.” “Yeah.” She looked at him, and probably saw it in his eyes. That same emotion. “Storms. I hadn’t even thought, Skar. Must be worse for you.” He shrugged and reached into his pouch, taking out an emerald as big as his thumb. It shone fiercely, even in the bright daylight. “You ever hear about the first time Captain Stormblessed drew in Light?” “He told us. That day, after he knew he could do it because Teft told him. And—” “Not that day.” “You mean while he was healing,” she said. “After the highstorm where he was strung up.” “Not that day either,” Skar said, holding up the gemstone. Through it, he saw men running formations, and imagined them carrying a bridge. “I was there, second row. Bridge run. Bad one. We were charging the plateau, and a lot of Parshendi had set up. They dropped most of the first row, all but Kaladin. “That exposed me, right beside him, second row. In those days, you didn’t have good odds, running near the front. The Parshendi wanted to take down our bridge, and they focused their shots on us. On me. I knew I was dead. I knew it. I saw the arrows coming, and I breathed a last prayer, hoping the next life wouldn’t be quite so bad. “Then … then the arrows
moved, Lyn. They storming swerved toward Kaladin.” He turned the emerald over, and shook his head. “There’s a special Lashing you can do, which makes things curve in the air. Kaladin painted the wood above his hands with Stormlight and drew the arrows toward him, instead of me. That’s the first time I can say I knew something special was happening.” He lowered the gemstone and pressed it into her hand. “Back then, Kaladin did it without even knowing what he was doing. Maybe we’re just trying too hard, you know?” “But it doesn’t make sense! They say you have to suck it in. What does that even mean?” “No idea,” Skar said. “They each describe it differently, and it’s breaking my brain trying to figure it out. They talk about a sharp intake of breath—only, not really for breathing.” “Which is perfectly clear.” “Tell me about it,” Skar said, tapping the gemstone in her palm. “It worked best for Kaladin when he didn’t stress. It was harder when he focused on making it happen.” “So I’m supposed to accidently but deliberately breathe something in without breathing, but not try too hard at it?” “Doesn’t it just make you want to string the lot of them up in the storms? But their advice is all we got. So…” She looked at the stone, then held it close to her face—that didn’t seem to be important, but what could it hurt—and breathed in. Nothing happened, so she tried again. And again. For a solid ten minutes. “I don’t know, Skar,” she finally said, lowering the stone. “I keep thinking, maybe I don’t belong here. If you haven’t noticed, none of the women have managed this. I kind of forced my way among you all, and nobody asked—” “Stop,” he said, taking the emerald and holding it before her again. “Stop right there. You want to be a Windrunner?” “More than anything,” she whispered. “Why?” “Because I want to soar.” “Not good enough. Kaladin, he wasn’t thinking about being left out, or how great it would be to fly. He was thinking about saving the rest of us. Saving me. Why do you want to be in the Windrunners?” “Because I want to help! I want to do something other than stand around, waiting for the enemy to come to us!” “Well, you have a chance, Lyn. A chance nobody has had for ages, a chance in millions. Either you seize it, and in so doing decide you’re worthy, or you leave and give up.” He pressed the gemstone back down into her hand. “But if you leave, you don’t get to complain. As long as you keep trying, there’s a chance. When you give up? That’s when the dream dies.” She met his eyes, closed her fist around the gemstone, and breathed in with a sharp, distinct breath. Then started glowing. She yelped in surprise and opened her hand to find the gemstone within dun. She looked at him in awe. “What did you do?” “Nothing,” Skar said. Which was the problem. Still,
he found he couldn’t be jealous. Maybe this was his lot, helping others become Radiants. A trainer, a facilitator? Teft saw Lyn glowing, then dashed over and started cursing—but they were “good” Teft curses. He grabbed her by the arm and towed her toward Kaladin. Skar took in a long, satisfied breath. Well, that was two he’d helped so far, counting Rock. He … he could live with that, couldn’t he? He strolled over to the drink station and got another cup. “What is this foul stuff, Rock?” he asked. “You didn’t mistake the washing water for tea, did you?” “Is old Horneater recipe,” he said. “Has proud tradition.” “Like skipping?” “Like formal war dance,” he said. “And hitting annoying bridgemen on head for not showing proper respect.” Skar turned around and leaned one hand on the table, watching Lyn’s enthusiasm as her squad of scouts ran up to her. He felt good about what he’d done—strangely good. Excited, even. “I think I’m going to have to get used to smelly Horneaters, Rock,” Skar said. “I’m thinking of joining your support team.” “You think I will let you anywhere near cook pot?” “I might not ever learn to fly.” He squished the part of him that whimpered at that. “I need to come to terms with the fact. So, I’ll have to find another way to help out.” “Ha. And the fact that you are glowing with Stormlight right now is not at all consideration in decision?” Skar froze. Then he focused on his hand, right in front of his face, holding a cup. Tiny wisps of Stormlight curled off it. He dropped the cup with a cry, digging from his pocket a couple of dun chips. He’d given his practice gemstone to Lyn. He looked up at Rock, then grinned stupidly. “I suppose,” Rock said, “I can maybe have you wash dishes. Though you do keep throwing my cups on ground. Is not proper respect at all…” He trailed off as Skar left him, running for the others and whooping with excitement. Indeed, we admire his initiative. Perhaps if you had approached the correct one of us with your plea, it would have found favorable audience. I am Talenel’Elin, Herald of War. The time of the Return, the Desolation, is near at hand. We must prepare. You will have forgotten much, following the destruction of the times past. Kalak will teach you to cast bronze, if you have forgotten this. We will Soulcast blocks of metal directly for you. I wish we could teach you steel, but casting is so much easier than forging, and you must have something we can produce quickly. Your stone tools will not serve against what is to come. Vedel can train your surgeons, and Jezrien will teach you leadership. So much is lost between Returns. I will train your soldiers. We should have time. Ishar keeps talking about a way to keep information from being lost following Desolations. And you have discovered something unexpected. We will use that. Surgebinders to act as guardians … Knights
… The coming days will be difficult, but with training, humanity will survive. You must bring me to your leaders. The other Heralds should join us soon. I think I am late, this time. I think … I fear, oh God, that I have failed. No. This is not right, is it? How long has it been? Where am I? I … am Talenel’Elin, Herald of War. The time of the Return, the Desolation, is near at hand.… Jasnah trembled as she read the madman’s words. She turned over the sheet, and found the next one covered in similar ideas, repeated over and over. This couldn’t be a coincidence, and the words were too specific. The abandoned Herald had come to Kholinar—and had been dismissed as a madman. She leaned back in her seat and Ivory—full-sized, like a human—stepped over to the table. Hands clasped behind his back, he wore his usual stiff formal suit. The spren’s coloring was jet black, both clothing and features, though something prismatic swirled on his skin. It was as if pure black marble had been coated in oil that glistened with hidden color. He rubbed his chin, reading the words. Jasnah had rejected the nice rooms with balconies on the rim of Urithiru; those had such an obvious entrance for assassins or spies. Her small room at the center of Dalinar’s section was far more secure. She had stuffed the ventilation openings with cloth. The airflow from the hallway outside was adequate for this room, and she wanted to make sure nobody could overhear her by listening through the shafts. In the corner of her room, three spanreeds worked tirelessly. She had rented them at great expense, until she could acquire new ones of her own. They were paired with reeds in Tashikk that had been delivered to one of the finest—and most trustworthy—information centers in the princedom. There, miles and miles away, a scribe was carefully rewriting each page of her notes, which she had originally sent to them to keep safe. “This speaker, Jasnah,” Ivory said, tapping the sheet she’d just read. Ivory had a clipped, no-nonsense voice. “This one who said these words. This person is a Herald. Our suspicions are true. The Heralds are, and the fallen one still is.” “We need to find him,” Jasnah said. “We must search Shadesmar,” Ivory said. “In this world, men can hide easily—but their souls shine out to us on the other side.” “Unless someone knows how to hide them.” Ivory looked toward the growing stack of notes in the corner; one of the pens had finished writing. Jasnah rose to change the paper; Shallan had rescued one of her trunks of notes, but two others had gone down with the sinking ship. Fortunately, Jasnah had sent off these backup copies. Or did it matter? This sheet, encrypted by her cipher, contained lines and lines of information connecting the parshmen to the Voidbringers. Once, she’d slaved over each of these passages, teasing them from history. Now their contents were common knowledge. In one moment, all
of her expertise had been wiped away. “We’ve lost so much time,” she said. “Yes. We must catch what we have lost, Jasnah. We must.” “The enemy?” Jasnah asked. “He stirs. He angers.” Ivory shook his head, kneeling beside her as she changed the sheets of paper. “We are naught before him, Jasnah. He would destroy my kind and yours.” The spanreed finished, and another started writing out the first lines of her memoirs, which she’d worked on intermittently throughout her life. She’d thrown aside a dozen different attempts, and as she read this latest one, she found herself disliking it as well. “What do you think of Shallan?” she asked Ivory, shaking her head. “The person she’s become.” Ivory frowned, lips drawing tight. His sharply chiseled features, too angular to be human, were like those of a roughed-out statue the sculptor had neglected to finish. “She … is troubling,” he said. “That much hasn’t changed.” “She is not stable.” “Ivory, you think all humans are unstable.” “Not you,” he said, lifting his chin. “You are like a spren. You think by facts. You change not on simple whims. You are as you are.” She gave him a flat stare. “Mostly,” he added. “Mostly. But it is, Jasnah. Compared to other humans, you are practically a stone!” She sighed, standing up and brushing past him, returning to her writing desk. The Herald’s ravings glared at her. She settled down, feeling tired. “Jasnah?” Ivory asked. “Am I … in error?” “I am not so much a stone as you think, Ivory. Sometimes I wish I were.” “These words trouble you,” he said, stepping up to her again and resting his jet-black fingers on the paper. “Why? You have read many troubling things.” Jasnah settled back, listening to the three spanreeds scratching paper, writing out notes that—she feared—would mostly be irrelevant. Something stirred deep within her. Glimmers of memory from a dark room, screaming her voice ragged. A childhood illness nobody else seemed to remember, for all it had done to her. It had taught her that people she loved could still hurt her. “Have you ever wondered how it would feel to lose your sanity, Ivory?” Ivory nodded. “I have wondered this. How could I not? Considering what the ancient fathers are.” “You call me logical,” Jasnah whispered. “It’s untrue, as I let my passions rule me as much as many. In my times of peace, however, my mind has always been the one thing I could rely upon.” Except once. She shook her head, picking up the paper again. “I fear losing that, Ivory. It terrifies me. How would it have felt, to be these Heralds? To suffer your mind slowly becoming untrustworthy? Are they too far gone to know? Or are there lucid moments, where they strain and sort through memories … trying frantically to decide which are reliable and which are fabrications…” She shivered. “The ancient ones,” Ivory said again, nodding. He didn’t often speak of the spren who had been lost during the Recreance. Ivory and his fellows had
been mere children—well, the spren equivalent—at the time. They spent years, centuries, with no older spren to nurture and guide them. The inkspren were only now beginning to recover the culture and society they had lost when men abandoned their vows. “Your ward,” Ivory said. “Her spren. A Cryptic.” “Which is bad?” Ivory nodded. He preferred simple, straightforward gestures. You never saw Ivory shrug. “Cryptics are trouble. They enjoy lies, Jasnah. Feast upon them. Speak one word untrue at a gathering, and seven cluster around you. Their humming fills your ears.” “Have you warred with them?” “One does not war with Cryptics, as one does honorspren. Cryptics have but one city, and do not wish to rule more. Only to listen.” He tapped the table. “Perhaps this one is better, with the bond.” Ivory was the only new-generation inkspren to form a Radiant bond. Some of his fellows would rather have killed Jasnah, instead of letting him risk what he had done. The spren had a noble air about him, stiff-backed and commanding. He could change his size at will, but not his shape, except when fully in this realm, manifesting as a Shardblade. He had taken the name Ivory as a symbol of defiance. He was not what his kin said he was, and would not suffer what fate proclaimed. The difference between a higher spren like him and a common emotion spren was in their ability to decide how to act. A living contradiction. Like human beings. “Shallan won’t listen to me any longer,” Jasnah said. “She rebels against every little thing I tell her. These last few months on her own have changed the child.” “She never obeyed well, Jasnah. That is who she is.” “In the past, at least she pretended to care about my teaching.” “But you have said, more humans should question their places in life. Did you not say that they too often accept presumed truth as fact?” She tapped the table. “You’re right, of course. Wouldn’t I rather have her straining against her boundaries, as opposed to happily living within them? Whether she obeys me or not is of little import. But I do worry about her ability to command her situation, rather than letting her impulses command her.” “How do you change this, if it is?” An excellent question. Jasnah searched through the papers on her small table. She’d been collecting reports from her informants in the warcamps—the ones who had survived—about Shallan. She’d truly done well in Jasnah’s absence. Perhaps what the child needed was not more structure, but more challenges. “All ten orders are again,” Ivory said from behind her. For years it had been only the two of them, Jasnah and Ivory. Ivory had been dodgy about giving odds on whether the other sapient spren would refound their orders or not. However, he’d always said that he was certain that the honorspren—and therefore the Windrunners—would never return. Their attempts to rule Shadesmar had apparently not endeared them to the other races. “Ten orders,” Jasnah said. “All ended in death.” “All
but one,” Ivory agreed. “They lived in death instead.” She turned around, and he met her eyes with his own. No pupils, just oil shimmering above something deeply black. “We must tell the others what we learned from Wit, Ivory. Eventually, this secret must be known.” “Jasnah, no. It would be the end. Another Recreance.” “The truth has not destroyed me.” “You are special. No knowledge is that can destroy you. But the others…” She held his eyes, then gathered the sheets stacked beside her. “We shall see,” she said, then carried them to the table to bind them into a book. But we stand in the sea, pleased with our domains. Leave us alone. Moash grunted as he crossed the uneven ground, hauling a thick, knotted cord over his shoulder. Turned out, the Voidbringers had run out of wagons. Too many supplies to bring, and not enough vehicles. At least, vehicles with wheels. Moash had been assigned to a sledge—a cart with broken wheels that had been repurposed with a pair of long, steel skids. They’d put him first in the line pulling their rope. The parshman overseers had considered him the most enthusiastic. Why wouldn’t he be? The caravans moved at the slow pace of the chulls, which pulled roughly half the ordinary wagons. He had sturdy boots, and even a pair of gloves. Compared to bridge duty, this was a paradise. The scenery was even better. Central Alethkar was far more fertile than the Shattered Plains, and the ground sprouted with rockbuds and the gnarled roots of trees. The sledge bounced and crunched over these, but at least he didn’t have to carry the thing on his shoulders. Around him, hundreds of men pulled wagons or sledges piled high with foodstuffs, freshly cut lumber, or leather made from hogshide or eelskin. Some of the workers had collapsed on their first day out of Revolar. The Voidbringers had separated these into two groups. The ones who had tried, but were genuinely too weak, had been sent back to the city. A few deemed to be faking had been whipped, then moved to sledges instead of wagons. Harsh, but fair. Indeed, as the march continued, Moash was surprised at how well the human workers were treated. Though strict and unforgiving, the Voidbringers understood that to work hard, slaves needed good rations and plenty of time at night to rest. They weren’t even chained up. Running away would be pointless under the watchful care of Fused who could fly. Moash found himself enjoying these weeks hiking and pulling his sledge. It exhausted his body, quieted his thoughts, and let him fall into a calm rhythm. This was certainly far better than his days as a lighteyes, when he’d worried incessantly about the plot against the king. It felt good to just be told what to do. What happened at the Shattered Plains wasn’t my fault, he thought as he hauled the sledge. I was pushed into it. I can’t be blamed. These thoughts comforted him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t ignore their apparent destination.
He’d walked this path dozens of times, running caravans with his uncle even when he’d been a youth. Across the river, straight southeast. Over Ishar’s Field and cutting past the town of Inkwell. The Voidbringers were marching to take Kholinar. The caravan included tens of thousands of parshmen armed with axes or spears. They wore what Moash now knew was called warform: a parshman form with carapace armor and a strong physique. They weren’t experienced—watching their nightly training told him they were basically the equivalent of darkeyes scrounged from villages and pressed into the army. But they were learning, and they had access to the Fused. Those zipped through the air or strode along beside carts, powerful and imperious—and surrounded by dark energy. There seemed to be different varieties, but each was intimidating. Everything was converging on the capital. Should that bother him? After all, what had Kholinar ever done for him? It was the place where his grandparents had been left to die, cold and alone in a prison cell. It was where the blighted King Elhokar had danced and connived while good people rotted. Did humankind even deserve this kingdom? During his youth, he’d listened to traveling ardents who accompanied the caravans. He knew that long ago, humankind had won. Aharietiam, the final confrontation with the Voidbringers, had happened thousands of years ago. What had they done with that victory? They’d set up false gods in the form of men whose eyes reminded them of the Knights Radiant. The life of men over the centuries had been nothing more than a long string of murders, wars, and thefts. The Voidbringers had obviously returned because men had proven they couldn’t govern themselves. That was why the Almighty had sent this scourge. Indeed, the more he marched, the more Moash admired the Voidbringers. The armies were efficient, and the troops learned quickly. The caravans were well supplied; when an overseer saw that Moash’s boots were looking worn, he had a new pair by evening. Each wagon or sledge was given two parshman overseers, but these were told to use their whips sparingly. They were quietly trained for the position, and Moash heard the occasional conversation between an overseer—once a parshman slave—and an unseen spren who gave them directions. The Voidbringers were smart, driven, and efficient. If Kholinar fell to this force, it would be no more than humankind deserved. Yes … perhaps the time for his people had passed. Moash had failed Kaladin and the others—but that was merely how men were in this debased age. He couldn’t be blamed. He was a product of his culture. Only one oddity marred his observations. The Voidbringers seemed so much better than the human armies he’d been part of … except for one thing. There was a group of parshman slaves. They pulled one of the sledges, and always walked apart from the humans. They wore workform, not warform—though otherwise they looked exactly like the other parshmen, with the same marbled skin. Why did this group pull a sledge? At first, as Moash plodded
across the endless plains of central Alethkar, he found the sight of them encouraging. It suggested that the Voidbringers could be egalitarian. Maybe there’d simply been too few men with the strength to pull these sledges. Yet if that were so, why were these parshman sledge-pullers treated so poorly? The overseers did little to hide their disgust, and were allowed to whip the poor creatures without restriction. Moash rarely glanced in their direction without finding one of them being beaten, yelled at, or abused. Moash’s heart wrenched to see and hear this. Everyone else seemed to work so well together; everything else about the army seemed so perfect. Except this. Who were these poor souls? * * * The overseer called a break, and Moash dropped his rope, then took a long pull on his waterskin. It was their twenty-first day of marching, which he only knew because some of the other slaves kept track. He judged the location as several days past Inkwell, in the final stretch toward Kholinar. He ignored the other slaves and settled down in the shade of the sledge, which was piled high with cut timber. Not far behind them, a village burned. There hadn’t been anyone in it, as word had run before them. Why had the Voidbringers burned it, but not others they’d passed? Perhaps it was to send a message—indeed, that smoke trail was ominous. Or perhaps it was to prevent any potential flanking armies from using the village. As his crew waited—Moash didn’t know their names, and hadn’t bothered to ask—the parshman crew trudged past, bloodied and whipped, their overseers yelling them onward. They’d lagged behind. Pervasive cruel treatment led to a tired crew, which in turn led to them being forced to march to catch up when everyone else got a water break. That, of course, only wore them out and caused injuries—which made them lag farther behind, which made them get whipped … That’s what happened to Bridge Four, back before Kaladin, Moash thought. Everyone said we were unlucky, but it was just a self-perpetuating downward spiral. Once that crew passed, trailing a few exhaustionspren, one of Moash’s overseers called for his team to take up their ropes and get moving again. She was a young parshwoman with dark red skin, marbled only slightly with white. She wore a havah. Though it didn’t seem like marching clothing, she wore it well. She had even done up the sleeve to cover her safehand. “What’d they do, anyway?” he said as he took up his rope. “What was that?” she asked, looking back at him. Storms. Save for that skin and the odd singsong quality to her voice, she could have been a pretty Makabaki caravan girl. “That parshman crew,” he said. “What did they do to deserve such rough treatment?” He didn’t actually expect an answer. But the parshwoman followed his gaze, then shook her head. “They harbored a false god. Brought him into the very center among us.” “The Almighty?” She laughed. “A real false god, a living one. Like our
living gods.” She looked up as one of the Fused passed overhead. “There are lots who think the Almighty is real,” Moash said. “If that’s the case, why are you pulling a sledge?” She snapped her fingers, pointing. Moash picked up his rope, joining the other men in a double line. They merged with the enormous column of marching feet, scraping sledges, and rattling wheels. The Parshendi wanted to arrive at the next town before an impending storm. They’d weathered both types—highstorm and Everstorm—sheltering in villages along the way. Moash fell into the sturdy rhythm of the work. It wasn’t long until he was sweating. He’d grown accustomed to the colder weather in the east, near the Frostlands. It was strange to be in a place where the sun felt hot on his skin, and now the weather here was turning toward summer. His sledge soon caught up to the parshman crew. The two sledges walked side by side for a time, and Moash liked to think that keeping pace with his crew could motivate the poor parshmen. Then one of them slipped and fell, and the entire team lurched to a stop. The whipping began. The cries, the crack of leather on skin. That’s enough. Moash dropped his rope and stepped out of the line. His shocked overseers called after him, but didn’t follow. Perhaps they were too surprised. He strode up to the parshman sledge, where the slaves were struggling to pull themselves back up and start again. Several had bloodied faces and backs. The large parshman who had slipped lay curled on the ground. His feet were bleeding; no wonder he’d had trouble walking. Two overseers were whipping him. Moash seized one by the shoulder and pushed him back. “Stop it!” he snapped, then shoved the other overseer aside. “Don’t you see what you’re doing? You’re becoming like us.” The two overseers stared at him, dumbfounded. “You can’t abuse each other,” Moash said. “You can’t.” He turned toward the fallen parshman and extended a hand to help him up, but from the corner of his eye he saw one of the overseers raise his arm. Moash spun and caught the whip that cracked at him, snatching it from the air and twisting it around his wrist to gain leverage. Then he yanked it—pulling the overseer stumbling toward him. Moash smashed a fist into his face, slamming him backward to the ground. Storms that hurt. He shook his hand, which had clipped carapace on the side as he’d connected. He glared at the other overseer, who yelped and dropped his whip, jumping backward. Moash nodded once, then took the fallen slave by the arm and pulled him upright. “Ride in the sledge. Heal those feet.” He took the parshman slave’s place in line, and pulled the rope taut over his shoulder. By now, his own overseers had gathered their wits and chased after him. They conferred with the two that he’d confronted, one nursing a bleeding cut around his eye. Their conversation was hushed, urgent, and punctuated by intimidated glances
toward him. Finally, they decided to let it be. Moash pulled the sledge with the parshmen, and they found someone to replace him on the other sledge. For a while he thought more would come of it—he even saw one of the overseers conferring with a Fused. But they didn’t punish him. No one dared to again raise a whip against the parshman crew the rest of the march. TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO Dalinar pressed his fingers together, then rubbed them, scraping the dry, red-brown moss against itself. The scratchy sound was unpleasantly similar to that of a knife along bone. He felt the warmth immediately, like an ember. A thin plume of smoke rose from his callused fingers and struck below his nose, then parted around his face. Everything faded: the raucous sound of too many men in one room, the musky smell of their bodies pressed together. Euphoria spread through him like sudden sunlight on a cloudy day. He released a protracted sigh. He didn’t even mind when Bashin accidentally elbowed him. Most places, being highprince would have won him a bubble of space, but at the stained wooden table in this poorly lit den, social standing was irrelevant. Here, with a good drink and a little help pressed between his fingers, he could finally relax. Here nobody cared how presentable he was, or if he drank too much. Here, he didn’t have to listen to reports of rebellion and imagine himself out on those fields, solving problems the direct way. Sword in hand, Thrill in his heart … He rubbed the moss more vigorously. Don’t think about war. Just live in the moment, as Evi always said. Havar returned with drinks. The lean, bearded man studied the overcrowded bench, then set the drinks down and hauled a slumped drunk out of his spot. He squeezed in beside Bashin. Havar was lighteyed, good family too. He’d been one of Dalinar’s elites back when that had meant something, though now he had his own land and a high commission. He was one of the few who didn’t salute Dalinar so hard you could hear it. Bashin though … well, Bashin was an odd one. Darkeyed of the first nahn, the portly man had traveled half the world, and encouraged Dalinar to go with him to see the other half. He still wore that stupid, wide-brimmed floppy hat. Havar grunted, passing down the drinks. “Squeezing in beside you, Bashin, would be far easier if you didn’t have a gut that stretched to next week.” “Just trying to do my duty, Brightlord.” “Your duty?” “Lighteyes need folks to obey them, right? I’m making certain that you got lots to serve you, at least by weight.” Dalinar took his mug, but didn’t drink. For now, the firemoss was doing its job. His wasn’t the only plume rising in the dim stone chamber. Gavilar hated the stuff. But then, Gavilar liked his life now. In the center of the dim room, a pair of parshmen pushed tables aside, then started setting diamond chips on the floor.
