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remained, and he had the majority of the preparations in place, such as mobile bridge construction and supply estimations. There was always more to plan, however. Unfortunately, the biggest variable was one he couldn’t plan for, not specifically. He didn’t know how many troops he’d have. It depended on which of the highprinces, if any, agreed to go with him. Less than a week out, and he still wasn’t certain if any of them would. I could use Hatham most, Dalinar thought. He runs a tight army. If only Aladar hadn’t sided with Sadeas so vigorously; I can’t figure that man out. Thanadal and Bethab . . . storms, will I bring their mercenaries if either of those two agree to come? Is that the kind of force I want? Dare I refuse any spear that comes to me? “I’m not going to get a good conversation out of you tonight, am I?” Navani asked. “No,” he admitted as they reached the base of the Pinnacle and turned south. “I’m sorry.” She nodded, and he could see the mask cracking. She talked about her work because it was something to talk about. He stopped beside her. “I know it hurts,” he said softly. “But it will get better.” “She wouldn’t let me be a mother to her, Dalinar,” Navani said, staring into the distance. “Do you know that? It was almost like . . . like once Jasnah climbed into adolescence, she no longer needed a mother. I would try to get close to her, and there was this coldness, like even being near me reminded her that she had once been a child. What happened to my little girl, so full of questions?” Dalinar pulled her close; propriety could seek Damnation. Nearby, the three guards shuffled, looking the other way. “They’ll take my son too,” Navani whispered. “They’re trying.” “I will protect him,” Dalinar promised. “And who will protect you?” He had no answer to that. Answering that his guards would do it sounded trite. That wasn’t the question she’d asked. Who will protect you when that assassin returns? “I almost wish that you would fail,” she said. “In holding this kingdom together, you make a target of yourself. If everything just collapsed, and we fractured back to princedoms, perhaps he’d leave us alone.” “And then the storm would come,” Dalinar replied softly. Twelve days. Navani eventually pulled back, nodding, composing herself. “You’re right, of course. I just . . . this is the first time, for me. Dealing with this. How did you manage it, when Shshshsh died? I know you loved her, Dalinar. You don’t have to deny it for my ego.” He hesitated. The first time; an implication that when Gavilar had died, she had not been broken up about it. She had never stated so outright an implication of the . . . difficulties the two had been having. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Was that too difficult a question, considering its source?” She tucked away her kerchief, which she’d used to dab her eyes dry. “I apologize;
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I know that you don’t like to talk about her.” It wasn’t that it was a difficult question. It was that Dalinar didn’t remember his wife. How odd, that he could go weeks without even noticing this hole in his memories, this change that had ripped out a piece of him and left him patched over. Without even a prick of emotion when her name, which he could not hear, was mentioned. Best to move to some other topic. “I cannot help but assume that the assassin is involved in all of this, Navani. The storm that comes, the secrets of the Shattered Plains, even Gavilar. My brother knew something, something he never shared with any of us.” You must find the most important words a man can say. “I would give almost anything to know what it was.” “I suppose,” Navani said. “I will go back to my journals of the time. Perhaps he said something that would give us clues—though I warn you, I’ve pored over those accounts dozens of times.” Dalinar nodded. “Regardless, that isn’t a worry for today. Today, they are our goal.” They turned, looking as coaches clattered past, making their way to the nearby feasting basin, where lights glowed a soft violet in the night. He narrowed his eyes and found Ruthar’s coach approaching. The highprince had been stripped of Shards, all but his own Blade. They had cut off Sadeas’s right hand in this mess, but the head remained. And it was venomous. The other highprinces were almost as big a problem as Sadeas. They resisted him because they wanted things to be easy, as they had been. They glutted themselves on their riches and their games. Feasts manifested that all too much, with their exotic food, their rich costumes. The world itself seemed close to ending, and the Alethi threw a party. “You must not despise them,” Navani said. Dalinar’s frown deepened. She could read him too well. “Listen to me, Dalinar,” she said, turning him to meet her eyes. “Has any good ever come from a father hating his children?” “I don’t hate them.” “You loathe their excess,” she said, “and you are close to applying that emotion to them as well. They live the lives they have known, the lives that society has taught them are proper. You won’t change them with contempt. You aren’t Wit; it isn’t your job to scorn them. Your job is to enfold them, encourage them. Lead them, Dalinar.” He drew a deep breath, and nodded. “I will go to the women’s island,” she said, noticing the bridgeman guard returning with news on the plateau assault. “They consider me an eccentric vestige of things better left in the past, but I think they still listen to me. Sometimes. I’ll do what I can.” They parted, Navani hurrying to the feast, Dalinar idling as the bridgeman passed his news. The plateau run had been successful, a gemheart captured. It had taken quite a long time to reach the target plateau, which was deep into the Plains—almost to the
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edge of the scouted area. The Parshendi had not appeared to contest the gemheart, though their scouts had watched from a distance. Again they decide not to fight, Dalinar thought, walking the last distance to the feast. What does the change mean? What are they planning? The feast basin was made up of a series of Soulcast islands beside the Pinnacle complex. It had been flooded, as it often was, in a way that made the Soulcast mounds rise between small rivers. The water glowed. Spheres, and a lot of them, must have been dumped into the water to give it that ethereal cast. Purple, to match the moon that was just rising, violet and frail on the horizon. Lanterns were placed intermittently, but with dim spheres, perhaps to not distract from the glowing water. Dalinar crossed the bridges to the farthest island—the king’s island, where the genders mixed and only the most powerful were invited. This was where he knew he’d find the highprinces. Even Bethab, who had just returned from his plateau run, was already in attendance—though, as he preferred to use mercenary companies for the bulk of his army, it wasn’t surprising he had returned so quickly from the run. Once they captured the gemheart, he’d often ride back quickly with the prize, letting them sort out how to return. Dalinar passed Wit—who had arrived back at the warcamps with characteristic mystery—insulting everyone who passed. He had no wish to fence words with the man today. Instead, he sought out Vamah; the highprince seemed to have actually listened to Dalinar’s pleas during their most recent dinner. Perhaps with more nudging, he would commit to joining Dalinar’s assault on the Parshendi. Eyes followed Dalinar as he crossed the island, and whispered conversations broke out like rashes as he passed. He expected those looks by now, though they still unnerved him. Were they more plentiful this night? More lingering? He couldn’t move in Alethi society these days without catching a smile on the lips of too many people, as if they were all part of some grand joke that he had not been told. He found Vamah speaking with a group of three older women. One was Sivi, a highlady from Ruthar’s court who—contrary to custom—had left her husband at home to see to their lands, coming to the Shattered Plains herself. She eyed Dalinar with a smile and eyes like daggers. The plot to undermine Sadeas had to a large extent failed—but that was in part because the damage and shame had been deflected to Ruthar and Aladar, who had suffered the loss of Shardbearers in the men who had dueled Adolin. Well, those two were never going to have been Dalinar’s—they were Sadeas’s strongest supporters. The four people grew silent as Dalinar stepped up to them. Highprince Vamah squinted in the dim light, looking Dalinar up and down. The round-faced man had a cupbearer standing behind him with a bottle of some exotic liquor or another. Vamah often brought his own spirits to feasts, regardless of who hosted them;
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being engaging enough a conversationalist to earn a sip of what he’d managed to import was considered a political triumph by many attendees. “Vamah,” Dalinar said. “Dalinar.” “There’s a matter I’ve been wanting to discuss with you,” Dalinar said. “I find it impressive what you’ve been able to do with light cavalry on your plateau runs. Tell me, how do you decide when to risk an all-out assault with your riders? The loss of horses could easily overwhelm your earnings from gemhearts, but you have managed to balance this with clever stratagems.” “I . . .” Vamah sighed, looking to the side. A group of young men nearby was snickering as they looked toward Dalinar. “It is a matter of . . .” Another sound, louder, came from the opposite side of the island. Vamah started again, but his eyes flicked in that direction, and a round of laughter burst out more loudly. Dalinar forced himself to look, noting women with hands to mouths, men covering their exclamations with coughs. A halfhearted attempt at maintaining Alethi propriety. Dalinar looked back at Vamah. “What is happening?” “I’m sorry, Dalinar.” Beside him, Sivi tucked some sheets of paper under her arm. She met Dalinar’s gaze with a forced nonchalance. “Excuse me,” Dalinar said. Hands forming fists, he crossed the island toward the source of the disturbance. As he neared, they quieted and people broke up into smaller groups, moving off. It almost seemed planned how quickly they dispersed, leaving him to face Sadeas and Aladar, standing side by side. “What are you doing?” Dalinar demanded of the two of them. “Feasting,” Sadeas said, then shoved a piece of fruit into his mouth. “Obviously.” Dalinar drew in a deep breath. He glanced at Aladar, long-necked and bald, with his mustache and tuft of hair on his bottom lip. “You should be ashamed,” Dalinar growled at him. “My brother once called you a friend.” “And not me?” Sadeas said. “What have you done?” Dalinar demanded. “What is everyone talking about, snickering about behind their hands?” “You always assume it’s me,” Sadeas said. “That’s because any time I think it isn’t you, I’m wrong.” Sadeas gave him a thin-lipped smile. He started to reply, but then thought a moment, and finally just stuffed another chunk of fruit in his mouth. He chewed and smiled. “Tastes good,” was all he said. He turned to walk away. Aladar hesitated. Then he shook his head and followed. “I never figured you for a pup to follow at a master’s heels, Aladar,” Dalinar called after him. No reply. Dalinar growled, moving back across the island, looking for someone from his own warcamp who might have heard what was happening. Elhokar was late to his own feast, it seemed, though Dalinar did see him approaching outside now. No sign of Teshav or Khal yet—they would undoubtedly make an appearance, now that he was a Shardbearer. Dalinar might have to move to one of the other islands, where lesser lighteyes would be mingling. He started that way, but stopped as he heard something.
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“Why, Brightlord Amaram,” Wit cried. “I was hoping I’d be able to see you tonight. I’ve spent my life learning to make others feel miserable, and so it’s a true joy to meet someone so innately talented in that very skill as you are.” Dalinar turned, noticing Amaram, who had just arrived. He wore his cape of the Knights Radiant and carried a sheaf of papers stuck under his arm. He stopped beside Wit’s chair, the nearby water casting a lavender tone across their skin. “Do I know you?” Amaram asked. “No,” Wit said lightly, “but fortunately, you can add it to the list of many, many things of which you are ignorant.” “But now I’ve met you,” Amaram said, holding out a hand. “So the list is one smaller.” “Please,” Wit said, refusing the hand. “I wouldn’t want it to rub off on me.” “It?” “Whatever you’ve been using to make your hands look clean, Brightlord Amaram. It must be powerful stuff indeed.” Dalinar hurried over. “Dalinar,” Wit said, nodding. “Wit. Amaram, what are those papers?” “One of your clerks seized them and brought them to me,” Amaram said. “Copies were being passed around the feast before your arrival. Your clerk thought Brightness Navani might want to see them if she hasn’t already. Where is she?” “Staying away from you, obviously,” Wit noted. “Lucky woman.” “Wit,” Dalinar said sternly, “do you mind?” “Rarely.” Dalinar sighed, looking back to Amaram and taking the papers. “Brightness Navani is on another island. Do you know what these say?” Amaram’s expression grew grim. “I wish I didn’t.” “I could hit you in the head with a hammer,” Wit said happily. “A good bludgeoning would make you forget and do wonders for that face of yours.” “Wit,” Dalinar said flatly. “I’m only joking.” “Good.” “A hammer would hardly dent that thick skull of his.” Amaram turned to Wit, a look of bafflement on his face. “You’re very good at that expression,” Wit noted. “A great deal of practice, I assume?” “This is the new Wit?” Amaram asked. “I mean,” Wit said, “I wouldn’t want to call Amaram an imbecile . . .” Dalinar nodded. “. . . because then I’d have to explain to him what the word means, and I’m not certain any of us have the requisite time.” Amaram sighed. “Why hasn’t anyone killed him yet?” “Dumb luck,” Wit said. “In that I’m lucky you’re all so dumb.” “Thank you, Wit,” Dalinar said, taking Amaram by the arm and towing him to the side. “One more, Dalinar!” Wit said. “Just one last insult, and I leave him alone.” They continued walking. “Lord Amaram,” Wit called, standing to bow, his voice growing solemn. “I salute you. You are what lesser cretins like Sadeas can only aspire to be.” “The papers?” Dalinar said to Amaram, pointedly ignoring Wit. “They are accounts of your . . . experiences, Brightlord,” Amaram said softly. “The ones you have during the storms. Written by Brightness Navani herself.” Dalinar took the papers. His visions. He looked up and saw groups of
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people collecting on the island, chatting and laughing, shooting glances at him. “I see,” he said softly. It made sense now, the hidden snickering. “Find Brightness Navani for me, if you would.” “As you request,” Amaram said, but stopped short, pointing. Navani stalked across the next island over, heading toward them with a tempestuous air about her. “What do you think, Amaram?” Dalinar said. “Of the things that are being said of me?” Amaram met his eyes. “They are obviously visions from the Almighty himself, given to us in a time of great need. I wish I had known their contents earlier. They give me great confidence in my position, and in your appointment as prophet of the Almighty.” “A dead god can have no prophets.” “Dead . . . No, Dalinar! You obviously misinterpret that comment from your visions. He speaks of being dead in the minds of men, that they no longer listen to his commands. God cannot die.” Amaram seemed so earnest. Why didn’t he help your sons? Kaladin’s voice rang in Dalinar’s mind. Amaram had come to him that day, of course, professing his apologies and explaining that—with his appointment as a Radiant—he couldn’t possibly have helped one faction against another. He said he needed to be above the squabbles between highprinces, even when it pained him. “And the supposed Herald?” Dalinar asked. “The thing I asked you about?” “I am still investigating.” Dalinar nodded. “I was surprised,” Amaram noted, “that you left the slave as head of your guard.” He glanced to the side, to where Dalinar’s guards for the night stood, just off the island in their own area, waiting with the other bodyguards and attendants, including many of the wards of the highladies present. There had been a time not too long ago when few had felt the need to bring their guards with them to a feast. Now, the place was crowded. Captain Kaladin wasn’t there; he was resting, after his imprisonment. “He’s a good soldier,” Dalinar said softly. “He just carries a few scars that are having trouble healing.” Vedeledev knows, Dalinar thought, I have a few of those myself. “I merely worry that he is incapable of properly protecting you,” Amaram said. “Your life is important, Dalinar. We need your visions, your leadership. Still, if you trust the slave, then so be it—though I certainly wouldn’t mind hearing an apology from him. Not for my own ego, but to know that he’s put aside this misconception of his.” Dalinar gave no reply as Navani strode across the short bridge onto their island. Wit started to proclaim an insult, but she swatted him in the face with a stack of papers, giving him barely a glance as she continued on toward Dalinar. Wit watched after, rubbing his cheek, and grinned. She noted the papers in his hand as she joined the two of them, who seemed to stand among a sea of amused eyes and hushed laughter. “They added words,” Navani hissed. “What?” Dalinar demanded. She shook the papers. “These! You’ve heard what
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they contain?” He nodded. “They aren’t as I wrote them,” Navani said. “They’ve changed the tone, some of my words, to imply a ridiculousness to the entire experience—and to make it sound as if I am merely indulging you. What’s worse, they added a commentary in another handwriting that pokes fun at what you say and do.” She took a deep breath, as if to calm herself. “Dalinar, they’re trying to destroy any shred of credibility left to your name.” “I see.” “How did they get these?” Amaram asked. “Through theft, I do not doubt,” Dalinar said, realizing something. “Navani and my sons always have guards—but when they leave their rooms, those are relatively unprotected. We may have been too lax in that regard. I misunderstood. I thought his attacks would be physical.” Navani looked out at the sea of lighteyes, many congregating in groups around the various highprinces in the soft, violet light. She stepped closer to Dalinar, and though her eyes were fierce, he knew her well enough to guess what she was feeling. Betrayal. Invasion. That which was private to them, opened up, mocked and then displayed for the world. “Dalinar, I’m sorry,” Amaram said. “They did not change the visions themselves?” Dalinar asked. “They copied them accurately.” “So far as I can tell, yes,” Navani said. “But the tone is different, and that mockery. Storms. It’s nauseating. When I find the woman who did this . . .” “Peace, Navani,” Dalinar said, resting his hand on her shoulder. “How can you say that?” “Because this is the act of childish men who assume that I can be embarrassed by the truth.” “But the commentary! The changes. They’ve done everything they can to discredit you. They even managed to undermine the part where you offer a translation of the Dawnchant. It—” “‘As I fear not a child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.’” Navani frowned at him. “It’s from The Way of Kings,” Dalinar said. “I am not a youth, nervous at his first feast. Sadeas makes a mistake in believing I will respond to this as he would. Unlike a sword, scorn has only the bite you give it.” “This does hurt you,” Navani said, meeting his eyes. “I can see it, Dalinar.” Hopefully, the others would not know him well enough to see what she did. Yes, it did hurt. It hurt because these visions were his, entrusted to him—to be shared for the good of men, not to be held up for mockery. It was not the laughter itself that pained him, but the loss of what could have been. He stepped away from her, passing through the crowd. Some of those eyes he now interpreted as being sorrowful, not just amused. Perhaps he was imagining it, but he thought some pitied him more than scorned him. He wasn’t certain which emotion was more damaging. Dalinar reached the food table at the back of the island. There, he picked up a large pan