Men backed away, making space for a large ring of light. A couple of shirtless men pushed their way through the crowd. The room’s general air of clumsy conversation turned to one of roaring excitement. “Are we going to bet?” Havar asked. “Sure,” Bashin replied. “I’ll put three garnet marks on the shorter one.” “I’ll take that bet,” Havar said, “but not for the money. If I win, I want your hat.” “Deal! Ha! So you’re finally going to admit how dashing it is?” “Dashing? Storms, Bashin. I’m going to do you a favor and burn the thing.” Dalinar sat back, mind dulled by the firemoss. “Burn my hat?” Bashin said. “Storms, Havar. That’s harsh. Just because you envy my dashing profile.” “The only thing dashing about that hat is how it makes women run the other way.” “It’s exotic. From the west. Everyone knows fashion comes from the west.” “Yeah, from Liafor and Yezier. Where did you get that hat again?” “The Purelake.” “Ah, that bastion of culture and fashion! Are you going shopping in Bavland next?” “Barmaids don’t know the difference,” Bashin grumbled. “Anyway, can we just watch the match? I’m looking forward to winning those marks off you.” He took a drink, but fingered his hat anxiously. Dalinar closed his eyes. He felt as if he could drift off, maybe get some sleep without worrying about Evi, or dreaming of war.… In the ring, bodies smacked against each other. That sound—the grunts of exertion as the wrestlers tried to push each other from the ring—reminded him of the battle. Dalinar opened his eyes, dropped the moss, and leaned forward. The shorter wrestler danced out of the other’s grip. They revolved around one another, crouched, hands at the ready. When they locked again, the shorter man pushed his opponent off balance. Better stance, Dalinar thought. Kept himself low. That taller fellow has gotten by too long on his strength and size. He’s got terrible form. The two strained, backing toward the edge of the ring, before the taller man managed to trip them both. Dalinar stood up as others, ahead of him, raised their hands and cheered. The contest. The fight. That led me to almost kill Gavilar. Dalinar sat back down. The shorter man won. Havar sighed, but rolled a few glowing spheres to Bashin. “Double or nothing on the next bout?” “Nah,” Bashin said, hefting the marks. “This should be enough.” “For what?” “To bribe a few influential young dandies into trying hats like mine,” Bashin said. “I tell you, once word gets out, everyone is going to be wearing them.” “You’re an idiot.” “So long as I’m a fashionable one.” Dalinar reached to the floor and picked up the firemoss. He tossed it onto the table and stared at it, then took a pull from his mug of wine. The next wrestling match started, and he winced as the two competitors collided. Storms. Why did he keep putting himself into situations like this? “Dalinar,” Havar said. “Any word yet on when we’re going to the Rift?” “The
Rift?” Bashin asked. “What about it?” “Are you dense?” Havar said. “No,” Bashin said, “but I might be drunk. What’s up with the Rift?” “Rumor is they want to set up their own highprince,” Havar said. “Son of the old one, what was his name…” “Tanalan,” Dalinar said. “But we are not going to be visiting the Rift, Havar.” “Surely the king can’t—” “We won’t be going,” Dalinar said. “You’ve got men to train. And I…” Dalinar drank more wine. “I’m going to be a father. My brother can handle the Rift with diplomacy.” Havar leaned back, flippantly dropping his mug to the table. “The king can’t politic his way past open rebellion, Dalinar.” Dalinar closed his fist around the firemoss, but didn’t rub it. How much of his interest in the Rift was his duty to protect Gavilar’s kingdom, and how much was his craving to feel the Thrill again? Damnation. He felt like half a man these days. One of the wrestlers had shoved the other from the ring, disturbing the line of lights. The loser was declared, and a parshman carefully reset the ring. As he did so, a master-servant stepped up to Dalinar’s table. “Pardon, Brightlord,” he whispered. “But you should know. The feature match will have to be canceled.” “What?” Bashin said. “What’s wrong? Makh isn’t going to fight?” “Pardon,” the master-servant repeated. “But his opponent has stomach problems. The match must be canceled.” Apparently, news was spreading through the room. The crowd manifested their disapproval with boos and curses, shouts, and spilled drinks. A tall, bald man stood at the side of the ring, bare-chested. He argued with several of the lighteyed organizers, pointing at the ring, angerspren boiling on the floor around him. To Dalinar, this racket sounded like the calls of battle. He closed his eyes and breathed it in, finding a euphoria far superior to the firemoss. Storms. He should have gotten drunker. He was going to slip. Might as well be quick about it then. He tossed aside the firemoss and stood, then pulled off his shirt. “Dalinar!” Havar said. “What are you doing?” “Gavilar says I need to have more concern for our people’s sorrows,” Dalinar said, stepping up onto the table. “Seems like we’ve got a room full of sorrow here.” Havar gaped, jaw dropping. “Bet on me,” Dalinar said. “For old times’ sake.” He leaped off the table on the other side, then shoved through the crowd. “Someone tell that man he has a challenger!” Silence spread from him like a bad smell. Dalinar found himself at the edge of the ring in a completely quiet room, packed with once-rowdy men both lighteyed and dark. The wrestler—Makh—stepped back, his dark green eyes wide, angerspren vanishing. He had a powerful build, arms that bulged like they were overstuffed. Word was, he’d never been defeated. “Well?” Dalinar said. “You wanted a fight and I need a workout.” “Brightlord,” the man said. “This was to be a freeform bout, all hits and holds allowed.” “Excellent,” Dalinar said. “What? You worried about injuring
your highprince? I promise you clemency for anything done to me.” “Hurting you?” the man said. “Storms, that’s not what I’m afraid of.” He shivered visibly, and a Thaylen woman—perhaps his manager—smacked him on the arm. She thought he’d been rude. The wrestler only bowed and backed away. Dalinar turned about the room, confronted by a sea of faces that suddenly seemed very uncomfortable. He’d broken some kind of rule here. The gathering dissolved, parshmen retrieving spheres from the ground. It seemed Dalinar had been too hasty to judge rank unimportant here. They’d suffered him as an observer, but he was not to participate. Damnation. He growled softly as he stalked to his bench, those angerspren following him on the floor. He took his shirt from Bashin with a swipe of the hand. Back with his elites, any man—from the lowest spearman to the highest captains—would have sparred or wrestled with him. Storms, he’d faced the cook several times, much to the amusement of everyone involved. He sat down and pulled on his shirt, stewing. He’d ripped the buttons free in removing it so quickly. The room fell silent as people continued to leave, and Dalinar just sat there, tense—his body still expecting the fight that would never come. No Thrill. Nothing to fill him. Soon, he and his friends were alone in the room, surveying empty tables, abandoned cups, and spilled drinks. The place somehow smelled even worse now than it had when crowded with men. “Probably for the best, Brightlord,” Havar said. “I want to be among soldiers again, Havar,” Dalinar whispered. “I want to be marching again. Best sleep a man can get is after a long march. And, Damnation, I want to fight. I want to face someone who won’t pull their punches because I’m a highprince.” “Then let’s find such a fight, Dalinar!” Havar said. “Surely the king will let us go. If not to the Rift, then to Herdaz or one of the isles. We can bring him land, glory, honor!” “That wrestler,” Dalinar said, “there was … something to his words. He was certain I would hurt him.” Dalinar drummed his fingers on the table. “Was he scared off because of my reputation in general, or is there something more specific?” Bashin and Havar shared a look. “When?” Dalinar asked. “Tavern fight,” Havar said. “Two weeks back? Do you remember it?” Dalinar remembered a haze of monotony broken by light, a burst of color in his life. Emotion. He breathed out. “You told me everyone was fine.” “They lived,” Havar said. “One … of the brawlers you fought will never walk,” Bashin admitted. “Another had to have his arm removed. A third babbles like a child. His brain doesn’t work anymore.” “That’s far from fine,” Dalinar snapped. “Pardon, Dalinar,” Havar said. “But when facing the Blackthorn, that’s as good as one can expect.” Dalinar crossed his arms on the table, grinding his teeth. The firemoss wasn’t working. Yes, it gave him a quick rush of euphoria, but that only made him want the greater headiness
of the Thrill. Even now he felt on edge—he had the urge to smash this table and everything in the room. He’d been so ready for the fight; he’d surrendered to the temptation, and then had the pleasure stolen from him. He felt all the shame of losing control, but none of the satisfaction of actually getting to fight. Dalinar seized his mug, but it was empty. Stormfather! He threw it and stood up, wanting to scream. He was fortunately distracted by the back door to the wrestling den inching open, revealing a familiar pale face. Toh wore Alethi clothing now, one of the new suits that Gavilar preferred, but it fit him poorly. He was too spindly. No man would ever mistake Toh—with that overcautious gait and wide-eyed innocence—for a soldier. “Dalinar?” he asked, looking over the spilled drinks and the locked sphere lamps on the walls. “The guards said I could find you here. Um … was this a party?” “Ah, Toh,” Havar said, lounging back in his seat. “How could it have been a party without you?” Toh’s eyes flicked toward the chunk of firemoss on the ground nearby. “I’ll never understand what you see in these places, Dalinar.” “He’s just getting to know the common people, Brightlord,” Bashin said, pocketing the firemoss. “You know us darkeyed types, always wallowing in depravity. We need good role models to—” He cut off as Dalinar raised his hand. He didn’t need underlings to cover for him. “What is it, Toh?” “Oh!” the Riran man said. “They were going to send a messenger, but I wanted to deliver the news. My sister, you see. It’s a little early, but the midwives aren’t surprised. They say it’s natural when—” Dalinar gasped, like he’d been punched in the stomach. Early. Midwives. Sister. He charged for the door, and didn’t hear the rest of what Toh said. * * * Evi looked like she’d fought in a battle. He’d seen that expression on the faces of soldiers many times: that sweaty brow, that half-dazed, drowsy look. Exhaustionspren, like jets in the air. These were the mark of a person pushed past the limits of what they thought they could do. She bore a smile of quiet satisfaction. A look of victory. Dalinar pushed past doting surgeons and midwives, stepping up to Evi’s bed. She held out a limp hand. Her left hand, which was wrapped only in a thin envelope that ended at the wrist. It would have been a sign of intimacy, to an Alethi. But Evi still preferred that hand. “The baby?” he whispered, taking the hand. “A son. Healthy and strong.” “A son. I … I have a son?” Dalinar dropped to his knees beside the bed. “Where is he?” “Being washed, my lord,” said one of the midwives. “He will be returned shortly.” “Torn buttons,” Evi whispered. “You’ve been fighting again, Dalinar?” “Just a small diversion.” “That’s what you say each time.” Dalinar squeezed her hand through the envelope, too elated to prickle at the chastisement. “You and Toh came here
to Alethkar because you wanted someone to protect you. You sought out a fighter, Evi.” She squeezed his hand back. A nurse approached with a bundle in her arms and Dalinar looked up, stunned, unable to rise. “Now,” the woman said, “many men are apprehensive at first when—” She cut off as Dalinar found his strength and seized the child from her arms. He held the boy aloft in both hands, letting out a whooping laugh, gloryspren bursting around him as golden spheres. “My son!” he said. “My lord!” the nurse said. “Be careful!” “He’s a Kholin,” Dalinar said, cradling the child. “He’s made of hardy stuff.” He looked down at the boy, who—red faced—wiggled and thrashed with his tiny fists. He had shockingly thick hair, black and blond mixed. Good coloring. Distinctive. May you have your father’s strength, Dalinar thought, rubbing the child’s face with his finger, and at least some of your mother’s compassion, little one. Looking into that face, swelling with joy, Dalinar finally understood. This was why Gavilar thought so much about the future, about Alethkar, about crafting a kingdom that would last. Dalinar’s life so far had stained him crimson and thrashed his soul. His heart was so crusted over with crem, it might as well have been a stone. But this boy … he could rule the princedom, support his cousin the king, and live a life of honor. “His name, Brightlord?” asked Ishal, an aged ardent from the Devotary of Purity. “I would burn the proper glyphwards, if it pleases you.” “Name…” Dalinar said. “Adoda.” Light. He glanced toward Evi, who nodded in agreement. “Without a suffix, my lord? Adodan? Adodal?” “Lin,” Dalinar whispered. Born unto. “Adolin.” A good name, traditional, full of meaning. With regret, Dalinar surrendered the child to the nurses, who returned him to his mother, explaining that it was important to train the baby to suckle as soon as possible. Most in the room began to file out to offer privacy, and as they did, Dalinar caught sight of a regal figure standing at the back. How had he missed Gavilar there? Gavilar took him by the arm and gave him a good thump on the back as they left the chamber. Dalinar was so dazed he barely felt it. He needed to celebrate—buy drinks for every man in the army, declare a holiday, or just run through the city whooping for joy. He was a father! “An excellent day,” Gavilar said. “A most excellent day.” “How do you contain it?” Dalinar said. “This excitement?” Gavilar grinned. “I let the emotion be my reward for the work I have done.” Dalinar nodded, then studied his brother. “What?” Dalinar said. “Something is wrong.” “Nothing.” “Don’t lie to me, Brother.” “I don’t want to ruin your wonderful day.” “Wondering will ruin it more than anything you could say, Gavilar. Out with it.” The king mulled, then nodded toward Dalinar’s den. They crossed the main chamber, passing furniture that was far too showy—colorful, with floral patterns and plush cushions. Evi’s taste was partially to
blame, though it was also just … life, these days. His life was plush. The den was more to his liking. A few chairs, a hearth, a simple rug. A cabinet with various exotic and potent wines, each in a distinctive bottle. They were the type it was almost a shame to drink, as it spoiled the display. “It’s your daughter,” Dalinar guessed. “Her lunacy.” “Jasnah is fine, and recovering. It’s not that.” Gavilar frowned, his expression dangerous. He’d agreed to a crown after much debate—Sunmaker hadn’t worn one, and the histories said Jezerezeh’Elin refused them as well. But people did love symbols, and most Western kings wore crowns. Gavilar had settled upon a black iron circlet. The more Gavilar’s hair greyed, the easier the crown was to see. A servant had set a fire in the hearth, though it was burning low, only a single flamespren crawling along the embers. “I am failing,” Gavilar said. “What?” “Rathalas. The Rift.” “But I thought—” “Propaganda,” Gavilar said. “Intended to quiet critical voices in Kholinar. Tanalan is raising an army and settling into his fortifications. Worse, I think the other highprinces are encouraging him. They want to see how I handle this.” He sneered. “There’s talk I’ve grown soft over the years.” “They’re wrong.” Dalinar had seen it, these months living with Gavilar. His brother had not grown soft. He was still as eager for conquest as ever; he simply approached it differently. The clash of words, the maneuvering of princedoms into positions where they were forced to obey. The fire’s embers seemed to pulse like a heartbeat. “Do you ever wonder about the time when this kingdom was truly great, Dalinar?” Gavilar asked. “When people looked to the Alethi. When kings sought their advice. When we were … Radiant.” “Traitors,” Dalinar said. “Does the act of a single generation negate many generations of domination? We revere the Sunmaker when his reign lasted but the blink of an eye—yet we ignore the centuries the Radiants led. How many Desolations did they defend mankind?” “Um…” The ardents talked about this in prayers, didn’t they? He tried a guess. “Ten?” “A meaningless number,” Gavilar said, waving his fingers. “The histories just say ‘ten’ because it sounds significant. Either way, I have failed in my diplomatic efforts.” He turned toward Dalinar. “It is time to show the kingdom that we are not soft, Brother.” Oh no. Hours ago, he would have leaped in excitement. But after seeing that child … You’ll be anxious again in a few days, Dalinar told himself. A man can’t change in a moment. “Gavilar,” he whispered, “I’m worried.” “You’re still the Blackthorn, Dalinar.” “I’m not worried about whether I can win battles.” Dalinar stood, throwing back his chair in his haste. He found himself pacing. “I’m like an animal, Gavilar. Did you hear about the bar fight? Storms. I can’t be trusted around people.” “You are what the Almighty made you.” “I’m telling you, I’m dangerous. Sure, I can crush this little rebellion, bathe Oathbringer in some blood. Great. Wonderful. Then what?
I come back here and lock myself in a cage again?” “I … might have something that will help.” “Bah. I’ve tried living a quiet life. I can’t live through endless politics, like you can. I need more than just words!” “You’ve merely been trying to restrain yourself—you’ve tried casting out the bloodthirst, but you haven’t replaced it with anything else. Go do what I command, then return and we can discuss further.” Dalinar stopped near his brother, then took a single purposeful step into his shadow. Remember this. Remember you serve him. He would never return to that place that had almost led him to attack this man. “When do I ride for the Rift?” Dalinar asked. “You don’t.” “But you just said—” “I’m sending you to battle, but not against the Rift. Our kingdom suffers threats from abroad. There is a new dynasty threatening us from Herdaz; a Reshi house has gained power there. And the Vedens have been raiding Alethkar in the southwest. They’re claiming it’s bandits, but the forces are too organized. It’s a test to see how we react.” Dalinar nodded slowly. “You want me to go fight on our borders. Remind everyone we’re still capable of employing the sword.” “Exactly. This is a dangerous time for us, Brother. The highprinces question. Is a united Alethkar worth the trouble? Why bow before a king? Tanalan is the manifestation of their questions, but he has been careful not to stray into outright rebellion. If you attack him, the other highprinces could unite behind the rebels. We could shatter the kingdom and have to start all over. “I will not allow that. I will have a unified Alethkar. Even if I have to hit the highprinces so hard, they are forced to melt together from the heat of it. They need to remember that. Go to Herdaz first, then Jah Keved. Remind everyone why they fear you.” Gavilar met Dalinar’s eyes. No … he was not soft. He thought like a king now. He sought the long term, but Gavilar Kholin was as determined as ever. “It will be done,” Dalinar said. Storms, this day had been a tempest of emotion. Dalinar stalked toward the door. He wanted to see the child again. “Brother?” Gavilar said. Dalinar turned back and regarded Gavilar, who was bathed by the bleeding light of a fire reaching its end. “Words are important,” Gavilar said. “Much more than you give them credit for being.” “Perhaps,” Dalinar said. “But if they were all-powerful, you wouldn’t need my sword, would you?” “Perhaps. I can’t help feeling words would be enough, if only I knew the right ones to say.” I can point to the moment when I decided for certain this record had to be written. I hung between realms, seeing into Shadesmar—the realm of the spren—and beyond. —From Oathbringer, preface Kaladin trudged through a field of quiet rockbuds, fully aware that he was too late to prevent a disaster. His failure pressed down on him with an almost physical sensation, like the weight of a
bridge he was forced to carry all on his own. After so long in the eastern part of the stormlands, he had nearly forgotten the sights of a fertile landscape. Rockbuds here grew almost as big as barrels, with vines as thick as his wrist spilling out and lapping water from the pools on the stone. Fields of vibrant green grass pulled back into burrows before him, easily three feet tall when standing at height. The field was dappled with glowing lifespren, like motes of green dust. The grass back near the Shattered Plains had barely reached as high as his ankle, and had mostly grown in yellowish patches on the leeward side of hills. He was surprised to find that he distrusted this taller, fuller grass. An ambusher could hide in that, by crouching down and waiting for the grass to rise back up. How had Kaladin never noticed? He’d run through fields like this playing catch-me with his brother, trying to see who was quick enough to grab handfuls of grass before it hid. Kaladin felt drained. Used up. Four days ago, he’d traveled by Oathgate to the Shattered Plains, then flown to the northwest at speed. Filled to bursting with Stormlight—and carrying a wealth more in gemstones—he’d been determined to reach his home, Hearthstone, before the Everstorm returned. After just half a day, he’d run out of Stormlight somewhere in Aladar’s princedom. He’d been walking ever since. Perhaps he could have flown all the way to Hearthstone if he’d been more practiced with his powers. As it was, he’d traveled over a thousand miles in half a day, but this last bit—ninety or so miles—had taken an excruciating three days. He hadn’t beaten the Everstorm. It had arrived earlier in the day, around noon. Kaladin noticed a bit of debris peeking out of the grass, and he trudged toward it. The foliage obligingly pulled back before him, revealing a broken wooden churn, the kind used for turning sow’s milk into butter. Kaladin crouched and rested fingers on the splintered wood, then glanced toward another chunk of wood peeking out over the tops of the grass. Syl zipped down as a ribbon of light, passing his head and spinning around the length of wood. “It’s the edge of a roof,” Kaladin said. “The lip that hangs down on the leeward side of a building.” Probably from a storage shed, judging by the other debris. Alethkar wasn’t in the harshest of the stormlands, but neither was this some soft-skinned Western land. Buildings here were built low and squat, sturdy sides pointed eastward toward the Origin, like the shoulder of a man set and ready to take the force of an impact. Windows would only be on the leeward—the westward—side. Like the grass and the trees, humankind had learned to weather the storms. That depended on storms always blowing in the same direction. Kaladin had done what he could to prepare the villages and towns he passed for the coming Everstorm, which would blow in the wrong direction and transform parshmen into
destructive Voidbringers. Nobody in those towns had possessed working spanreeds, however, and he’d been unable to contact his home. He hadn’t been fast enough. Earlier today, he’d spent the Everstorm within a tomb he’d hollowed out of rock using his Shardblade—Syl herself, who could manifest as any weapon he desired. In truth, the storm hadn’t been nearly as bad as the one where he’d fought the Assassin in White. But the debris he found here proved that this one had been bad enough. The mere memory of that red storm outside his hollow made panic rise inside him. The Everstorm was so wrong, so unnatural—like a baby born with no face. Some things just should not be. He stood up and continued on his way. He had changed uniforms before leaving—his old uniform had been bloodied and tattered. He now wore a spare generic Kholin uniform. It felt wrong not to bear the symbol of Bridge Four. He crested a hill and spotted a river to his right. Trees sprouted along its banks, hungry for the extra water. That would be Hobble’s Brook. So if he looked directly west … Hand shading his eyes, he could see hills that had been stripped of grass and rockbuds. They’d soon be slathered with seed-crem, and lavis polyps would start to bud. That hadn’t started yet; this was supposed to be the Weeping. Rain should be falling right now in a constant, gentle shower. Syl zipped up in front of him, a ribbon of light. “Your eyes are brown again,” she noted. It took a few hours without summoning his Shardblade. Once he did that, his eyes would bleed to a glassy light blue, almost glowing. Syl found the variation fascinating; Kaladin still hadn’t decided how he felt about it. “We’re close,” Kaladin said, pointing. “Those fields belong to Hobbleken. We’re maybe two hours from Hearthstone.” “Then you’ll be home!” Syl said, her ribbon of light spiraling and taking the shape of a young woman in a flowing havah, tight and buttoning above the waist, with safehand covered. Kaladin grunted, walking down the slope, longing for Stormlight. Being without it now, after holding so much, was an echoing hollowness within him. Was this what it would be like every time he ran dry? The Everstorm hadn’t recharged his spheres, of course. Neither with Stormlight nor some other energy, which he’d feared might happen. “Do you like the new dress?” Syl asked, wagging her covered safehand as she stood in the air. “Looks strange on you.” “I’ll have you know I put a ton of thought into it. I spent positively hours thinking of just how— Oh! What’s that?” She turned into a little stormcloud that shot toward a lurg clinging to a stone. She inspected the fist-size amphibian on one side, then the other, before squealing in joy and turning into a perfect imitation of the thing—except pale white-blue. This startled the creature away, and she giggled, zipping back toward Kaladin as a ribbon of light. “What were we saying?” she asked, forming into a
young woman and resting on his shoulder. “Nothing important.” “I’m sure I was scolding you. Oh, yes, you’re home! Yay! Aren’t you excited?” She didn’t see it—didn’t realize. Sometimes, for all her curiosity, she could be oblivious. “But … it’s your home…” Syl said. She huddled down. “What’s wrong?” “The Everstorm, Syl,” Kaladin said. “We were supposed to beat it here.” He’d needed to beat it here. Surely someone would have survived, right? The fury of the storm, and then the worse fury after? The murderous rampage of servants turned into monsters? Oh, Stormfather. Why hadn’t he been faster? He forced himself into a double march again, pack slung over his shoulder. The weight was still heavy, dreadfully so, but he found that he had to know. Had to see. Someone had to witness what had happened to his home. * * * The rain resumed about an hour out of Hearthstone, so at least the weather patterns hadn’t been completely ruined. Unfortunately, this meant he had to hike the rest of the way wet. He splashed through puddles where rainspren grew, blue candles with eyes on the very tip. “It will be all right, Kaladin,” Syl promised from his shoulder. She’d created an umbrella for herself, and still wore the traditional Vorin dress instead of her usual girlish skirt. “You’ll see.” The sky had darkened by the time he finally crested the last lavis hill and looked down on Hearthstone. He braced himself for the destruction, but it shocked him nonetheless. Some of the buildings he remembered were simply … gone. Others stood without roofs. He couldn’t see the entire town from his vantage, not in the gloom of the Weeping, but many of the structures he could make out were hollow and ruined. He stood for a long time as night fell. He didn’t spot a glimmer of light in the town. It was empty. Dead. A part of him scrunched up inside, huddling into a corner, tired of being whipped so often. He’d embraced his power; he’d taken the path of a Radiant. Why hadn’t it been enough? His eyes immediately sought out his own home on the outskirts of town. But no. Even if he’d been able to see it in the rainy evening gloom, he didn’t want to go there. Not yet. He couldn’t face the death he might find. Instead, he rounded Hearthstone on the northwestern side, where a hill led up to the citylord’s manor. The larger rural towns like this served as a kind of hub for the small farming communities around them. Because of that, Hearthstone was cursed with the presence of a lighteyed ruler of some status. Brightlord Roshone, a man whose greedy ways had ruined far more than one life. Moash … Kaladin thought as he trudged up the hill toward the manor, shivering in the chill and the darkness. He’d have to face his friend’s betrayal—and near assassination of Elhokar—at some point. For now, he had more pressing wounds that needed tending. The manor was where the town’s parshmen had
been kept; they’d have begun their rampage here. He was pretty sure that if he ran across Roshone’s broken corpse, he wouldn’t be too heartbroken. “Wow,” Syl said. “Gloomspren.” Kaladin looked up and noted an unusual spren whipping about. Long, grey, like a tattered streamer of cloth in the wind. It wound around him, fluttering. He’d seen its like only once or twice before. “Why are they so rare?” Kaladin asked. “People feel gloomy all the time.” “Who knows?” Syl said. “Some spren are common. Some are uncommon.” She tapped his shoulder. “I’m pretty sure one of my aunts liked to hunt these things.” “Hunt them?” Kaladin asked. “Like, try to spot them?” “No. Like you hunt greatshells. Can’t remember her name…” Syl cocked her head, oblivious to the fact that rain was falling through her form. “She wasn’t really my aunt. Just an honorspren I referred to that way. What an odd memory.” “More seems to be coming back to you.” “The longer I’m with you, the more it happens. Assuming you don’t try to kill me again.” She gave him a sideways look. Though it was dark, she glowed enough for him to make out the expression. “How often are you going to make me apologize for that?” “How many times have I done it so far?” “At least fifty.” “Liar,” Syl said. “Can’t be more than twenty.” “I’m sorry.” Wait. Was that light up ahead? Kaladin stopped on the path. It was light, coming from the manor house. It flickered unevenly. Fire? Was the manor burning? No, it seemed to be candles or lanterns inside. Someone, it appeared, had survived. Humans or Voidbringers? He needed to be careful, though as he approached, he found that he didn’t want to be. He wanted to be reckless, angry, destructive. If he found the creatures that had taken his home from him … “Be ready,” he mumbled to Syl. He stepped off the pathway, which was kept free of rockbuds and other plants, and crept carefully toward the manor. Light shone between boards that had been pounded across the building’s windows, replacing glass that the Everstorm undoubtedly broke. He was surprised the manor had survived as well as it had. The porch had been ripped free, but the roof remained. The rain masked other sounds and made it difficult to see much beyond that, but someone, or something, was inside. Shadows moved in front of the lights. Heart pounding, Kaladin rounded toward the northern side of the building. The servants’ entrance would be here, along with the quarters for the parshmen. An unusual amount of noise came from inside the manor house. Thumping. Motion. Like a nest full of rats. He had to feel his way through the gardens. The parshmen had been housed in a small structure built in the manor’s shadow, with a single open chamber and benches for sleeping. Kaladin reached it by touch and felt at a large hole ripped in the side. Scraping came from behind him. Kaladin spun as the back door of the manor opened,
its warped frame grinding against stone. He dove for cover behind a shalebark mound, but light bathed him, cutting through the rain. A lantern. Kaladin stretched his hand to the side, prepared to summon Syl, yet the person who stepped from the manor was no Voidbringer, but instead a human guardsman in an old helm spotted by rust. The man held up his lantern. “Here now,” he shouted at Kaladin, fumbling at the mace on his belt. “Here now! You there!” He pulled free the weapon and held it out in a quivering hand. “What are you? Deserter? Come here into the light and let me see you.” Kaladin stood up warily. He didn’t recognize the soldier—but either someone had survived the Voidbringer assault, or this man was part of an expedition investigating the aftermath. Either way, it was the first hopeful sign Kaladin had seen since arriving. He held his hands up—he was unarmed save for Syl—and let the guard bully him into the building. We also instruct that you should not return to Obrodai. We have claimed that world, and a new avatar of our being is beginning to manifest there. She is young yet, and—as a precaution—she has been instilled with an intense and overpowering dislike of you. To Dalinar, flying felt much like being on a ship in the ocean. There was something profoundly disconcerting about being out on the ocean, subject to the winds and currents. Men didn’t control the waves, they merely set out and prayed that the ocean didn’t decide to consume them. Flying alongside Captain Kaladin provoked some of the same emotions in Dalinar. On one hand, the view over the Shattered Plains was magnificent. He felt he could almost see the pattern to it that Shallan mentioned. On the other hand, this kind of travel was deeply unnatural. Winds buffeted them, and if you moved your hands or arched your back in the wrong way, you were sent in a different direction from everyone else. Kaladin had to constantly zip back and forth, righting one of them that got blown off-course. And if you looked down, and paused to consider exactly how high up you were … Well, Dalinar was not a timid man, but he was still glad of Navani’s hand in his. On his other side flew Elhokar, and beyond him were Kadash and a pretty young ardent who served as one of Navani’s scholars. The five of them were escorted by Kaladin and ten of his squires. The Windrunners had been training steadily for three weeks now, and Kaladin had finally—after practicing by flying groups of soldiers back and forth to the warcamps—agreed to treat Dalinar and the king to a similar trip. It is like being on a ship, Dalinar thought. What would it feel like to be up here during a highstorm? That was how Kaladin planned to get Elhokar’s team to Kholinar—fly them at the leading edge of a storm, so his Stormlight was continually renewed. You’re thinking of me, the Stormfather sent. I can feel it.