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and handed it to a bewildered serving woman, then hauled himself up onto the table. He set one hand on the lantern pole beside the table and looked out over the small crowd. They were the most important people in Alethkar. Those who hadn’t already been watching him turned with shock to see him up there. In the distance, he noticed Adolin and Brightness Shallan rushing onto the island. They’d likely only just arrived, and heard the talk. Dalinar looked to the crowd. “What you have read,” he bellowed, “is true.” Stunned silence. Making a spectacle of oneself in this way was not done in Alethkar. He, however, had already been this evening’s spectacle. “Commentary has been added to discredit me,” Dalinar said, “and the tone of Navani’s writing has been changed. But I will not hide what has been happening to me. I see visions from the Almighty. They come with almost every storm. This should not surprise you. There have been rumors circulating about my experiences for weeks now. Perhaps I should have released these visions already. In the future, each one I receive will be published, so that scholars around the world can investigate what I have seen.” He sought out Sadeas, who stood with Aladar and Ruthar. Dalinar gripped the lantern pole, looking back at the Alethi crowd. “I do not blame you for thinking I am mad. It is natural. But in the coming nights, when rain washes your walls and the wind howls, you will wonder. You will question. And soon, when I offer you proof, you will know. This attempt to destroy me will then vindicate me instead.” He looked over their faces, some aghast, some sympathetic, others amused. “There are those among you who assume I will flee, or be broken, because of this attack,” he said. “They do not know me as well as they presume. Let the feast continue, for I wish to speak with each and every one of you. The words you hold may mock, but if you must laugh, do it while looking me in the eyes.” He stepped down from the table. Then he went to work. * * * Hours later, Dalinar eventually let himself sit down in a seat beside a table at the feast, exhaustionspren swirling around him. He’d spent the rest of the evening moving through the crowd, forcing his way into conversations, drumming up support for his excursion onto the Plains. He had pointedly ignored the pages with his visions on them, except when asked direct questions about what he’d seen. Instead, he had presented them with a forceful, confident man—the Blackthorn turned politician. Let them chew on that and compare him to the frail madman the falsified transcripts would make him out to be. Outside, past the small rivers—they now glowed blue, the spheres having been changed to match the second moon—the king’s carriage rolled away, bearing Elhokar and Navani the short distance to the Pinnacle, where porters would carry them in a palanquin up to the top. Adolin had already retired,
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escorting Shallan back to Sebarial’s warcamp, which was a fair ride away. Adolin seemed to be fonder of the young Veden woman than of any woman in the recent past. For that reason alone, Dalinar was increasingly inclined to encourage the relationship, assuming he could ever get some straight answers out of Jah Keved about her family. That kingdom was a mess. Most of the other lighteyes had retired, leaving him on an island populated by servants and parshmen who cleared away food. A few master-servants, trusted for such duties, began to scoop the spheres out of the river with nets on long poles. Dalinar’s bridgemen, at his suggestion, were attacking the feast’s leftovers with the voracious appetite exclusive to soldiers who had been offered an unexpected meal. A servant strolled by, then stopped, resting his hand on his side sword. Dalinar started, realizing he’d mistaken Wit’s black military uniform for that of a master-servant in training. Dalinar put on a firm face, though inwardly he groaned. Wit? Now? Dalinar felt as if he’d been fighting on the battlefield for ten hours straight. Odd, how a few hours of delicate conversation could feel so similar to that. “What you did tonight was clever,” Wit said. “You turned an attack into a promise. The wisest of men know that to render an insult powerless, you often need only to embrace it.” “Thank you,” Dalinar said. Wit nodded curtly, following the king’s coach with his eyes as it vanished. “I found myself without much to do tonight. Elhokar was not in need of Wit, as few sought to speak to him. All came to you instead.” Dalinar sighed, his strength seeming to drain away. Wit hadn’t said it, but he hadn’t needed to. Dalinar read the implication. They came to you, instead of the king. Because essentially, you are king. “Wit,” Dalinar found himself asking, “am I a tyrant?” Wit cocked an eyebrow, and seemed to be looking for a clever quip. A moment later, he discarded the thought. “Yes, Dalinar Kholin,” he said softly, consolingly, as one might speak to a tearful child. “You are.” “I do not wish to be.” “With all due respect, Brightlord, that is not quite the truth. You seek for power. You take hold, and let go only with great difficulty.” Dalinar bowed his head. “Do not sorrow,” Wit said. “It is an era for tyrants. I doubt this place is ready for anything more, and a benevolent tyrant is preferable to the disaster of weak rule. Perhaps in another place and time, I’d have denounced you with spit and bile. Here, today, I praise you as what this world needs.” Dalinar shook his head. “I should have allowed Elhokar his right of rule, and not interfered as I did.” “Why?” “Because he is king.” “And that position is something sacrosanct? Divine?” “No,” Dalinar admitted. “The Almighty, or the one claiming to be him, is dead. Even if he hadn’t been, the kingship didn’t come to our family naturally. We claimed it, and forced it upon the other
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highprinces.” “So then why?” “Because we were wrong,” Dalinar said, narrowing his eyes. “Gavilar, Sadeas, and I were wrong to do as we did all those years ago.” Wit seemed genuinely surprised. “You unified the kingdom, Dalinar. You did a good work, something that was sorely needed.” “This is unity?” Dalinar asked, waving a hand back toward the scattered remnants of the feast, the departing lighteyes. “No, Wit. We failed. We crushed, we killed, and we have failed miserably.” He looked up. “I receive, in Alethkar, only what I have demanded. In taking the throne by force, we implied—no we screamed—that strength is the right of rule. If Sadeas thinks he is stronger than I am, then it is his duty to try to take the throne from me. These are the fruits of my youth, Wit. It is why we need more than tyranny, even the benevolent kind, to transform this kingdom. That is what Nohadon was teaching. And that is what I’ve been missing all along.” Wit nodded, looking thoughtful. “I need to read that book of yours again, it seems. I wanted to warn you, however. I’ll be leaving soon.” “Leave?” Dalinar said. “You only just arrived.” “I know. It’s incredibly frustrating, I must admit. I have discovered a place that I must be, though to be honest I’m not exactly sure why I need to be there. This doesn’t always work as well as I’d like it to.” Dalinar frowned at him. Wit smiled back affably. “Are you one of them?” Dalinar asked. “Excuse me?” “A Herald.” Wit laughed. “No. Thank you, but no.” “Are you what I’ve been looking for, then?” Dalinar asked. “Radiant?” Wit smiled. “I am but a man, Dalinar, so much as I wish it were not true at times. I am no Radiant. And while I am your friend, please understand that our goals do not completely align. You must not trust yourself with me. If I have to watch this world crumble and burn to get what I need, I will do so. With tears, yes, but I would let it happen.” Dalinar frowned. “I will do what I can to help,” Wit said, “and for that reason, I must go. I cannot risk too much, because if he finds me, then I become nothing—a soul shredded and broken into pieces that cannot be reassembled. What I do here is more dangerous than you could ever know.” He turned to go. “Wit,” Dalinar called. “Yes?” “If who finds you?” “The one you fight, Dalinar Kholin. The father of hatred.” Wit saluted, then jogged off. The Shattered Plains. Kaladin did not claim these lands as he did the chasms, where his men had found safety. Kaladin remembered all too well the pain of bloodied feet on his first run, battered by this broken stone wasteland. Barely anything grew out here, only the occasional patch of rockbuds or set of enterprising vines draping down into a chasm on the leeward side of a plateau. The bottoms of the cracks were clogged with life, but
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up here it was barren. The aching feet and burning shoulders from running a bridge had been nothing compared to the slaughter that had awaited his men at the end of a bridge run. Storms . . . even looking across the Plains made Kaladin flinch. He could hear the hiss of arrows in the air, the screams of terrified bridgemen, the song of the Parshendi. I should have been able to save more of Bridge Four, Kaladin thought. If I’d been faster to accept my powers, could I have done so? He breathed in Stormlight to reassure himself. Only it didn’t come. He stood, dumbfounded, while soldiers marched across one of Dalinar’s enormous mechanical bridges. He tried again. Nothing. He fished a sphere from his pouch. The firemark glowed with its customary light, tinting his fingers red. Something was wrong. Kaladin couldn’t feel the Stormlight inside as he once had. Syl flitted across the chasm high in the air with a group of windspren. Her giggling laughter rained down upon him, and he looked up. “Syl?” he asked quietly. Storms. He didn’t want to look like an idiot, but something deep within him was panicking like a rat caught by its tail. “Syl!” Several marching soldiers glanced at Kaladin, then up toward the air. Kaladin ignored them as Syl zipped down in the form of a ribbon of light. She swirled around him, still giggling. The Stormlight returned to him. He could feel it again, and he greedily sucked it from the sphere—though he did have the presence of mind to clutch the sphere in a fist and hold it to his chest to make the process less obvious. The Light of one mark wasn’t enough to expose him, but he felt far, far better with that Stormlight raging inside of him. “What happened?” Kaladin whispered to Syl. “Is something wrong with our bond? Is it because I haven’t found the Words soon enough?” She landed on his wrist and took the form of a young woman. She peered at his hand, cocking her head. “What’s inside?” she asked with a conspiratorial whisper. “You know what this is, Syl,” Kaladin said, feeling chilled, as if he’d been hit by a wave of stormwater. “A sphere. Didn’t you see it just now?” She looked at him, face innocent. “You are making bad choices. Naughty.” Her features mimicked his for a moment and she jumped forward, as if to startle him. She laughed and zipped away. Bad choices. Naughty. So, this was because of his promise to Moash that he’d help assassinate the king. Kaladin sighed, continuing forward. Syl couldn’t see why his decision was the right one. She was a spren, and had a stupid, simplistic morality. To be human was often to be forced to choose between distasteful options. Life wasn’t clean and neat like she wanted it to be. It was messy, coated with crem. No man walked through life without getting covered in it, not even Dalinar. “You want too much of me,” he snapped at her as he
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reached the other side of the chasm. “I’m not some glorious knight of ancient days. I’m a broken man. Do you hear me, Syl? I’m broken.” She zipped up to him and whispered, “That’s what they all were, silly.” She streaked away. Kaladin watched as the soldiers filed across the bridge. They weren’t doing a plateau run, but Dalinar had brought plenty of soldiers anyway. Going out onto the Shattered Plains was entering a war zone, and the Parshendi were ever a threat. Bridge Four tromped across the mechanical bridge, carrying their smaller one. Kaladin wasn’t about to leave the camps without that. These mechanisms Dalinar employed—the massive, chull-pulled bridges that could be ratcheted down into place—were amazing, but Kaladin didn’t trust them. Not nearly as much as he did a good bridge on his shoulders. Syl flitted by again. Did she really expect him to live according to her perception of what was right and wrong? Was she going to yank his powers away every time he did something that risked offending her? That would be like living with a noose around his neck. Determined to not let his worries ruin the day, he went to check on Bridge Four. Look at the open sky, he told himself. Breathe the wind. Enjoy the freedom. After so much time in captivity, these things were wonders. He found Bridge Four beside their bridge at parade rest. It was odd to see them with their old padded-shoulder leather vests on over their new uniforms. It transformed them into a weird mix of what they had been and what they were now. They saluted him together, and he saluted back. “At ease,” he told them, and they broke formation, laughing and joking with one another as Lopen and his assistants distributed waterskins. “Ha!” Rock said, settling down on the side of the bridge to drink. “This thing, it is not so hard as I remember it being.” “It’s because we’re going slower,” Kaladin said, pointing at Dalinar’s mechanical bridge. “And because you’re remembering the early days of bridge carries, not the later ones when we were well-fed and well-trained. It got easier then.” “No,” Rock said. “The bridge is light because we have defeated Sadeas. Is the proper way of things.” “That makes no sense.” “Ha! Perfect sense.” He took a drink. “Airsick lowlander.” Kaladin shook his head, but let himself find a smile at Rock’s familiar voice. After slaking his own thirst, he jogged across the plateau toward where Dalinar had just finished crossing. Nearby, a tall rock formation surmounted the plateau, and atop it was a wooden structure like a small fort. Sunlight glinted off one of the spyglasses fitted there. No permanent bridge led to this plateau, which was just outside the secure area closest to the warcamp. These scouts positioned here were vaulters, who leaped chasms at narrow points with the use of long poles. It seemed like a job that would require a special brand of craziness—and because of that, Kaladin had always felt respect for these men. One of
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the vaulters was speaking with Dalinar. Kaladin would have expected the man to be tall and limber, but he was short and compact, with thick forearms. He wore a Kholin uniform with white stripes edging the coat. “We did see something out here, Brightlord,” the vaulter said to Dalinar. “I saw it with my own two eyes, and recorded the date and time in glyphs on my ledger. It was a man, a glowing one, who flew around in the sky back and forth over the Plains.” Dalinar grunted. “I’m not crazy, sir,” the vaulter said, shuffling from one foot to the other. “The other lads saw it too, once I—” “I believe you, soldier,” Dalinar said. “It was the Assassin in White. He looked like that when he came for the king.” The man relaxed. “Brightlord, sir, that’s what I thought. Some of the men back at camp told me I was just seeing what I wanted.” “Nobody wants to see that one,” Dalinar said. “But why would he spend his time out here? Why hasn’t he come back to attack, if he’s this close?” Kaladin cleared his throat, uncomfortable, and pointed at the watchman’s post. “That fort up there, is it wood?” “Yes,” the vaulter said, then noticed the knots on Kaladin’s shoulders. “Uh, sir.” “That can’t possibly withstand a highstorm,” Kaladin said. “We break it down, sir.” “And carry it back to camp?” Kaladin asked, frowning. “Or do you leave it out here for the storm?” “Leave it, sir?” the short man said. “We stay here with it.” He pointed toward a burrowed-out section of rock, cut with hammers or a Shardblade, at the base of the stone formation. It didn’t look very large—just a cubby, really. It looked like they took the wooden floor of the platform up above, then locked it into place with clasps at the side of the cubby to form a kind of door. A special kind of crazy indeed. “Brightlord, sir,” the vaulter said to Dalinar, “the one in white might be out here somewhere. Waiting.” “Thank you, soldier,” Dalinar said, nodding his dismissal. “Keep an eye out for us while we travel. We’ve had reports of a chasmfiend moving in close to the camps.” “Yes, sir,” the man said, saluting and then jogging back toward the rope ladder leading up to his post. “What if the assassin does come for you?” Kaladin asked softly. “I don’t see how it would be any different out here,” Dalinar said. “He’ll be back eventually. On the Plains or in the palace, we’ll have to fight him.” Kaladin grunted. “I wish you’d accept one of those Shardblades that Adolin has been winning, sir. I’d feel more comfortable if you could defend yourself.” “I think you’d be surprised,” Dalinar said, shading his eyes, turning toward the warcamp. “I do feel wrong leaving Elhokar alone back there, though.” “The assassin said he wanted you, sir,” Kaladin said. “If you’re apart from the king, that will only serve to protect him.” “I suppose,” Dalinar said. “Unless the assassin’s comments
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were misdirection.” He shook his head. “I might order you to stay with him next time. I can’t help but feel I’m missing something important, something right in front of me.” Kaladin set his jaw, trying to ignore the chill he felt. Order you to stay with him next time. . . . It was almost like fate itself was pushing Kaladin to be in a position to betray the king. “About your imprisonment,” the highprince said. “Already forgotten, sir,” Kaladin said. Dalinar’s part in it, at least. “I appreciate not being demoted.” “You’re a good soldier,” Dalinar said. “Most of the time.” His eyes flicked toward Bridge Four, picking up their bridge. One of the men at the side drew his attention in particular: Renarin, wearing his Bridge Four uniform, hefting the bridge into place. Nearby, Leyten laughed and gave him pointers on how to hold the thing. “He’s actually starting to fit in, sir,” Kaladin said. “The men like him. I never thought I’d see the day.” Dalinar nodded. “How was he?” Kaladin asked softly. “After what happened in the arena?” “He refused to go practice with Zahel,” Dalinar said. “So far as I know, he hasn’t summoned his Shardblade in weeks.” He watched for a moment longer. “I can’t decide if his time with your men is good for him—helping him think like a soldier—or if it’s just encouraging him to avoid his greater responsibilities.” “Sir,” Kaladin said. “If I may say so, your son seems like kind of a misfit. Out of place. Awkward, alone.” Dalinar nodded. “Then, I can say with confidence that Bridge Four is probably the best place he could find himself.” It felt odd to be saying it of a lighteyes, but it was true. Dalinar grunted. “I’ll trust your judgment. Go. Make sure those men of yours are on the watch for the assassin, in case he does come today.” Kaladin nodded, leaving the highprince behind. He’d heard about Dalinar’s visions before—and had had an inkling of their contents. He didn’t know what he thought, but he intended to get a copy of the vision records in their entirety so he could have Ka read it to him. Perhaps these visions were why Syl was always so determined to trust Dalinar. As the day passed, the army moved across the Plains like the flow of some viscous liquid—mud dribbling down a shallow incline. All of this so Shallan could see a chasmfiend chrysalis. Kaladin shook his head, crossing a plateau. Adolin was certainly smitten; he’d managed to roll out an entire strike force, his father included, just to sate the girl’s whims. “Walking, Kaladin?” Adolin said, trotting up. The prince rode that white beast of a horse, the thing with the hooves like hammers. Adolin wore his full suit of blue Shardplate, helm tied to a knob on the back of the saddle. “I thought you had full requisition right from my father’s stables.” “I have full requisition right from the quartermasters too,” Kaladin said, “but you don’t see me hiking out here