“I’m thinking of how you treat ships,” Dalinar whispered, his physical voice lost to the winds—yet his meaning carried, unhampered, to the Stormfather. Men should not be upon the waters during a storm, he replied. Men are not of the waves. “And the sky? Are men of the sky?” Some are. He said this grudgingly. Dalinar could only imagine how terrible it must be to be a sailor out at sea during a storm. He had taken only short coastwise trips by ship. No, wait, he thought. There was one, of course. A trip to the Valley … He barely remembered that voyage, though he could not blame that solely upon the Nightwatcher. Captain Kaladin swooped over. He was the only one who seemed truly in control of his flying. Even his men flew more like dropped rocks than skyeels. They lacked his finesse, his control. Though the others could help if something went wrong, Kaladin had been the only one Lashing Dalinar and the others. He said he wanted practice, for the eventual flight to Kholinar. Kaladin touched Elhokar, and the king started to slow. Kaladin then moved down the line, slowing each in turn. He then swept them up so they were close enough to speak. His soldiers stopped and floated nearby. “What’s wrong?” Dalinar asked, trying to ignore that he was hanging hundreds of feet in the sky. “Nothing’s wrong,” Kaladin said, then pointed. With the wind in his eyes, Dalinar had failed to spot the warcamps: ten craterlike circles arrayed along the northwestern edge of the Shattered Plains. From up here, it was obvious they had once been domes. The way their walls curved, like cupping fingers from underneath. Two of the camps were still fully occupied, and Sebarial had set up forces to lay claim to the nearby forest. Dalinar’s own warcamp was less populated, but had a few platoons of soldiers and some workers. “We arrived so quickly!” Navani said. Her hair was a wind-tousled mess, much of it having escaped her careful braid. Elhokar hadn’t fared much better—his hair sprayed out from his face like waxed Thaylen eyebrows. The two ardents, of course, were bald and didn’t have such worries. “Quick indeed,” Elhokar said, redoing a few buttons of his uniform. “This is most promising for our mission.” “Yeah,” Kaladin said. “I still want to test it more in front of a storm.” He took the king by the shoulder, and Elhokar started to drift downward. Kaladin sent them each down in turn, and when his feet finally touched stone again, Dalinar heaved a sigh of relief. They were only one plateau over from the warcamp, where a soldier at a watchpost waved to them with eager, exaggerated movements. Within minutes, a troop of Kholin soldiers had surrounded them. “Let’s get you inside the walls, Brightlord,” their captainlord said, hand on the pommel of his sword. “The shellheads are still active out here.” “Have they attacked this close to the camps?” Elhokar asked, surprised. “No, but that doesn’t mean they won’t, Your Majesty.” Dalinar wasn’t
so worried, but said nothing as the soldiers ushered him and the others into the warcamp where Brightness Jasalai—the tall, stately woman Dalinar had put in charge of the camp—met and accompanied them. After spending so much time in the alien hallways of Urithiru, walking through this place—which had been Dalinar’s home for five years—was relaxing. Part of that was finding the warcamp mostly intact; it had weathered the Everstorm quite well. Most of the buildings were stone bunkers, and that western rim of the former dome had provided a solid windbreak. “My only worry,” he told Jasalai after a short tour, “is about logistics. This is a long march from Narak and the Oathgate. I fear that by dividing our forces among Narak, here, and Urithiru, we’re increasing our vulnerability to an attack.” “That is true, Brightlord,” the woman said. “I endeavor only to provide you with options.” Unfortunately, they would probably need this place for farming operations, not to mention the lumber. Plateau runs for gemhearts couldn’t sustain the tower city’s population forever, particularly in the face of Shallan’s assessment that they had likely hunted chasmfiends near to extinction. Dalinar glanced at Navani. She thought they should found a new kingdom here, on and around the Shattered Plains. Import farmers, retire older soldiers, start production here on a much larger scale than they’d ever tried before. Others disagreed. There was a reason the Unclaimed Hills weren’t densely inhabited. It would be a harsh life here—rockbuds grew smaller, crops would be less productive. And founding a new kingdom during a Desolation? Better to protect what they had. Alethkar could probably feed Urithiru—but that depended on Kaladin and Elhokar recovering the capital. Their tour ended with a meal at Dalinar’s bunker, in his former sitting room, which looked bare now that most of the furniture and rugs had been removed to Urithiru. After the meal, he found himself standing by the window, feeling oddly out of place. He’d left this warcamp only ten weeks ago, but the place was at once deeply familiar and also no longer his. Behind him, Navani and her scribe ate fruit as they chatted quietly over some sketches that Navani had done. “Oh, but I think that the others need to experience that, Brightness!” the scribe said. “The flight was remarkable. How fast do you think we were going? I believe we might have attained a speed that no human has reached since the Recreance. Think about that, Navani! Surely we were faster than the fastest horse or ship.” “Focus, Rushu,” Navani said. “My sketch.” “I don’t think this math is right, Brightness. No, that sail will never stand.” “It’s not meant to be completely accurate,” Navani said. “Just a concept. My question is, can it work?” “We’ll need more reinforcement. Yes, more reinforcement for certain. And then the steering mechanism … definitely work to do there. This is clever though, Brightness. Falilar needs to see it; he will be able to say whether or not it can be built.” Dalinar glanced away from the window, catching
Navani’s eye. She smiled. She always claimed that she wasn’t a scholar, but a patron of scholars. She said her place was to encourage and guide the real scientists. Anyone who saw the light in her eyes as she took out another sheet and sketched her idea further knew she was being too modest. She began another sketch, but then stopped and glanced to the side, where she’d set out a spanreed. The ruby was blinking. Fen! Dalinar thought. The queen of Thaylenah had asked that, in this morning’s highstorm, Dalinar send her into the vision of Aharietiam, which she knew about from the published accounts of Dalinar’s visions. He’d reluctantly sent her alone, without supervision. They’d been waiting for her to speak of the event, to say anything. In the morning, she hadn’t replied to their requests for a conversation. Navani prepared the spanreed, then set it writing. It scribbled for only a brief moment. “That was short,” Dalinar said, stepping toward her. “Only one word,” Navani said. She looked up at him. “Yes.” Dalinar heaved out a long breath. She was willing to visit Urithiru. Finally! “Tell her we’ll send her a Radiant.” He left the window, watching as she replied. In her sketchpad, he caught sight of some kind of shiplike contraption, but with the sail on the bottom. What in the world? Fen seemed content to leave the conversation there, and Navani returned to her discussion of engineering, so Dalinar slipped from the room. He passed through his bunker, which felt hollow. Like the rind of a fruit with the pulp scooped out. No servants scuttling back and forth, no soldiers. Kaladin and his men had gone off somewhere, and Kadash was probably at the camp monastery. He’d been keen to get there, and Dalinar had been gratified by his willingness to fly with Kaladin. They hadn’t spoken much since their confrontation in the sparring room. Well, perhaps seeing the Windrunners’ power firsthand would improve Kadash’s opinion of the Radiants. Dalinar was surprised—and secretly pleased—to find that no guards had been posted at the bunker’s back door. He slipped out alone and headed to the warcamp monastery. He wasn’t looking for Kadash; he had another purpose. He soon arrived at the monastery, which looked like most of the warcamp—a collection of buildings with the same smooth, rounded construction. Crafted from the air by Alethi Soulcasters. This place had a few small, hand-built buildings of cut stone, but they looked more like bunkers than places of worship. Dalinar had never wanted his people to forget that they were at war. He strolled through the campus and found that without a guide, he didn’t know his way among the nearly identical structures. He stopped in a courtyard between buildings. The air smelled of wet stone from the highstorm, and a nice group of shalebark sculptures rose to his right, shaped like stacks of square plates. The only sound was water dripping from the eaves of the buildings. Storms. He should know his way around his own monastery, shouldn’t he? How
often did you actually visit here, during all the years in the warcamps? He’d meant to come more often, and talk to the ardents in his chosen devotary. There had always been something more pressing, and besides, the ardents stressed that he didn’t need to come. They had prayed and burned glyphwards on his behalf; that was why highlords owned ardents. Even during his darkest days of war, they’d assured him that in pursuing his Calling—by leading his armies—he served the Almighty. Dalinar stooped into a building that had been divided into many small rooms for prayers. He walked down a hallway until he stepped through a storm door into the atrium, which still smelled faintly of incense. It seemed insane that the ardents would be angry with him now, after training him his whole life to do as he wished. But he’d upset the balance. Rocked the boat. He moved among braziers filled with wet ash. Everyone liked the system they had. The lighteyes got to live without guilt or burden, always confident that they were active manifestations of God’s will. The darkeyes got free access to training in a multitude of skills. The ardents got to pursue scholarship. The best of them lived lives of service. The worst lived lives of indolence—but what else were important lighteyed families going to do with unmotivated children? A noise drew his attention, and he left the courtyard and looked into a dark corridor. Light poured from a room at the other end, and Dalinar was not surprised to find Kadash inside. The ardent was moving some ledgers and books from a wall safe into a pack on the floor. On a desk nearby, a spanreed scribbled. Dalinar stepped into the room. The scarred ardent jumped, then relaxed when he saw it was Dalinar. “Do we need to have this conversation again, Dalinar?” he asked, turning back to his packing. “No,” Dalinar said. “I didn’t actually come looking for you. I want to find a man who lived here. A madman who claimed to be one of the Heralds.” Kadash cocked his head. “Ah, yes. The one who had a Shardblade?” “All of the other patients at the monastery are accounted for, safe at Urithiru, but he vanished somehow. I was hoping to see if his room offered any clues to what became of him.” Kadash looked at him, gauging his sincerity. Then the ardent sighed, rising. “That’s a different devotary from mine,” he said, “but I have occupancy records here. I should be able to tell you which room he was in.” “Thank you.” Kadash looked through a stack of ledgers. “Shash building,” he finally said, pointing absently out the window. “That one right there. Room thirty-seven. Insah ran the facility; her records will list details of the madman’s treatment. If her departure from the warcamp was anything like mine, she’ll have left most of her paperwork behind.” He gestured toward the safe and his packing. “Thank you,” Dalinar said. He moved to leave. “You … think the madman was actually a Herald,
don’t you?” “I think it’s likely.” “He spoke with a rural Alethi accent, Dalinar.” “And he looked Makabaki,” Dalinar replied. “That alone is an oddity, wouldn’t you say?” “Immigrant families are not so uncommon.” “Ones with Shardblades?” Kadash shrugged. “Let’s say I could actually find one of the Heralds,” Dalinar said. “Let’s say we could confirm his identity, and you accepted that proof. Would you believe him if he told you the same things I have?” Kadash sighed. “Surely you’d want to know if the Almighty were dead, Kadash,” Dalinar said, stepping back into the room. “Tell me you wouldn’t.” “You know what it would mean? It would mean there is no spiritual basis for your rule.” “I know.” “And the things you did in conquering Alethkar?” Kadash said. “No divine mandate, Dalinar. Everyone accepts what you did because your victories were proof of the Almighty’s favor. Without him … then what are you?” “Tell me, Kadash. Would you really rather not know?” Kadash looked at the spanreed, which had stopped writing. He shook his head. “I don’t know, Dalinar. It certainly would be easier.” “Isn’t that the problem? What has any of this ever required of men like me? What has it required of any of us?” “It required you to be what you are.” “Which is self-fulfilling,” Dalinar said. “You were a swordsman, Kadash. Would you have gotten better without opponents to face? Would you have gotten stronger without weights to lift? Well, in Vorinism, we’ve spent centuries avoiding the opponents and the weights.” Again, Kadash glanced at the spanreed. “What is it?” Dalinar asked. “I left most of my spanreeds behind,” Kadash explained, “when I went with you toward the center of the Shattered Plains. I took only the spanreed linked to an ardent transfer station in Kholinar. I thought that would be enough, but it no longer works. I’ve been forced to use intermediaries in Tashikk.” Kadash lifted a box onto the desk and opened it. Inside were five more spanreeds, with blinking rubies, indicating that someone had been trying to contact Kadash. “These are links to the leaders of Vorinism in Jah Keved, Herdaz, Kharbranth, Thaylenah, and New Natanan,” Kadash said, counting them off. “They had a meeting via reeds today, discussing the nature of the Desolation and the Everstorm. And perhaps you. I mentioned I was going to recover my own spanreeds today. Apparently, their meeting has made them all very eager to question me further.” He let the silence hang between them, measured out by the five blinking red lights. “What of the one that is writing?” Dalinar asked. “A line to the Palanaeum and the heads of Vorin research there. They’ve been working on the Dawnchant, using the clues Brightness Navani gave them from your visions. What they’ve sent me are relevant passages from ongoing translations.” “Proof,” Dalinar said. “You wanted solid proof that what I’ve been seeing is real.” He strode forward, grabbing Kadash by the shoulders. “You waited for that reed first, before answering the leaders of Vorinism?” “I wanted all the
facts in hand.” “So you know that the visions are real!” “I long ago accepted that you weren’t mad. These days, it’s more a question of who might be influencing you.” “Why would the Voidbringers give me these visions?” Dalinar said. “Why would they grant us great powers, like the one that flew us here? It’s not rational, Kadash.” “Neither is what you’re saying about the Almighty.” He held up a hand to cut off Dalinar. “I don’t want to have this argument again. Before, you asked me for proof that we are following the Almighty’s precepts, right?” “All I asked for and all I want is the truth.” “We have it already. I’ll show you.” “I look forward to it,” Dalinar said, walking to the door. “But Kadash? In my painful experience, the truth may be simple, but it is rarely easy.” Dalinar crossed to the next building over and counted down the rooms. Storms, this building felt like a prison. Most of the doors hung open, revealing uniform chambers beyond: each had one tiny window, a slab for a bed, and a thick wooden door. The ardents knew what was best for the sick—they had access to all the world’s latest research in all fields—but was it really necessary to lock madmen away like this? Number thirty-seven was still bolted shut. Dalinar rattled the door, then threw his shoulder against it. Storms, it was thick. Without thinking he put his hand to the side and tried summoning his Shardblade. Nothing happened. What are you doing? the Stormfather demanded. “Sorry,” Dalinar said, shaking his hand out. “Habit.” He crouched down and tried peeking under the door, then called out, suddenly horrified by the idea that they might have simply left the man in here to starve. That couldn’t have happened, could it? “My powers,” Dalinar said, rising. “Can I use them?” Binding things? the Stormfather said. How would that open a door? You are a Bondsmith; you bring things together, you do not divide them. “And my other Surge?” Dalinar said. “That Radiant in the vision made stone warp and ripple.” You are not ready. Besides, that Surge is different for you than it is for a Stoneward. Well, from what Dalinar could see underneath the door, there seemed to be light in this room. Perhaps it had a window to the outside he could use. On his way out, he poked through the ardent chambers until he found an office like Kadash’s. He didn’t find any keys, though the desk still had pens and ink sitting on it. They’d left in haste, so there was a good chance the wall safe contained records—but of course, Dalinar couldn’t get in. Storms. He missed having a Shardblade. He rounded the outside of the building to check the window, then immediately felt silly for spending so much time trying to get through the door. Somebody else had already cut a hole in the stone out here, using the distinctive, clean slices of a Shardblade. Dalinar stepped inside, picking his way around the broken
remnants of the wall, which had fallen inward—indicating that the Shardbearer had cut from the outside. He found no madman. The ardents had likely seen this hole and moved on with their evacuation. News of the strange hole must not have filtered up to the lead ardents. He didn’t find anything to indicate where the Herald had gone, but at least he knew a Shardbearer was involved. Someone powerful had wanted into this room, which lent even more credence to the madman’s claims of being a Herald. So who had taken him? Or had they done something to him instead? What happened to a Herald’s body when they died? Could someone else have come to the same conclusion that Jasnah had? As he was about to leave, Dalinar spotted something on the ground beside the bed. He knelt down, shooed away a cremling, and picked up a small object. It was a dart, green with yellow twine wrapped around it. He frowned, turning it over in his fingers. Then he looked up as he heard someone distantly calling his name. He found Kaladin out in the monastery courtyard, calling for him. Dalinar approached, then handed him the little dart. “Ever seen anything like this before, Captain?” Kaladin shook his head. He sniffed at the tip, then raised his eyebrows. “That’s poison on the tip. Blackbane derived.” “Are you sure?” Dalinar asked, taking the dart back. “Very. Where did you find it?” “In the chamber that housed the Herald.” Kaladin grunted. “You need more time for your search?” “Not much,” Dalinar said. “Though it would help if you’d summon your Shardblade.…” A short time later, Dalinar handed Navani the records he’d taken from the ardent’s safe. He dropped the dart in a pouch and handed it over as well, warning her about the poisoned tip. One by one, Kaladin sent them into the sky, where his bridgemen caught them and used Stormlight to stabilize them. Dalinar was last, and as Kaladin reached for him, he took the captain by the arm. “You want to practice flying in front of a storm,” Dalinar said. “Could you get to Thaylenah?” “Probably,” Kaladin said. “If I Lashed myself southward as fast as I can go.” “Go, then,” Dalinar said. “Take someone with you to test flying another person in front of a storm, if you want, but get to Thaylen City. Queen Fen is willing to join us, and I want that Oathgate active. The world has been turning before our very noses, Captain. Gods and Heralds have been warring, and we were too focused on our petty problems to even notice.” “I’ll go next highstorm,” Kaladin said, then sent Dalinar soaring up into the air. This is all we will say at this time. If you wish more, seek these waters in person and overcome the tests we have created. Only in this will you earn our respect. The parshmen of Moash’s new sledge crew didn’t like him. That didn’t bother him. Lately, he didn’t much like himself. He didn’t expect or need their admiration.