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with a cauldron on my back just because I can.” Adolin chuckled. “You should try riding more. You have to admit that there are advantages. The speed of the gallop, the height of attack.” He patted his horse on the neck. “I guess I just trust my own feet too much.” Adolin nodded, as if that had been the wisest thing a man had ever said, before riding back to check on Shallan in her palanquin. Feeling a little fatigued, Kaladin fished in his pocket for another sphere, just a diamond chip this time, and held it to his chest. He breathed in. Again, nothing happened. Storm it! He looked about for Syl, but couldn’t find her. She’d been so playful lately, he was starting to wonder if this was all some kind of trick. He actually hoped it was that, and not something more. Despite his inward grousing and complaints, he desperately wanted this power. He had claimed the sky, the winds themselves. Giving them up would be like giving up his own hands. He eventually reached the edge of their current plateau, where Dalinar’s mechanical bridge was setting up. Here, blessedly, he found Syl inspecting a cremling crawling across the rocks toward the safety of a nearby crack. Kaladin sat down on a rock beside her. “So you’re punishing me,” he said. “For agreeing to help Moash. That’s why I’m having trouble with the Stormlight.” Syl followed along behind the cremling, which was a kind of beetle with a round, iridescent shell. “Syl?” Kaladin asked. “Are you all right? You seem . . .” Like you were before. When we first met. It made a feeling of dread rise within him to acknowledge it. If his powers were withdrawing, was it because the bond itself was weakening? She looked up at him, and her eyes became more focused, her expression like that of her normal self. “You have to decide what you want, Kaladin,” she said. “You don’t like Moash’s plan,” Kaladin said. “Are you trying to force me to change my mind regarding him?” She scrunched up her face. “I don’t want to force you to do anything. You have to do what you think is right.” “That’s what I’m trying to do!” “No. I don’t think you are.” “Fine. I’ll tell Moash and his friends that I’m out, that I’m not going to help them.” “But you gave Moash your word!” “I gave my word to Dalinar too. . . .” She drew her lips to a line, meeting his eyes. “That’s the problem, isn’t it,” Kaladin whispered. “I’ve made two promises, and I can’t keep my word to both.” Oh, storms. Was this the sort of thing that had destroyed the Knights Radiant? What happened to your honorspren when you confronted them with a choice like this? A broken vow either way. Idiot, Kaladin thought at himself. It seemed he couldn’t make any right choices these days. “What do I do, Syl?” he whispered. She flitted up until she was standing in the air just before him,
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eyes meeting his. “You must speak the Words.” “I don’t know them.” “Find them.” She looked toward the sky. “Find them soon, Kaladin. And no, simply telling Moash you won’t help isn’t going to work. We’ve gone too far for that. You need to do what your heart needs to do.” She rose upward toward the sky. “Stay with me, Syl,” he whispered after her, standing. “I’ll figure this out. Just . . . don’t lose yourself. Please. I need you.” Nearby, gears on Dalinar’s bridge mechanism turned as soldiers twisted levers, and the entire thing started to unfold. “Stop, stop, stop!” Shallan Davar jogged up, a flurry of red hair and blue silk, a large floppy hat on her head to keep off the sun. Two of her guards jogged after her, but neither was Gaz. Kaladin spun about, alarmed at her tone, searching for signs of the Assassin in White. Shallan, puffing, raised her safehand to her chest. “Storms, what is wrong with palanquin porters? They absolutely refuse to move quickly. ‘It’s not stately,’ they say. Well, I don’t really do stately. All right, give me a minute, then you can continue.” She settled down on a rock near the bridge. The baffled soldiers regarded her as she dug out her drawing pad, then started sketching. “All right,” she said. “Continue. I’ve been trying all day to get a progressive sketch of that bridge as it unfolds. Storming porters.” What a bizarre woman. The soldiers hesitantly continued positioning the bridge, unfolding it beneath the watchful eyes of three of Dalinar’s engineers—widowed wives of his fallen officers. Several carpenters were also on hand to work at their orders if the bridge got stuck or a piece snapped. Kaladin gripped his spear, trying to sort through his emotions regarding Syl, and the promises he’d made. Surely he could work this out somehow. Couldn’t he? Seeing this bridge intruded on his mind with thoughts of bridge runs, and he found that a welcome distraction. He could see why Sadeas had preferred the simple, if brutal, method of the bridge crews. Those bridges were faster, cheaper, and less prone to problems. These massive things were ponderous, like big ships trying to maneuver in a bay. Armored bridge runners is the natural solution, Kaladin thought. Men with shields, with full support from the army to get them into position. You could have fast, mobile bridges, but also not leave men to be slaughtered. Of course, Sadeas had wanted the bridgemen killed, as bait to keep arrows away from his soldiers. One of the carpenters helping with the bridge—examining one of the wooden steadying pins and talking about carving a new one—was familiar to Kaladin. The stout man had a birthmark across his forehead, shaded by the carpenter’s cap he wore. Kaladin knew that face. Had the man been one of Dalinar’s soldiers, one of those who had lost the will to fight following the slaughter on the Tower? Some of those had switched to other duties in camp. He was distracted as Moash walked over,
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raising a hand toward Bridge Four, who cheered him. Moash’s brilliant Shardplate—which he’d had repainted blue with red accents at the points—looked surprisingly natural on him. It hadn’t even been a week yet, but Moash walked in the armor easily. He stepped up to Kaladin, then knelt down on one knee, Plate clinking. He saluted, arm across chest. His eyes . . . they were lighter in color; tan instead of deep brown as they’d once been. He wore his Shardblade strapped across his back in a guarded sheath. Only one more day until he had it bonded. “You don’t need to salute me, Moash,” Kaladin said. “You’re lighteyed now. You outrank me by a mile or two.” “I’ll never outrank you, Kal,” Moash said, faceplate of his helm up. “You’re my captain. Forever.” He grinned. “But I can’t tell you how much storming fun it is to watch the lighteyes try to figure out how to deal with me.” “Your eyes are really changing.” “Yeah,” Moash said. “But I’m not one of them, you hear me? I’m one of us. Bridge Four. I’m our . . . secret weapon.” “Secret?” Kaladin asked, raising an eyebrow. “They’ve probably heard about you all the way in Iri by now, Moash. You’re the first darkeyed man to be given a Blade and Plate in over a lifetime.” Dalinar had even granted Moash lands and a stipend from them, a lavish sum, and not just by bridgeman standards. Moash still stopped by for stew some nights, but not all. He was too busy arranging his new quarters. There was nothing wrong with that. It was natural. It was also part of why Kaladin had turned down the Blade himself—and perhaps why he’d always been worried about showing his powers to the lighteyes. Even if they didn’t find a way to take the abilities from him—he knew that fear was irrational, though he felt it all the same—they might find a way to take Bridge Four from him. His men . . . his very self. They might not be the ones who take it from you, Kaladin thought. You might be doing it to yourself, better than any lighteyes could. The thought nauseated him. “We’re getting close,” Moash said softly as Kaladin took out his waterskin. “Close?” Kaladin asked. He lowered the waterskin and looked over his shoulder across the plateaus. “I thought we still had a few hours to go before we reached the dead chrysalis.” It was far out, almost as far out as the armies went on bridge runs. Bethab and Thanadal had claimed it yesterday. “Not that,” Moash said, looking to the side. “Other things.” “Oh. Moash, are you . . . I mean . . .” “Kal,” Moash said. “You’re with us, right? You said it.” Two promises. Syl told him to follow his heart. “Kaladin,” Moash said, more solemnly. “You gave me these Shards, even after you were angry with me for disobeying you. There’s a reason. You know, deep down, that what I’m doing is right. It’s the
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only solution.” Kaladin nodded. Moash glanced around, then stood up, Plate clinking. He leaned in to whisper. “Don’t worry. Graves says you aren’t going to have to do much. We just need an opening.” Kaladin felt sick. “We can’t do it when Dalinar is in the warcamp,” he whispered. “I won’t risk him being hurt.” “No problem,” Moash said. “We feel the same way. We’ll wait for the right moment. The newest plan is to hit the king with an arrow, so there’s no risk of implicating you or anyone else. You lead him to the right spot, and Graves will fell the king with his own bow. He’s an excellent shot.” An arrow. It felt so cowardly. It needed to be done. It needed to be. Moash patted him on the shoulder, stepping off in his clinking Shardplate. Storms. All Kaladin had to do was lead the king into a specific spot . . . that, and betray Dalinar’s trust in him. And if I don’t help kill the king, won’t I be betraying justice and honor? The king had murdered—or as good as murdered—many people, some through indifference, others through incompetence. And storms, Dalinar wasn’t innocent either. If he’d been as noble as he pretended, wouldn’t he have seen Roshone imprisoned, rather than shipped off somewhere where he “couldn’t do any more harm”? Kaladin walked over to the bridge, watching the men march across. Shallan Davar sat primly on a rock, continuing her sketches of the bridge mechanism. Adolin had climbed off his horse and handed it to some grooms for watering. He waved Kaladin over. “Princeling?” Kaladin asked, stepping up. “The assassin has been seen out here,” Adolin said. “On the Plains at night.” “Yes. I heard the scout telling your father about it.” “We need a plan. What if he attacks out here?” “I hope he does.” Adolin looked to him, frowning. “From what I saw,” Kaladin said, “and from what I’ve learned about the assassin’s initial attack on the old king, he depends on confusion in his victims. He jumps off walls and onto ceilings; he sends men falling the wrong direction. Well, there aren’t any walls or ceilings out here.” “So he can just full-on fly,” Adolin said with a grimace. “Yes,” Kaladin said, pointing with a smile, “since we have, what is it, three hundred archers with us?” Kaladin had used his abilities effectively against Parshendi arrows, and so perhaps archers wouldn’t be able to kill the assassin. But he imagined it would be hard for the man to fight with wave after wave of arrows flying at him. Adolin nodded slowly. “I’ll talk to them, get them ready for the possibility.” He started walking toward the bridge, so Kaladin joined him. They passed Shallan, who was still absorbed in her sketching. She didn’t even notice Adolin waving at her. Lighteyed women and their diversions. Kaladin shook his head. “Do you know anything about women, bridgeboy?” Adolin asked, looking over his shoulder and watching Shallan as the two of them crossed the bridge. “Lighteyed women?”
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Kaladin asked. “Nothing. Thankfully.” “People think I know a lot about women,” Adolin said. “The truth is, I know how to get them—how to make them laugh, how to make them interested. I don’t know how to keep them.” He hesitated. “I really want to keep this one.” “So . . . tell her that, maybe?” Kaladin said, thinking back to Tarah, and the mistakes he’d made. “Do such things work on darkeyed women?” “You’re asking the wrong man,” Kaladin said. “I haven’t had much time for women lately. I was too busy trying to avoid being killed.” Adolin seemed to be barely listening. “Perhaps I could say something like that to her. . . . Seems too simple, and she’s anything but simple. . . .” He turned back to Kaladin. “Anyway. Assassin in White. We need more of a plan than just telling the archers to be ready.” “Do you have any ideas?” Kaladin said. “You won’t have a Shardblade, but won’t need one, because of . . . you know.” “I know?” Kaladin felt a spike of alarm. “Yeah . . . you know.” Adolin glanced away and shrugged, as if trying to act nonchalant. “That thing.” “What thing?” “The thing . . . with the . . . um, stuff?” He doesn’t know, Kaladin realized. He’s just fishing, trying to figure out why I can fight so well. And he’s doing a really, really bad job of it. Kaladin relaxed, and even found himself smiling at Adolin’s awkward attempt. It was nice to feel an emotion other than panic or worry. “I don’t think you have any idea what you’re talking about.” Adolin scowled. “There’s something odd about you, bridgeboy,” he said. “Admit it.” “I admit nothing.” “You survived that fall with the assassin,” Adolin said. “And at first, I worried you were working with him. Now . . .” “Now what?” “Well, I’ve decided that whatever you are, you’re on my side.” Adolin sighed. “Anyway, the assassin. My instincts say the best plan is the one we used when fighting together in the arena. You distract him while I kill him.” “That could work, though I worry that he’s not the type to let himself get distracted.” “Neither was Relis,” Adolin said. “We’ll do it, bridgeboy. You and I. We’re going to bring that monster down.” “We’ll need to be fast,” Kaladin said. “He’ll win a drawn-out fight. And Adolin, strike for the spine or the head. Don’t try a weakening blow first. Go right for the kill.” Adolin frowned at him. “Why?” “I saw something when the two of us fell together,” Kaladin said. “I cut him, but he healed the wound somehow.” “I have a Blade. He won’t be able to heal from that . . . right?” “Best to not find out. Strike to kill. Trust me.” Adolin met his eyes. “Oddly, I do. Trust you, I mean. It’s a very strange sensation.” “Yeah, well, I’ll try to hold myself back from going skipping across the plateau in joy.” Adolin grinned. “I’d pay to
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see that.” “Me skipping?” “You happy,” Adolin said, laughing. “You’ve got a face like a storm! I half think you could frighten off a storm.” Kaladin grunted. Adolin laughed again, slapping him on the shoulder, then turned as Shallan finally crossed the bridge, her sketching apparently done. She looked to Adolin fondly, and as he reached out to take her hand, she rose up on her toes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Adolin drew back, startled. Alethi were more reserved than that in public. Shallan grinned at him. Then she turned and gasped, raising a hand to her mouth. Kaladin jumped, again, looking for danger—but Shallan just went dashing off to a nearby clump of rocks. Adolin raised his hand to his cheek, then looked to Kaladin with a grin. “She probably saw an interesting bug.” “No, it’s moss!” Shallan called back. “Ah, of course,” Adolin said, strolling over, Kaladin following. “Moss. So exciting.” “Hush, you,” Shallan said, wagging her pencil at him as she bent down, inspecting the rocks. “The moss grows in a strange pattern here. What could cause that?” “Alcohol,” Adolin said. She glanced at him. He shrugged. “Makes me do crazy things.” He looked at Kaladin, who shook his head. “That was funny,” Adolin said. “It was a joke! Well, kind of.” “Oh hush,” Shallan said. “This looks almost like the same pattern as a flowering rockbud, the kind common here on the Plains. . . .” She started sketching. Kaladin folded his arms. Then he sighed. “What does that sigh mean?” Adolin asked him. “Boredom,” Kaladin said, glancing back at the army, still crossing the bridge. With a force of three thousand—that was about half of Dalinar’s current army, following heavy recruitment—moving out here took time. On bridge runs, these crossings had felt so quick. Kaladin had always been exhausted, savoring the chance to rest. “I guess out here, it’s so barren that there’s not much to get excited about other than moss.” “You hush too,” Shallan told him. “Go polish your bridge or something.” She leaned in, then poked her pencil at a bug that was crawling across the moss. “Ah . . .” she said, then hurriedly scribbled some notes. “Anyway, you’re wrong. There’s a lot out here to get excited about, if you look in the right places. Some of the soldiers said a chasmfiend has been spotted. Do you think it might attack us?” “You sound entirely too hopeful saying that, Shallan,” Adolin said. “Well, I do still need a good sketch of one.” “We’ll get you to the chrysalis. That will have to be enough.” Shallan’s scholarship was an excuse; the truth was obvious to Kaladin. Dalinar had brought an unusual number of scouts with him today, and Kaladin suspected once they reached the chrysalis—which was on the border of unexplored lands—they’d range ahead and gather information. This was all preparation for Dalinar’s expedition. “I don’t understand why we need so many soldiers,” Shallan said, noticing Kaladin’s gaze as he studied the army. “Didn’t you say the Parshendi haven’t
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been showing up to fight over chrysalises lately?” “No, they haven’t,” Adolin said. “That’s precisely what makes us worried.” Kaladin nodded. “Whenever your enemy changes established tactics, you need to worry. It could mean they’re getting desperate. Desperation is very, very dangerous.” “You’re good at military thinking, for a bridgeboy,” Adolin said. “Coincidentally,” Kaladin said, “you’re good at not being unobnoxious, for a prince.” “Thanks,” Adolin said. “That was an insult, dear,” Shallan said. “What?” Adolin said. “It was?” She nodded, still sketching, though she glanced up to eye Kaladin. He met the expression calmly. “Adolin,” Shallan said, turning back to the small rock formation in front of her, “would you slay this moss for me, please?” “Slay . . . the moss.” He looked at Kaladin, who just shrugged. How was he to know what a lighteyed woman meant? They were a strange breed. “Yes,” Shallan said, standing up. “Give that moss, and the rock behind it, a good chop. As a favor for your betrothed.” Adolin looked baffled, but he did as she asked, summoning his Shardblade and hacking at the moss and rock. The top of the small pile of stones slipped free, cut with ease, and clattered to the floor of the plateau. Shallan stepped up eagerly, crouching down beside the perfectly flat top of the sliced stone. “Mmm,” she said, nodding to herself. She started sketching. Adolin dismissed his Blade. “Women!” he said, shrugging at Kaladin. Then he went jogging off to get a drink without asking her for an explanation. Kaladin took a step after him, but then hesitated. What did Shallan find so interesting here? This woman was a puzzle, and he knew he wouldn’t be completely comfortable until he understood her. She had too much access to Adolin, and therefore Dalinar, to leave uninvestigated. He stepped closer, looking over her shoulder as she drew. “Strata,” he said. “You’re counting the strata of crem to guess how old the rock is.” “Good guess,” she said, “but this is a bad location for strata dating. The wind blows across the plateaus too strongly, and the crem doesn’t collect in pools evenly. So the strata here are erratic and inaccurate.” Kaladin frowned, narrowing his eyes. The cross section of rock was normal cremstone on the outside, some strata visible as different shades of brown. The center of the stone, though, was white. You didn’t see white rock like that often; it had to be quarried. Which meant this was either a very strange occurrence, or . . . “There was a structure here once,” Kaladin said. “A long time ago. It must have taken centuries for the crem to get that thick on something sticking out of the ground.” She glanced at him. “You’re smarter than you look.” Then, turning back to her drawing, she added, “Good thing . . .” He grunted. “Why does everything you say have to include some quip? Are you that desperate to prove how clever you are?” “Perhaps I’m merely annoyed at you for taking advantage of Adolin.” “Advantage?” Kaladin asked.
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“Because I called him obnoxious?” “You deliberately said it in a way you expected he wouldn’t understand. To make him look like a fool. He’s trying very hard to be nice to you.” “Yes,” Kaladin said. “He’s always so munificent to all of the little darkeyes who flock around to worship him.” Shallan snapped her pencil against the page. “You really are a hateful man, aren’t you? Underneath the mock boredom, the dangerous glares, the growls—you just hate people, is that it?” “What? No, I—” “Adolin is trying. He feels bad for what happened to you, and he’s doing what he can to make up for it. He is a good man. Is it too much for you to stop provoking him?” “He calls me bridgeboy,” Kaladin said, feeling stubborn. “He’s been provoking me.” “Yes, because he is the one storming around with alternating scowls and insults,” Shallan said. “Adolin Kholin, the most difficult man to get along with on the Shattered Plains. I mean look at him! He’s so unlikable!” She gestured with the pencil toward where Adolin was laughing with the darkeyed water boys. The groom walked up with Adolin’s horse, and Adolin took his Shardplate helm off the carrying post, handing it over, letting one of the water boys try it on. It was ridiculously large on the lad. Kaladin flushed as the boy took a Shardbearer’s pose, and they all laughed again. Kaladin looked back to Shallan, who folded her arms, drawing pad resting on the flat-topped cut rock before her. She smirked at him. Insufferable woman. Bah! Kaladin left her and hiked across the rough ground to join Bridge Four, where he insisted on taking a turn hauling the bridge, despite Teft’s protests that he was “above that sort of thing” now. He was no storming lighteyes. He’d never be above doing an honest day’s work. The familiar weight of the bridge settled onto his shoulders. Rock was right. It did feel lighter than it once had. He smiled as he heard cursing from Lopen’s cousins, who—like Renarin—were being initiated on this run into their first bridge carry. They hiked the bridge over a chasm—crossing on one of Dalinar’s larger, less mobile ones—and started across the plateau. For a time, marching at the front of Bridge Four, Kaladin could imagine that his life was simple. No plateau assaults, no arrows, no assassins or bodyguarding. Just him, his team, and a bridge. Unfortunately, as they neared the other side of the large plateau, he started to feel weary and—by reflex—tried to suck in some Stormlight to bolster him. It wouldn’t come. Life was not simple. It never had been, certainly not while running bridges. To pretend otherwise was to paint over the past. He helped set the bridge down, then—noticing the vanguard moving out in front of the army—he and the bridgemen shoved their bridge into place across the chasm. The vanguard cheerfully welcomed the chance to get ahead, marching over the bridge and securing the next plateau. Kaladin and the others followed, then—a half hour later—they let
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the vanguard onto the next plateau. They continued like that for a time, waiting for Dalinar’s bridge to arrive before crossing, then leading the vanguard onto the next plateau. Hours passed—sweaty, muscle-straining hours. Good hours. Kaladin didn’t come to any realizations about the king, or his place in the man’s potential assassination. But for the moment, he carried his bridge and enjoyed the progress of an army moving toward their goal beneath an open sky. As the day grew long, they approached the target plateau, where the hollowed-out chrysalis awaited Shallan’s study. Kaladin and Bridge Four let the vanguard across as they’d been doing, then settled in to wait. Eventually, the bulk of the army approached, and Dalinar’s lumbering bridges moved into position, ratcheting down to span the chasm. Kaladin gulped deeply of warm water as he watched. He washed his face with the water, then wiped his brow. They were getting close. This plateau was far out onto the Plains, almost to the Tower itself. Getting back would take hours, assuming they moved at the same relaxed speed they had taken getting out here. It would be well after dark when they returned to the warcamps. If Dalinar does want to assault the center of the Shattered Plains, Kaladin thought, it will take days of marching, all the while exposed on the plateaus, with the potential of being surrounded and cut off from the warcamps. The Weeping would make a great chance for that. Four straight weeks of rain, but no highstorms. This was the off year, when there wouldn’t even be a highstorm on Lightday in the middle—part of the thousand-day cycle of two years that made up a full storm rotation. Still, he knew that many Alethi patrols had tried exploring eastward before. They’d all been destroyed by highstorms, chasmfiends, or Parshendi assault teams. Nothing short of an all-out, full-on movement of resources toward the center would work. An assault that would leave Dalinar, and whoever came with him, isolated. Dalinar’s bridge thumped down into place. Kaladin’s men traversed their own bridge and prepared to pull it across to go move the vanguard. Kaladin crossed, then waved them on ahead of him. He walked over to where the larger bridge had settled down. Dalinar was crossing it while walking with some of his scouts, all vaulters, with servants behind carrying long poles. “I want you to spread out,” the highprince said to them. “We won’t have much time before we need to head back. I want a survey of as many plateaus as you can see from here. The more of our route we can plan now, the less time we’ll have to waste during the actual assault.” The scouts nodded, saluting as he dismissed them. He stepped off the bridge and nodded to Kaladin. Behind them, Dalinar’s generals, scribes, and engineers crossed the bridge. They’d be followed by the bulk of the army, and finally the rearguard. “I hear you’ve been building mobile bridges, sir,” Kaladin said. “You realize those mechanical ones are too slow for your assault,
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I assume.” Dalinar nodded. “But I will have soldiers carry them. No need for your men to do so.” “Sir, that is thoughtful of you, but I don’t think you have to worry. The bridge crews will carry for you, if ordered. Many of them will probably welcome the familiarity.” “I thought you and your men considered assignment to those bridge crews a death sentence, soldier,” Dalinar said. “The way Sadeas ran them, it was. You could do a better job. Armored men, trained in formations, running the bridges. Soldiers marching in front with shields. Archers with instructions to defend the bridge crews. Besides, the danger is only for an assault.” Dalinar nodded. “Prepare the crews, then. Having your men on the bridges will free the soldiers in case we get attacked.” He started to walk across the plateau, but one of the carpenters on the other side of the chasm called to him. Dalinar turned and started to cross the bridge again. He passed officers and scribes crossing the bridge, including Adolin and Shallan, who walked side by side. She’d given up on the palanquin and he had given up on his horse, and she seemed to be explaining to him about the hidden remnants of a structure she’d found inside that rock earlier. Behind them, on the other side of the chasm, stood the worker who had called Dalinar back across. It’s that same carpenter, Kaladin thought. The stout man with the cap and the birthmark. Where have I seen him . . . ? It clicked. Sadeas’s lumberyards. The man had been one of the carpenters there, overseeing the construction of bridges. Kaladin started running. He was charging toward the bridge before the connection fully solidified in his mind. Ahead of him, Adolin spun immediately and started running, searching for whatever danger Kaladin had spotted. He left a bewildered Shallan standing in the bridge’s center. Kaladin approached her in a rush. The carpenter grabbed a lever on the side of the bridge contraption. “The carpenter, Adolin!” Kaladin screamed. “Stop that man!” Dalinar still stood on the bridge. The highprince had been distracted by something else. What? Kaladin realized he had heard something too. Horns, the call that the enemy had been spotted. It happened all in an instant. Dalinar turning toward the horns. The carpenter pulling the lever, Adolin in his glimmering Shardplate reaching Dalinar. The bridge lurched. Then it collapsed. As the bridge fell out from beneath him, Kaladin reached for Stormlight. Nothing. Panic surged through him. His stomach dropped and he tumbled into the air. The fall into the darkness of the chasm was a brief moment, but also an eternity. He caught a glimpse of Shallan and several men in blue uniforms falling and flailing in terror. Like a drowning man struggling toward the surface, Kaladin thrashed for the Stormlight. He would not die this way! The sky was his! The winds were his. The chasms were his. He would not! Syl screamed, a terrified, painful sound that vibrated Kaladin’s very bones. In that moment, he
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got a breath of Stormlight, life itself. He crashed into the ground at the bottom of the chasm and all went black. * * * Swimming through pain. The pain washed over him, a liquid, but did not get inside. His skin kept it out. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? The distant voice sounded like rumbling thunder. Kaladin gasped and opened his eyes, and the pain crawled inside. Suddenly, his entire body hurt. He lay on his back, staring upward at a streak of light in the air. Syl? No . . . no, that was sunlight. The opening at the top of the chasm, high above him. This far out onto the Shattered Plains, the chasms here were hundreds of feet deep. Kaladin groaned and sat up. That strip of light seemed impossibly distant. He’d been swallowed by the darkness, and the chasm nearby was shadowed, obscure. He put a hand to his head. I got some Stormlight right at the end, he thought. I survived. But that scream! It haunted him, echoing in his mind. It had sounded too much like the scream he’d heard when touching the duelist’s Shardblade in the arena. Check for wounds, his father’s teachings whispered from the back of his mind. The body could go into shock with a bad break or wound, and not notice the damage that had been done. He went through the motions of checking his limbs for breaks, and did not reach for any of the spheres in his pouch. He didn’t want to light the gloom, and potentially face the dead around him. Was Dalinar among them? Adolin had been running toward his father. Had the prince managed to get to Dalinar before the bridge collapsed? He’d been wearing Plate, and had jumped at the end. Kaladin felt at his legs, then his ribs. He found aches and scrapes, but nothing broken or ripped. That Stormlight he’d held at the end . . . it had protected him, perhaps even healed him, before running out. He finally reached into his pouch and fished out spheres, but found those all drained. He tried his pocket, then froze as he heard something scraping nearby. He leaped to his feet and spun, wishing he had a weapon. The chasm bottom grew brighter. A steady glow revealed fanlike frillblooms and draping vines on the walls, gathered twigs and moss on the floor in patches. Was that a voice? He felt a surreal moment of confusion as shadows moved on the wall ahead of him. Then someone wandered around the corner, wearing a silk dress and carrying a pack over her shoulder. Shallan Davar. She screamed when she saw him, throwing the pack to the ground and stumbling backward, hands to her sides. She even dropped her sphere. Rolling his arm in its socket, Kaladin stepped closer into the light. “Calm down,” he said. “It’s me.” “Stormfather!” Shallan said, scrambling to grab the sphere off the ground again. She stepped forward, thrusting the light toward him. “It is you . . . the bridgeman. How
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. . . ?” “I don’t know,” he lied, looking upward. “I’ve got a wicked crick in my neck and my elbow hurts like thunder. What happened?” “Someone threw the emergency latch on the bridge.” “What emergency latch?” “It topples the bridge into the chasm.” “Sounds like a storming stupid thing to have,” Kaladin said, fishing in his pocket for his other spheres. He glanced at them covertly. Also drained. Storms. He’d used them all? “Depends,” Shallan said. “What if your men have retreated over the bridge and enemies are pouring across it after you? The emergency latch is supposed to have some kind of safety lock so it can’t be thrown by accident, but you can release it in a hurry if you need to.” He grunted as Shallan shone her sphere past him toward where the two halves of the bridge had smashed into the ground of the chasm. There were the bodies he’d expected. He looked. He had to. No sign of Dalinar, though several of the officers and lighteyed ladies who had been crossing the bridge lay in twisted, broken heaps on the ground. A drop of two hundred feet or more did not leave survivors. Except Shallan. Kaladin didn’t remember grabbing her as he fell, but he didn’t remember much of that fall beyond Syl’s scream. That scream . . . Well, he must have managed to grab Shallan by reflex, infusing her with Stormlight to slow her fall. She looked disheveled, her blue dress scuffed and her hair a mess, but she was apparently otherwise unharmed. “I woke up down here in the darkness,” Shallan said. “It’s been a while since we fell.” “How can you tell?” “It’s almost dark up there,” Shallan said. “It will be night soon. When I woke I heard echoes of yelling. Fighting. I saw something glowing from around that corner. Turned out to be a soldier who had fallen, his sphere pouch ripped.” She shivered visibly. “He’d been killed by something before the fall.” “Parshendi,” Kaladin said. “Just before the bridge collapsed, I heard horns from the vanguard. We got attacked.” Damnation. That probably meant that Dalinar had retreated, assuming he’d actually survived. There was nothing worth fighting for out here. “Give me one of those spheres,” Kaladin said. She handed one over, and Kaladin went searching among the fallen. For pulses, ostensibly, but really for any equipment or spheres. “You think any of these might be alive?” Shallan asked, voice sounding small in the otherwise silent chasm. “Well, we survived somehow.” “How do you think that happened?” Shallan said, looking upward toward the gap far, far above. “I saw some windspren just before we fell,” Kaladin said. “I’ve heard folktales of them protecting a person as he falls. Perhaps that’s what happened.” Shallan went silent as he searched the bodies. “Yes,” she finally said. “That sounds logical.” She seemed convinced. Good. So long as she didn’t start wondering about the stories told of “Kaladin Stormblessed.” Nobody else was alive, but he verified for certain that neither Dalinar nor Adolin
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were among the corpses. I was a fool not to spot that an assassination attempt was coming, Kaladin thought. Sadeas had tried hard to undermine Dalinar at the feast a few days back, with the revelation of the visions. It was a classic ploy. Discredit your enemy, then kill him, to make certain he didn’t become a martyr. The corpses had little of value. A handful of spheres, some writing implements that Shallan greedily snatched up and stuffed into her satchel. No maps. Kaladin had no specific idea where they were. And with night imminent . . . “What do we do?” Shallan asked softly, staring at the darkened realm, with its unexpected shadows, its gently moving frills, vines, polyplike staccatos, their tendrils out and wafting in the air. Kaladin remembered his first times down in this place, which always felt too green, too muggy, too alien. Nearby, two skulls peeked out from beneath the moss, watching. Splashing sounded from a distant pool, which made Shallan spin wildly. Though the chasms were a home to Kaladin now, he did not deny that at times they were distinctly unnerving. “It’s safer down here than it seems,” Kaladin said. “During my time in Sadeas’s army, I spent days upon days in the chasms, gathering salvage from the fallen. Just watch for rotspren.” “And the chasmfiends?” Shallan asked, spinning to look in another direction as a cremling scuttled along the wall. “I never saw one.” Which was true, though he had seen a shadow of one once, scraping its way down a distant chasm. Even thinking of that day gave him chills. “They aren’t as common as people claim. The real danger is highstorms. You see, if it rains, even far away from here—” “Yes, flash flooding,” Shallan said. “Very dangerous in a slot canyon. I’ve read about them.” “I’m sure that will be very helpful,” Kaladin said. “You mentioned some dead soldiers nearby?” She pointed, and he strode in that direction. She followed, sticking close to his light. He found a few dead spearmen who had been shoved off the plateau above. The wounds were fresh. Just beyond them was a dead Parshendi, also fresh. The Parshendi man had uncut gems in his beard. Kaladin touched one, hesitated, then tried to draw the Stormlight out. Nothing happened. He sighed, then bowed his head for the fallen, before finally pulling a spear from underneath one of the bodies and standing up. The light above had faded to a deep blue. Night. “So, we wait?” Shallan asked. “For what?” Kaladin asked, raising the spear to his shoulder. “For them to come back . . .” She trailed off. “They’re not coming back for us, are they?” “They’ll assume we’re dead. Storms, we should be dead. We’re too far out for a corpse-recovery operation, I’d guess. That’s doubly true since the Parshendi attacked.” He rubbed his chin. “I suppose we could wait for Dalinar’s major expedition. He was indicating he’d come this way, searching for the center. It’s only a few days away, right?” Shallan paled. Well,
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she paled further. That light skin of hers was so strange. It and the red hair made her look like a very small Horneater. “Dalinar is planning to march just after the final highstorm before the Weeping. That storm is close. And it will involve lots, and lots, and lots of rain.” “Bad idea, then.” “You could say so.” He’d tried to imagine what a highstorm would be like down here. He had seen the aftereffects when salvaging with Bridge Four. The twisted, broken corpses. The piles of refuse crushed against walls and into cracks. Boulders as tall as a man casually washed through chasms until they got wedged between two walls, sometimes fifty feet up in the air. “When?” he asked. “When is that highstorm?” She stared at him, then dug into her satchel, flipping through sheets of paper with her freehand while holding the satchel through the fabric of her safehand. She waved him over with his sphere, as she had to tuck hers away. He held it up for her as she looked over a page with lines of script. “Tomorrow night,” she said softly. “Just after first moonset.” Kaladin grunted, holding up his sphere and inspecting the chasm. We’re just to the north of the chasm we fell from, he thought. So the way back should be . . . that way? “All right then,” Shallan said. She took a deep breath, then snapped her satchel closed. “We walk back, and we start immediately.” “You don’t want to sit for a moment and catch your breath?” “My breath is quite well caught,” Shallan said. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather be moving. Once back, we can sit sipping mulled wine and laugh about how silly it was of us to hurry all that way, since we had so much time to spare. I’d like very much to feel that foolish. You?” “Yeah.” He liked the chasms. It didn’t mean he wanted to risk a highstorm in one of them. “You don’t have a map in that satchel, do you?” “No,” Shallan said with a grimace. “I didn’t bring my own. Brightness Velat has the maps. I was using hers. But I might be able to remember some of what I’ve seen.” “Then I think we should go this way,” Kaladin said, pointing. He started walking. * * * The bridgeman started walking off in the direction he’d pointed, not even giving her a chance to state her opinion on the matter. Shallan kept a huff to herself, snatching up her pack—she’d found some waterskins on the soldiers—and satchel. She hurried after him, her dress catching on something she hoped was a very white stick. The tall bridgeman deftly stepped over and around debris, eyes forward. Why did he have to be the one who survived? Though to be honest, she was pleased to find anyone. Walking down here alone would not have been pleasant. At least he was superstitious enough to believe that he’d been saved by some twist of fate and spren. She had
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no idea how she’d saved herself, let alone him. Pattern rode on her skirts, and before she’d found the bridgeman, he’d been speculating that the Stormlight had kept her alive. Alive after a fall of at least two hundred feet? It only proved how little she knew about her abilities. Stormfather! She’d saved this man too. She was sure of it; he’d been falling right beside her as they plummeted. But how? And could she figure out how to do it again? She hurried to keep up with him. Blasted Alethi and their freakishly long legs. He marched like a soldier, giving no thought to how she had to pick her way more carefully than he did. She didn’t want to get her skirt caught on every branch they passed. They reached a pool of water on the chasm floor, and he hopped up onto a log that bridged the water, barely breaking stride as he crossed. She stopped at the edge. He looked back at her, holding up a sphere. “You aren’t going to demand I give you my boots again, are you?” She raised a foot, revealing the military-style boots she wore underneath her dress. That got him to cock an eyebrow. “I wasn’t about to come out onto the Shattered Plains in slippers,” she said, blushing. “Besides, nobody can see your shoes under a dress this long.” She regarded the log. “You want me to help you across?” he asked. “Actually, I’m wondering how the trunk of a stumpweight tree got here,” she confessed. “They can’t possibly be native to this area of the Shattered Plains. Too cold out here. It might have grown along the coast, but a highstorm really carried it that far? Four hundred miles?” “You’re not going to demand we stop for you to sketch a picture, are you?” “Oh please,” Shallan said, stepping up onto the log and picking her way across. “Do you know how many sketches I have of stumpweights?” The other things down here were a different matter entirely. As they continued on their way, Shallan used her sphere—which she had to juggle in her freehand, trying to manage it along with the satchel in her safehand and the pack over her shoulder—to illuminate her surroundings. They were stunning. Dozens of different varieties of vines, frillblooms of red, orange, and violet. Tiny rockbuds on the walls, and haspers in little clusters, opening and closing their shells as if breathing. Motes of lifespren drifted around a patch of shalebark that grew in knobby patterns like fingers. You almost never saw that formation above. The tiny glowing specks of green light drifted through the chasm toward an entire wall of fist-size tube plants with little feelers wiggling out the top. As Shallan passed, the feelers retracted in a wave running up the wall. She gasped softly and took a Memory. The bridgeman stopped ahead of her, turning. “Well?” “Don’t you even notice how beautiful it is?” He looked up at the wall of tube plants. She was certain she’d read about those somewhere,
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but the name escaped her. The bridgeman continued on his way. Shallan jogged after him, pack thumping against her back. She almost tripped over a snarled pile of dead vines and sticks as she reached him. She cursed, hopping on one foot to stay upright before steadying herself. He reached out and took the pack from her. Finally, she thought. “Thank you.” He grunted, slipping it over his shoulder before continuing on without another word. They reached a crossroads in the chasms, a path going right and another going left. They’d have to weave around the next plateau before them to continue westward. Shallan looked up at the rift—getting a good picture in her mind of how this side of the plateau looked—as Kaladin chose one of the paths. “This is going to take a while,” he said. “Even longer than it took to get out here. We had to wait upon the whole army then, but we could also cut through the centers of the plateaus. Having to go around every one of them will add a lot to the trip.” “Well, at least the companionship is pleasant.” He eyed her. “For you, I mean,” she added. “Am I going to have to listen to you prattle all the way back?” “Of course not,” she said. “I also intend to do some blathering, a little nattering, and the occasional gibber. But not too much, lest I overdo a good thing.” “Great.” “I’ve been practicing my burble,” she added. “I just can’t wait to hear.” “Oh, well, that was it, actually.” He studied her, those severe eyes of his boring into her own. She turned away from him. He didn’t trust her, obviously. He was a bodyguard; she doubted that he trusted many people. They reached another intersection, and Kaladin took longer to make this decision. She could see why—down here, it was difficult to determine which way was which. The plateau formations were varied and erratic. Some were long and thin, others almost perfectly round. They had knobs and peninsulas off to their sides, and that made a maze of the twisted paths between them. It should have been easy—there were few dead ends, after all, and so they really just had to keep moving westward. But which direction was westward? It would be very, very easy to get lost down here. “You’re not picking our course at random, are you?” she asked. “No.” “You seem to know a lot about these chasms.” “I do.” “Because the gloomy atmosphere matches your disposition, I assume.” He kept his eyes forward, walking without comment. “Storms,” she said, hurrying to catch up. “That was supposed to be lighthearted. What would it take to make you relax, bridgeboy?” “I guess I’m just a . . . what was it again? A ‘hateful man’?” “I haven’t seen any proof to the contrary.” “That’s because you don’t care to look, lighteyes. Everyone beneath you is just a plaything.” “What?” she said, taking it like a slap to the face. “Where would you get that idea?” “It’s obvious.”