He knew what it felt like to be beaten down, despised. When you’d been treated as they had, you didn’t trust someone like Moash. You asked yourself what he was trying to get from you. After a few days of pulling their sledge, the landscape began to change. The open plains became cultivated hills. They passed great sweeping wards—artificial stone ridges built by planting sturdy wooden barricades to collect crem during storms. The crem would harden, slowly building up a mound on the stormward side. After a few years, you raised the top of the barricade. They took generations to grow to useful sizes, but here—around the oldest, most populated centers of Alethkar—they were common. They looked like frozen waves of stone, stiff and straight on the western side, sloping and smooth on the other side. In their shadows, vast orchards spread in rows, most of the trees cultivated to grow no more than the height of a man. The western edge of those orchards was ragged with broken trees. Barriers would need to be erected to the west as well, now. He expected the Fused to burn the orchards, but they didn’t. During a water break, Moash studied one of them—a tall woman who hovered a dozen feet in the air, toes pointed downward. Her face was more angular than those of the parshmen. She resembled a spren the way she hung there, an impression accented by her flowing clothing. Moash leaned back against his sledge and took a pull on his waterskin. Nearby, an overseer watched him and the parshmen of his crew. She was new; a replacement for the one he’d punched. A few more of the Fused passed on horses, trotting the beasts with obvious familiarity. That variety doesn’t fly, he thought. They can raise the dark light around themselves, but it doesn’t give them Lashings. Something else. He glanced back at the one nearest him, the one hovering. But that type almost never walks. It’s the same kind that captured me. Kaladin wouldn’t have been able to stay aloft as long as these did. He’d run out of Stormlight. She’s studying those orchards, Moash thought. She looks impressed. She turned in the air and soared off, long clothing rippling behind her. Those overlong robes would have been impractical for anyone else, but for a creature who almost always flew, the effect was mesmerizing. “This isn’t what it was supposed to be like,” Moash said. Nearby, one of the parshmen of his crew grunted. “Tell me about it, human.” Moash glanced at the man, who had settled down in the shade of their lumber-laden sledge. The parshman was tall, with rough hands, mostly dark skin marbled with lines of red. The others had called him “Sah,” a simple Alethi darkeyes name. Moash nodded his chin toward the Voidbringers. “They were supposed to sweep in relentlessly, destroying everything in their path. They are literally incarnations of destruction.” “And?” Sah asked. “And that one,” Moash said, pointing toward the flying Voidbringer, “is pleased to find these orchards here. They only
burned a few towns. They seem intent on keeping Revolar, working it.” Moash shook his head. “This was supposed to be an apocalypse, but you don’t farm an apocalypse.” Sah grunted again. He didn’t seem to know any more about this than Moash did, but why should he? He’d grown up in a rural community in Alethkar. Everything he knew about history and religion, he’d have heard filtered through the human perspective. “You shouldn’t speak so casually about the Fused, human,” Sah said, standing up. “They’re dangerous.” “Don’t know about that,” Moash said as two more passed overhead. “The one I killed went down easy enough, though I don’t think she was expecting me to be able to fight back.” He handed his waterskin to the overseer as she came around for them; then he glanced at Sah, who was staring at him, slack-jawed. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned killing one of their gods, Moash thought, walking to his place in line—last, closest to the sledge, so he stared at a sweaty parshman back all day. They started up again, and Moash expected another long day’s work. These orchards meant Kholinar itself was a little over a day’s hike away at an easy pace. He figured the Voidbringers would push them hard to reach the capital by nightfall. He was surprised, then, when the army diverged from the direct route. They wove between some hillsides until they reached a town, one of the many suburbs of Kholinar. He couldn’t recall the name. The tavern had been nice, and welcoming to caravaneers. Clearly there were other Voidbringer armies moving through Alethkar, because they’d obviously seized this city days—if not weeks—ago. Parshmen patrolled it, and the only humans he saw were already working the fields. Once the army arrived, the Voidbringers surprised Moash again by selecting some of the wagon-pullers and setting them free. They were the weaklings, the ones who had fared worst on the road. The overseers sent them trudging toward Kholinar, which was still too far off to see. They’re trying to burden the city with refugees, Moash thought. Ones that aren’t fit to work or fight anymore. The main bulk of the army moved into the large storm bunkers in this suburb. They wouldn’t attack the city immediately. The Voidbringers would rest their armies, prepare, and besiege. In his youth, he’d wondered why there weren’t any suburbs closer than a day’s walk from Kholinar. In fact, there was nothing between its walls and here, only empty flats—even the hills there had been mined down centuries ago. The purpose was clear to him now. If you wanted to lay siege to Kholinar, this was the closest you could put your army. You couldn’t camp in the city’s shadow; you’d be swept away by the first storm. In the town, the supply sledges were split, some sent down one street—which looked hauntingly empty to him—while his went down another. They actually passed the tavern he’d preferred, the Fallen Tower; he could see the glyph etched into the leeward stone. Finally his crew was
called to a halt, and he let go of the rope, stretching his hands and letting out a relieved sigh. They’d been sent to a large open ground near some warehouses, where parshmen were cutting lumber. A lumberyard? he thought, then felt stupid. After hauling wood all this way, what else would he expect? Still … a lumberyard. Like those back in the warcamps. He started laughing. “Don’t be so jovial, human,” spat one of the overseers. “You’re to spend the next few weeks working here, building siege equipment. When the assault happens, you’ll be at the front, running a ladder toward Kholinar’s infamous walls.” Moash laughed even harder. It consumed him, shook him; he couldn’t stop. He laughed helplessly until, short of breath, he dizzily lay back on the hard stone ground, tears leaking down the sides of his face. * * * We have investigated this woman, Mraize’s newest letter to Shallan read. Ishnah has overinflated her importance to you. She was indeed involved in espionage for House Hamaradin, as she told you, but she was merely an assistant to the true spies. We have determined that she is safe to allow close to you, though her loyalties should not be trusted too far. If you eliminate her, we will help cover up the disappearance, at your request. But we have no objection to you retaining her services. Shallan sighed, settling back in her seat, where she waited outside King Elhokar’s audience chamber. She’d found this paper unexpectedly in her satchel. So much for hoping Ishnah had information about the Ghostbloods she could use. The letter practically boiled with possessiveness. They would “allow” Ishnah to be close to her? Storms, they acted like they owned her already. She shook her head, then rummaged in her satchel, taking out a small sphere pouch. It would look unremarkable to anyone inspecting it—for they wouldn’t know that she’d transformed it with a small but simple illusion. Though it appeared violet, it was actually white. The interesting thing about it was not the illusion itself, but how she was powering it. She’d practiced before with attaching an illusion to Pattern, or to a location, but she’d always needed to power it with her own Stormlight. This one, however, she’d attached to a sphere inside the pouch. She was going on four hours now with the Lightweaving needing no extra Stormlight from her. She’d needed only to create it, then affix it to the sphere. Slowly, the Light had been draining from the sapphire mark—just like a fabrial draining its gemstone. She’d even left the pouch alone in her rooms when going out, and the illusion had still been in place when she’d returned. This had begun as an experiment on how she could help Dalinar create his illusory maps of the world, then leave them for him, without her having to remain in the meeting. Now, however, she was seeing all kinds of possible applications. The door opened, and she dropped the pouch back into her satchel. A master-servant ushered a few merchants out
of the king’s presence; then the servant bowed to Shallan, waving her in. She stepped hesitantly into the audience chamber: a room with a fine blue and green rug and stuffed with furniture. Diamonds shone from lamps, and Elhokar had ordered the walls painted, obscuring the strata. The king himself, in a blue Kholin uniform, was unrolling a map onto a large table at the side of the room. “Was there another, Helt?” he asked the master-servant. “I thought I was done for the…” He trailed off as he turned. “Brightness Shallan! Were you waiting out there? You could have seen me immediately!” “I didn’t want to be a bother,” Shallan said, stepping over to him as the master-servant prepared refreshment. The map on the table showed Kholinar, a grand city, which seemed every bit as impressive as Vedenar. Papers in a pile beside it looked to have the final reports from spanreeds in the city, and a wizened ardent sat near them, ready to read for the king or take notes at his request. “I think we’re almost ready,” the king said, noting her interest. “The delay has been nearly insufferable, but requisite, I’m sure. Captain Kaladin did want to practice flying other people before bringing my royal person. I can respect that.” “He’s asked me to fly with him above the storm to Thaylen City,” Shallan said, “to open the Oathgate there. He’s overly worried about dropping people—but if he does that to me, I’ll have Stormlight of my own, and should survive the fall.” “Excellent,” Elhokar said. “Yes, a fine solution. But then, you didn’t come here to talk about this. What is your request of me?” “Actually,” Shallan said. “Could I talk to you in private for a moment, Your Majesty?” He frowned, but then ordered his people to step out into the hallway. When two guards from Bridge Thirteen hesitated, the king was firm. “She’s a Knight Radiant,” he said. “What do you think is going to happen to me?” They filed out, leaving the two of them beside Elhokar’s table. Shallan took a deep breath. Then changed her face. Not to that of Veil or Radiant—not one of her secrets—but instead to an illusion of Adolin. It was still surprisingly uncomfortable for her to do it in front of someone. She’d still been telling most people that she was of the Elsecallers, like Jasnah, so they wouldn’t know of her ability to become other people. Elhokar jumped. “Ah,” he said. “Ah, that’s right.” “Your Majesty,” Shallan said, changing her face and body to look like that of a cleaning woman she’d sketched earlier, “I’m worried that your mission will not be as simple as you think.” The letters out of Kholinar—the last ones they’d gotten—were frightened, worried things. They spoke of riots, of darkness, of spren taking form and hurting people. Shallan changed her face to that of a soldier. “I’ve been preparing a team of spies,” she explained. “Specializing in infiltration and information gathering. I’ve been keeping my focus quiet, for obvious reasons. I would
like to offer my services for your mission.” “I’m not certain,” Elhokar said, hesitantly, “if Dalinar would want me taking two of his Radiants away from him.” “I’m not accomplishing much for him sitting around here,” Shallan said, still wearing the soldier’s face. “Besides. Is it his mission? Or is it yours?” “My mission,” the king said. Then hesitated. “But let’s not fool ourselves. If he didn’t want you to go…” “I am not his subject,” she said. “Nor yours, yet. I’m my own woman. You tell me. What happens if you get to Kholinar, and the Oathgate is held by the enemy? Are you going to let the bridgeman just fight his way in? Or might there be a better option?” She changed her face to that of a parshwoman she had from her older sketches. Elhokar nodded, walking around her. “A team, you say. Of spies? Interesting…” * * * A short time later, Shallan left the room carrying—tucked into her safepouch—a formal royal request to Dalinar for Shallan’s aid on the mission. Kaladin had said he felt comfortable bringing six people, other than a few bridgemen, who could fly on their own. Adolin and Elhokar would leave room for four others. She tucked Elhokar’s request into her safepouch, beside the letter from Mraize. I just need to be away from this place, Shallan thought. I need to be away from them, and from Jasnah, at least until I can figure out what I want. A part of her knew what she was doing. It was getting harder to hide things in the back of her mind and ignore them, now that she’d spoken Ideals. Instead she was fleeing. But she could help the group going to Kholinar. And it did feel exciting, the idea of going to the city and finding the secrets there. She wasn’t only running. She’d also be helping Adolin reclaim his home. Pattern hummed from her skirts, and she hummed along with him. EIGHTEEN AND A HALF YEARS AGO Dalinar plodded back into camp, so tired he suspected only the energy of his Plate was keeping him upright. Each muggy breath inside his helm fogged the metal, which—as always—went somewhat transparent from the inside when you engaged the visor. He’d crushed the Herdazians—sending them back to start a civil war, securing the Alethi lands to the north and claiming the island of Akak. Now he’d moved southward, to engage the Vedens at the border. Herdaz had taken far longer than Dalinar had expected. He’d been out on campaign a total of four years now. Four glorious years. Dalinar walked straight to his armorers’ tent, picking up attendants and messengers along the way. When he ignored their questions, they trailed after him like cremlings eyeing a greatshell’s kill, waiting for their moment to snatch a tidbit. Inside the tent, he extended his arms to the sides and let the armorers start the disassembly. Helm, then arms, revealing the gambeson he wore for padding. The helm’s removal exposed sweaty, clammy skin that made the air feel too
cold. The breastplate was cracked along the left side, and the armorers buzzed, discussing the repair. As if they had to do something other than merely give the Plate Stormlight and let it regrow itself. Eventually, all that remained were his boots, which he stepped out of, maintaining a martial posture by pure force of will. The support of his Plate removed, exhaustionspren began to shoot up around him like jets of dust. He stepped over to a set of travel cushions and sat down, reclining against them, sighing, and closing his eyes. “Brightlord?” one of the armorers asked. “Um … that’s where we set—” “This is now my audience tent,” Dalinar said, not opening his eyes. “Take what is absolutely essential and leave me.” The clanking of armor stopped as the workers digested what he’d said. They left in a whispering rush, and nobody else bothered him for a blissful five minutes—until footfalls sounded nearby. Tent flaps rustled, then leather scrunched as someone knelt beside him. “The final battle report is here, Brightlord.” Kadash’s voice. Of course it would be one of his storming officers. Dalinar had trained them far too well. “Speak,” Dalinar said, opening his eyes. Kadash had reached middle age, maybe two or three years older than Dalinar. He now had a twisting scar across his face and head from where a spear had hit him. “We completely routed them, Brightlord,” Kadash said. “Our archers and light infantry followed with an extended harry. We slew, by best count, two thousand—nearly half. We could have gotten more if we’d boxed them in to the south.” “Never box in an enemy, Kadash,” Dalinar said. “You want them to be able to retreat, or they’ll fight you worse for it. A rout will serve us better than an extermination. How many people did we lose?” “Barely two hundred.” Dalinar nodded. Minimal losses, while delivering a devastating blow. “Sir,” Kadash said. “I’d say this raiding group is done for.” “We’ve still got many more to dig out. This will last years yet.” “Unless the Vedens send in an entire army and engage us in force.” “They won’t,” Dalinar said, rubbing his forehead. “Their king is too shrewd. It isn’t full-on war he wants; he only wanted to see if any contested land had suddenly become uncontested.” “Yes, Brightlord.” “Thank you for the report. Now get out of here and post some storming guards at the front so I can rest. Don’t let anyone in, not even the Nightwatcher herself.” “Yes, sir.” Kadash crossed the tent to the flaps. “Um … sir, you were incredible out there. Like a tempest.” Dalinar just closed his eyes and leaned back, fully determined to fall asleep in his clothing. Sleep, unfortunately, refused to come. The report set his mind to considering implications. His army had only one Soulcaster, for emergencies, which meant supply trains. These borderlands were expansive, hilly, and the Vedens had better generals than the Herdazians. Defeating a mobile enemy was going to be hard in such circumstances, as this first battle proved. It
would take planning, maneuvering, and skirmish after skirmish to pin the various groups of Vedens down and bring them into proper battle. He yearned for those early days, when their fights had been more rowdy, less coordinated. Well, he wasn’t a youth anymore, and he’d learned in Herdaz that he no longer had Gavilar to do the hard parts of this job. Dalinar had camps to supply, men to feed, and logistics to work out. This was almost as bad as being back in the city, listening to scribes talk about sewage disposal. Save for one difference: Out here, he had a reward. At the end of all the planning, the strategy, and the debates with generals, came the Thrill. In fact, through his exhaustion, he was surprised to find that he could sense it still. Deep down, like the warmth of a rock that had known a recent fire. He was glad that the fighting had dragged on all these years. He was glad that the Herdazians had tried to seize that land, and that now the Vedens wanted to test him. He was glad that other highprinces weren’t sending aid, but waiting to see what he could accomplish on his own. Most of all, he was glad that—despite today’s important battle—the conflict was not over. Storms, he loved this feeling. Today, hundreds had tried to bring him down, and he’d left them ashen and broken. Outside his tent, people demanding his attention were turned away one after another. He tried not to feel pleasure each time. He would answer their questions eventually. Just … not now. Thoughts finally released their grip on his brain, and he dipped toward slumber. Until one unexpected voice jerked him out of it and sent him bolting upright. That was Evi. He leapt to his feet. The Thrill surged again within him, drawn out of its own slumber. Dalinar ripped open the tent’s front flaps and gaped at the blonde-haired woman standing outside, wearing a Vorin havah—but with sturdy walking boots sticking out below. “Ah,” Evi said. “Husband.” She looked him up and down, and her expression soured, lips puckering. “Has no person seen fit to order him a bath? Where are his grooms, to see him undressed properly?” “Why are you here?” Dalinar demanded. He hadn’t intended to roar it, but he was so tired, so shocked … Evi leaned backward before the outburst, eyes opening wide. He briefly felt a spike of shame. But why should he? This was his warcamp—here he was the Blackthorn. This was the place where his domestic life should have no purchase on him! By coming here, she invaded that. “I…” Evi said. “I … Other women are at the camp. Other wives. It is common, for women to go to war.…” “Alethi women,” Dalinar snapped, “trained to it from childhood and acquainted with the ways of warfare. We spoke of this, Evi. We—” He halted, looking at the guards. They shuffled uncomfortably. “Come inside, Evi,” Dalinar said. “Let’s discuss this in private.” “Very well. And the children?”
“You brought our children to the battlefront?” Storms, she didn’t even have the sense to leave them at the town the army was using as a long-term command post? “I—” “In,” Dalinar said, pointing at the tent. Evi wilted, then scuttled to obey, cringing as she passed him. Why had she come? Hadn’t he just been back to Kholinar to visit? That had been … recent, he was sure.… Or maybe not so recent. He did have several letters from Evi that Teleb’s wife had read to him, with several more waiting to be read. He dropped the flaps back into position and turned toward Evi, determined not to let his frayed patience rule him. “Navani said I should come,” Evi said. “She said it was shameful that you have waited so long between visits. Adolin has gone over a year without seeing you, Dalinar. And little Renarin has never even met his father.” “Renarin?” Dalinar said, trying to work out the name. He hadn’t picked that. “Rekher … no, Re…” “Re,” Evi said. “From my language. Nar, after his father. In, to be born unto.” Stormfather, that was a butchering of the language. Dalinar fumbled, trying to work through it. Nar meant “like unto.” “What does ‘Re’ mean in your language?” Dalinar asked, scratching his face. “It has no meaning,” Evi said. “It is simply the name. It means our son’s name, or him.” Dalinar groaned softly. So the child’s name was “Like one who was born unto himself.” Delightful. “You didn’t answer,” Evi pointed out, “when I asked after a name via spanreed.” How had Navani and Ialai allowed this travesty of a name? Storms … knowing those two, they’d probably encouraged it. They were always trying to get Evi to be more forceful. He moved to get something to drink, but then remembered that this wasn’t actually his tent. There wasn’t anything in here to drink but armor oil. “You shouldn’t have come,” Dalinar said. “It is dangerous out here.” “I wish to be a more Alethi wife. I want you to want me to be with you.” He winced. “Well, you still should not have brought the children.” Dalinar slumped down into the cushions. “They are heirs to the princedom, assuming this plan of Gavilar’s with the Crownlands and his own throne works out. They need to remain safe in Kholinar.” “I thought you’d want to see them,” Evi said, stepping up to him. Despite his harsh words, she unbuckled the top of his gambeson to get her hands under it, and began rubbing his shoulders. It felt wonderful. He let his anger melt away. It would be good to have a wife with him, to scribe as was proper. He just wished that he didn’t feel so guilty at seeing her. He was not the man she wanted him to be. “I hear you had a great victory today,” Evi said softly. “You do service to the king.” “You’d have hated it, Evi. I killed hundreds of people. If you stay, you’ll have to listen to war
reports. Accounts of deaths, many at my hand.” She was silent for a time. “Could you not … let them surrender to you?” “The Vedens aren’t here to surrender. They’re here to test us on the battlefield.” “And the individual men? Do they care for such reasoning as they die?” “What? Would you like me to stop and ask each man to surrender as I prepare to strike him down?” “Would that—” “No, Evi. That wouldn’t work.” “Oh.” He stood up, suddenly anxious. “Let’s see the boys, then.” Leaving his tent and crossing the camp was a slog, his feet feeling like they’d been encased in blocks of crem. He didn’t dare slouch—he always tried to present a strong image for the men and women of the army—but he couldn’t help that his padded garb was wrinkled and stained with sweat. The land here was lush compared to Kholinar. The thick grass was broken by sturdy stands of trees, and tangled vines draped the western cliff faces. There were places farther into Jah Keved where you couldn’t take a step without vines writhing under your feet. The boys were by Evi’s wagons. Little Adolin was terrorizing one of the chulls, perched atop its shell and swinging a wooden sword about, showing off for several of the guards—who dutifully complimented his moves. He’d somehow assembled “armor” from strings and bits of broken rockbud shell. Storms, he’s grown, Dalinar thought. When last he’d seen Adolin, the child had still looked like a toddler, stumbling through his words. Little over a year later, the boy spoke clearly—and dramatically—as he described his fallen enemies. They were, apparently, evil flying chulls. He stopped when he saw Dalinar, then he glanced at Evi. She nodded, and the child scrambled down from the chull—Dalinar was certain he’d fall at three different points. He got down safely, walked over. And saluted. Evi beamed. “He asked the best way to talk to you,” she whispered. “I told him you were a general, the leader of all the soldiers. He came up with that on his own.” Dalinar squatted down. Little Adolin immediately shied back, reaching for his mother’s skirts. “Afraid of me?” Dalinar asked. “Not unwise. I’m a dangerous man.” “Daddy?” the boy said, holding to the skirt with one white-knuckled hand—but not hiding. “Yes. Don’t you remember me?” Hesitantly, the motley-haired boy nodded. “I remember you. We talk about you every night when we burn prayers. So you will be safe. Fighting bad men.” “I’d prefer to be safe from the good ones too,” Dalinar said. “Though I will take what I am offered.” He stood up, feeling … what? Shame to not have seen the boy as often as he should have? Pride at how the boy was growing? The Thrill, still squirming deep down. How had it not dissipated since the battle? “Where is your brother, Adolin?” Dalinar asked. The boy pointed toward a nurse who carried a little one. Dalinar had expected a baby, but this child could nearly walk, as evidenced by the nurse putting him
down and watching fondly as he toddled a few steps, then sat, trying to grab blades of grass as they pulled away. The child made no sounds. He just stared, solemn, as he tried to grip blade after blade. Dalinar waited for the excitement he’d felt before, upon meeting Adolin for the first time … but storms, he was just so tired. “Can I see your sword?” Adolin asked. Dalinar wanted nothing more than to sleep, but he summoned the Blade anyway, driving it into the ground with the edge pointed away from Adolin. The boy’s eyes grew wide. “Mommy says I can’t have my Plate yet,” Adolin said. “Teleb needs it. You can have it when you come of age.” “Good. I’ll need it to win a Blade.” Nearby, Evi clicked her tongue softly, shaking her head. Dalinar smiled, kneeling beside his Blade and resting his hand on the small boy’s shoulder. “I’ll win you one in war, son.” “No,” Adolin said, chin up. “I want to win my own. Like you did.” “A worthy goal,” Dalinar said. “But a soldier needs to be willing to accept help. You mustn’t be hardheaded; pride doesn’t win battles.” The boy cocked his head, frowning. “Your head isn’t hard?” He rapped his knuckles against his own. Dalinar smiled, then stood up and dismissed Oathbringer. The last embers of the Thrill finally faded. “It’s been a long day,” he told Evi. “I need to rest. We’ll discuss your role here later.” Evi led him to a bed within one of her stormwagons. Then, at last, Dalinar was able to sleep. Friend, Your letter is most intriguing, even revelatory. The ancient Siln dynasty in Jah Keved had been founded after the death of King NanKhet. No contemporary accounts survived; the best they had dated from two centuries later. The author of that text—Natata Ved, often called Oileyes by her contemporaries—insisted that her methods were rigorous, although by modern standards, historical scholarship had been in its infancy. Jasnah had long been interested in NanKhet’s death, because he’d ruled for only three months. He’d succeeded to the throne when the previous king, his brother NanHar, had taken ill and died while on campaign in what would become modern Triax. Remarkably, during the brief span of his reign, NanKhet survived six assassination attempts. The first had come from his sister, who had wanted to place her husband on the throne. After surviving poisoning, NanKhet had put them both to death. Soon after, their son had tried to kill him in his bed. NanKhet, apparently a light sleeper, struck down his nephew with his own sword. NanKhet’s cousin tried next—that attack left NanKhet blinded in one eye—and was followed by another brother, an uncle, and finally NanKhet’s own son. At the end of three exasperating months, according to Oileyes, “The great, but weary, NanKhet called for an accounting of all his household. He gathered them together at a grand feast, promising the delights of distant Aimia. Instead, when all were assembled, NanKhet had them executed one by one. Their bodies
were burned in a grand pyre, upon which was cooked the meat for the feast that he ate alone, at a table set for two hundred.” Natata Oileyes was known to have had a passion for the dramatic. The text sounded almost delighted when she’d explained how he’d died by choking on the food at that very feast, alone with nobody to help him. Similar tales repeated themselves throughout the long history of the Vorin lands. Kings fell, and their brothers or sons took the throne. Even a pretender of no true lineage would usually claim kinship through oblique and creative genealogical justifications. Jasnah was simultaneously fascinated and worried by these accounts. Thoughts about them were unusually present in her mind as she made her way into Urithiru’s basement. Something in her readings the night before had lodged this particular story in her brain. She soon peeked into the former library beneath Urithiru. Both rooms—one on either side of the hallway that led to the crystal pillar—were filled with scholars now, occupying tables carried down by squads of soldiers. Dalinar had sent expeditions down the tunnel the Unmade had used to flee. The scouts reported a long network of caverns. Following a stream of water, they’d marched for days, and eventually located an exit into the mountain foothills of Tu Fallia. It was nice to know that, in a pinch, there was another way out of Urithiru—and a potential means of supply other than through the Oathgates. They maintained guards in the upper tunnels, and for now it seemed safe enough in the basement. Therefore, Navani had transformed the area into a scholarly institute designed to solve Dalinar’s problems and to provide an edge in information, technology, and pure research. Concentrationspren rippled in the air like waves overhead—a rarity in Alethkar, but common here—and logicspren darted through them, like tiny stormclouds. Jasnah couldn’t help but smile. For over a decade, she’d dreamed of uniting the best minds of the kingdom in a coordinated effort. She’d been ignored; all anyone had wanted to discuss was her lack of belief in their god. Well, they were focused now. Turned out that the end of the world had to actually arrive before people would take it seriously. Renarin was there, standing near the corner, watching the work. He’d been joining the scholars with some regularity, but he still wore his uniform with the Bridge Four patch. You can’t spend forever floating between worlds, Cousin, she thought. Eventually you’ll need to decide where you want to belong. Life was so much harder, but potentially so much more fulfilling, when you found the courage to choose. The story of the old Veden king, NanKhet, had taught Jasnah something troubling: Often, the greatest threat to a ruling family was its own members. Why were so many of the old royal lines such knots of murder, greed, and infighting? And what made the few exceptions different? She’d grown adept at protecting her family against danger from without, carefully removing would-be deposers. But what could she do to protect it