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“To whom? To you only? When have you seen me treat someone of a lesser station like a plaything? Give me one example.” “When I was imprisoned,” he said immediately, “for doing what any lighteyes would have been applauded for doing.” “And that was my fault?” she demanded. “It’s the fault of your entire class. Each time one of us is defrauded, enslaved, beaten, or broken, the blame rests upon all of you who support it. Even indirectly.” “Oh please,” she said. “The world isn’t fair? What a huge revelation! Some people in power abuse those they have power over? Amazing! When did this start happening?” He gave no reply. He’d tied his spheres to the top of his spear with a pouch formed from the white handkerchief he’d found on one of the scribes. Held high, it lit the chasm nicely for them. “I think,” she said, tucking away her own sphere for convenience, “that you’re just looking for excuses. Yes, you’ve been mistreated. I admit it. But I think you’re the one who cares about eye color, that it’s just easier for you to pretend that every lighteyes is abusing you because of your status. Have you ever asked yourself if there’s a simpler explanation? Could it be that people don’t like you, not because you’re darkeyed, but because you’re just a huge pain in the neck?” He snorted, then moved on more quickly. “No,” Shallan said, practically running to keep even with him and his long stride. “You’re not wiggling out of this. You don’t get to imply that I’m abusing my station, then walk off without a response. You did this earlier, with Adolin. Now with me. What is your problem?” “You want a better example of you playing with people beneath you?” Kaladin asked, dodging her question. “Fine. You stole my boots. You pretended to be someone you weren’t and bullied a darkeyed guard you’d barely met. Is that a good enough example of you playing with someone you saw as beneath you?” She stopped in her tracks. He was right, there. She wanted to blame Tyn’s influence, but his comment cut the bite out of her argument. He stopped ahead of her, looking back. Finally, he sighed. “Look,” he said. “I’m not holding a grudge about the boots. From what I’ve seen lately, you’re not as bad as the others. So let’s just leave it at that.” “Not as bad as the others?” Shallan said, walking forward. “What a delightful compliment. Well, let’s say you’re right. Perhaps I am an insensitive rich woman. That doesn’t change the fact that you can be downright mean and offensive, Kaladin Stormblessed.” He shrugged. “That’s it?” she asked. “I apologize, and all I get in return is a shrug?” “I am what the lighteyes have made me to be.” “So you’re not culpable at all,” she said flatly. “For the way you act.” “I’d say not.” “Stormfather. I can’t say anything to change the way you treat me, can I? You’re just going to continue to be an intolerant, odious
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man, full of spite. Incapable of being pleasant around others. Your life must be very lonely.” That seemed to get under his skin, as his face turned red in the spherelight. “I’m starting to revise my opinion,” he said, “of you not being as bad as the others.” “Don’t lie,” she said. “You’ve never liked me. Right from the start. And not just because of the boots. I see how you watch me.” “That’s because,” he said, “I know you’re lying through your smile at everyone you meet. The only time you seem honest is when you’re insulting someone!” “The only honest things I can say to you are insults.” “Bah!” he said. “I just . . . Bah! Why is it that being around you makes me want to claw my face off, woman?” “I have special training,” she said, glancing to the side. “And I collect faces.” What was that? “You can’t just—” He cut off as the scraping noise, echoing from one of the chasms, grew louder. Kaladin immediately put his hand over his improvised sphere lantern, plunging them into darkness. In Shallan’s estimation, that did not help. She stumbled toward him in the darkness, grabbing his arm with her freehand. He was annoying, but he was also there. The scraping continued. A sound like rock on rock. Or . . . carapace on rock. “I guess,” she whispered nervously, “having a shouting match in an echoing network of chasms was not terribly wise.” “Yeah.” “It’s getting closer, isn’t it?” she whispered. “Yeah.” “So . . . run?” The scraping seemed just beyond the next turn. “Yeah,” Kaladin said, pulling his hand off his spheres and charging away from the noise. Kaladin scrambled down the chasm, leaping branches and refuse, splashing through puddles. The girl kept up better than he’d expected, but—hampered by her dress—she was nowhere near as swift as he was. He held himself back, matching her pace. Exasperating though she might be, he wasn’t going to abandon Adolin’s betrothed to be eaten by a chasmfiend. They reached an intersection and chose a path at random. At the next intersection, he only paused long enough to check to see if they were being followed. They were. Thumping from behind them, claws on stone. Scraping. He grabbed the girl’s satchel—he was already carrying her pack—as they ran down another corridor. Either Shallan was in excellent shape, or the panic got to her, because she didn’t even seem winded when they reached the next intersection. No time for hesitation. He barreled down a pathway, ears full of the sound of grinding carapace. A sudden four-voiced trump echoed through the chasm, as loud as a thousand horns being blown. Shallan screamed, though Kaladin barely heard her over the horrible sound. The chasm plants withdrew in large waves. In moments, the entire place went from fecund to barren, like the world preparing for a highstorm. They hit another intersection, and Shallan hesitated, looking back toward the sounds. She held her hands out, as if preparing to embrace the thing. Storming woman!
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He grabbed her and pulled her after him. They ran down two chasms without stopping. It was still chasing, though he could only hear it. He had no idea how close it was, but it had their scent. Or their sound? He had no idea how they hunted. Need a plan! Can’t just— At the next intersection, Shallan turned the opposite way from the one he had picked. Kaladin cursed, pounding to a stop and running after her. “This is no time,” he said, puffing, “to argue about—” “Shut it,” she said. “Follow.” She led them to an intersection, then another. Kaladin was feeling winded, his lungs protesting. Shallan stopped, then pointed and ran down a chasm. He followed, looking over his shoulder. He could see only blackness. Moonlight was too distant, too choked, to illuminate these depths. They wouldn’t know if the beast was upon them until it entered the light of his spheres. But Stormfather, it sounded close. Kaladin turned his attention back to his running. He nearly tripped over something on the ground. A corpse? He leaped it, catching up to Shallan. The hem of her dress was snarled and ripped from the running, her hair a mess, her face flushed. She led them down another corridor, then slowed to a stop, hand to the wall of the chasm, puffing. Kaladin closed his eyes, breathing in and out. Can’t rest long. It will be coming. He felt as if he were going to collapse. “Cover that light,” Shallan hissed. He frowned at her, but did so. “We can’t rest long,” he hissed back. “Quiet.” The darkness was complete save for the thin light escaping between his fingers. The scraping seemed almost on top of them. Storms! Could he fight one of these monsters? Without Stormlight? Desperate, he tried to suck in the Light he held in his palm. No Stormlight came, and he hadn’t seen Syl since the fall. The scraping continued. He prepared to run, but . . . The sounds didn’t seem to be getting closer anymore. Kaladin frowned. The body he’d stumbled over, it had been one of the fallen from the fight earlier. Shallan had led them back to where they’d started. And . . . to food for the beast. He waited, tense, listening to his heartbeat thumping in his chest. Scraping echoed in the chasm. Oddly, some light flashed in the chasm behind. What was that? “Stay here,” Shallan whispered. Then, incredibly, she started to move toward the sounds. Still holding the spheres awkwardly with one hand, he reached out with the other and snatched her. She turned back to him, then looked down. Inadvertently, he’d grabbed her by the safehand. He let go immediately. “I have to see it,” Shallan whispered to him. “We’re so close.” “Are you insane?” “Probably.” She continued toward the beast. Kaladin debated, cursing her in his mind. Finally, he put his spear down and dropped her pack and satchel over its spheres to muffle the light. Then he followed. What else could he do? Explain to Adolin?
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Yes, princeling. I let your betrothed wander off alone in the darkness to get eaten by a chasmfiend. No, I didn’t go with her. Yes, I’m a coward. There was light ahead. It showed Shallan—her outline, at least—crouching beside a turn in the chasm, peeking around. Kaladin stepped up to her, crouching down and taking a look. There it was. The beast filled the chasm. Long and narrow, it wasn’t bulbous or bulky, like some small cremlings. It was sinuous, sleek, with that arrowlike face and sharp mandibles. It was also wrong. Wrong in a way difficult to describe. Big creatures were supposed to be slow and docile, like chulls. Yet this enormous beast moved with ease, its legs up on the sides of the chasm, holding it so that its body barely touched the ground. It ate the corpse of a fallen soldier, grasping the body in smaller claws by its mouth, then ripping it in half with a gruesome bite. That face was like something from a nightmare. Evil, powerful, almost intelligent. “Those spren,” Shallan whispered, so soft he could barely hear. “I’ve seen those . . .” They danced around the chasmfiend, and were the source of the light. They looked like small glowing arrows, and they surrounded the beast in schools, though occasionally one would drift away from the others and then vanish like a small plume of smoke rising into the air. “Skyeels,” Shallan whispered. “They follow skyeels too. The chasmfiend likes corpses. Could its kind be carrion feeders by nature? No, those claws, they look like they’re meant for breaking shells. I suspect we’d find herds of wild chulls near where these things live naturally. But they come to the Shattered Plains to pupate, and here there’s very little food, which is why they attack men. Why has this one remained after pupating?” The chasmfiend was almost done with its meal. Kaladin took her by the shoulder, and she allowed him—with obvious reluctance—to pull her away. They returned to their things, gathered them up, and—as silently as possible—retreated farther into the darkness. * * * They walked for hours, going in a completely different direction from the one they’d taken before. Shallan allowed Kaladin to lead again, though she tried her best to keep track of the chasms. She’d need to draw it out to be certain of their location. Images of the chasmfiend tumbled in her head. What a majestic animal! Her fingers practically itched to sketch it from the Memory she’d taken. The legs were larger than she’d imagined; not like a legger, with spindly little spinelike legs holding up a thick body. This creature had exuded power. Like the whitespine, only enormous and more alien. They were far from it now. Hopefully that meant they were safe. The night was dragging on her, after she’d risen early to get moving on the expedition. She covertly checked the spheres in her pouch. She’d drained them all dun in their flight. Bless the Almighty for the Stormlight—she would need to make a glyphward in thanks.
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Without the strength and endurance it lent, she’d never have been able to keep up with Kaladin longlegs. Now, however, she was storming exhausted. As if the Light had inflated her capacity, but now left her deflated and worn out. At the next intersection, Kaladin paused and looked her over. She gave him a weak smile. “We’ll need to stop for the night,” he said. “Sorry.” “It’s not just you,” he said, looking up at the sky. “I honestly have no idea if we’re going the right direction or not. I’m all turned around. If we can get an idea in the morning of where the sun is rising, it will tell us which direction to walk.” She nodded. “We should still be able to get back in plenty of time,” he added. “No need to worry.” The way he said it immediately made her start worrying. Still, she helped him find a relatively dry portion of ground, and they settled down, spheres in the center like a little mock fire. Kaladin dug in the pack she’d found—she’d taken it off a dead soldier—and came out with some rations of flatbread and dried chull jerky. Not the most appetizing of food by any stretch, but it was something. She sat with her back to the wall and ate, looking upward. The flatbread was from Soulcast grain—that stale taste was obvious. Clouds above prevented her from seeing the stars, but some starspren moved in front of those, forming distant patterns. “It’s strange,” she whispered as Kaladin ate. “I’ve only been down here half a night, but it feels like so much longer. The tops of the plateaus seem so distant, don’t they?” He grunted. “Ah yes,” she said. “The bridgeman grunt. A language unto itself. I’ll need to go over the morphemes and tones with you; I’m not quite fluent yet.” “You’d make a terrible bridgeman.” “Too short?” “Well, yes. And too female. I doubt you’d look good in the traditional short trousers and open vest. Or, rather, you’d probably look too good. It might be a little distracting for the other bridgemen.” She smiled at that, digging into her satchel and pulling out her sketchbook and pencils. At least she had fallen with those. She started sketching, humming softly to herself and stealing one of the spheres for light. Pattern still lay on her skirts, content to be silent in Kaladin’s presence. “Storms,” Kaladin said. “You’re not drawing a picture of you wearing one of those outfits . . .” “Yes, of course,” she said. “I’m drawing salacious pictures of myself for you after only a few hours together in the chasm.” She scratched at a line. “You have quite the imagination, bridgeboy.” “Well it’s what we were talking about,” he grumbled, rising and walking over to look at what she was doing. “I thought you were tired.” “I’m exhausted,” she said. “So I need to relax.” Obviously. This first sketch wouldn’t be the chasmfiend. She needed a warm-up. So she drew their path through the chasms. A map, kind of, but
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more a picture of the chasms as if she could see them from above. It was imaginative enough to be interesting, though she was certain she got a few of the ridges and corners wrong. “What is that?” Kaladin asked. “A picture of the Plains?” “Something of a map,” she said, though she grimaced. What did it say about her that she couldn’t just draw a few lines giving their location, like a regular person? She had to do it like a picture. “I don’t know the full shapes of the plateaus we walked around, just the chasm pathways we used.” “You remember it that well?” Stormwinds. Hadn’t she intended to keep her visual memory more secret than this? “Uh . . . No, not really. I’m guessing at a lot of this.” She felt foolish for revealing her skill. Veil would have had words with her. It was too bad Veil wasn’t down here, actually. She would be better at this whole surviving-in-the-wilderness thing. Kaladin took the picture from her fingers, standing up and using his sphere to light it. “Well, if your map is correct, we’ve been making our way southward instead of westward. I need light to navigate better.” “Perhaps,” she said, taking out another sheet to begin her sketch of the chasmfiend. “We’ll wait for the sun tomorrow,” he said. “That will tell me which way to go.” She nodded, beginning her sketch as he made a place for himself and settled down, coat folded into a pillow. She wanted to turn in herself, but this sketch would not wait. She at least had to get something down. She only lasted about a half hour—finishing perhaps a quarter of the sketch—before she had to put it away, curl up on the hard ground with the pack as a pillow, and fall asleep. * * * It was still dark when Kaladin nudged her awake with the butt of his spear. Shallan groaned, rolling over on the chasm floor, and drowsily tried to put her pillow over her head. Which, of course, spilled dried chull meat onto her. Kaladin chuckled. Sure, that got a laugh out of him. Storming man. How long had she been able to sleep? She blinked bleary eyes and focused on the open crack of the chasm far above. Nope, not a single glimmer of light. Two, perhaps three hours of sleep, then? Or, rather, “sleep.” The definition of what she’d done was debatable. She’d probably have called it “tossing and turning on the rocky ground, occasionally waking with a start to find that she’d drooled a small puddle.” That didn’t really roll off the tongue, though. Unlike the aforementioned drool. She sat up and stretched sore limbs, checking to make sure her sleeve hadn’t come unbuttoned in the night or anything equally embarrassing. “I need a bath,” she grumbled. “A bath?” Kaladin asked. “You have only been away from civilization for one day.” She sniffed. “Just because you’re accustomed to the stench of unwashed bridgeman does not mean I need to join in.” He
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smirked, taking a piece of dried chull meat from her shoulder and popping it in his mouth. “In my home town growing up, bath day was once a week. I think even the local lighteyes would have found it strange that everyone out here, even the common soldiers, finds a bath more frequently.” How dare he be this chipper in the morning? Or, rather, the “morning.” She threw another piece of chull meat at him when he wasn’t looking. The storming man caught it. I hate him. “We didn’t get eaten by that chasmfiend while we slept,” he said, refilling the pack save for a single waterskin. “I’d say that was about as much a blessing as we could expect, under the circumstances. Come on, up on your toes. Your map gives me an idea of which way to go, and we can watch for sunlight to make certain we’re on the right path. We want to beat that highstorm, right?” “You’re the one I want to beat,” she grumbled. “With a stick.” “What was that?” “Nothing,” she said, standing up and trying to make something of her frazzled hair. Storms. She must look like the aftereffect of a lightning bolt hitting a jar of red ink. She sighed. She didn’t have a brush, and he didn’t look like he was going to give her time for a proper braid, so she put on her boots—wearing the same pair of socks two days in a row was the least of her indignities—and picked up her satchel. Kaladin carried the pack. She trailed after him as he led the way through the chasm, her stomach complaining about how little she’d eaten the night before. Food didn’t sound good, so she let it growl. Serves it right, she thought. Whatever that meant. Eventually, the sky did start to brighten, and from a direction that indicated that they were going the right way. Kaladin fell into his customary quiet, and his chipper mien from earlier in the morning evaporated. Instead, he looked like he was consumed by difficult thoughts. She yawned, pulling up beside him. “What are you thinking about?” “I was considering how nice it was to have a little silence,” he said. “With nobody bothering me.” “Liar. Why do you try so hard to put people off?” “Maybe I just don’t want to have another argument.” “You won’t,” she said, yawning again. “It’s far too early for arguments. Try it. Give me an insult.” “I don’t—” “Insult! Now!” “I’d rather walk these chasms with a compulsive murderer than you. At least then, when the conversation got tedious, I’d have an easy way out.” “And your feet stink,” she said. “See? Too early. I can’t possibly be witty at this hour. So no arguments.” She hesitated, then continued more softly. “Besides, no murderer would agree to accompany you. Everyone needs to have some standards, after all.” Kaladin snorted, lips tugging up to the sides. “Be careful,” she said, hopping over a fallen log. “That was almost like a smile—and earlier this morning, I could
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swear that you were cheerful. Well, mildly content. Anyway, if you start to be in a better mood, it will destroy the whole variety of this trip.” “Variety?” he asked. “Yes. If we’re both pleasant, there’s no artistry to it. You see, great art is a matter of contrast. Some lights and some darks. The happy, smiling, radiant lady and the dark, brooding, malodorous bridgeman.” “That—” He stopped. “Malodorous?” “A great figure painting,” she said, “shows the hero with inherent contrast—strong, yet hinting at vulnerability, so that the viewer can relate to him. Your little problem would make for a dynamic contrast.” “How would you even convey that in a painting?” Kaladin said, frowning. “Besides, I’m not malodorous.” “Oh, so you’re getting better? Yay!” He looked at her, dumbfounded. “Confusion,” she said. “I will graciously take that as a sign that you’re amazed that I can be so humorous at such an early hour.” She leaned in conspiratorially, whispering. “I’m really not very witty. You just happen to be stupid, so it seems that way. Contrast, remember?” She smiled at him, then continued on her way, humming to herself. Actually, the day was looking much better. Why had she been in a bad mood earlier? Kaladin jogged to catch up with her. “Storms, woman,” he said. “I don’t know what to make of you.” “Preferably not a corpse.” “I’m surprised someone hasn’t already done that.” He shook his head. “Give me an honest answer. Why are you here?” “Well, there was this bridge that collapsed, and I fell . . .” He sighed. “Sorry,” Shallan said. “Something about you encourages me to crack wise, bridgeboy. Even in the morning. Anyway, why did I come here? You mean to the Shattered Plains in the first place?” He nodded. There was a sort of rugged handsomeness to the fellow. Like the beauty of a natural rock formation, as opposed to a fine sculpture like Adolin. But Kaladin’s intensity, that frightened her. He seemed like a man who constantly had his teeth clenched, a man who couldn’t let himself—or anyone else—just sit down and take a nice rest. “I came here,” Shallan said, “because of Jasnah Kholin’s work. The scholarship she left behind must not be abandoned.” “And Adolin?” “Adolin is a delightful surprise.” They passed an entire wall covered in draping vines that were rooted in a broken section of rock above. They wriggled and pulled up as Shallan passed. Very alert, she noted. Faster than most vines. These were the opposite of those in the gardens back home, where the plants had been sheltered for so long. She tried to snatch one for a cutting, but it moved too quickly. Drat. She needed a bit of one so that when they got back, she could grow a plant for experimentation. Pretending she was here to explore and record new species helped push back the gloom. She heard Pattern humming softly from her skirt, as if he realized what she was doing, distracting herself from the predicament and the danger. She swatted at him.