from within? In her absence, already the monarchy trembled. Her brother and her uncle—who she knew loved each other deeply—ground their wills against one another like mismatched gears. She would not have her family implode. If Alethkar was going to survive the Desolation, they’d need committed leadership. A stable throne. She entered the library room and walked to her writing stand. It was in a position where she could survey the others and have her back to a wall. She unpacked her satchel, setting up two spanreed boards. One of the reeds was blinking early, and she twisted the ruby, indicating she was ready. A message came back, writing out, We will begin in five minutes. She passed the time scrutinizing the various groups in the room, reading the lips of those she could see, absently taking notes in shorthand. She moved from conversation to conversation, gleaning a little from each one and noting the names of the people who spoke. —tests confirm something is different here. Temperatures are distinctly lower on other nearby peaks of the same elevation— —we have to assume that Brightlord Kholin is not going to return to the faith. What then?— —don’t know. Perhaps if we could find a way to conjoin the fabrials, we could imitate this effect— —the boy could be a powerful addition to our ranks. He shows interest in numerology, and asked me if we can truly predict events with it. I will speak with him again— That last one was from the stormwardens. Jasnah tightly pursed her lips. “Ivory?” she whispered. “I will watch them.” He left her side, shrunken to the size of a speck of dust. Jasnah made a note to speak to Renarin; she would not have him wasting his time with a bunch of fools who thought they could foretell the future based on the curls of smoke from a snuffed candle. Finally, her spanreed woke up. I have connected Jochi of Thaylenah and Ethid of Azir for you, Brightness. Here are their passcodes. Further entries will be strictly their notations. Excellent, Jasnah wrote back, authenticating the two passcodes. Losing her spanreeds in the sinking of the Wind’s Pleasure had been a huge setback. She could no longer directly contact important colleagues or informants. Fortunately, Tashikk was set up to deal with these kinds of situations. You could always buy new reeds connected to the princedom’s infamous information centers. You could reach anyone, in practice, so long as you trusted an intermediary. Jasnah had one of those she’d personally interviewed—and whom she paid good money—to ensure confidentiality. The intermediary would burn her copies of this conversation afterward. The system was as secure as Jasnah could make it, all things considered. Jasnah’s intermediary would now be joined by two others in Tashikk. Together, the three would be surrounded by six spanreed boards: one each for receiving comments from their masters, and one each to send back the entire conversation in real time, including the comments from the other two. That way, each conversant would be able to see a
constant stream of comments, without having to stop and wait before replying. Navani talked of ways to improve the experience—of spanreeds that could be adjusted to connect to different people. That was one area of scholarship, however, that Jasnah did not have time to pursue. Her receiving board started to fill with notes written by her two colleagues. Jasnah, you live! Jochi wrote. Back from the dead. Remarkable! I can’t believe you ever thought she was dead, Ethid replied. Jasnah Kholin? Lost at sea? Likelier we’d find the Stormfather dead. Your confidence is comforting, Ethid, Jasnah wrote on her sending board. A moment later, those words were copied by her scribe into the common spanreed conversation. Are you at Urithiru? Jochi wrote. When can I visit? As soon as you’re willing to let everyone know you aren’t female, Jasnah wrote back. Jochi—known to the world as a dynamic woman of distinctive philosophy—was a pen name for a potbellied man in his sixties who ran a pastry shop in Thaylen City. Oh, I’m certain your wonderful city has need of pastries, Jochi wrote back jovially. Can we please discuss your silliness later? Ethid wrote. I have news. She was a scion—a kind of religious order of scribe—at the Azish royal palace. Well stop wasting time then! Jochi wrote. I love news. Goes excellently with a filled doughnut … no, no, a fluffy brioche. The news? Jasnah just wrote, smiling. These two had studied with her under the same master—they were Veristitalians of the keenest mind, regardless of how Jochi might seem. I’ve been tracking a man we are increasingly certain is the Herald Nakku, the Judge, Ethid wrote. Nalan, as you call him. Oh, are we sharing nursery tales now? Jochi asked. Heralds? Really, Ethid? If you haven’t noticed, Ethid wrote, the Voidbringers are back. Tales we dismissed are worth a second look, now. I agree, Jasnah wrote. But what makes you think you’ve found one of the Heralds? It’s a combination of many things, she wrote. This man attacked our palace, Jasnah. He tried to kill some thieves—the new Prime is one of them, but keep that in your sleeve. We’re doing what we can to play up his common roots while ignoring the fact that he was intent on robbing us. Heralds alive and trying to kill people, Jochi wrote. And here I thought my news about a sighting of Axies the Collector was interesting. There’s more, Ethid wrote. Jasnah, we’ve got a Radiant here. An Edgedancer. Or … we had one. Had one? Jochi wrote. Did you misplace her? She ran off. She’s just a kid, Jasnah. Reshi, raised on the streets. I think we may have met her, Jasnah wrote. My uncle encountered someone interesting in one of his recent visions. I’m surprised you let her get away from you. Have you ever tried to hold on to an Edgedancer? Ethid wrote back. She chased after the Herald to Tashikk, but the Prime says she is back now—and avoiding me. In any case, something’s wrong with the man I
think is Nalan, Jasnah. I don’t think the Heralds will be a resource to us. I will provide you with sketches of the Heralds, Jasnah said. I have drawings of their true faces, provided by an unexpected source. Ethid, you are right about them. They aren’t going to be a resource; they’re broken. Have you read the accounts of my uncle’s visions? I have copies somewhere, Ethid wrote. Are they real? Most sources agree that he’s … unwell. He’s quite well, I assure you, Jasnah wrote. The visions are related to his order of Radiants. I will send you the latest few; they have relevance to the Heralds. Storms, Ethid wrote. The Blackthorn is actually a Radiant? Years of drought, and now they’re popping up like rockbuds. Ethid did not think highly of men who earned their reputations through conquest, despite having made the study of such men a cornerstone of her research. The conversation continued for some time. Jochi, growing uncharacteristically solemn, spoke directly of the state of Thaylenah. It had been hit hard by the repeated coming of the Everstorm; entire sections of Thaylen City were in ruin. Jasnah was most interested in the Thaylen parshmen who had stolen the ships that had survived the storm. Their exodus—combined with Kaladin Stormblessed’s interactions with the parshmen in Alethkar—was painting a new picture of what and who the Voidbringers were. The conversation moved on as Ethid transcribed an interesting account she’d discovered in an old book discussing the Desolations. From there, they spoke of the Dawnchant translations, in particular those by some ardents in Jah Keved who were ahead of the scholars at Kharbranth. Jasnah glanced through the library room, seeking out her mother, who was sitting near Shallan to discuss wedding preparations. Renarin still lurked at the far side of the room, mumbling to himself. Or perhaps to his spren? She absently read his lips. —it’s coming from in here, Renarin said. Somewhere in this room— Jasnah narrowed her eyes. Ethid, she wrote, weren’t you going to try to construct drawings of the spren tied to each order of Radiant? I’ve gotten quite far, actually, she wrote back. I saw the Edgedancer spren personally, after demanding a glimpse. What of the Truthwatchers? Jasnah wrote. Oh! I found a reference to those, Jochi wrote. The spren reportedly looked like light on a surface after it reflects through something crystalline. Jasnah thought for a moment, then briefly excused herself from the conversation. Jochi said he needed to go find a privy anyway. She slipped off her seat and crossed the room, passing near Navani and Shallan. “I don’t want to push you at all, dear,” Navani was saying. “But in these uncertain times, surely you wish for stability.” Jasnah stopped, freehand resting idly on Shallan’s shoulder. The younger woman perked up, then followed Jasnah’s gaze toward Renarin. “What?” Shallan whispered. “I don’t know,” Jasnah said. “Something odd…” Something about the way the youth was standing, the words he had spoken. He still looked wrong to her without his spectacles. Like a different person
entirely. “Jasnah!” Shallan said, suddenly tense. “The doorway. Look!” Jasnah sucked in Stormlight at the girl’s tone and turned away from Renarin, toward the room’s doorway. There, a tall, square-jawed man had darkened the opening. He wore Sadeas’s colors, forest green and white. In fact, he was Sadeas now, at least its regent. Jasnah would always know him as Meridas Amaram. “What’s he doing here?” Shallan hissed. “He’s a highprince,” Navani said. “The soldiers aren’t going to forbid him without a direct command.” Amaram fixated on Jasnah with regal, light tan eyes. He strode toward her, exuding confidence, or was it conceit? “Jasnah,” he said when he drew close. “I was told I could find you here.” “Remind me to find whoever told you,” Jasnah said, “and have them hanged.” Amaram stiffened. “Could we speak together more privately, just for a moment?” “I think not.” “We need to discuss your uncle. The rift between our houses serves nobody. I wish to bridge that chasm, and Dalinar listens to you. Please, Jasnah. You can steer him properly.” “My uncle knows his own mind on these matters, and doesn’t require me to ‘steer’ him.” “As if you haven’t been doing so already, Jasnah. Everyone can see that he has started to share your religious beliefs.” “Which would be incredible, since I don’t have religious beliefs.” Amaram sighed, looking around. “Please,” he said. “Private?” “Not a chance, Meridas. Go. Away.” “We were close once.” “My father wished us to be close. Do not mistake his fancies for fact.” “Jasnah—” “You really should leave before somebody gets hurt.” He ignored her suggestion, glancing at Navani and Shallan, then stepping closer. “We thought you were dead. I needed to see for myself that you are well.” “You have seen. Now leave.” Instead, he gripped her forearm. “Why, Jasnah? Why have you always denied me?” “Other than the fact that you are a detestable buffoon who achieves only the lowest level of mediocrity, as it is the best your limited mind can imagine? I can’t possibly think of a reason.” “Mediocre?” Amaram growled. “You insult my mother, Jasnah. You know how hard she worked to raise me to be the best soldier this kingdom has ever known.” “Yes, from what I understand, she spent the seven months she was with child entertaining each and every military man she could find, in the hopes that something of them would stick to you.” Meridas’s eyes widened, and his face flushed deeply. To their side, Shallan audibly gasped. “You godless whore,” Amaram hissed, releasing her. “If you weren’t a woman…” “If I weren’t a woman, I suspect we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Unless I were a pig. Then you’d be doubly interested.” He thrust his hand to the side, stepping back, preparing to summon his Blade. Jasnah smiled, holding her freehand toward him, letting Stormlight curl and rise from it. “Oh, please do, Meridas. Give me an excuse. I dare you.” He stared at her hand. The entire room had gone silent, of course. He’d forced her to make a
spectacle. His eyes flicked up to meet hers; then he spun and stalked from the room, shoulders hunched as if trying to shrug away the eyes—and the snickers—of the scholars. He will be trouble, Jasnah thought. Even more than he has been. Amaram genuinely thought he was Alethkar’s only hope and salvation, and had a keen desire to prove it. Left alone, he’d rip the armies apart to justify his inflated opinion of himself. She’d speak with Dalinar. Perhaps the two of them could devise something to keep Amaram safely occupied. And if that didn’t work, she wouldn’t speak to Dalinar about the other precaution she would take. She’d been out of touch for a long time, but she was confident there would be assassins for hire here, ones who knew her reputation for discretion and excellent pay. A high-pitched sound came from beside her, and Jasnah glanced to find Shallan sitting perkily on her seat, making an excited noise in the back of her throat and clapping her hands together quickly, the sound muffled by her clothed safehand. Wonderful. “Mother,” Jasnah said, “might I speak for a moment with my ward?” Navani nodded, her eyes lingering on the doorway where Amaram had exited. Once, she’d pushed for the union between them. Jasnah didn’t blame her; the truth of Amaram was difficult to see, and had been even more so in the past, when he’d been close to Jasnah’s father. Navani withdrew, leaving Shallan alone at the table stacked with reports. “Brightness!” Shallan said as Jasnah sat. “That was incredible!” “I let myself be pushed into abundant emotion.” “You were so clever!” “And yet, my first insult was not to attack him, but the moral reputation of his female relative. Clever? Or simply the use of an obvious bludgeon?” “Oh. Um … Well…” “Regardless,” Jasnah cut in, wishing to avoid further conversation about Amaram, “I’ve been thinking about your training.” Shallan stiffened immediately. “I’ve been very busy, Brightness. However, I’m sure I’ll be able to get to those books you assigned me very soon.” Jasnah rubbed her forehead. This girl … “Brightness,” Shallan said, “I think I might have to request a leave from my studies.” Shallan spoke so quickly the words ran into one another. “His Majesty says he needs me to go with him on the expedition to Kholinar.” Jasnah frowned. Kholinar? “Nonsense. They’ll have the Windrunner with them. Why do they need you?” “The king is worried they might need to sneak into the city,” Shallan said. “Or even through the middle of it, if it’s occupied. We can’t know how far the siege has progressed. If Elhokar has to reach the Oathgate without being recognized, then my illusions will be invaluable. I have to go. It’s so inconvenient. I’m sorry.” She took a deep breath, eyes wide, as if afraid that Jasnah would snap at her. This girl. “I’ll speak with Elhokar,” Jasnah said. “I feel that might be extreme. For now, I want you to do drawings of Renarin’s and Kaladin’s spren, for scholarly reasons. Bring them
to me for…” She trailed off. “What is he doing?” Renarin stood near the far wall, which was covered in palm-size tiles. He tapped a specific one, and somehow made it pop out, like a drawer. Jasnah stood, throwing back her chair. She strode across the room, Shallan scampering along behind her. Renarin glanced at them, then held up what he’d found in the small drawer. A ruby, long as Jasnah’s thumb, cut into a strange shape with holes drilled in it. What on Roshar? She took it from him and held it up. “What is it?” Navani said, shouldering up beside her. “A fabrial? No metal parts. What is that shape?” Jasnah reluctantly surrendered it to her mother. “So many imperfections in the cut,” Navani said. “That will cause it to lose Stormlight quickly. It won’t even hold a charge for a day, I bet. And it will vibrate something fierce.” Curious. Jasnah touched it, infusing the gemstone with Stormlight. It started glowing, but not nearly as brightly as it should have. Navani was, of course, right. It vibrated as Stormlight curled off it. Why would anyone spoil a gem with such a twisted cut, and why hide it? The small drawer was latched with a spring, but she couldn’t see how Renarin had gotten it undone. “Storms,” Shallan whispered as other scholars crowded around. “That’s a pattern.” “A pattern?” “Buzzes in sequence…” Shallan said. “My spren says he thinks this is a code. Letters?” “Music of language,” Renarin whispered. He drew in Stormlight from some spheres in his pocket, then turned and pressed his hands against the wall, sending a surge of Stormlight through it that extended from his palms like twin ripples on the surface of a pond. Drawers slid open, one behind each white tile. A hundred, two hundred … each revealing gemstones inside. The library had decayed, but the ancient Radiants had obviously anticipated that. They’d found another way to pass on their knowledge. I would have thought, before attaining my current station, that a deity could not be surprised. Obviously, this is not true. I can be surprised. I can perhaps even be naive, I think. “I’m just asking,” Khen grumbled, “how this is any better. We were slaves under the Alethi. Now we’re slaves under the Fused. Great. It does me so much good to know that our misery is now at the hands of our own people.” The parshwoman set her bundle down with a rattling thump. “You’ll get us in trouble again, talking like that,” Sah said. He dropped his bundle of wooden poles, then walked back the other way. Moash followed, passing rows of humans and parshmen turning the poles into ladders. These, like Sah and the rest of his team, would soon be carrying those ladders into battle, facing down a storm of arrows. What a strange echo of his life months ago in Sadeas’s warcamp. Except here he’d been given sturdy gloves, a nice pair of boots, and three solid meals a day. The only thing wrong with the situation—other
than the fact that he and the others would soon be charging a fortified position—was that he had too much free time. The workers hauled stacks of wood from one part of the lumberyard to the next, and were occasionally assigned to saw or chop. But there wasn’t enough to keep them busy. That was a very bad thing, as he’d learned on the Shattered Plains. Give condemned men too much time and they’d start to ask questions. “Look,” Khen said, walking next to Sah just ahead, “at least tell me you’re angry, Sah. Don’t tell me you think we deserve this.” “We harbored a spy,” Sah muttered. A spy that, Moash had quickly learned, had been none other than Kaladin Stormblessed. “Like a bunch of slaves should be able to spot a spy?” Khen said. “Really? Shouldn’t the spren have been the one to spot him? It’s like they wanted something to pin on us. Like it’s … it’s a…” “Like it’s a setup?” Moash asked from behind. “Yeah, a setup,” Khen agreed. They did that a lot, forgetting words. Or … maybe they were simply trying the words out for the first time. Their accent was so similar to that of many of the bridgemen who had been Moash’s friends. Let go, Moash, something deep within him whispered. Give up your pain. It’s all right. You did what was natural. You can’t be blamed. Stop carrying that burden. Let go. They each picked up another bundle and began walking back. They passed the carpenters who were making the ladder poles. Most of these were parshmen, and one of the Fused walked among their ranks. He was a head taller than the parshmen, and was a subspecies that grew large portions of carapace armor in wicked shapes. The Fused stopped, then explained something to one of the working parshmen. The Fused made a fist, and dark violet energy surrounded his arm. Carapace grew there into the shape of a saw. The Fused sawed, carefully explaining what he did. Moash had seen this before. Some of these monsters from the void were carpenters. Out beyond the lumberyards, parshman troops practiced close-order drill and received basic weapon training. Word was that the army intended to assault Kholinar within weeks. That was ambitious, but they didn’t have time for an extended siege. Kholinar had Soulcasters to make food, while the Voidbringer operations in the country would take months to get going. This Voidbringer army would soon eat itself out of supplies, and would have to divide up to forage. Better to attack, use overwhelming numbers, and seize the Soulcasters for themselves. Every army needed someone to run at the front and soak up arrows. Well organized or not, benevolent or not, the Voidbringers couldn’t avoid that. Moash’s group wouldn’t be trained; they were really only waiting until the assault so they could run in front of more valuable troops. “We were set up,” Khen repeated as they walked. “They knew they had too few humans strong enough to run the first assault. They need
some of us in there, so they found a reason to toss us out to die.” Sah grunted. “Is that all you’re going to say?” Khen demanded. “Don’t you care what our own gods are doing to us?” Sah slammed his bundle to the ground. “Yes, I care,” Sah snapped. “You think I haven’t been asking the same questions? Storms! They took my daughter, Khen! They ripped her away from me and sent me off to die.” “Then what do we do?” Khen asked, her voice growing small. “What do we do?” Sah looked around at the army moving and churning, preparing for war. Overwhelming, enveloping, like its own kind of storm—in motion and inexorable. The sort of thing that picked you up and carried you along. “I don’t know,” Sah whispered. “Storms, Khen. I don’t know anything.” I do, Moash thought. But he couldn’t find the will to say anything to them. Instead, he found himself annoyed, angerspren boiling up around him. He felt frustrated both at himself and at the Voidbringers. He slammed his bundle down, but then stalked off, out of the lumberyard. An overseer yelped loudly and scuttled after him—but she didn’t stop him, and neither did the guards he passed. He had a reputation. Moash strode through the city, tailed by the overseer, searching for one of the flying type of Fused. They seemed to be in charge, even of the other Fused. He couldn’t find one, so he settled for approaching one of the other subspecies: a malen that sat near the city’s cistern, where rainwater collected. The creature was of the heavily armored type, with no hair, the carapace encroaching across his cheeks. Moash strode right up to the creature. “I need to talk to someone in charge.” Behind him, Moash’s overseer gasped—perhaps only now realizing that whatever it was Moash was up to, it could get her in serious trouble. The Fused regarded him and grinned. “Someone in charge,” Moash repeated. The Voidbringer laughed, then fell backward into the water of the cistern, where he floated, staring at the sky. Great, Moash thought. One of the crazy ones. There were many of those. Moash stalked away, but didn’t get much farther into the town before something dropped from the sky. Cloth fluttered in the air, and in the middle of it floated a creature with skin that matched the black and red clothing. He couldn’t tell if it was malen or femalen. “Little human,” the creature said with a foreign accent, “you are passionate and interesting.” Moash licked his lips. “I need to talk to someone in charge.” “You need nothing but what we give you,” the Fused said. “But your desire is to be granted. Lady Leshwi will see you.” “Great. Where can I find her?” The Fused pressed its hand against his chest and smiled. Dark Voidlight spread from its hand across Moash’s body. Both of them rose into the air. Panicking, Moash clutched at the Fused. Could he get the creature into a chokehold? Then what? If he killed it up
here, he’d drop to his own death. They rose until the town looked like a tiny model: lumberyard and parade ground on one side, the single prominent street down the center. To the right, the man-made ward provided a buffer against the highstorms, creating a shelter for trees and the citylord’s mansion. They ascended even farther, the Fused’s loose clothes fluttering. Though the air was warm at ground level, up here it was quite chilly, and Moash’s ears felt odd—dull, as if they were stuffed with cloth. Finally, the Fused slowed them to a hovering stop. Though Moash tried to hold on, the Fused shoved him to the side, then zoomed away in a flaring roil of cloth. Moash drifted alone above the expansive landscape. His heart thundered, and he regarded that drop, realizing something. He did not want to die. He forced himself to twist and look about him. He felt a surge of hope as he found he was drifting toward another Fused. A woman who hovered in the sky, wearing robes that must have extended a good ten feet below her, like a smear of red paint. Moash drifted right up beside her, getting so close that she was able to reach out and stop him. He resisted grabbing that arm and hanging on for dear life. His mind was catching up to what was happening—she wanted to meet him, but in a realm where she belonged and he did not. Well, he would contain his fear. “Moash,” the Fused said. Leshwi, the other had called her. She had a face that was all three Parshendi colors: white, red, and black, marbled like paint swirled together. He had rarely seen someone who was all three colors before, and this was one of the most transfixing patterns he’d seen, almost liquid in its effect, her eyes like pools around which the colors ran. “How do you know my name?” Moash asked. “Your overseer told me,” Leshwi said. She had a distinct serenity about her as she floated with feet down. The wind up here tugged at the ribbons she wore, pushing them backward in careless ripples. There were no windspren in sight, oddly. “Where did you get that name?” “My grandfather named me,” Moash said, frowning. This was not how he’d anticipated this conversation going. “Curious. Do you know that it is one of our names?” “It is?” She nodded. “How long has it drifted on the tides of time, passing from the lips of singers to men and back, to end up here, on the head of a human slave?” “Look, you’re one of the leaders?” “I’m one of the Fused who is sane,” she said, as if it were the same thing. “Then I need to—” “You’re bold,” Leshwi said, eyes forward. “Many of the singers we left here are not. We find them remarkable, considering how long they were abused by your people. But still, they are not bold enough.” She looked to him for the first time during the conversation. Her face was angular, with long
flowing parshman hair—black and crimson, thicker than that of a human. Almost like thin reeds or blades of grass. Her eyes were a deep red, like pools of shimmering blood. “Where did you learn the Surges, human?” she asked. “The Surges?” “When you killed me,” she said, “you were Lashed to the sky—but you responded quickly, with familiarity. I will say, without guile, that I was furious to be caught so unaware.” “Wait,” Moash said, cold. “When I killed you?” She regarded him, unblinking, with those ruby eyes. “You’re the same one?” Moash asked. That pattern of marbled skin … he realized. It’s the same as the one I fought. But the features were different. “This is a new body offered to me in sacrifice,” Leshwi said. “To bond and make my own, as I have none.” “You’re some kind of spren?” She blinked but did not reply. Moash started to drop. He felt it in his clothes, which lost their power to fly first. He cried out, reaching toward the Fused woman, and she seized him by the wrist and injected him with more Voidlight. It surged across his body, and he hovered again. The violet darkness retreated, visible again only as faint periodic crackles on her skin. “My companions spared you,” she said to him. “Brought you here, to these lands, as they thought I might wish personal vengeance once reborn. I did not. Why would I destroy that which had such passion? Instead I watched you, curious to see what you did. I saw you help the singers who were pulling the sledges.” Moash took a deep breath. “Can you tell me, then, why you treat your own so poorly?” “Poorly?” she said, sounding amused. “They are fed, clothed, and trained.” “Not all of them,” Moash said. “You had those poor parshmen working as slaves, like humans. And now you’re going to throw them at the city walls.” “Sacrifice,” she said. “Do you think an empire is built without sacrifice?” She swept her arm across the landscape before them. Moash’s stomach turned over; he’d briefly been able to fixate only on her and forget exactly how high he was. Storms … this land was big. He could see extensive hills, plains, grass, trees, and stone in all directions. And in the direction she gestured, a dark line on the horizon. Kholinar? “I breathe again because of their sacrifices,” Leshwi said. “And this world will be ours, because of sacrifice. Those who fall will be sung of, but their blood is ours to demand. If they survive the assault, if they prove themselves, then they will be honored.” She looked to him again. “You fought for them during the trip here.” “Honestly, I expected you to have me killed for that.” “If you were not killed for striking down one of the Fused,” she said, “then why would you be killed for striking one of our lessers? In both cases, human, you proved your passion and earned your right to succeed. Then you bowed to authority when presented, and earned
your right to continue to live. Tell me. Why did you protect those slaves?” “Because you need to be unified,” Moash said. He swallowed. “My people don’t deserve this land. We’re broken, ruined. Incapable.” She cocked her head. A cool wind played with her clothing. “And are you not angered that we took your Shards?” “They were first given me by a man I betrayed. I … don’t deserve them.” No. Not you. It’s not your fault. “You aren’t angry that we conquer you?” “No.” “Then what does anger you? What is your passionate fury, Moash, the man with an ancient singer’s name?” Yes, it was there. Still burning. Deep down. Storm it, Kaladin had been protecting a murderer. “Vengeance,” he whispered. “Yes, I understand.” She looked at him, smiling in what seemed to him a distinctly sinister way. “Do you know why we fight? Let me tell you.…” * * * A half hour later as evening approached, Moash walked the streets of a conquered town. By himself. Lady Leshwi had ordered that Moash be left alone, freed. He walked with his hands in the pockets of his Bridge Four coat, remembering the frigid air up above. He still felt chilled, even though down here it was muggy and warm. This was a nice town. Quaint. Little stone buildings, plants growing at the backs of every house. On his left, that meant cultivated rockbuds and bushes burst from around doors—but to his right, facing the storm, there were only blank stone walls. Not even a window. The plants smelled of civilization to him. A sort of civic perfume that you didn’t get out in the wilds. They barely quivered as he passed, though lifespren bobbed at his presence. The plants were accustomed to people on the streets. He finally stopped at a low fence surrounding pens holding the horses the Voidbringers had captured. The animals munched cut grass the parshmen had thrown to them. Such strange beasts. Hard to care for, expensive to keep. He turned from the horses and looked out over the fields toward Kholinar. She’d said he could leave. Join the refugees making for the capital. Defend the city. What is your passionate fury? Thousands of years being reborn. What would it be like? Thousands of years, and they’d never given up. Prove yourself … He turned and made his way back to the lumberyard, where the workers were packing up for the day. There was no storm projected tonight, and they wouldn’t have to secure everything, so they worked with a relaxed, almost jovial air. All save for his crew, who—as usual—gathered by themselves, ostracized. Moash seized a bundle of ladder rods off a pile. The workers there turned to object, but cut off when they saw who it was. He untied the bundle and, upon reaching the crew of unfortunate parshmen, tossed a length of wood to each one. Sah caught his and stood up, frowning. The others mimicked him. “I can train you with those,” Moash said. “Sticks?” Khen asked. “Spears,” Moash said. “I can