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What would the bridgeman think if he heard her clothing buzz? “Just a moment,” she said, finally snatching one of the vines. Kaladin watched, leaning on his spear, as she cut the tip off the vine with the small knife from her satchel. “Jasnah’s research,” he said. “It had something to do with structures hidden out here, beneath the crem?” “What makes you say that?” She tucked the tip of the vine away in an empty ink jar she’d kept for specimens. “You made too much of an effort to get out here,” he said. “Ostensibly all to investigate a chasmfiend’s chrysalis. A dead one, even. There has to be more.” “You don’t understand the compulsive nature of scholarship, I see.” She shook the jar. He snorted. “If you’d really wanted to see a chrysalis, you could have just had them tow one back for you. They have those chull sleds for the wounded; one of those might have worked. There was no need for you to come all the way out here yourself.” Blast. A solid argument. It was a good thing Adolin hadn’t thought of that. The prince was wonderful, and he certainly wasn’t stupid, but he was also . . . mentally direct. This bridgeman was proving himself different. The way he watched her, the way he thought. Even, she realized, the way he spoke. He talked like an educated lighteyes. But what of those slave brands on his forehead? The hair got in the way, but she thought that one of them was a shash brand. Perhaps she should spend as much time wondering about this man’s motives as he apparently fretted about hers. “Riches,” he said, as they continued on. He held back some dead branches sticking from a crack so she could pass. “There’s a treasure of some sort out here, and that’s what you seek? But . . . no. You could have wealth easily enough by marriage.” She didn’t say anything, stepping through the gap he made for her. “Nobody had heard of you before this,” he continued. “The Davar house really does have a daughter your age, and you match the description. You could be an impostor, but you’re actually lighteyed, and that Veden house isn’t particularly significant. If you were going to bother to impersonate someone, wouldn’t you pick someone more important?” “You seem to have thought about this a great deal.” “It’s my job.” “I’m being truthful with you—Jasnah’s research is why I came to the Shattered Plains. I think the world itself could be in danger.” “That’s why you talked to Adolin about the parshmen.” “Wait. How do you . . . Your guards were there on that terrace with us. They told you? I didn’t realize they were close enough to listen.” “I made a point of telling them to stay close,” Kaladin said. “At the time, I was half convinced you were here to assassinate Adolin.” Well, he was nothing if not honest. And blunt. “My men said,” Kaladin continued, “that you seemed to want to get the
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parshmen murdered.” “I said nothing of the sort,” she said. “Though I am worried that they might betray us. It’s a moot point, as I doubt I’ll persuade the highprinces without more evidence.” “If you got your way, though,” Kaladin said, sounding curious, “what would you do? About the parshmen.” “Have them exiled,” Shallan said. “And who will replace them?” Kaladin said. “Darkeyes?” “I’m not saying it would be easy,” Shallan said. “They’d need more slaves,” Kaladin said, contemplative. “A lot of honest men might find themselves with brands.” “Still sore about what happened to you, I assume.” “Wouldn’t you be?” “Yes, I suppose I would. I am sorry that you were treated in such a way, but it could have been worse. You could have been hanged.” “I wouldn’t have wanted to be the executioner who tried that.” He said it with a quiet intensity. “Me neither,” Shallan said. “I think hanging people is a poor choice of professions for an executioner. Better to be the guy with an axe.” He frowned at her. “You see,” she said, “with the axe, it’s easier to get ahead. . . .” He stared. Then, after a moment, he winced. “Oh, storms. That was awful.” “No, it was funny. You seem to get those two mixed up a lot. Don’t worry. I’m here to help.” He shook his head. “It’s not that you aren’t witty, Shallan. I just feel like you try too hard. The world is not a sunny place, and frantically trying to turn everything into a joke is not going to change that.” “Technically,” she said, “it is a sunny place. Half the time.” “To people like you, perhaps,” Kaladin said. “What does that mean?” He grimaced. “Look, I don’t want to fight again, all right? I just . . . Please. Let’s let the topic drop.” “What if I promise not to get angry?” “Are you capable of that?” “Of course. I spend most of my time not being angry. I’m terribly proficient at it. Most of those times aren’t around you, granted, but I think I’ll be all right.” “You’re doing it again,” he said. “Sorry.” They walked in silence for a moment, passing plants in bloom with a shockingly well-preserved skeleton underneath them, somehow barely disturbed by the flowing of water in the chasm. “All right,” Kaladin said. “Here it is. I can imagine how the world must appear to someone like you. Growing up pampered, with everything you want. To someone like you, life is wonderful and sunny and worth laughing over. That’s not your fault, and I shouldn’t blame you. You haven’t had to deal with pain or death like I have. Sorrow is not your companion.” Silence. Shallan didn’t reply. How could she reply to that? “What?” Kaladin finally asked. “I’m trying to decide how to react,” Shallan said. “You see, you just said something very, very funny.” “Then why aren’t you laughing?” “Well, it isn’t that kind of funny.” She handed him her satchel and stepped onto a small dry rise of rock running
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through the middle of a deep pond on the chasm floor. The ground was usually flat—all of that crem settling—but the water in this pool looked a good two or three feet deep. She crossed with hands out to the sides, balancing. “So, let me see,” she said as she stepped carefully. “You think I’ve lived a simple, happy life full of sunshine and joy. But you also imply that I’ve got dark, evil secrets, so you’re suspicious of and even hostile to me. You tell me I’m arrogant and assume that I consider darkeyes to be playthings, but when I tell you what I’m trying to do to protect them—and everyone else—you imply I’m meddling and should just leave well enough alone.” She reached the other side and turned about. “Would you say that’s an accurate summary of our conversations up to this point, Kaladin Stormblessed?” He grimaced. “Yes. I suppose.” “Wow,” she said, “you sure do seem to know me well. Particularly considering that you started this conversation by professing that you don’t know what to make of me. An odd statement from someone who seems, from my perspective, to have figured it all out. Next time I’m trying to decide what to do, I’ll just ask you, since you appear to understand me better than I understand myself.” He crossed the same ridge of rock in the path, and she watched anxiously, as he was carrying her satchel. She trusted him better with it over the water than she trusted herself, though. She reached for it when he arrived on the other side, but found herself taking his arm to draw his attention. “How about this?” she said, holding his eyes. “I promise, solemnly and by the tenth name of the Almighty, that I mean no harm to Adolin or his family. I mean to prevent a disaster. I might be wrong, and I might be misguided, but I vow to you that I’m sincere.” He stared into her eyes. So intense. She felt a shiver meeting that expression. This was a man of passion. “I believe you,” he said. “And I guess that will do.” He looked upward, then cursed. “What?” she asked, looking toward the distant light above. The sun was peeking out over the lip of the ridge there. The wrong ridge. They weren’t going west any longer. They’d strayed again, pointing southward. “Blast,” Shallan said. “Give me that satchel. I need to draw this out.” “I was young,” Teft said, “so I didn’t hear much. Kelek, I didn’t want to hear much. The things my family did, they weren’t the sort of things you want your parents doing, all right? I didn’t want to know. So it’s not surprising I can’t remember.” Sigzil nodded in that mild, yet infuriating way of his. The Azish man just knew things. And he made you tell him things too. Unfair, that was. Terribly. Why did Teft have to end up with him on watch duty? The two sat on rocks near the chasms just east of Dalinar’s warcamp.
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A cold wind blew in. Highstorm tonight. He’ll be back before then. Surely by then. A cremling scuttled past. Teft threw a rock at it, driving it toward a nearby crack. “I don’t know why you want to hear all of these things anyway. They aren’t any use.” Sigzil nodded. Storming foreigner. “All right, fine,” Teft said. “It was some kind of cult, you see, called the Envisagers. They . . . well, they thought if they could find a way to return the Voidbringers, then the Knights Radiant would return as well. Stupid, right? Only, they knew things. Things they shouldn’t, things like what Kaladin can do.” “I see this is hard for you,” Sigzil said. “Want to play another hand of michim to pass the time instead?” “You just want my storming spheres,” Teft snapped, wagging his finger at the Azish man. “And don’t call it by that name.” “Michim is the game’s actual name.” “That’s a holy word, and ain’t no game named a holy word.” “The word isn’t holy where it came from,” Sigzil said, obviously annoyed. “We ain’t there now, are we? Call it something else.” “I thought you’d like it,” Sigzil said, picking up the colored rocks that were used in the game. You bet them, in a pile, while trying to guess the ones your opponent had hidden. “It’s a game of skill, not chance, so it doesn’t offend Vorin sensibilities.” Teft watched him pick up the rocks. Maybe it would be better if he just lost all of his spheres in that storming game. It wasn’t good for him to have money again. He couldn’t be trusted with money. “They thought,” Teft said, “that people were more likely to manifest powers if their lives were in danger. So . . . they’d put lives in danger. Members of their own group—never an innocent outsider, bless the winds. But that was bad enough. I watched people let themselves be pushed off cliffs, watched them tied in place with a candle slowly burning a rope until it snapped and dropped a rock to crush them. It was bad, Sigzil. Awful. The sort of thing nobody should have to watch, especially a boy of six.” “So what did you do?” Sigzil asked softly, pulling tight the string on his little bag of rocks. “Ain’t none of your business,” Teft said. “Don’t know why I’m even talking to you.” “It’s all right,” Sigzil said. “I can see—” “I turned them in,” Teft blurted out. “To the citylord. He held a trial for them, a big one. Had them all executed in the end. Never did understand that. They were only a danger to themselves. Their punishment for threatening suicide was to be killed. Nonsense, that is. Should have found a way to help them . . .” “Your parents?” “Mother died in that rock–string contraption,” Teft said. “She really believed, Sig. That she had it in her, you know? The powers? That if she were about to die, they’d come out in her, and she’d save herself .
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. .” “And you watched?” “Storms, no! You think they’d let her son watch that? Are you mad?” “But—” “Did watch my father die, though,” Teft said, looking out over the Plains. “Hanged.” He shook his head, digging in his pocket. Where had he put that flask? As he turned, however, he caught sight of that other lad sitting back there, fiddling with his little box as he often did. Renarin. Teft wasn’t one for all that nonsense like Moash had talked about, wanting to overturn lighteyes. The Almighty had put them in their place, and who had business questioning him? Not spearmen, that’s for certain. But in a way, Prince Renarin was as bad as Moash. Neither one knew their place. A lighteyes wanting to join Bridge Four was as bad as a darkeyes talking stupid and lofty to the king. It didn’t fit, even if the other bridgemen seemed to like the lad. And, of course, Moash was one of them now. Storms. Had he left his flask back at the barrack? “Heads up, Teft,” Sigzil said, rising. Teft turned around and saw men in uniform approaching. He scrambled to his feet, grabbing his spear. It was Dalinar Kholin, accompanied by several of his lighteyed advisors, along with Drehy and Skar from Bridge Four, the day’s guards. With Moash promoted away and Kaladin . . . well, not there . . . Teft had taken over daily assignments. Nobody else would storming do it. They said he was in command now. Idiots. “Brightlord,” Teft said, slapping his chest in salute. “Adolin told me you men were coming here,” the highprince said. He spared a glance for Prince Renarin, who had also stood and saluted, as if this weren’t his own father. “A rotation, I understand?” “Yes, sir,” Teft said, looking toward Sigzil. It was a rotation. Teft was just on nearly every shift. “You really think he’s alive out there, soldier?” Dalinar asked. “He is, sir,” Teft said. “It’s not about what I or anyone thinks.” “He fell hundreds of feet,” Dalinar said. Teft continued to stand at attention. The highprince hadn’t asked a question, so Teft didn’t give a reply. He did have to banish a few terrible images in his head. Kaladin having knocked his head while falling. Kaladin having been crushed by the falling bridge. Kaladin lying with a broken leg, unable to find spheres to heal himself. The fool boy thought he was immortal, sometimes. Kelek. They all thought he was. “He is going to come back, sir,” Sigzil said to Dalinar. “He’s going to come climbing right up out of that chasm right there. It will be well if we’re here to meet him. Uniforms on, spears polished.” “We wait on our own time, sir,” Teft said. “Neither of us three are supposed to be anywhere else.” He blushed as soon as he said it. And here he’d been thinking about how Moash talked back to his betters. “I didn’t come to order you away from your chosen task, soldier,” Dalinar said. “I came to
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make certain you were caring for yourselves. No men are to skip meals to wait here, and I don’t want you getting any ideas about waiting during a highstorm.” “Er, yes, sir,” Teft said. He had used his morning meal break to put in duty here. How had Dalinar known? “Good luck, soldier,” Dalinar said, then continued on his way, flanked by attendants, apparently off to inspect the battalion that was nearest to the eastern edge of camp. Soldiers there scurried like cremlings after a storm, carrying supply bags and piling them inside their barracks. The time for Dalinar’s full expedition onto the Plains was quickly approaching. “Sir,” Teft called after the highprince. Dalinar turned back toward him, his attendants pausing mid-sentence. “You don’t believe us,” Teft said. “That he’ll come back, I mean.” “He’s dead, soldier. But I understand that you need to be here anyway.” The highprince touched his hand to his shoulder, a salute to the dead, then continued on his way. Well, Teft supposed that was all right, Dalinar not believing. He’d just be that much more surprised when Kaladin did return. Highstorm tonight, Teft thought, settling back down on his rock. Come on, lad. What are you doing out there? * * * Kaladin felt like one of the ten fools. Actually, he felt like all of them. Ten times an idiot. But most specifically Eshu, who spoke of things he did not understand in front of those who did. Navigation this deep in the chasms was hard, but he could usually read directions by the way that the debris was deposited. Water blew in from the east to the west, but then it drained out the other way—so cracks on walls where debris was smashed in tight usually marked a western direction, but places where debris had been deposited more naturally—as water drained—marked where water had flowed east. His instincts told him which way to go. They’d been wrong. He shouldn’t have been so confident. This far from the warcamps, the waterflows must be different. Annoyed at himself, he left Shallan drawing and walked out a ways. “Syl?” he asked. No response. “Sylphrena!” he said, louder. He sighed and walked back to Shallan, who knelt on the mossy ground—she’d obviously given up on protecting the once-fine dress from stains and rips—drawing on her sketchpad. She was another reason he felt like a fool. He shouldn’t let her provoke him so. He could hold in the retorts against other, far more annoying lighteyes. Why did he lose control when talking with her? Should have learned my lesson, he thought as she sketched, her expression growing intense. She’s won every argument so far, hands down. He leaned against a section of the chasm wall, spear in the crook of his arm, light shining from the spheres tied tightly at its head. He had made invalid assumptions about her, as she had so poignantly noted. Again and again. It was like a part of him frantically wanted to dislike her. If only he could find Syl. Everything would be
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better if he could see her again, if he could know that she was all right. That scream . . . To distract himself, he moved over to Shallan, then leaned down to see her sketch. Her map was more of a picture, one that looked eerily like the view Kaladin had had, nights ago, when flying above the Shattered Plains. “Is all that necessary?” he asked as she shaded in the sides of a plateau. “Yes.” “But—” “Yes.” It took longer than he’d have preferred. The sun passed through the crack overhead, vanishing from sight. Already past noon. They had seven hours until the highstorm, assuming the timing prediction was right—even the best stormwardens got the calculations wrong sometimes. Seven hours. The hike out here, he thought, took about that long. But surely they’d made some progress toward the warcamps. They’d been walking all morning. Well, no use rushing Shallan. He left her to it, walking back along the chasm, looking up at the shape of the rift up above and comparing it to her drawing. From what he could see, her map was dead on. She was drawing, from memory, their entire path as if seen from above—and she did it perfectly, every little knob and ledge accounted for. “Stormfather,” he whispered, jogging back. He’d known she had skill in drawing, but this was something entirely different. Who was this woman? She was still drawing when he arrived. “Your picture is amazingly accurate,” he said. “I may have . . . underplayed my skill a little last night,” Shallan said. “I can remember things pretty well, though to be honest, I didn’t realize how far off our path was until I drew it. A lot of these plateau shapes are unfamiliar to me; we might be into the areas that haven’t been mapped yet.” He looked to her. “You remember the shapes of all of the plateaus on the maps?” “Uh . . . yes?” “That’s incredible.” She sat back on her knees, holding up her sketch. She brushed aside an unruly lock of red hair. “Maybe not. Something’s very odd here.” “What?” “I think my sketch must be off.” She stood up, looking troubled. “I need more information. I’m going to walk around one of the plateaus here.” “All right . . .” She started walking, still focused on her sketch, barely paying attention to where she was going as she stumbled over rocks and sticks. He kept up with ease, but didn’t bother her as she turned her eyes toward the rift ahead. She walked them all the way around the base of the plateau to their right. It took a painfully long time, even walking quickly. They were losing minutes. Did she know where they were or not? “Now that plateau,” she said, pointing to the next wall. She began walking around the base of that plateau. “Shallan,” Kaladin said. “We don’t have—” “This is important.” “So is not getting crushed in a highstorm.” “If we don’t find out where we are, we won’t ever escape,” she
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said, handing him the sheet of paper. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” She jogged off, skirt swishing. Kaladin stared at the paper, inspecting the path she’d drawn. Though they’d started the morning going the right way, it was as he’d feared—Kaladin had eventually wound them around until they were going directly south again. He’d even somehow turned them back going east for a while! That put them even farther from Dalinar’s camp than when they’d begun the night before. Please let her be wrong, he thought, going around the plateau the other direction to meet her halfway. But if she was wrong, they wouldn’t know where they were at all. Which option was worse? He got a short distance down the chasm before freezing. The walls here were scraped free of moss, the debris on the floor pushed around and scratched. Storms, this was fresh. Since the last highstorm at least. The chasmfiend had come this way. Maybe . . . maybe it had gone past on its way farther out into the chasms. Shallan, distracted and muttering to herself, appeared around the other side of the plateau. She walked, still staring at the sky, muttering to herself. “. . . I know I said that I saw these patterns, but this is too grand a scale for me to know instinctively. You should have said something. I—” She cut off abruptly, jumping as she saw Kaladin. He found himself narrowing his eyes. That had sounded like . . . Don’t be silly. She’s no warrior. The Knights Radiant had been soldiers, hadn’t they? He didn’t really know much about them. Still, Syl had seen several strange spren about. Shallan gave a glance to the wall of the chasm and the scrapes. “Is that what I think it is?” “Yeah,” he said. “Delightful. Here, give me that paper.” He handed it back and she slipped a pencil out of her sleeve. He gave her the satchel, which she set on the floor, using the stiff side as a place to sketch. She filled in the two plateaus closest to them, the ones she’d walked around to get a full view. “So is your drawing off or not?” Kaladin asked. “It’s accurate,” Shallan said as she drew, “it’s just strange. From my memory of the maps, this set of plateaus nearest to us should be farther to the north. There is another group of them up there that are exactly the same shape, only mirrored.” “You can remember the maps that well?” “Yes.” He didn’t press further. From what he’d seen, maybe she could do just that. She shook her head. “What are the chances that a series of plateaus would take the exact same shape as those on another part of the Plains? Not just one, but an entire sequence . . .” “The Plains are symmetrical,” Kaladin said. She froze. “How do you know that?” “I . . . it was a dream. I saw the plateaus arrayed in a wide symmetrical formation.” She looked back at her map, then
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gasped. She began scribbling notes on the side. “Cymatics.” “What?” “I know where the Parshendi are.” Her eyes widened. “And the Oathgate. The center of the Shattered Plains. I can see it all—I can map almost the entire thing.” He shivered. “You . . . what?” She looked up sharply, meeting his eyes. “We have to get back.” “Yes, I know. The highstorm.” “More than that,” she said, standing. “I know too much now to die out here. The Shattered Plains are a pattern. This isn’t a natural rock formation.” Her eyes widened further. “At the center of these Plains was a city. Something broke it apart. A weapon . . . Vibrations? Like sand on a plate? An earthquake that could break rock . . . Stone became sand, and at the blowing of the highstorms, the cracks full of sand were hollowed out.” Her eyes seemed eerily distant, and Kaladin didn’t understand half of what she’d said. “We need to reach the center,” Shallan said. “I can find it, the heart of these Plains, by following the pattern. And there will be . . . things there . . .” “The secret you’re searching for,” Kaladin said. What had she said just earlier? “Oathgate?” She blushed deeply. “Let’s keep moving. Didn’t you mention how little time we had? Honestly, if one of us weren’t chatting away all the time and distracting everyone, I’m half certain we’d be back already.” He cocked an eyebrow at her, and she grinned, then pointed the direction for them to go. “I’m leading now, by the way.” “Probably for the best.” “Though,” she said, “as I consider, it might be better to let you lead. That way, we might find our way to the center by accident. Assuming we don’t end up in Azir.” He gave her a chuckle at that because it seemed the right thing to do. Inside, however, it ripped him apart. He’d failed. The next few hours were excruciating. After walking the length of two plateaus, Shallan had to stop and update her map. It was correct to do so—they couldn’t risk getting off track again. It just took so much time. Even moving as quickly as they could between drawing sessions, practically running the entire way, their progress was too slow. Kaladin shuffled from foot to foot, watching the sky as Shallan filled in her map again. She cursed and grumbled, and he noticed her brushing away a drop of sweat that had fallen from her brow onto the increasingly crumpled paper. Maybe four hours left until the storm, Kaladin thought. We aren’t going to make it. “I’ll try for scouts again,” he said. Shallan nodded. They had entered the territory where Dalinar’s pole-wielding scouts watched for new chrysalises. Shouting to them was a slim hope—even if they were lucky enough to find one of those groups, he doubted they had enough rope handy to reach to the bottom of the chasm. But it was a chance. So he moved away—so as to not disturb her drawing—cupped his mouth, and
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began shouting. “Hello! Please reply! We’re trapped in the chasms! Please reply!” He walked for a time, shouting, then stopped to listen. Nothing came back. No questioning shouts echoing down from above, no signs of life. They’ve probably all withdrawn into their cubbies by now, Kaladin thought. They’ve broken down their watchposts and are waiting for the highstorm. He stared up with frustration at that slot of attenuated sky. So distant. He remembered this feeling, being down here with Teft and the others, longing to climb out and escape the horrible life of a bridgeman. For the hundredth time, he tried drawing in the Stormlight of those spheres. He clutched the sphere until his hand and the glass were sweaty, but the Stormlight—the power within—did not flow to him. He couldn’t feel the Light anymore. “Syl!” he yelled, tucking away the sphere, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Syl! Please! Are you there, anywhere . . . ?” He trailed off. “I still don’t know,” he said more softly. “Is this a punishment? Or is it something more? What is wrong?” No reply. Surely if she were watching him, she wouldn’t let him die down here. Assuming she could think to notice. He had a horrible image of her riding the winds, mingling with the windspren, having forgotten herself and him—becoming terribly, blissfully ignorant of what she truly was. She’d feared that. She’d been terrified of it. Shallan’s boots scratched the ground as she walked up. “No luck?” He shook his head. “Well, onward, then.” She took a deep breath. “Through soreness and exhaustion we go. You wouldn’t be willing to carry me a little ways . . .” He glared at her. She shrugged with a smile. “Think how grand it would be! I could even get a reed to whip you with. You’d be able to go back and tell all the other guards what an awful person I am. It’ll be a wonderful opportunity for griping. No? Well, all right then. Off we go.” “You’re a strange woman.” “Thank you.” He fell into step beside her. “My,” she noted, “you’ve brewed another storm over your head, I see.” “I’ve killed us,” he whispered. “I took the lead, and I got us lost.” “Well, I didn’t notice we were going the wrong way either. I wouldn’t have done any better.” “I should have thought to have you map our progress from the start today. I was too confident.” “It’s done,” she said. “If I’d been more clear with you about how well I could draw these plateaus, then you’d probably have made better use of my maps. I didn’t, and you didn’t know, so here we are. You can’t blame yourself for everything, right?” He walked in silence. “Uh, right?” “It’s my fault.” She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. “You are really intent on beating yourself up, aren’t you?” His father had said the same thing time and time again. It was who Kaladin was. Did they expect him to change? “We’ll be fine,” Shallan said. “You’ll see.” That darkened his
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mood further. “You still think I’m too optimistic, don’t you?” Shallan said. “It’s not your fault,” Kaladin said. “I’d rather be like you. I’d rather not have lived the life I have. I would that the world was only full of people like you, Shallan Davar.” “People who don’t understand pain.” “Oh, all people understand pain,” Kaladin said. “That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s . . .” “The sorrow,” Shallan said softly, “of watching a life crumble? Of struggling to grab it and hold on, but feeling hope become stringy sinew and blood beneath your fingers as everything collapses?” “Yes.” “The sensation—it’s not sorrow, but something deeper—of being broken. Of being crushed so often, and so hatefully, that emotion becomes something you can only wish for. If only you could cry, because then you’d feel something. Instead, you feel nothing. Just . . . haze and smoke inside. Like you’re already dead.” He stopped in the chasm. She turned and looked to him. “The crushing guilt,” she said, “of being powerless. Of wishing they’d hurt you instead of those around you. Of screaming and scrambling and hating as those you love are ruined, popped like a boil. And you have to watch their joy seeping away while you can’t do anything. They break the ones you love, and not you. And you plead. Can’t you just beat me instead?” “Yes,” he whispered. Shallan nodded, holding his eyes. “Yes. It would be nice if nobody in the world knew of those things, Kaladin Stormblessed. I agree. With everything I have.” He saw it in her eyes. The anguish, the frustration. The terrible nothing that clawed inside and sought to smother her. She knew. It was there, inside. She had been broken. Then she smiled. Oh, storms. She smiled anyway. It was the single most beautiful thing he’d seen in his entire life. “How?” he asked. She shrugged lightly. “Helps if you’re crazy. Come on. I do believe we’re under a slight time constraint . . .” She started down the chasm. He stood behind, feeling drained. And oddly brightened. He should feel like a fool. He’d done it again—he’d been telling her how easy her life was, while she’d had that hiding inside of her all along. This time, though, he didn’t feel like an idiot. He felt like he understood. Something. He didn’t know what. The chasm just seemed a little brighter. Tien always did that to me . . . he thought. Even on the darkest day. He stood still long enough that frillblooms opened around him, their wide, fanlike fronds displaying veined patterns of orange, red, and violet. He eventually jogged after Shallan, shocking the plants closed. “I think,” she said, “we need to focus on the positive side of being down here in this terrible chasm.” She eyed him. He didn’t say anything. “Come on,” she said. “I . . . have the sense that it would be better not to encourage you.” “What’s the fun in that?” “Well, we are about to get hit by a highstorm’s
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flood.” “So our clothing will get washed,” she said with a grin. “See! Positive.” He snorted. “Ah, that bridgeman grunt dialect again,” she noted. “That grunt meant,” he said, “that at least if the waters come, it will wash away some of your stench.” “Ha! Mildly amusing, but no points to you. I already established that you’re the malodorous one. Reuse of jokes is strictly forbidden on pain of getting dunked in a highstorm.” “All right then,” he said. “It’s a good thing we’re down here because I had guard duty tonight. Now I’m going to miss it. That is practically like getting the day off.” “To go swimming, no less!” He smiled. “I,” she proclaimed, “am glad we are down here because the sun is far too bright up above, and it tends to give me a sunburn unless I wear a hat. It is much better to be down in the dank, dark, smelly, moldy, potentially life-threatening depths. No sunburns. Just monsters.” “I’m glad to be down here,” he said, “because at least it was me, and not one of my men, who fell.” She hopped over a puddle, then eyed him. “You’re not very good at this.” “Sorry. I meant that I’m glad to be down here because when we get out, everyone will cheer me for being a hero for rescuing you.” “Better,” Shallan said. “Except for the fact that I do believe that I am the one rescuing you.” He glanced at her map. “Point.” “I,” she said, “am glad to be down here because I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be a chunk of meat traveling through a digestive system, and these chasms remind me of the intestines.” “I hope you’re not serious.” “What?” She looked shocked. “Of course I’m not. Ew.” “You really do try too hard.” “It’s what keeps me insane.” He scrambled up a large pile of debris, then offered a hand to help her. “I,” he said, “am happy to be here because it reminds me of how lucky I am to be free of Sadeas’s army.” “Ah,” she said, stepping up to the top with him. “His lighteyes sent us down here to gather,” Kaladin said, sliding down the other side. “And didn’t pay us much at all for the effort.” “Tragic.” “You could say,” he told her as she stepped down off the pile, “that we were given only a pittance.” He grinned at her. She cocked her head. “Pit-tance,” he said, gesturing toward the depth of the hole they were in. “You know. We’re in a pit . . .” “Oh, storms,” she said. “You don’t actually expect that to count. That was terrible!” “I know. I’m sorry. My mother would be disappointed.” “She didn’t like wordplay?” “No, she loved it. She’d just be mad I tried to do it when she wasn’t around to laugh at me.” Shallan smiled, and they continued on, keeping a brisk pace. “I am glad we’re down here,” she said, “because by now, Adolin will be worried sick about me—so when we
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get back, he’ll be ecstatic. He might even let me kiss him in public.” Adolin. Right. That dampened his mood. “We probably need to stop so I can draw out our map,” Shallan said, frowning at the sky. “And so that you can yell some more for our potential salvation.” “I suppose,” he said as she settled down to get out her map. He cupped his hands. “Hey, up there? Anyone? We’re down here, and we’re making bad puns. Please save us from ourselves!” Shallan chuckled. Kaladin smiled, then started as he actually heard something echoing back. Was that a voice? Or . . . Wait . . . A trumping sound—like a horn’s call, but overlapping itself. It grew louder, washing over them. Then an enormous, skittering mass of carapace and claws crashed around the corner. Chasmfiend. Kaladin’s mind panicked, but his body simply moved. He snatched Shallan by the arm, hauling her to her feet and pulling her into a run. She shouted, dropping her satchel. Kaladin pulled her after him and did not look back. He could feel the thing, too close, the walls of the chasm shaking from its pursuit. Bones, twigs, shell, and plants cracked and snapped. The monster trumped again, a deafening sound. It was almost upon them. Storms, but it could move. He’d never have imagined something so large being so quick. There was no distracting it this time. It was almost upon them; he could feel it right behind . . . There. He whipped Shallan in front of him and thrust her into a fissure in the wall. As a shadow loomed over him, he threw himself into the fissure, shoving Shallan backward. She grunted as he pressed her against some of the refuse of twigs and leaves that had been packed into this crack by floodwaters. The chasm fell silent. Kaladin could hear only Shallan’s panting and his own heartbeat. They’d left most of their spheres on the ground, where Shallan had been preparing to draw. He still had his spear, his improvised lantern. Slowly, Kaladin twisted about, putting his back to Shallan. She held him from behind, and he could feel her tremble. Stormfather. He trembled himself. He twisted his spear to give light, peering out at the chasm. This fissure was shallow, and only a few feet stood between him and the opening. The frail, washed-out light of his diamond spheres twinkled off the wet floor. It illuminated broken frillblooms on the walls and several writhing vines on the ground, severed from their plants. They twisted and flopped, like men arching their backs. The chasmfiend . . . Where was it? Shallan gasped, arms tightening around his waist. He looked up. There, higher up the crack, a large, inhuman eye watched them. He couldn’t see the bulk of the chasmfiend’s head; just part of the face and jaw, with that terrible glassy green eye. A large claw slammed against the side of the hole, trying to force its way in, but the crack was too small. The claw dug at
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the hole, and then the head withdrew. Scraping rock and chitin sounded in the chasm, but the thing didn’t go far before stopping. Silence. A steady drip somewhere fell into a pool. But otherwise, silence. “It’s waiting,” Shallan whispered, head near his shoulder. “You sound proud of it!” Kaladin snapped. “A little.” She paused. “How long, do you suppose, until . . .” He looked upward, but couldn’t see the sky. The crack didn’t run all the way up the side of the chasm, and was barely ten or fifteen feet tall. He leaned forward to look at the slot high above, not extending all the way out of the crack, just getting a little closer to the lip so he could see the sky. It was getting dark. Not sunset yet, but getting close. “Two hours, maybe,” he said. “I—” A crashing tempest of carapace charged down the chasm. Kaladin jumped back, pressing Shallan against the refuse again as the chasmfiend tried—without success—to get one of its legs into the fissure. The leg was still too large, and though the chasmfiend could shove the tip in toward them—getting close enough to brush Kaladin—it wasn’t enough to hurt them. That eye returned, reflecting the image of Kaladin and Shallan—tattered and dirtied from their time in the chasm. Kaladin looked less frightened than he felt, staring that thing in the eye, spear held up wardingly. Shallan, rather than looking terrified, seemed fascinated. Crazy woman. The chasmfiend withdrew again. It stopped just down the chasm. He could hear it settling down to watch. “So . . .” Shallan said, “we wait?” Sweat trickled down the sides of Kaladin’s face. Wait. How long? He could imagine staying in here, like a frightened rockbud trapped in its shell, until the waters came crashing through the chasms. He’d survived a storm once. Barely, and only then with the aid of Stormlight. In here, it would be far different. The waters would whip them in a surge through the chasms, smashing them into walls, boulders, churning them with the dead until they drowned or were ripped limb from limb . . . It would be a very, very bad way to die. His grip tightened on his spear. He waited, sweating, worrying. The chasmfiend didn’t leave. Minutes passed. Finally, Kaladin made his decision. He moved to step forward. “What are you doing!” Shallan hissed, sounding terrified. She tried to hold him back. “When I’m out,” he said, “run the other way.” “Don’t be stupid!” “I’ll distract it,” he said. “Once you’re free, I’ll lead it away from you, then escape. We can meet back up.” “Liar,” she whispered. He twisted about, meeting her eyes. “You can get back to the warcamps on your own,” he said. “I can’t. You have information that needs to get to Dalinar. I don’t. I have combat training. I might be able to get away from the thing after distracting it. You couldn’t. If we wait here, we both die. Do you need more logic than that?” “I hate logic,” she whispered. “Always
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have.” “We don’t have time to talk about it,” Kaladin said, twisting around, his back to her. “You can’t do this.” “I can.” He took a deep breath. “Who knows,” he said more softly, “maybe I’ll get in a lucky hit.” He reached up and ripped the spheres off his spearhead, then tossed them out into the chasm. He’d need a steadier light. “Get ready.” “Please,” she whispered, sounding more frantic. “Don’t leave me down in these chasms alone.” He smiled wryly. “Is it really this hard for you to let me win one single argument?” “Yes!” she said. “No, I mean . . . Storms! Kaladin, it will kill you.” He gripped his spear. The way things had been going with him lately, perhaps that was what he deserved. “Apologize to Adolin for me. I actually kind of like him. He’s a good man. Not just for a lighteyes. Just . . . a good person. I’ve never given him the credit he deserves.” “Kaladin . . .” “It has to happen, Shallan.” “At least,” she said, reaching her hand over his shoulder and past his head, “take this.” “Take what?” “This,” Shallan said. Then she summoned a Shardblade. Kaladin stared at the glistening length of metal, which dripped with condensation from its summoning. It glowed softly the color of garnet along several faint lines down its length. Shallan had a Shardblade. He twisted his head toward her, and in so doing, his cheek brushed the flat of the blade. No screams. He froze, then cautiously raised a finger and touched the cold metal. Nothing happened. The screech he had heard in his mind when fighting alongside Adolin did not recur. It seemed a very bad sign to him. Though he did not know the meaning of that terrible sound, it was related to his bond with Syl. “How?” he asked. “It’s not important.” “I rather think it is.” “Not at the moment! Look, are you going to take this thing? Holding it this way is awkward. If I drop it by accident and cut off your foot, it’s going to be your fault.” He hesitated, regarding his face reflected in its metal. He saw corpses, friends with burning eyes. He’d refused these weapons each time one was offered to him. But always before, it had been after the fight, or at least on the practice grounds. This was different. Besides, he wasn’t choosing to become a Shardbearer; he would only use this weapon to protect someone’s life. Making a decision, he reached up and seized the Shardblade by the hilt. At least this told him one thing—Shallan wasn’t likely to be a Surgebinder. Otherwise, he suspected she’d hate this Blade as much as he did. “You’re not supposed to let people use your Blade,” Kaladin said. “By tradition, only the king and the highprinces do that.” “Great,” she said. “You can report me to Brightness Navani for being wildly indecent and ignorant of protocol. For now, can we just survive, please?” “Yeah,” he said, hefting the Blade. “That sounds wonderful.”