teach you to be soldiers. We’ll probably die anyway. Storm it, we’ll probably never make it to the top of the walls. But it’s something.” The parshmen looked at one another, holding rods that could mimic spears. “I’ll do it,” Khen said. Slowly, the others nodded in agreement. I am the least equipped, of all, to aid you in this endeavor. I am finding that the powers I hold are in such conflict that the most simple of actions can be difficult. Rlain sat on the Shattered Plains alone and listened to the rhythms. Enslaved parshmen, deprived of true forms, weren’t able to hear the rhythms. During his years spent as a spy, he’d adopted dullform, which heard them weakly. It had been so hard to be apart from them. They weren’t quite true songs; they were beats with hints of tonality and harmony. He could attune one of several dozen to match his mood, or—conversely—to help alter his mood. His people had always assumed the humans were deaf to the rhythms, but he wasn’t convinced. Perhaps it was his imagination, but it seemed that sometimes they responded to certain rhythms. They’d look up at a moment of frenzied beats, eyes getting a far-off look. They’d grow agitated and shout in time, for a moment, to the Rhythm of Irritation, or whoop right on beat with the Rhythm of Joy. It comforted him to think that they might someday learn to hear the rhythms. Perhaps then he wouldn’t feel so alone. He currently attuned the Rhythm of the Lost, a quiet yet violent beat with sharp, separated notes. You attuned it to remember the fallen, and that felt the correct emotion as he sat here outside Narak, watching humans build a fortress from what used to be his home. They set a watchpost atop the central spire, where the Five had once met to discuss the future of his people. They turned homes into barracks. He was not offended—his own people had repurposed the ruins of Stormseat into Narak. No doubt these stately ruins would outlast the Alethi occupation, as they had the listeners. That knowledge did not prevent him from mourning. His people were gone, now. Yes, parshmen had awakened, but they were not listeners. No more than Alethi and Vedens were the same nationality, simply because most had similar skin tones. Rlain’s people were gone. They had fallen to Alethi swords or had been consumed by the Everstorm, transformed into incarnations of the old listener gods. He was, as far as he knew, the last. He sighed, pulling himself to his feet. He swung a spear to his shoulder, the spear they let him carry. He loved the men of Bridge Four, but he was an oddity, even to them: the parshman they allowed to be armed. The potential Voidbringer they had decided to trust, and wasn’t he just so lucky. He crossed the plateau to where a group of them trained under Teft’s watchful eye. They didn’t wave to him. They often seemed surprised to find him there, as
if they’d forgotten he was around. But when Teft did notice him, the man’s smile was genuine. They were his friends. It was merely … How could Rlain be so fond of these men, yet at the same time want to slap them? When he and Skar had been the only two who couldn’t draw Stormlight, they’d encouraged Skar. They’d given him pep talks, told him to keep trying. They had believed in him. Rlain, though … well, who knew what would happen if he could use Stormlight? Might it be the first step in turning him into a monster? Never mind that he’d told them you had to open yourself to a form to adopt it. Never mind that he had the power to choose for himself. Though they never spoke it, he saw the truth in their reactions. As with Dabbid, they thought it best that Rlain remain without Stormlight. The parshman and the insane man. People you couldn’t trust as Windrunners. Five bridgemen launched into the air, Radiant and steaming with Light. Some of the crew trained while another group patrolled with Kaladin, checking on caravans. A third group—the ten other newcomers that had learned to draw in Stormlight—trained with Peet a few plateaus over. That group included Lyn and all four of the other scouts, along with four men from other bridge crews, and a single lighteyed officer. Colot, the archer captain. Lyn had slid into Bridge Four’s comradery easily, as had a couple of the bridgemen. Rlain tried not to feel jealous that they almost seemed more a part of the team than he did. Teft led the five in the air through a formation while the four others strolled toward Rock’s drink station. Rlain joined them, and Yake slapped him on the back, pointing toward the next plateau over, where the bulk of the hopefuls continued to train. “That group can barely hold a spear properly,” Yake said. “You ought to go show them how a real bridgeman does a kata, eh, Rlain?” “Kalak help them if they have to fight those shellheads,” Eth added, taking a drink from Rock. “Um, no offense, Rlain.” Rlain touched his head, where he had carapace armor—distinctively thick and strong, as he held warform—covering his skull. It had stretched out his Bridge Four tattoo, which had transferred to the carapace. He had protrusions on his arms and legs too, and people always wanted to feel those. They couldn’t believe they actually grew from his skin, and somehow thought it was appropriate to try to peek underneath. “Rlain,” Rock said. “Is okay to throw things at Eth. He has hard head too, almost like he has shell.” “It’s all right,” Rlain said, because that was what they expected him to say. He accidentally attuned Irritation, though, and the rhythm laced his words. To cover his embarrassment, he attuned Curiosity and tried Rock’s drink of the day. “This is good! What is in it?” “Ha! Is water I boiled cremlings in, before serving them last night.” Eth spurted out his mouthful of
drink, then looked at the cup, aghast. “What?” Rock said. “You ate the cremlings easily!” “But this is … like their bathwater,” Eth complained. “Chilled,” Rock said, “with spices. Is good taste.” “Is bathwater,” Eth said, imitating Rock’s accent. Teft led the other four in a streaking wave of light overhead. Rlain looked up, and found himself attuning Longing before he stomped it out. He attuned Peace instead. Peace, yes. He could be peaceful. “This isn’t working,” Drehy said. “We can’t storming patrol the entirety of the Shattered Plains. More caravans are going to get hit, like that one last night.” “The captain says it’s strange for those Voidbringers to keep raiding like this,” Eth said. “Tell that to the caravaneers from yesterday.” Yake shrugged. “They didn’t even burn much; we got there before the Voidbringers had time to do much more than frighten everyone. I’m with the captain. It’s strange.” “Maybe they’re testing our abilities,” Eth said. “Seeing what Bridge Four can really do.” They glanced at Rlain for confirmation. “Am … am I supposed to be able to answer?” he asked. “Well,” Eth said. “I mean … storms, Rlain. They’re your kinsmen. Surely you know something about them.” “You can guess, right?” Yake said. Rock’s daughter refilled his cup for him, and Rlain looked down at the clear liquid. Don’t blame them, he thought. They don’t know. They don’t understand. “Eth, Yake,” Rlain said carefully, “my people did everything we could to separate ourselves from those creatures. We went into hiding long ago, and swore we would never accept forms of power again. “I don’t know what changed. My people must have been tricked somehow. In any case, these Fused are as much my enemies as they are yours—more, even. And no, I can’t say what they will do. I spent my entire life trying to avoid thinking of them.” Teft’s group came crashing down to the plateau. For all his earlier difficulty, Skar had quickly taken to flight. His landing was the most graceful of the bunch. Hobber hit so hard he yelped. They jogged over to the watering station, where Rock’s eldest daughter and son began giving them drinks. Rlain felt sorry for the two; they barely spoke Alethi, though the son—oddly—was Vorin. Apparently, monks came from Jah Keved to preach the Almighty to the Horneaters, and Rock let his children follow any god they wanted. So it was that the pale-skinned young Horneater wore a glyphward tied to his arm and burned prayers to the Vorin Almighty instead of making offerings to the Horneater spren. Rlain sipped his drink and wished Renarin were here; the quiet, lighteyed man usually made a point of speaking with Rlain. The others jabbered excitedly, but didn’t think to include him. Parshmen were invisible to them—they’d been brought up that way. And yet, he loved them because they did try. When Skar bumped him—and was reminded that he was there—he blinked, then said, “Maybe we should ask Rlain.” The others immediately jumped in and said he didn’t want to talk about it,
giving a kind of Alethi version of what he’d told them earlier. He belonged here as much as he did anywhere else. Bridge Four was his family, now that those from Narak were gone. Eshonai, Varanis, Thude … He attuned the Rhythm of the Lost and bowed his head. He had to believe that his friends in Bridge Four could feel a hint of the rhythms, for otherwise how would they know how to mourn with true pain of soul? Teft was getting ready to take the other squad into the air when a group of dots in the sky announced the arrival of Kaladin Stormblessed. He landed with his squad, including Lopen, who juggled an uncut gemstone the size of a man’s head. They must have found a chrysalis from a beast of the chasms. “No sign of Voidbringers today,” Leyten said, turning over one of Rock’s buckets and using it as a seat. “But storms … the Plains sure do seem smaller when you’re up there.” “Yeah,” Lopen said. “And bigger.” “Smaller and bigger?” Skar asked. “Smaller,” Leyten said, “because we can cross them so fast. I remember plateaus that felt like they took years to cross. We zip past those in an eyeblink.” “But then you get up high,” Lopen added, “and you realize how wide this place is—sure, how much of it we never even explored—and it just seems … big.” The others nodded, eager. You had to read their emotion in their expressions and the way they moved, not in their voices. Maybe that was why emotion spren came so often to humans, more often than to listeners. Without the rhythms, men needed help understanding one another. “Who’s on the next patrol?” Skar asked. “None for today,” Kaladin said. “I have a meeting with Dalinar. We’ll leave a squad in Narak, but…” Soon after he left through the Oathgate, everyone would slowly start to lose their powers. They’d be gone in an hour or two. Kaladin had to be relatively near—Sigzil had placed their maximum distance from him at around fifty miles, though their abilities started to fade somewhere around thirty miles. “Fine,” Skar said. “I was looking forward to drinking more of Rock’s cremling juice anyway.” “Cremling juice?” Sigzil said, drink halfway to his lips. Other than Rlain, Sigzil’s dark brown skin was the most different from the rest of the crew—though the bridgemen didn’t seem to care much about skin color. To them, only eyes mattered. Rlain had always found that strange, as among listeners, your skin patterns had at times been a matter of some import. “So…” Skar said. “Are we going to talk about Renarin?” The twenty-eight men shared looks, many settling down around the barrel of Rock’s drink as they once had around the cookfire. There were certainly a suspicious number of buckets to use as stools, as if Rock had planned for this. The Horneater himself leaned against the table he’d brought out for holding cups, a cleaning rag thrown over his shoulder. “What about him?” Kaladin asked, frowning and looking
around at the group. “He’s been spending a lot of time with the scribes studying the tower city,” Natam said. “The other day,” Skar added, “he was talking about what he’s doing there. It sounded an awful lot like he was learning how to read.” The men shifted uncomfortably. “So?” Kaladin asked. “What’s the problem? Sigzil can read his own language. Storms, I can read glyphs.” “It’s not the same,” Skar said. “It’s feminine,” Drehy added. “Drehy,” Kaladin said, “you are literally courting a man.” “So?” Drehy said. “Yeah, what are you saying, Kal?” Skar snapped. “Nothing! I just thought Drehy might empathize.…” “That’s hardly fair,” Drehy said. “Yeah,” Lopen added. “Drehy likes other guys. That’s like … he wants to be even less around women than the rest of us. It’s the opposite of feminine. He is, you could say, extra manly.” “Yeah,” Drehy said. Kaladin rubbed his forehead, and Rlain empathized. It was sad that humans were so burdened by always being in mateform. They were always distracted by the emotions and passions of mating, and had not yet reached a place where they could put that aside. He felt embarrassed for them—they were simply too concerned about what a person should and shouldn’t be doing. It was because they didn’t have forms to change into. If Renarin wanted to be a scholar, let him be a scholar. “I’m sorry,” Kaladin said, holding out his hand to calm the men. “I wasn’t trying to insult Drehy. But storms, men. We know that things are changing. Look at the lot of us. We’re halfway to being lighteyes! We’ve already let five women into Bridge Four, and they’ll be fighting with spears. Expectations are being upended—and we’re the cause of it. So let’s give Renarin a little leeway, shall we?” Rlain nodded. Kaladin was a good man. For all his faults, he tried even more than the rest of them. “I have thing to say,” Rock added. “During last few weeks, how many of you have come to me, saying you feel you don’t fit in with Bridge Four now?” The plateau fell silent. Finally, Sigzil raised his hand. Followed by Skar. And several others, including Hobber. “Hobber, you did not come to me,” Rock noted. “Oh. Yeah, but I felt like it, Rock.” He glanced down. “Everything’s changing. I don’t know if I can keep up.” “I still have nightmares,” Leyten said softly, “about what we saw in the bowels of Urithiru. Anyone else?” “I have trouble Alethi,” Huio said. “It makes me … embarrassing. Alone.” “I’m scared of heights,” Torfin added. “Flying up there is terrifying to me.” A few glanced at Teft. “What?” Teft demanded. “You expect this to be a feeling-sharing party because the storming Horneater gave you a sour eye? Storm off. It’s a miracle I’m not burning moss every moment of the day, having to deal with you lot.” Natam patted him on the shoulder. “And I will not fight,” Rock said. “I know some of you do not like this. He makes me feel different.
Not only because I am only one with proper beard in crew.” He leaned forward. “Life is changing. We will all feel alone because of this, yes? Ha! Perhaps we can feel alone together.” They all seemed to find this comforting. Well, except Lopen, who had snuck away from the group and for some reason was lifting up rocks on the other side of the plateau and looking underneath them. Even among humans, he was a strange one. The men relaxed and started to chat. Though Hobber slapped Rlain on the back, it was the closest any of them came to asking how he felt. Was it childish of him to feel frustrated? They all thought they were alone, did they? Felt that they were outsiders? Did they know what it was like to be of an entirely different species? A species they were currently at war with—a species whose people had all been either murdered or corrupted? People in the tower watched him with outright hatred. His friends didn’t, but they sure did like to pat themselves on the back for that fact. We understand that you’re not like the others, Rlain. You can’t help what you look like. He attuned Annoyance and sat there until Kaladin sent the rest of them off to train the aspiring Windrunners. Kaladin spoke softly with Rock, then turned and paused, seeing Rlain sitting there on his bucket. “Rlain,” Kaladin said, “why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” What if I don’t want special accommodation because you feel sorry for me? Kaladin squatted down beside Rlain. “Hey. You heard what Rock said. I know how you feel. We can help you shoulder this.” “Do you really?” Rlain said. “Do you actually know how I feel, Kaladin Stormblessed? Or is that simply a thing that men say?” “I guess it’s a thing men say,” Kaladin admitted, then pulled over an upside-down bucket for himself. “Can you tell me how it feels?” Did he really want to know? Rlain considered, then attuned Resolve. “I can try.” I am also made uncertain by your subterfuge. Why have you not made yourself known to me before this? How is it you can hide? Who are you truly, and how do you know so much about Adonalsium? Dalinar appeared in the courtyard of a strange fortress with a single towering wall of bloodred stones. It closed a large gap in a mountainous rock formation. Around him, men carried supplies or otherwise made themselves busy, passing in and out of buildings constructed against the natural stone walls. Winter air made Dalinar’s breath puff before him. He held Navani’s freehand on his left, and Jasnah’s on his right. It had worked. His control over these visions was increasing beyond even what the Stormfather assumed possible. Today, by holding their hands, he had brought Navani and Jasnah in without a highstorm. “Wonderful,” Navani said, squeezing his hand. “That wall is as majestic as you described. And the people. Bronze weapons again, very little steel.” “That armor is Soulcast,” Jasnah said,
releasing his hand. “Look at the fingermarks on the metal. That’s burnished iron, not true steel, Soulcast from clay into that shape. I wonder … did access to Soulcasters retard their drive to learn smelting? Working steel is difficult. You can’t simply melt it over a fire, like you can bronze.” “So…” Dalinar asked, “when are we?” “Maybe two thousand years ago,” Jasnah said. “Those are Haravingian swords, and see those archways? Late classical architecture, but washed out faux blue on the cloaks, rather than true blue dyes. Mix that with the language you spoke in—which my mother recorded last time—and I’m fairly certain.” She glanced at the passing soldiers. “A multiethnic coalition here, like during the Desolations—but if I’m right, this is over two thousand years after Aharietiam.” “They’re fighting someone,” Dalinar said. “The Radiants retreat from a battle, then abandon their weapons on the field outside.” “Which places the Recreance a little more recently than Masha-daughter-Shaliv had it in her history,” Jasnah said, musing. “From my reading of your vision accounts, this is the last chronologically—though it’s difficult to place the one with you overlooking ruined Kholinar.” “Who could they be fighting?” Navani asked as men atop the wall raised the alarm. Horsemen galloped out of the keep, off to investigate. “This is well after the Voidbringers left.” “It could be the False Desolation,” Jasnah said. Dalinar and Navani both looked at her. “A legend,” Jasnah said. “Considered pseudohistorical. Dovcanti wrote an epic about it somewhere around fifteen hundred years ago. The claim is that some Voidbringers survived Aharietiam, and there were many clashes with them afterward. It’s considered unreliable, but that’s because many later ardents insist that no Voidbringers could have survived. I’m inclined to assume this is a clash with parshmen before they were somehow deprived of their ability to change forms.” She looked to Dalinar, eyes alight, and he nodded. She strode off to collect whatever historical tidbits she could. Navani took some instruments from her satchel. “One way or another, I’m going to figure out where this ‘Feverstone Keep’ is, even if I have to bully these people into drawing a map. Perhaps we could send scholars to this location and find clues about the Recreance.” Dalinar made his way over to the base of the wall. It was a truly majestic structure, typical of the strange contrasts of these visions: a classical people, without fabrials or even proper metallurgy, accompanied by wonders. A group of men piled down the steps from the top of the wall. They were trailed by His Excellency Yanagawn the First, Prime Aqasix of Azir. While Dalinar had brought Navani and Jasnah by touch, he had asked the Stormfather to bring in Yanagawn. The highstorm currently raged in Azir. The youth saw Dalinar and stopped. “Do I have to fight today, Blackthorn?” “Not today, Your Excellency.” “I’m getting really tired of these visions,” Yanagawn said, descending the last few steps. “That fatigue never leaves, Your Excellency. In fact, it has grown as I’ve begun to grasp the importance of what I
have seen in vision, and the burden it puts upon me.” “That isn’t what I meant by tired.” Dalinar didn’t reply, hands clasped behind him as together they walked to the sally port, where Yanagawn watched events unfold outside. Radiants were crossing the open plain or flying down. They summoned their Blades, provoking concern from the watching soldiers. The knights drove their weapons into the ground, then abandoned them. They left their armor as well. Shards of incalculable value, renounced. The young emperor looked to be in no rush to confront them as Dalinar had been. Dalinar, therefore, took him by the arm and guided him out as the first soldiers opened the doors. He didn’t want the emperor to get caught in the flood that would soon come, as men dashed for those Blades, then started killing one another. As before in this vision, Dalinar felt as if he could hear the screaming deaths of the spren, the terrible sorrow of this field. It almost overwhelmed him. “Why?” Yanagawn asked. “Why did they just … give up?” “We don’t know, Your Excellency. This scene haunts me. There is so much I don’t understand. Ignorance has become the theme of my rule.” Yanagawn looked around, then scrambled for a tall boulder to climb, where he could better watch the Radiants. He seemed far more engaged by this than he had been by other visions. Dalinar could respect that. War was war, but this … this was something you never saw. Men willingly giving up their Shards? And that pain. It pervaded the air like a terrible stench. Yanagawn settled down on his boulder. “So why show me this? You don’t even know what it means.” “If you’re not going to join my coalition, I figure I should still give you as much knowledge as I can. Perhaps we will fall, and you will survive. Maybe your scholars can solve these puzzles when we cannot. And maybe you are the leader Roshar needs, while I am just an emissary.” “You don’t believe that.” “I don’t. I still want you to have these visions, just in case.” Yanagawn fidgeted, playing with the tassels on his leather breastplate. “I … don’t matter as much as you think I do.” “Pardon, Your Excellency, but you underestimate your importance. Azir’s Oathgate will be vital, and you are the strongest kingdom of the west. With Azir at our side, many other countries will join with us.” “I mean,” Yanagawn said, “that I don’t matter. Sure, Azir does. But I’m only a kid they put on the throne because they were afraid that assassin would come back.” “And the miracle they’re publishing? The proof from the Heralds that you were chosen?” “That was Lift, not me.” Yanagawn looked down at his feet, swinging beneath him. “They’re training me to act important, Kholin, but I’m not. Not yet. Maybe not ever.” This was a new face to Yanagawn. The vision today had shaken him, but not in the way Dalinar had hoped. He’s a youth, Dalinar reminded himself. Life at
his age was challenging anyway, without adding to it the stress of an unexpected accession to power. “Whatever the reason,” Dalinar told the young emperor, “you are Prime. The viziers have published your miraculous elevation to the public. You do have some measure of authority.” He shrugged. “The viziers aren’t bad people. They feel guilty for putting me in this position. They give me education—kind of force it down my throat, honestly—and expect me to participate. But I’m not ruling the empire. “They’re scared of you. Very scared. More scared than they are of the assassin. He burned the emperors’ eyes, but emperors can be replaced. You represent something far more terrible. They think you could destroy our entire culture.” “No Alethi has to set foot on Azish stone,” Dalinar said. “But come to me, Your Excellency. Tell them you’ve seen visions, that the Heralds want you to at least visit Urithiru. Tell them that the opportunities far outweigh the danger of opening that Oathgate.” “And if this happens again?” Yanagawn asked, nodding toward the field of Shardblades. Hundreds of them sprouting from the ground, silvery, reflecting sunlight. Men were now pouring out of the keep, flooding toward those weapons. “We will see that it doesn’t. Somehow.” Dalinar narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know what caused the Recreance, but I can guess. They lost their vision, Your Excellency. They became embroiled in politics and let divisions creep among them. They forgot their purpose: protecting Roshar for its people.” Yanagawn looked to him, frowning. “That’s harsh. You always seemed so respectful of the Radiants before.” “I respect those who fought in the Desolations. These? I can sympathize. I too have on occasion let myself be distracted by small-minded pettiness. But respect? No.” He shivered. “They killed their spren. They betrayed their oaths! They may not be villains, as history paints them, but in this moment they failed to do what was right and just. They failed Roshar.” The Stormfather rumbled in the distance, agreeing with this sentiment. Yanagawn cocked his head. “What?” Dalinar asked. “Lift doesn’t trust you,” he said. Dalinar glanced about, expecting her to appear as she had in the previous two visions he’d shown Yanagawn. There was no sign of the young Reshi girl that the Stormfather detested so much. “It’s because,” Yanagawn continued, “you act so righteous. She says anyone who acts like you do is trying to hide something.” A soldier strode up and spoke to Yanagawn in the Almighty’s voice. “They are the first.” Dalinar stepped back, letting the young emperor listen as the Almighty gave his short speech for this vision. These events will go down in history. They will be infamous. You will have many names for what happened here … The Almighty said the same words he had to Dalinar. The Night of Sorrows will come, and the True Desolation. The Everstorm. The men on the field full of Shards started to fight over the weapons. For the first time in history, men started slaughtering one another with dead spren. Finally, Yanagawn faded, vanishing
from the vision. Dalinar closed his eyes, feeling the Stormfather draw away. Everything now dissolved … Except it didn’t. Dalinar opened his eyes. He was still on the field before the looming, bloodred wall of Feverstone Keep. Men fought over Shardblades while some voices called for everyone to be patient. Those who claimed a Shard this day would become rulers. It bothered Dalinar that the best men, the ones calling for moderation or raising concerns, would be rare among their numbers. They weren’t aggressive enough to seize the advantage. Why was he still here? Last time, the vision had ended before this. “Stormfather?” he asked. No reply. Dalinar turned around. A man in white and gold stood there. Dalinar jumped, scrambling backward. The man was old, with a wide, furrowed face and bone-white hair that swept back from his head as if blown by wind. Thick mustaches with a hint of black in them blended into a short white beard. He seemed to be Shin, judging by his skin and eyes, and he wore a golden crown in his powdery hair. Those eyes … they were ancient, the skin surrounding them deeply creased, and they danced with joy as he smiled at Dalinar and rested a golden scepter on his shoulder. Suddenly overwhelmed, Dalinar fell to his knees. “I know you,” he whispered. “You’re … you’re Him. God.” “Yes,” the man said. “Where have you been?” Dalinar said. “I’ve always been here,” God said. “Always with you, Dalinar. Oh, I’ve watched you for a long, long time.” “Here? You’re … not the Almighty, are you?” “Honor? No, he truly is dead, as you’ve been told.” The old man’s smile deepened, genuine and kindly. “I’m the other one, Dalinar. They call me Odium.” If you would speak to me further, I request open honesty. Return to my lands, approach my servants, and I will see what I can do for your quest. Odium. Dalinar scrambled to his feet, lurching backward and seeking a weapon he didn’t possess. Odium. Standing in front of him. The Stormfather had grown distant, almost vanished—but Dalinar could sense a faint emotion from him. A whine, like he was straining against something heavy? No. No, that was a whimper. Odium rested his golden scepter against the palm of his hand, then turned to regard the men fighting over Shardblades. “I remember this day,” Odium said. “Such passion. And such loss. Terrible for many, but glorious for others. You are wrong about why the Radiants fell, Dalinar. There was infighting among them, true, but no more than in other eras. They were honest men and women, with different views at times, but unified in their desire to do what was best.” “What do you want of me?” Dalinar said, hand to his breast, breathing quickly. Storms. He wasn’t ready. Could he ever be ready for this moment? Odium strolled over to a small boulder and settled down. He sighed in relief, like a man releasing a heavy burden, then nodded to the space next to him. Dalinar made no move
to sit. “You have been placed in a difficult position, my son,” Odium said. “You are the first to bond the Stormfather in his current state. Did you know that? You are deeply connected to the remnants of a god.” “Whom you killed.” “Yes. I’ll kill the other one too, eventually. She’s hidden herself somewhere, and I’m too … shackled.” “You’re a monster.” “Oh, Dalinar. This from you of all people? Tell me you’ve never found yourself in conflict with someone you respect. Tell me you’ve never killed a man because you had to, even if—in a better world—he shouldn’t deserve it?” Dalinar bit back a retort. Yes, he’d done that. Too many times. “I know you, Dalinar,” Odium said. He smiled again, a paternal expression. “Come sit down. I won’t devour you, or burn you away at a touch.” Dalinar hesitated. You need to hear what he says. Even this creature’s lies can tell you more than a world of common truths. He walked over, then stiffly sat down. “What do you know of us three?” Odium asked. “Honestly, I wasn’t even aware there were three of you.” “More, in fact,” Odium said absently. “But only three of relevance to you. Me. Honor. Cultivation. You speak of her, don’t you?” “I suppose,” Dalinar said. “Some people identify her with Roshar, the spren of the world itself.” “She’d like that,” Odium said. “I wish I could simply let her have this place.” “So do it. Leave us alone. Go away.” Odium turned to him so sharply that Dalinar jumped. “Is that,” Odium said quietly, “an offer to release me from my bonds, coming from the man holding the remnants of Honor’s name and power?” Dalinar stammered. Idiot. You’re not some raw recruit. Pull yourself together. “No,” he said firmly. “Ah, all right then,” Odium said. He smiled, a twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, don’t fret so. These things must be done properly. I will go if you release me, but only if you do it by Intent.” “And what are the consequences of my releasing you?” “Well, first I’d see to Cultivation’s death. There would be … other consequences, as you call them, as well.” Eyes burned as men swept about themselves with Shardblades, killing others who had mere moments before been their comrades. It was a frantic, insane brawl for power. “And you can’t just … leave?” Dalinar asked. “Without killing anyone?” “Well, let me ask you this in return. Why did you seize control of Alethkar from poor Elhokar?” “I…” Don’t reply. Don’t give him ammunition. “You knew it was for the best,” Odium said. “You knew that Elhokar was weak, and the kingdom would suffer without firm leadership. You took control for the greater good, and it has served Roshar well.” Nearby, a man stumbled toward them, limping out of the fray. His eyes burned as a Shardblade rammed through his back, protruding three feet out of his chest. He fell forward, eyes trailing twin lines of smoke. “A man cannot serve two gods at once, Dalinar,” Odium said.
“And so, I cannot leave her behind. In fact, I cannot leave behind the Splinters of Honor, as I once thought I could. I can already see that going wrong. Once you release me, my transformation of this realm will be substantial.” “You think you’ll do better?” Dalinar wet his mouth, which had gone dry. “Do better than others would, for this land? You, a manifestation of hatred and pain?” “They call me Odium,” the old man said. “A good enough name. It does have a certain bite to it. But the word is too limiting to describe me, and you should know that it is not all I represent.” “Which is?” He looked to Dalinar. “Passion, Dalinar Kholin. I am emotion incarnate. I am the soul of the spren and of men. I am lust, joy, hatred, anger, and exultation. I am glory and I am vice. I am the very thing that makes men men. “Honor cared only for bonds. Not the meaning of bonds and oaths, merely that they were kept. Cultivation only wants to see transformation. Growth. It can be good or bad, for all she cares. The pain of men is nothing to her. Only I understand it. Only I care, Dalinar.” I don’t believe that, Dalinar thought. I can’t believe that. The old man sighed, then heaved himself to his feet. “If you could see the result of Honor’s influence, you would not be so quick to name me a god of anger. Separate the emotion from men, and you have creatures like Nale and his Skybreakers. That is what Honor would have given you.” Dalinar nodded toward the terrible fray on the field before them. “You said I was wrong about what caused the Radiants to abandon their oaths. What was it really?” Odium smiled. “Passion, son. Glorious, wondrous passion. Emotion. It is what defines men—though ironically you are poor vessels for it. It fills you up and breaks you, unless you find someone to share the burden.” He looked toward the dying men. “But can you imagine a world without it? No. Not one I’d want to live in. Ask that of Cultivation, next time you see her. Ask what she’d want for Roshar. I think you’ll find me to be the better choice.” “Next time?” Dalinar said. “I’ve never seen her.” “Of course you have,” Odium said, turning and walking away. “She simply robbed you of that memory. Her touch is not how I would have helped you. It stole a part of you away, and left you like a blind man who can’t remember that he once had sight.” Dalinar stood up. “I offer you a challenge of champions. With terms to be discussed. Will you accept it?” Odium stopped, then turned slowly. “Do you speak for the world, Dalinar Kholin? Will you offer this for all Roshar?” Storms. Would he? “I…” “Either way, I don’t accept.” Odium stood taller, smiling in an unnervingly understanding way. “I need not take on such a risk, for I know, Dalinar Kholin, that you will
make the right decision. You will free me.” “No.” Dalinar stood. “You shouldn’t have revealed yourself, Odium. I once feared you, but it is easier to fear what you don’t understand. I’ve seen you now, and I can fight you.” “You’ve seen me, have you? Curious.” Odium smiled again. Then everything went white. Dalinar found himself standing on a speck of nothingness that was the entire world, looking up at an eternal, all-embracing flame. It stretched in every direction, starting as red, moving to orange, then changing to blazing white. Then somehow, the flames seemed to burn into a deep blackness, violet and angry. This was something so terrible that it consumed light itself. It was hot. A radiance indescribable, intense heat and black fire, colored violet at the outside. Burning. Overwhelming. Power. It was the scream of a thousand warriors on the battlefield. It was the moment of most sensual touch and ecstasy. It was the sorrow of loss, the joy of victory. And it was hatred. Deep, pulsing hatred with a pressure to turn all things molten. It was the heat of a thousand suns, it was the bliss of every kiss, it was the lives of all men wrapped up in one, defined by everything they felt. Even taking in the smallest fraction of it terrified Dalinar. It left him tiny and frail. He knew if he drank of that raw, concentrated, liquid black fire, he’d be nothing in a moment. The entire planet of Roshar would puff away, no more consequential than the curling smoke of a snuffed-out candle. It faded, and Dalinar found himself lying on the rock outside Feverstone Keep, staring upward. Above him, the sun seemed dim and cold. Everything felt frozen by contrast. Odium knelt down beside him, then helped him rise to a seated position. “There, there. That was a smidge too much, wasn’t it? I had forgotten how overwhelming that could be. Here, take a drink.” He handed Dalinar a waterskin. Dalinar looked at it, baffled, then up at the old man. In Odium’s eyes, he could see that violet-black fire. Deep, deep within. The figure with whom Dalinar spoke was not the god, it was merely a face, a mask. Because if Dalinar had to confront the true force behind those smiling eyes, he would go mad. Odium patted him on the shoulder. “Take a minute, Dalinar. I’ll leave you here. Relax. It—” He cut off, then frowned, spinning. He searched the rocks. “What?” Dalinar asked. “Nothing. Just an old man’s mind playing tricks on him.” He patted Dalinar on the arm. “We’ll speak again, I promise.” He vanished in an eyeblink. Dalinar collapsed backward, completely drained. Storms. Just … Storms. “That guy,” a girl’s voice said, “is creepy.” Dalinar shifted, sitting up with difficulty. A head popped up from behind some nearby rocks. Tan skin, pale eyes, long dark hair, lean, girlish features. “I mean, old men are all creepy,” Lift said. “Seriously. All wrinkly and ‘Hey, want some sweets?’ and ‘Oh, listen to this boring story.’ I’m on to
them. They can act nice all they want, but nobody gets old without ruining a whole buncha lives.” She climbed over the rocks. She wore fine Azish clothing now, compared to the simple trousers and shirt from last time. Colorful patterns on robes, a thick overcoat and cap. “Even as old people go, that one was extra creepy,” she said softly. “What was that thing, tight-butt? Didn’t smell like a real person.” “They call it Odium,” Dalinar said, exhausted. “And it is what we fight.” “Huh. Compared to that, you’re nothing.” “Thank you?” She nodded, as if it were a compliment. “I’ll talk to Gawx. You got good food at that tower city of yours?” “We can prepare some for you.” “Yeah, I don’t care what you prepare. What do you eat? Is it good?” “… Yes?” “Not military rations or some such nonsense, right?” “Not usually.” “Great.” She looked at the place where Odium had vanished, then shivered visibly. “We’ll visit.” She paused, then poked him in the arm. “Don’t tell Gawx about that Odium thing, okay? He’s got too many old people to worry about already.” Dalinar nodded. The bizarre girl vanished and, moments later, the vision finally faded. THE END OF Part Two As a Stoneward, I spent my entire life looking to sacrifice myself. I secretly worry that is the cowardly way. The easy way out. —From drawer 29-5, topaz The clouds that usually congregated about the base of the Urithiru plateau were absent today, allowing Dalinar to see down along the endless cliffs below the tower’s perch. He couldn’t see the ground; those cliffs seemed to extend into eternity. Even with that, he had trouble visualizing how high in the mountains they were. Navani’s scribes could measure height using the air somehow, but their numbers didn’t satisfy him. He wanted to see. Were they really higher than the clouds were over the Shattered Plains? Or did the clouds here in the mountains fly lower? How contemplative you’ve grown in your old age, he thought to himself, stepping onto one of the Oathgate platforms. Navani held his arm, though Taravangian and Adrotagia had trailed behind on the ramp up. Navani looked into his eyes as they waited. “Still bothered by the latest vision?” That wasn’t what was distracting him at the moment, but he nodded anyway. Indeed, he was worried. Odium. Though the Stormfather had returned to his previous self-confident ways, Dalinar could not shake the memory of the mighty spren whimpering in fright. Navani and Jasnah had eagerly feasted on his account of meeting the dark god, though they’d chosen not to publish this one for wide dissemination. “Maybe,” Navani said, “this was somehow another preplanned event, placed by Honor for you to encounter.” Dalinar shook his head. “Odium felt real. I truly interacted with him.” “You can interact with the people in the visions. Just not the Almighty himself.” “Because, you theorize, the Almighty couldn’t create a full simulacrum of a god. No. I saw eternity, Navani … a divine vastness.” He shivered. For now, they
had decided to suspend use of the visions. Who knew what risk they’d run by bringing people’s minds in and potentially exposing them to Odium? Of course, who’s to say what he can and cannot touch in the real world? Dalinar thought. He looked up again, the sun burning white, the sky a faded blue. He would have thought that being above the clouds would give him more perspective. Taravangian and Adrotagia finally arrived, followed by Taravangian’s strange Surgebinder, the short-haired woman, Malata. Dalinar’s guards brought up the rear. Rial saluted him. Again. “You don’t need to salute me each time I look at you, Sergeant,” Dalinar said dryly. “Just trying ta be extra careful, sir.” The leathery, dark-skinned man saluted one more time. “Wouldn’t want ta be reported for being disrespectful.” “I didn’t mention you by name, Rial.” “Everyone knew anyway, Brightlord.” “Imagine that.” Rial grinned, and Dalinar waved for the man to open his canteen, then sniffed for alcohol. “It’s clean this time?” “Absolutely! You chastised me last time. Water only.” “And so you keep the alcohol…” “In my flask, sir,” Rial said. “Right leg pocket of my uniform. Don’t worry though. It’s buttoned up tight, and I’ve completely forgotten it’s there. I’ll discover it when duty is done.” “I’m sure.” Dalinar took Navani by the arm and followed Adrotagia and Taravangian. “You could have someone else assigned to guard you,” Navani whispered to him. “That greasy man is … unfitting.” “I actually like him,” Dalinar admitted. “Reminds me of some of my friends from the old days.” The control building at the center of this platform was shaped like the others—mosaics on the floor, keyhole mechanism in the curved wall. The patterns on the floor, however, were glyphs in the Dawnchant. This building would be identical to one in Thaylen City—and when engaged, it would swap places with that one. Ten platforms here, ten across the world. The glyphs on the floors indicated that it might somehow be possible to transport directly from one city to another without coming to Urithiru first. They hadn’t discovered how that might work, and for now each gate could swap only with its twin—and they had to first be unlocked from both sides. Navani went straight for the control mechanism. Malata joined her, watching over Navani’s shoulder as she fiddled with the keyhole, which was in the center of a ten-pointed star on a metal plate. “Yes,” Navani said, consulting some notes. “The mechanism is the same as the one to the Shattered Plains. You need to twist this here…” She wrote something via spanreed to Thaylen City, then ushered them back outside. A moment later, the building itself flashed—a ring of Stormlight running around it, like the afterimage of a firebrand being waved in the dark. Then Kaladin and Shallan emerged from the doorway. “It worked!” Shallan said as she bounced out, bubbling over with eagerness. In contrast, Kaladin stepped out with a firm gait. “Transferring only the control buildings, instead of the entire platform, should save us Stormlight.” “Up until now,”
Navani said, “we’ve been working the Oathgates at full power for every transfer. I suspect that’s not the only mistake we’ve made in regard to this place and its devices. Anyway, now that you two have unlocked the Thaylen gate on their end, we should be able to use it at will—with the help of a Radiant, of course.” “Sir,” Kaladin said to Dalinar, “the queen is prepared to meet with you.” Taravangian, Navani, Adrotagia, and Malata entered the building, though Shallan started down the ramp back toward Urithiru. Dalinar took Kaladin by the arm as he moved to follow. “The flight in front of the highstorm went well?” Dalinar asked. “No problems, sir. I’m confident it will work.” “Next storm then, soldier, make for Kholinar. I’m counting on you and Adolin to keep Elhokar from doing anything too foolhardy. Be careful. Something strange is going on inside the city, and I can’t afford to lose you.” “Yes, sir.” “As you fly, wave to the lands along the south fork of the Deathbend River. The parshmen may have conquered them by now, but they actually belong to you.” “… Sir?” “You’re a Shardbearer, Kaladin. That makes you at least fourth dahn, which should be a landed title. Elhokar found you a nice portion along the river that reverted to the crown last year at the death of its brightlord, who had no heir. It’s not as large as some, but it is yours now.” Kaladin looked stunned. “Are there villages on this land, sir?” “Six or seven; one town of note. The river is one of the most consistent in Alethkar. It doesn’t even dry up in the Midpeace. That’s on a good caravan route. Your people will do well.” “Sir. You know I don’t want this burden.” “If you’d wanted a life without burdens, you shouldn’t have said the oaths,” Dalinar said. “We don’t get to choose things like this, son. Just make sure you have a good steward, wise scribes, and some solid men of the fifth and sixth dahns to lead the towns. Personally, I’ll count us lucky—you included—if at the end of all this we still have a kingdom to burden us.” Kaladin nodded slowly. “My family is in northern Alethkar. Now that I’ve practiced flying with the storms, I’ll want to go and fetch them, once I get back from the Kholinar mission.” “Get that Oathgate open, and you can have as much time as you want. I guarantee, the best thing you can do for your family right now is keep Alethkar from falling.” By spanreed reports, the Voidbringers were slowly moving northward, and had captured much of Alethkar. Relis Ruthar had tried to gather the remaining Alethi forces in the country, but had been pushed back toward Herdaz, suffering at the hands of the Fused. However, the Voidbringers weren’t killing noncombatants. Kaladin’s family should be safe enough. The captain jogged off down the ramp, and Dalinar watched, thinking about his own burdens. Once Elhokar and Adolin returned from the mission to rescue Kholinar, they’d need
to get on with Elhokar’s highking arrangement. He still hadn’t announced that, not even to the highprinces. A part of Dalinar knew he should simply go forward with it now, naming Adolin highprince and stepping down, but he delayed. This would make a final separation between himself and his homeland. He’d at least like to help recover the capital first. Dalinar joined the others in the control building, then nodded toward Malata. She summoned her Shardblade and inserted it into the slot. The metal of the plate shifted and flowed, matching the shape of the Blade. They’d run tests, and though the walls of the buildings were thin, you couldn’t see the other end of the Shardblade jutting through. The Blade was melding into the mechanism. Malata pushed against the side of the Blade’s hilt. The inner wall of the control building rotated. The floor underneath the mosaics began glowing, illuminating them like stained glass. She stopped her Blade at the proper position, and a flash of light later, they had arrived. Dalinar stepped out of the small building onto a platform in distant Thaylen City, a port on the western coast of a large southern island near the Frostlands. Here the platform that surrounded the Oathgate had been turned into a sculpture garden—but most of the sculptures lay toppled and broken. Queen Fen waited on the ramp up with her attendants. Shallan had probably told her to wait there in case the room-only transfer didn’t work. The platform was high up in the city, and as Dalinar neared the edge, he saw that it gave an excellent view. The sight of it made Dalinar’s breath catch. Thaylen City was a mountainside metropolis like Kharbranth, placed with its back to a mountain to provide shelter from the highstorms. Though Dalinar had never been to the city before, he’d studied maps, and knew Thaylen City had once included only a section near the center they called the Ancient Ward. This raised portion had a distinctive shape formed by the way the rocks had been carved millennia ago. The city had long since been built beyond that. A lower section called the Low Ward cluttered the stones around the base of the wall—a wide, squat fortification to the west that ran from the cliffs on one side of the city to the mountain foothills on the other. Above and behind the Ancient Ward, the city had expanded up a series of steplike tiers. These Loft Wards ended at a majestic Royal Ward at the top of the city, holding palaces, mansions, and temples. The Oathgate platform was on this level, at the northern edge of the city, close to the cliffs down to the ocean. Once, this place would have been stunning because of its magnificent architecture. Today, Dalinar paused for a different reason. Dozens … hundreds of buildings had fallen in. Entire sections had become rubble when higher structures, smashed by the Everstorm, had slid down on top of them. What had once been one of the finest cities of all Roshar—known for
its art, trade, and fine marble—was cracked and broken, like a dinner plate dropped by a careless maid. Ironically, many more modest buildings at the base of the city—in the wall’s shadow—had weathered the storm. But the famous Thaylen docks were out beyond this fortification, on the small western peninsula fronting the city. This area had once been densely developed—likely with warehouses, taverns, and shops. All wood. They’d been swept away completely. Only smashed ruins remained. Stormfather. No wonder Fen had resisted his distracting demands. Most of this destruction had been caused by that first full Everstorm; Thaylen City was particularly exposed, with no land to break the storm as it surged across the western ocean. Beyond that, many more of these structures had been of wood, particularly in the Loft Wards. A luxury available to a place like Thaylen City, which up until now had been subject only to the most mild of the stormwinds. The Everstorm had come five times now, though subsequent passings had—blessedly—been tamer than the first. Dalinar lingered, taking it in, before leading his group to where Queen Fen stood on the ramp with a collection of scribes, lighteyes, and guards. This included her prince consort, Kmakl, an aging Thaylen man with matching mustaches and eyebrows, both drooping down to frame his face. He wore a vest and cap, and was attended by two ardents as scribes. “Fen…” Dalinar said softly. “I’m sorry.” “We lived too long in luxury, it seems,” Fen said, and he was momentarily surprised by her accent. It hadn’t been present in the visions. “I remember as a child worrying that everyone in other countries would discover how nice things were here, with the mild straits weather and the broken storms. I assumed we’d be swarmed with immigrants someday.” She turned toward her city, and sighed softly. How would it have been to live here? He tried to imagine living in homes that didn’t feel like fortresses. Buildings of wood with broad windows. Roofs needed only for keeping the rain off. He’d heard people joke that in Kharbranth, you had to hang a bell outside to know when the highstorm had arrived, for otherwise you’d miss it. Fortunately for Taravangian, that city’s slightly southern orientation had prevented devastation on this scale. “Well,” Fen said, “let’s do a tour. I think there are a few places worth seeing that are still standing.” If this is to be permanent, then I wish to leave record of my husband and children. Wzmal, as good a man as any woman could dream of loving. Kmakra and Molinar, the true gemstones of my life. —From drawer 12-15, ruby “The temple of Shalash,” Fen said, gesturing as they entered. To Dalinar, it looked much like the others she’d shown them: a large space with a high-domed ceiling and massive braziers. Here, ardents burned thousands of glyphwards for the people, who supplicated the Almighty for mercy and aid. Smoke pooled in the dome before leaking out through holes in the roof, like water through a sieve. How many prayers have
we burned, Dalinar wondered uncomfortably, to a god who is no longer there? Or is someone else receiving them instead? Dalinar nodded politely as Fen recounted the ancient origin of the structure and listed some of the kings or queens who had been crowned here. She explained the significance of the elaborate design on the rear wall, and led them around the sides to view the carvings. It was a pity to see several statues with the faces broken off. How had the storm gotten to them in here? When they were done, she led them back outside onto the Royal Ward, where the palanquins waited. Navani nudged him. “What?” he asked softly. “Stop scowling.” “I’m not scowling.” “You’re bored.” “I’m not … scowling.” She raised an eyebrow. “Six temples?” he asked. “This city is practically rubble, and we’re looking at temples.” Ahead, Fen and her consort climbed into their palanquin. So far, Kmakl’s only part in the tour had been to stand behind Fen and—whenever she said something he thought significant—nod for her scribes to record it in the official histories. Kmakl didn’t carry a sword. In Alethkar, that would indicate the man—at least one of his rank—was a Shardbearer, but that was not the case here. Thaylenah had only five Blades—and three suits of Plate—each held by an ancient family line sworn to defend the throne. Couldn’t Fen have taken him on a tour to see those Shards instead? “Scowling…” Navani said. “It’s what they expect of me,” Dalinar said, nodding toward the Thaylen officers and scribes. Near the front, one group of soldiers in particular had watched Dalinar with keen interest. Perhaps this tour’s true intent was to give those lighteyes a chance to study him. The palanquin he shared with Navani was scented like rockbud blossoms. “The progression from temple to temple,” Navani said softly as their bearers lifted the palanquin, “is traditional in Thaylen City. Visiting all ten allows a survey of the Royal Ward, and is a not-so-subtle reinforcement of the throne’s Vorin piety. They’ve had trouble with the church in the past.” “I sympathize. Do you think if I explain I’m a heretic too, she’ll stop with all the pomp?” Navani leaned forward in the small palanquin, putting her freehand on his knee. “Dear one, if this kind of thing irks you so, we could send a diplomat.” “I am a diplomat.” “Dalinar…” “This is my duty now, Navani. I have to do my duty. Every time I’ve ignored it in the past, something terrible has happened.” He took her hands in his. “I complain because I can be unguarded with you. I’ll keep the scowling to a minimum. I promise.” As their porters skillfully carried them up some steps, Dalinar watched out the palanquin window. This upper section of the city had weathered the storm well enough, as many of the structures here were of thick stone. Still, some had cracked, and a few roofs had fallen in. The palanquin passed a fallen statue, which had broken off at the ankles and toppled from
a ledge toward the Loft Wards. This city was hit harder than any I’ve had a report about, he thought. This level of destruction is unique. Is it just all that wood, and the lack of anything to blunt the storm? Or is it more? Some reports of the Everstorm mentioned no winds, only lightning. Others confusingly reported no rain, but burning embers. The Everstorm varied greatly, even within the same passing. “It’s probably comforting for Fen to do something familiar,” Navani told him quietly as the porters set them down at the next stop. “This tour is a reminder of days before the city suffered such terrors.” He nodded. With that in mind, it was easier to bear the thought of yet another temple. Outside, they found Fen emerging from her palanquin. “The temple of Battah, one of the oldest in the city. But of course the greatest sight here is the Simulacrum of Paralet, the grand statue that…” She trailed off, and Dalinar followed her gaze to the stone feet of the statue nearby. “Oh. Right.” “Let’s see the temple,” Dalinar urged. “You said it’s one of the oldest. Which are older?” “Only Ishi’s temple is more ancient,” she said. “But we won’t linger there, or here.” “We won’t?” Dalinar asked, noticing the lack of prayer smoke from this roof. “Is the structure damaged?” “The structure? No, not the structure.” A pair of tired ardents emerged and walked down the steps, their robes stained with flecks of red. Dalinar looked to Fen. “Do you mind if I go up anyway?” “If you wish.” As Dalinar climbed the steps with Navani, he caught a scent on the wind. The scent of blood, which reminded him of battle. At the top, the sight inside the doors of the temple was a familiar one. Hundreds of wounded covered the marble floor, lying on simple pallets, painspren reaching out like orange sinew hands between them. “We had to improvise,” Fen said, stepping up behind him in the doorway, “after our traditional hospitals filled.” “So many?” Navani said, safehand to her mouth. “Can’t some be sent home to heal, to their families?” Dalinar read the answers in the suffering people. Some were waiting to die; they’d bled internally, or had rampant infections, marked by tiny red rotspren on their skin. Others had no homes left, evidenced by the families that huddled around a wounded mother, father, or child. Storms … Dalinar felt almost ashamed at how well his people had weathered the Everstorm. When he eventually turned to go, he almost ran into Taravangian, who haunted the doorway like a spirit. Frail, draped in soft robes, the aged monarch was weeping openly as he regarded the people in the temple. “Please,” he said. “Please. My surgeons are in Vedenar, an easy trip through the Oathgates. Let me bring them. Let me ease this suffering.” Fen pursed her lips to a thin line. She’d agreed to meet, but that didn’t make her a part of Dalinar’s proposed coalition. But what could she say to a plea
like that? “Your help would be appreciated,” she said. Dalinar suppressed a smile. She’d conceded one step by letting them activate the Oathgate. This was another one. Taravangian, you are a gem. “Lend me a scribe and spanreed,” Taravangian said. “I will have my Radiant bring aid immediately.” Fen gave the necessary orders, her consort nodding for the words to be recorded. As they walked back toward the palanquins, Taravangian lingered on the steps, looking out over the city. “Your Majesty?” Dalinar asked, pausing. “I can see my home in this, Brightlord.” He put a trembling hand against the wall of the temple for support. “I blink bleary eyes, and I see Kharbranth destroyed in war. And I ask, ‘What must I do to preserve them?’ ” “We will protect them, Taravangian. I vow it.” “Yes … Yes, I believe you, Blackthorn.” He took a long, drawn-out breath, and seemed to wilt further. “I think … I think I shall remain here and await my surgeons. Please go on.” Taravangian sat down on the steps as the rest of them walked away. At his palanquin, Dalinar looked back up and saw the old man sitting there, hands clasped before himself, liver-spotted head bowed, almost in the attitude of one kneeling before a burning prayer. Fen stepped up beside Dalinar. The white ringlets of her eyebrows shook in the wind. “He is far more than people think of him, even after his accident. I’ve often said it.” Dalinar nodded. “But,” Fen continued, “he acts as if this city is a burial ground. That is not the case. We will rebuild from stone. My engineers plan to put walls on the front of each ward. We’ll get our feet underneath us again. We just have to get ahead of the storm. It’s the sudden loss of labor that really crippled us. Our parshmen…” “My armies could do much to help clear rubble, move stones, and rebuild,” Dalinar said. “Simply give the word, and you will have access to thousands of willing hands.” Fen said nothing, though Dalinar caught muttered words from the young soldiers and attendants waiting beside the palanquins. Dalinar let his attention linger on them, picking out one in particular. Tall for a Thaylen, the young man had blue eyes, with eyebrows combed and starched straight back alongside his head. His crisp uniform was, naturally, cut in the Thaylen style, with a shorter jacket that buttoned tight across the upper chest. That will be her son, Dalinar thought, studying the young man’s features. By Thaylen tradition, he would be merely another officer, not the heir. The monarchy of the kingdom was not a hereditary position. Heir or not, this young man was important. He whispered something jeering, and the others nodded, muttering and glaring at Dalinar. Navani nudged Dalinar and gave him a questioning look. Later, he mouthed, then turned to Queen Fen. “So the temple of Ishi is full of wounded as well?” “Yes. Perhaps we can skip that.” “I wouldn’t mind seeing the lower wards of the city,” Dalinar said.
“Perhaps the grand bazaar I’ve heard so much about?” Navani winced, and Fen grew stiff. “It was … by the docks then, was it?” Dalinar said, looking out at the rubble-filled plain before the city. He’d assumed that it would have been in the Ancient Ward, the central part of the city. He should have paid better attention to those maps, apparently. “I have refreshments set up at the courtyard of Talenelat,” Fen said. “It was to be the last stop on our tour. Shall we go directly there now?” Dalinar nodded, and they reboarded the palanquins. Inside, he leaned forward and spoke softly to Navani. “Queen Fen is not an absolute authority.” “Even your brother wasn’t absolutely powerful.” “But the Thaylen monarch is worse. The councils of merchants and naval officers pick the new monarch, after all. They have great influence in the city.” “Yes. Where are you going with this?” “It means she can’t accede to my requests on her own,” Dalinar said. “She can never agree to military aid as long as elements in the city believe that I’m bent on domination.” He found some nuts in an armrest compartment and began munching on them. “We don’t have time for a drawn-out political thaw,” Navani said, waving for him to hand her some nuts. “Teshav might have family in the city she can lean on.” “We could try that. Or … I have an idea budding.” “Does it involve punching someone?” He nodded. To which she sighed. “They’re waiting for a spectacle,” Dalinar said. “They want to see what the Blackthorn will do. Queen Fen … she was the same way, in the visions. She didn’t open up to me until I gave her my honest face.” “Your honest face doesn’t have to be that of a killer, Dalinar.” “I’ll try not to kill anyone,” he said. “I just need to give them a lesson. A display.” A lesson. A display. Those words caught in his mind, and he found himself reaching back through his memories toward something still fuzzy, undefined. Something … something to do with the Rift and … and with Sadeas? The memory darted away, just beneath the surface of his awareness. His subconscious shied from it, and he flinched like he’d been slapped. In that direction … in that direction was pain. “Dalinar?” Navani said. “I suppose it’s possible you’re right. Perhaps the people seeing you be polite and calm is actually bad for our message.” “More scowls, then?” She sighed. “More scowls.” He grinned. “Or a grin,” she added. “From you, one of those can be more disturbing.” The courtyard of Talenelat was a large stone square dedicated to Stonesinew, Herald of Soldiers. Atop a set of steps was the temple itself, but they didn’t get a chance to look inside, for the main entrance had collapsed. A large, rectangular stone block—that had once spanned the top of the doorway—rested wedged downward inside it. Beautiful reliefs covered the walls on the outside, depicting the Herald Talenelat standing his ground alone against a tide of
Voidbringers. Unfortunately, these had cracked in hundreds of places. A large black scorch at the top of the wall showed where the strange Everstorm lightning had blasted the building. None of the other temples had fared this poorly. It was as if Odium had a grudge against this one in particular. Talenelat, Dalinar thought. He was the one they abandoned. The one I lost … “I have some business to attend to,” Fen said. “With trade to the city disrupted so seriously, I haven’t much to offer as victuals. Some nuts and fruit, some salted fish. We’ve laid them out for you to enjoy. I’ll return later so we can conference. In the meantime, my attendants will see to your needs.” “Thank you,” Dalinar said. They both knew she was making him wait on purpose. It wouldn’t be long—maybe a half hour. Not enough to be an insult, but enough to establish that she was still the authority here, no matter how powerful he was. Even though he wanted some time with her people, he found himself annoyed at the gamesmanship of it. Fen and her consort withdrew, leaving most of the rest behind to enjoy the repast. Dalinar, instead, decided to pick a fight. Fen’s son would do. He did appear the most critical among those talking. I don’t want to seem the aggressor, Dalinar thought, positioning himself close to the young man. And I should pretend I haven’t guessed who he is. “The temples were nice,” Navani said, joining him. “But you didn’t enjoy them, did you? You wished to see something more militaristic.” An excellent opening. “You are right,” he said. “You there. Captainlord. I’m not one for dallying. Show me the city’s wall. That is something of real interest.” “Are you serious?” Fen’s son said in Thaylen-accented Alethi, words all mashed together. “Always. What? Are your armies in such bad shape that you’d be embarrassed to let me see them?” “I’m not going to let an enemy general inspect our defenses.” “I’m not your enemy, son.” “I’m not your son, tyrant.” Dalinar made a big show of looking resigned. “You’ve been shadowing me this entire day, soldier, speaking words that I’ve chosen not to hear. You’re close to a line that, if crossed, will earn a response.” The young man paused, showing some measure of restraint. He weighed what he was getting himself into, and decided that the risk was worth the reward. Humiliate the Blackthorn here, and maybe he could save his city—at least as he saw it. “I regret only,” the man snapped, “that I didn’t speak loudly enough for you to hear the insults, despot.” Dalinar sighed loudly, then began unbuttoning his uniform jacket, leaving himself in the snug undershirt. “No Shards,” the young man said. “Longswords.” “As you wish.” Fen’s son didn’t have Shards, though he could have borrowed them if Dalinar insisted. Dalinar preferred this anyway. The man covered his nervousness by demanding one of his attendants use a rock to draw a ring on the ground. Rial and Dalinar’s guards approached, anticipationspren
whipping nervously in their wakes. Dalinar waved them back. “Don’t hurt him,” Navani whispered. She hesitated. “But don’t lose either.” “I’m not going to hurt him,” Dalinar said, handing her his jacket. “I can’t promise the part about losing.” She didn’t see—but of course she didn’t. He couldn’t simply beat this man up. All that would do was prove to the rest of them that Dalinar was a bully. He strode to the ring and paced it off, to memorize how many steps he could take without being forced out. “I said longswords,” the young man said, weapon in hand. “Where’s your sword?” “We’ll do this by alternating advantage, three minutes,” Dalinar said. “To first blood. You may lead off.” The young man froze. Alternating advantage. The youth would have three minutes armed, against Dalinar unarmed. If Dalinar survived without being bloodied or leaving the ring, he’d have three minutes against his opponent in the reverse: Dalinar armed, the young man unarmed. It was a ridiculous imbalance, usually only seen in sparring practice, when men trained for situations where they might be unarmed against an armed foe. And then, you’d never use real weapons. “I…” the young man said. “I’ll switch to a knife.” “No need. Longsword is fine.” The young man gaped at Dalinar. Songs and stories told of the heroic unarmed man facing down many armed opponents, but in truth, fighting a single armed foe was incredibly difficult. Fen’s son shrugged. “As much as I’d love to be known as the man who bested the Blackthorn on even terms,” he said, “I’ll take an unfair fight. But have your men here swear an oath that if this goes poorly for you, I’ll not be named an assassin. You yourself set these terms.” “Done,” Dalinar said, looking to Rial and the others, who saluted and said the words. A Thaylen scribe stood to witness the bout. She counted off the start, and the young man came for Dalinar immediately, swinging like he meant it. Good. If you were going to agree to a fight like this, you shouldn’t hesitate. Dalinar dodged, then dropped into a wrestling stance, though he didn’t intend to get close enough to try for a hold. As the scribe counted off the time, Dalinar continued to dodge attacks, hovering around the outside of the ring, careful not to step over the line. Fen’s son—though aggressive—displayed some innate wariness. The young man probably could have forced Dalinar out, but he kept testing instead. He came in again, and Dalinar scrambled away from the flashing sword. The young man grew concerned and frustrated. Perhaps if it had been cloudy, he would have seen the faint glow of the Stormlight Dalinar was holding. As the countdown drew near the end, the young man grew more frantic. He knew what was coming. Three minutes alone in a ring, unarmed against the Blackthorn. The attacks strayed from hesitant, to determined, to desperate. All right, Dalinar thought. Just about now … The countdown hit ten. The young man came at him with a
last-ditch, all-out assault. Dalinar stood up, relaxed, and held his hands to the sides so that the audience could see him intentionally fail to dodge. Then he stepped into the young man’s thrust. The longsword hit him right in the chest, just to the left of his heart. Dalinar grunted at the impact, and the pain, but managed to take the sword in a way that it missed the spine. Blood filled one of his lungs, and Stormlight rushed to heal him. The young man looked aghast, as if—despite everything—he hadn’t expected, or wanted, to land such a decisive blow. The pain faded. Dalinar coughed, spat blood to the side, then took the young man’s hand by the wrist, shoving the sword farther through his chest. The young man released the sword hilt and scrabbled backward, eyes bulging. “That was a good thrust,” Dalinar said, voice watery and ragged. “I could see how worried you were at the end; others might have let their form suffer.” The queen’s son dropped to his knees, staring up as Dalinar stepped closer and loomed over him. Blood seeped around the wound, staining his shirt, until the Stormlight finally had time to heal the external cuts. Dalinar drew in enough that he glowed even in the daylight. The courtyard had grown silent. Scribes held their mouths, aghast. Soldiers put hands on swords, shockspren—like yellow triangles—shattering around them. Navani shared a sly smile with him, arms folded. Dalinar took the sword by the hilt and slid it from his chest. Stormlight rushed to heal the wound. To his credit, the young man stood up and stammered, “It’s your turn, Blackthorn. I’m ready.” “No, you blooded me.” “You let me.” Dalinar took off his shirt and tossed it at the youth. “Give me your shirt, and we’ll call it even.” The youth caught the bloody shirt, then looked up at Dalinar in befuddlement. “I don’t want your life, son,” Dalinar said. “I don’t want your city or your kingdom. If I’d wanted to conquer Thaylenah, I wouldn’t offer you a smiling face and promises of peace. You should know that much from my reputation.” He turned to the watching officers, lighteyes, and scribes. He’d accomplished his goal. They were in awe of him, afraid. He had them in his hand. It was shocking, then, to feel his own sudden, stark displeasure. For some reason, those frightened faces hit him harder than the sword had. Angry, ashamed for a reason he still didn’t understand, he turned and strode away, up the steps from the courtyard toward the temple above. He waved away Navani when she came to speak with him. Alone. He needed a moment alone. He climbed to the temple, then turned and sat down on the steps, putting his back against the stone block that had fallen into the doorway. The Stormfather rumbled in the back of his mind. And beyond that sound was … Disappointment. What had he just accomplished? He said he didn’t want to conquer this people, but what story did his actions tell?
I’m stronger than you, they said. I don’t need to fight you. I could crush you without exerting myself. Was that what it should feel like to have the Knights Radiant come to your city? Dalinar felt a twisting nausea deep in his gut. He’d performed stunts like this dozens of times throughout his life—from recruiting Teleb back in his youth, to bullying Elhokar into accepting that Dalinar wasn’t trying to kill him, to more recently forcing Kadash to fight him in the practice chamber. Below, people gathered around Fen’s son, talking animatedly. The young man rubbed his chest, as if he’d been the one who’d been struck. In the back of Dalinar’s mind, he heard that same insistent voice. The one he’d heard from the beginning of the visions. Unite them. “I’m trying,” Dalinar whispered. Why couldn’t he ever convince anyone peacefully? Why couldn’t he get people to listen without first pounding them bloody—or, conversely, shocking them with his own wounds? He sighed, leaning back and resting his head against the stones of the broken temple. Unite us. Please. That was … a different voice. A hundred of them overlapping, making the same plea, so quiet he could barely hear them. He closed his eyes, trying to pick out the source of those voices. Stone? Yes, he had a sensation of chunks of stone in pain. Dalinar started. He was hearing the spren of the temple itself. These temple walls had existed as a single unit for centuries. Now the pieces—cracked and ruined—hurt. They still viewed themselves as a beautiful set of carvings, not a ruined facade with fallen chunks scattered about. They longed to again be a single entity, unmarred. The spren of the temple cried with many voices, like men weeping over their broken bodies on a battlefield. Storms. Does everything I imagine have to be about destruction? About dying, broken bodies, smoke in the air and blood on the stones? The warmth inside of him said that it did not. He stood and turned, full of Stormlight, and seized the fallen stone that blocked the doorway. Straining, he shifted the block until he could slip in—squatting—and press his shoulders against it. He took a deep breath, then heaved upward. Stone ground stone as he lifted the block toward the top of the doorway. He got it high enough, then positioned his hands immediately over his head. With a final push, shouting, he pressed with legs, back, and arms together, shoving the block upward with everything he had. Stormlight raged inside him, and his joints popped—then healed—as he inched the stone back into place above the doorway. He could feel the temple urging him onward. It wanted so badly to be whole again. Dalinar drew in more Stormlight, as much as he could hold, draining every gemstone he’d brought. Sweat streaming across his face, he got the block close enough that it felt right again. Power flooded through his arms into it, then seeped across the stones. The carvings popped back together. The stone lintel in his hands lifted
and settled into place. Light filled the cracks in the stones and knit them back together, and gloryspren burst around Dalinar’s head. When the glow faded, the front wall of the majestic temple—including the doorway and the cracked reliefs—had been restored. Dalinar faced it, shirtless and coated in sweat, feeling twenty years younger. No, the man he’d been twenty years ago could never have done this. Bondsmith. A hand touched his arm; Navani’s soft fingers. “Dalinar … what did you do?” “I listened.” The power was good for far, far more than breaking. We’ve been ignoring that. We’ve been ignoring answers right in front of our eyes. He looked back over his shoulder at the crowd climbing the steps, gathering around. “You,” Dalinar said to a scribe. “You’re the one who wrote to Urithiru and sent for Taravangian’s surgeons?” “Y … yes, Brightlord,” she said. “Write again. Send for my son Renarin.” * * * Queen Fen found him in the courtyard of the temple of Battah, the one with the large broken statue. Her son—now wearing Dalinar’s bloodied shirt tied around his waist, like some kind of girdle—led a crew of ten men with ropes. They’d just gotten the hips of the statue settled back into place; Dalinar drained Stormlight from borrowed spheres, sealing the stone together. “I think I found the left arm!” a man called from below, where the bulk of the statue had toppled through the roof of a mansion. Dalinar’s team of soldiers and lighteyes whooped and rushed down the steps. “I did not expect to find the Blackthorn shirtless,” Queen Fen said, “and … playing sculptor?” “I can only fix inanimate things,” Dalinar said, wiping his hands on a rag tied at his waist, exhausted. Using this much Stormlight was a new experience for him, and quite draining. “My son does the more important work.” A small family left the temple above. Judging by the father’s tentative steps, supported by his sons, it seemed the man had broken a leg or two in the most recent storm. The burly man gestured for his sons to step back, took a few steps on his own—and then, his eyes wide, did a short skip. Dalinar knew that feeling: the lingering effects of Stormlight. “I should have seen it earlier—I should have sent for him the moment I saw those wounded. I’m a fool.” Dalinar shook his head. “Renarin has the ability to heal. He is new to his powers, as I am to mine, and can best heal those who were recently wounded. I wonder if it’s similar to what I’m doing. Once the soul grows accustomed to the wound, it’s much harder to fix.” A single awespren burst around Fen as the family approached, bowing and speaking in Thaylen, the father grinning like a fool. For a moment, Dalinar felt he could almost understand what they were saying. As if a part of him were stretching to bond to the man. A curious experience, one he didn’t quite know how to interpret. When they left, Dalinar turned
to the queen. “I don’t know how long Renarin will hold out, and I don’t know how many of those wounds will be new enough for him to fix. But it is something we could do.” Men called below, heaving a stone arm out through the window of the mansion. “I see you’ve charmed Kdralk as well,” Fen noted. “He’s a good lad,” Dalinar said. “He was determined to find a way to duel you. I hear you gave him that. You’re going to roll over this whole city, charming each person in turn, aren’t you?” “Hopefully not. That sounds like it would take a lot of time.” A young man came running down from the temple, holding a child with floppy hair who—though his clothing was torn and dusty—was smiling with a broad grin. The youth bowed to the queen, then thanked Dalinar in broken Alethi. Renarin kept blaming the healings on him. Fen watched them go with an unreadable expression on her face. “I need your help, Fen,” Dalinar whispered. “I find it hard to believe you need anything, considering what you’ve done today.” “Shardbearers can’t hold ground.” She looked at him, frowning. “Sorry. That’s a military maxim. It … never mind. Fen, I have Radiants, yes—but they, no matter how powerful, won’t win this war. More importantly, I can’t see what I’m missing. That’s why I need you. “I think like an Alethi, as do most of my advisors. We consider the war, the conflict, but miss important facts. When I first learned of Renarin’s powers, I thought only of restoring people on the battlefield to continue the fight. I need you; I need the Azish. I need a coalition of leaders who see what I don’t, because we’re facing an enemy that doesn’t think like any we’ve faced before.” He bowed his head to her. “Please. Join me, Fen.” “I’ve already opened that gate, and I’m talking to the councils about giving aid to your war effort. Isn’t that what you wanted?” “Not close, Fen. I want you to join me.” “The difference is?” “The distinction between referring to it as ‘your’ war, and ‘our’ war.” “You’re relentless.” She took a deep breath, then cut him off as he tried to object. “I suppose that is what we need right now. All right, Blackthorn. You, me, Taravangian. The first real united Vorin coalition the world has seen since the Hierocracy. It’s unfortunate that two of us lead kingdoms that are in ruin.” “Three,” Dalinar said with a grunt. “Kholinar is besieged by the enemy. I’ve sent help, but for now, Alethkar is an occupied kingdom.” “Wonderful. Well, I think I can persuade the factions in my city to let your troops come and help here. If everything goes well with that, I will write to the Prime of Azir. Maybe that will help.” “I’m certain it will. Now that you’ve joined, the Azish Oathgate is the most essential to our cause.” “Well, they’re going to be tricky,” Fen said. “The Azish aren’t as desperate as I am—and frankly,
they aren’t Vorin. People here, myself included, respond to a good push from a determined monarch. Strength and passion, the Vorin way. But those tactics will just make the Azish dig in and rebuff you harder.” He rubbed his chin. “Do you have any suggestions?” “I don’t think you’ll find it very appealing.” “Try me,” Dalinar said. “I’m starting to appreciate that the way I usually do things has severe limitations.” I thought that I was surely dead. Certainly, some who saw farther than I did thought I had fallen. —From Oathbringer, preface Kaladin stepped into Roshone’s manor, and his apocalyptic visions of death and loss started to fade as he recognized people. He passed Toravi, one of the town’s many farmers, in the hallway. Kaladin remembered the man as being enormous, with thick shoulders. In actuality, he was shorter than Kaladin by half a hand, and most of Bridge Four could have outmatched him for muscles. Toravi didn’t seem to recognize Kaladin. The man stepped into a side chamber, which was packed with darkeyes sitting on the floor. The soldier walked Kaladin along the candlelit hallway. They passed through the kitchens, and Kaladin noted dozens of other familiar faces. The townspeople filled the manor, packing every room. Most sat on the floor in family groups, and while they looked tired and disheveled, they were alive. Had they rebuffed the Voidbringer assault, then? My parents, Kaladin thought, pushing through a small group of townspeople and moving more quickly. Where were his parents? “Whoa, there!” said the soldier behind, grabbing Kaladin by the shoulder. He shoved his mace into the small of Kaladin’s back. “Don’t make me down you, son.” Kaladin turned on the guardsman, a clean-shaven fellow with brown eyes that seemed set a little too close together. That rusted cap was a disgrace. “Now,” the soldier said, “we’re just going to go find Brightlord Roshone, and you’re going to explain why you were skulking round the place. Act real nice, and maybe he won’t hang you. Understand?” The townspeople in the kitchens noticed Kaladin finally, and pulled away. Many whispered to one another, eyes wide, fearful. He heard the words “deserter,” “slave brands,” “dangerous.” Nobody said his name. “They don’t recognize you?” Syl asked as she walked across a kitchen countertop. Why would they recognize this man he had become? Kaladin saw himself reflected in a pan hanging beside the brick oven. Long hair with a curl to it, the tips resting against his shoulders. A rough uniform that was a shade too small for him, face bearing a scruffy beard from several weeks without shaving. Soaked and exhausted, he looked like a vagabond. This wasn’t the homecoming he’d imagined during his first months at war. A glorious reunion where he returned as a hero wearing the knots of a sergeant, his brother delivered safe to his family. In his fancies, people had praised him, slapped him on the back and accepted him. Idiocy. These people had never treated him or his family with any measure of kindness. “Let’s go,” the
soldier said, shoving him on the shoulder. Kaladin didn’t move. When the man shoved harder, Kaladin rolled his body with the push, and the shift of weight sent the guard stumbling past him. The man turned, angry. Kaladin met his gaze. The guard hesitated, then took a step back and gripped his mace more firmly. “Wow,” Syl said, zipping up to Kaladin’s shoulder. “That is quite the glare you gave.” “Old sergeant’s trick,” Kaladin whispered, turning and leaving the kitchens. The guard followed behind, barking an order that Kaladin ignored. Each step through this manor was like walking through a memory. There was the dining nook where he’d confronted Rillir and Laral on the night he’d discovered his father was a thief. This hallway beyond, hung with portraits of people he didn’t know, had been where he’d played as a child. Roshone hadn’t changed the portraits. He’d have to talk to his parents about Tien. It was why he hadn’t tried to contact them after being freed from slavery. Could he face them? Storms, he hoped they lived. But could he face them? He heard a moan. Soft, underneath the sounds of people talking, still he picked it out. “There were wounded?” he asked, turning on his guard. “Yeah,” the man said. “But—” Kaladin ignored him and strode down the hallway, Syl flying along beside his head. Kaladin shoved past people, following the sounds of the tormented, and eventually stumbled into the doorway of the parlor. It had been transformed into a surgeon’s triage room, with mats laid out on the floor bearing wounded. A figure knelt by one of the pallets carefully splinting a broken arm. Kaladin had known as soon as he’d heard those moans of pain where he’d find his father. Lirin glanced at him. Storms. Kaladin’s father looked weathered, bags underneath his dark brown eyes. The hair was greyer than Kaladin remembered, the face gaunter. But he was the same. Balding, diminutive, thin, bespectacled … and amazing. “What’s this?” Lirin asked, turning back to his work. “Did the highprince’s house send soldiers already? That was faster than expected. How many did you bring? We can certainly use…” Lirin hesitated, then looked back at Kaladin. Then his eyes opened wide. “Hello, Father,” Kaladin said. The guardsman finally caught up, shouldering past gawking townspeople and waving his mace toward Kaladin like a baton. Kaladin sidestepped absently, then pushed the man so he stumbled farther down the hallway. “It is you,” Lirin said. Then he scrambled over and caught Kaladin in an embrace. “Oh, Kal. My boy. My little boy. Hesina! HESINA!” Kaladin’s mother appeared in the doorway a moment later, bearing a tray of freshly boiled bandages. She probably thought that Lirin needed her help with a patient. Taller than her husband by a few fingers, she wore her hair tied back with a kerchief just as Kaladin remembered. She raised her gloved safehand to her lips, gaping, and the tray slipped down in her other hand, tumbling bandages to the floor. Shockspren, like pale yellow triangles breaking and re-forming,

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