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He barely knew how to use one of these. Training with a practice sword did not make you an expert with the real thing. Unfortunately, a spear was going to be of little use against a creature so large and so well armored. “Also . . .” Shallan said. “Could you not do that ‘reporting me’ thing I mentioned? That was a joke. I don’t think I’m supposed to have that Blade.” “Nobody would believe me anyway,” Kaladin said. “You are going to run, right? As I instructed?” “Yes. But if you could, please lead the monster to the left.” “That’s toward the warcamps,” Kaladin said, frowning. “I was planning to lead it deeper into the chasms, so that you—” “I need to get back to my satchel,” Shallan said. Crazy woman. “We’re fighting for our lives, Shallan. The satchel is unimportant.” “No, it’s very important,” she said. “I need it to . . . Well, the sketches in there show the pattern of the Shattered Plains. I’ll need that to help Dalinar. Please, just do it.” “Fine. If I can.” “Good. And, um, please don’t die, all right?” He was suddenly aware of her pressed against his back. Holding him, breath warm on his neck. She trembled, and he thought he could hear in her voice both terror and fascination at their situation. “I’ll do my best,” he said. “Get ready.” She nodded, letting go of him. One. Two. Three. He leaped out into the chasm, then turned and dashed left, toward the chasmfiend. Storming woman. The beast lurked in the shadows in that direction. No, it was a shadow. An enormous, looming shadow, long and eel-like, lifted above the floor of the chasm and gripping the walls with its legs. It trumped and surged forward, carapace scraping on rock. Holding tightly to the Shardblade, Kaladin threw himself to the ground and ducked underneath the monster. The ground heaved as the beast smashed claws toward him, but Kaladin came up unscathed. He swung wildly with the Shardblade, carving a line in the rock wall beside him but missing the chasmfiend. It curled in the chasm, twisting underneath itself, then turning about. The maneuver went far more smoothly for the monster than Kaladin would have hoped. How do I even kill something like this? Kaladin wondered, backing up as the chasmfiend settled on the floor of the chasm to inspect him. Hacking at that enormous body was unlikely to kill it quickly enough. Did it have a heart? Not the stone gemheart, but a real one? He’d have to try to get underneath it again. Kaladin continued to back down the chasm, trying to lead the creature away from Shallan. It moved more carefully than Kaladin would have expected. He was relieved to catch sight of Shallan escaping the crack and scrambling away down the passage. “Come on, you,” Kaladin said, waving the Shardblade at the chasmfiend. It reared up in the chasm, but did not strike at him. It watched, eyes hidden in its darkened face. The only light came from
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the distant slit high above and the spheres he’d tossed out into the chasm, which now were behind the monster. Shallan’s Blade glowed softly too, from a strange pattern along its length. Kaladin had never seen one do that before, but then, he’d never seen a Shardblade in the dark before. Looking up at the rearing, alien silhouette before him—with its too many legs, its twisted head, its segmented armor—Kaladin thought he must know what a Voidbringer looked like. Surely nothing more terrible than this could exist. Stepping backward, Kaladin stumbled on an outcropping of shalebark sprouting from the floor. The chasmfiend struck. Kaladin regained his balance easily, but had to throw himself into a roll—which required dropping the Shardblade, lest he slice himself. Shadowy claws smashed around him as he came out of his roll and sprang one way, then the other. He ended up pressed against the slimy side of the chasm just in front of the monster, puffing. He was too close for the claws to get him, perhaps, and— The head snapped down, mandibles gaping. Kaladin cursed, hurling himself to the side again. He grunted, rolling to his feet and scooping up the discarded Shardblade. It hadn’t vanished—he knew enough about them to understand that once Shallan instructed it to remain, it would stay until she summoned it back. Kaladin turned around as a claw came down where he had just been. He got a swipe at it, cutting through the claw’s tip as it crashed into rock. His cut didn’t seem to do much. The Blade scored the carapace and killed the flesh inside—prompting a trump of anger—but the claw was enormous. He’d done the equivalent of cutting off the tip of an enemy soldier’s big toe. Storms. He wasn’t fighting the beast; he was just annoying it. It came more aggressively, sweeping at him with a claw. Fortunately, the confines of the chasm made it difficult for the creature to swing; its arms brushed the walls, and it couldn’t pull back for full leverage. That was probably why Kaladin was still alive. He got out of the way of the sweep, barely, but tripped in the darkness again. He could hardly see. As another claw crashed toward him, Kaladin got to his feet and dashed away—running farther down the corridor, farther from the light, passing plants and flotsam. The chasmfiend trumped and charged after him, clacking and scraping. Kaladin felt so slow without Stormlight. So clumsy and awkward. The chasmfiend was close. He judged his next move by instinct. Now! He stopped with a lurch, then sprinted back toward the creature. It slowed with great difficulty, carapace grinding on the walls, and Kaladin ducked and ran beneath it. He slammed the Shardblade upward, sinking it deep into the creature’s underside. The beast trumped more frantically. He seemed to have actually hurt it, for it immediately lifted upward to pull itself off the sword. Then it twisted down upon itself in an eyeblink, and Kaladin found those frightful jaws coming at him. He threw himself forward, but
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the snapping jaws caught his leg. Blinding pain ran up the limb, and he struck out with the Blade even as the beast flung him about. He thought he hit its face, though he couldn’t be certain. The world spun. He hit the ground and rolled. No time to be dizzy. With everything still spinning, he groaned and turned over. He’d lost the Shardblade—he didn’t know where it was. His leg. He couldn’t feel it. He looked down, expecting to see nothing but a ragged stump. It wasn’t quite so bad. Bloodied, the trousers ripped, but he couldn’t see bone. The numbness was from shock. His mind had gone analytical and focused on the wounds. That wasn’t good. He needed the soldier at the moment, not the surgeon. The chasmfiend was righting itself in the chasm, and a chunk of its facial carapace was missing. Get. Away. Kaladin turned over and climbed to hands and knees, then lurched to his feet. The leg worked, kind of. His boot squished as he stepped. Where was the Shardblade? There, ahead. It had flown far, embedding itself in the ground near the spheres he’d tossed from the rift. Kaladin hobbled toward it, but had trouble walking, let alone running. He was halfway there when his leg gave out. He hit hard, scraping his arm on shalebark. The chasmfiend trumped and— “Hey! Hey!” Kaladin twisted about. Shallan? What was that fool woman doing, standing in the chasm, waving her hands like a maniac? How had she even gotten past him? She yelled again, getting the chasmfiend’s attention. Her voice echoed oddly. The chasmfiend turned from Kaladin to Shallan, then began to smash at her. “No!” Kaladin yelled. But what was the use in shouting? He needed his weapon. Gritting his teeth, he twisted about and scrambled—as best he could—to the Shardblade. Storms. Shallan . . . He ripped the sword from the rock, but then he collapsed again. The leg just wouldn’t hold him. He twisted back, holding out the Blade, searching the chasm. The monster continued to swipe about, trumping, the terrible sound echoing and reverberating in the narrow confines. Kaladin couldn’t see a corpse. Had Shallan escaped? Stabbing the blasted thing through the chest only seemed to have made it angrier. The head. His only chance was the head. Kaladin struggled to his feet. The monster stopped smashing against the ground and with a trump surged toward him. Kaladin gripped the sword in two hands, then wavered. His leg buckled beneath him. He tried to go down on one knee, but the leg gave out completely, and he slumped to the side and narrowly avoided slicing himself with the Shardblade. He splashed into a pool of water. In front of him, one of the spheres he’d tossed shone with a bright white light. He reached into the water, snatching it, clutching the chilled glass. He needed that Light. Storms, his life depended on it. Please. The chasmfiend loomed above. Kaladin sucked in a breath, straining, like a man gasping for air. He heard .
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. . as if distantly . . . Weeping. No power entered him. The chasmfiend swung and Kaladin twisted, and strangely found himself. The other version of him stood above him, sword raised, larger than life. It was bigger than him by half. What in the Almighty’s own eyes . . . ? Kaladin thought, dumbfounded, as the chasmfiend smashed an arm down onto the figure beside Kaladin. That not-him shattered into a puff of Stormlight. What had he done? How had he done it? No matter. He lived. With a cry of desperation, he threw himself back to his feet and lurched toward the chasmfiend. He needed to get close, as he had before, too close for the claws to swing in these confines. So close that . . . The chasmfiend reared, then snapped down for a bite, mandibles extending, terrible eyes bearing down. Kaladin thrust upward. * * * The chasmfiend crashed down, chitin snapping, legs spasming. Shallan cried out, freehand to mouth, from where she hid behind a boulder, her skin and clothing turned deep black. The chasmfiend had fallen on Kaladin. Shallan dropped her paper—it bore a drawing of her and another of Kaladin—and scrambled across the rocks, dismissing the blackness around her. She’d needed to be close to the fighting for the illusions to work. Better if she’d been able to send them on Pattern, but that was problematic because— She stopped in front of the still-twitching beast, a heap of flesh and carapace like a fallen avalanche of stone. She shifted from one foot to another, uncertain what to do. “Kaladin?” she called out. Her voice was frail in the darkness. Stop it, she told herself. No timidity. You’re past that. Taking a deep breath, she moved forward, picking her way over the huge armored legs. She tried to shove aside a claw, but it was far too heavy for her, so she climbed over it and skidded down the other side. She froze as she heard something. The chasmfiend’s head lay nearby, massive eyes cloudy. Spren started to rise from it, like trails of smoke. The same ones as before, only . . . leaving? She held her light closer. The bottom half of Kaladin’s body protruded from the chasmfiend’s mouth. Almighty above! Shallan gasped, then scrambled forward. She tried, with difficulty, to pull Kaladin from the closed maw before summoning her Shardblade and cutting away at several mandibles. “Kaladin?” she asked, nervously peering into the thing’s mouth from the side, where she’d removed a mandible. “Ow,” a weak voice trailed back to her. Alive! “Hang on!” she said, hacking at the thing’s head, careful not to cut too close to Kaladin. Violet ichor spurted out, coating her arms, smelling like wet mold. “This is kind of uncomfortable . . .” Kaladin said. “You’re alive,” Shallan said. “Stop complaining.” He was alive. Oh, Stormfather. Alive. She would have a whole heap of prayers to burn when they got back. “Smells awful in here,” Kaladin said weakly. “Almost as bad as you do.” “Be glad,”
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Shallan said as she worked. “Here, I have a reasonably perfect specimen of a chasmfiend—with only a minor case of being dead—and I’m chopping it apart for you instead of studying it.” “I’m eternally grateful.” “How did you get in its mouth, anyway?” Shallan asked, prying off a piece of carapace with a sickening sound. She tossed it aside. “Stabbed it through the roof of its mouth,” Kaladin said, “into the brain. Only way I could figure to kill the blasted thing.” She leaned down, reaching her hand through the large hole she’d opened. With some work—and with a little cutting at the front mandibles—she managed to help Kaladin wiggle out the side of the mouth. Covered in ichor and blood, face pale from apparent blood loss, he looked like death itself. “Storms,” she whispered, as he lay back on the rocks. “Bind my leg,” Kaladin said weakly. “The rest of me should be fine. Heal right up . . .” She looked at the mess of his leg, and shivered. It looked like . . . Like . . . Balat . . . Kaladin wouldn’t be walking on that leg anytime soon. Oh, Stormfather, she thought, cutting off the skirt of her dress at the knees. She wrapped his leg tightly, as he instructed. He seemed to think he didn’t need a tourniquet. She listened to him; he’d probably bound far more wounds than she had. She cut the sleeve off her right arm and used that to bind a second wound on his side, where the chasmfiend had started to rip him in half as it bit. Then she settled down next to him, feeling drained and cold, legs and arm now exposed to the chill air of the chasm bottom. Kaladin took a deep breath, resting on the rock ground, eyes closed. “Two hours until the highstorm,” he whispered. Shallan checked the sky. It was almost dark. “If that long,” she whispered. “We beat it, but we’re dead anyway, aren’t we?” “Seems unfair,” he said. Then he groaned, sitting up. “Shouldn’t you—” “Bah. I’ve had far worse wounds than this.” She raised an eyebrow at him as he opened his eyes. He looked dizzy. “I have,” he insisted. “That’s not just soldier bravado.” “This bad?” she asked. “How often?” “Twice,” he admitted. He looked over the hulking form of the chasmfiend. “We actually killed the thing.” “Sad, I know,” she said, feeling depressed. “It was beautiful.” “It would be more beautiful if it hadn’t tried to eat me.” “From my perspective,” Shallan noted, “it didn’t try, it succeeded.” “Nonsense,” Kaladin said. “It didn’t manage to swallow me. Doesn’t count.” He held his hand out to her, as if for help getting to his feet. “You want to try to keep going?” “You expect me to just lie here in the chasm until the waters come?” “No, but . . .” She looked up. The chasmfiend was big. Maybe twenty feet tall, as it lay on its side. “What if we climbed up that thing, then tried to scale
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up to the top of the plateau?” The farther westward they’d gone, the shallower the chasms had grown. Kaladin looked up. “That’s still a good eighty feet of climbing, Shallan. And what would we do on the top of the plateau? The storm would blow us off.” “We could at least try to find some kind of shelter . . .” she said. “Storms, it really is hopeless, isn’t it?” Oddly, he cocked his head. “Probably.” “Only ‘probably’?” “Shelter . . . You have a Shardblade.” “And?” she asked. “I can’t cut away a wall of water.” “No, but you can cut stone.” He looked up, toward the wall of the chasm. Shallan’s breath caught in her throat. “We can carve out a cubby! Like the scouts use.” “High up the wall,” he said. “You can see the water line up there. If we can get above that . . .” It still meant climbing. She wouldn’t have to go all the way to where the chasm got narrow at the top, but it wouldn’t be an easy climb, by any means. And she had very little time. But it was a chance. “You’re going to have to do it,” Kaladin said. “I might be able to stand, with help. But climbing while wielding a Shardblade . . .” “Right,” Shallan said, standing up. She took a deep breath. “Right.” She started by scaling the back of the chasmfiend. The smooth carapace made for slippery climbing, but she found footholds between plates. Once on its back, she looked up toward the water line. It seemed much higher than it had from below. “Cut handholds,” Kaladin called. Right. She kept forgetting about the Shardblade. She didn’t want to think about it . . . No. No time for that now. She summoned the Blade and cut out a series of long strips of rock, sending chunks falling to bounce off the carapace. She tucked her hair behind her ear, working in the dim light to create a ladderlike series of handholds up the side of the wall. She started climbing them. Standing on one and clinging to the highest one, she summoned the Blade again and tried to cut a step even higher, but the thing was just so blasted long. Obligingly, it shrank in her hand to the size of a much shorter sword, really a big knife. Thank you, she thought, then cut out the next line of rock. Up she went, handhold after handhold. It was sweaty work, and she periodically had to climb back down and rest her hands from clinging. Eventually, she got about as high as she figured she could, just over the water line. She hung there awkwardly, then began hacking out sections of rock, trying to cut them so they wouldn’t tumble backward onto her head. Falling stone made a beating sound on the dead chasmfiend’s armor. “You’re doing great!” Kaladin called up to her. “Keep at it!” “When did you get so peppy?” she shouted. “Ever since I assumed I was dead, then I
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suddenly wasn’t.” “Then remind me to try to kill you once in a while,” she snapped. “If I succeed, it will make me feel better, and if I fail, it will make you feel better. Everyone wins!” She heard him chuckling as she dug deeper into the stone. It was more difficult than she’d have imagined. Yes, the Blade cut the rock easily, but she kept cutting sections that just wouldn’t fall out. She had to chop them to pieces, then dismiss the Blade and grab chunks to pull them out. After over an hour of frantic work, however, she managed to craft a semblance of a refuge. She didn’t get the cubby hollowed out as deeply as she wanted, but it would have to do. Drained, she crawled back down her improvised ladder one last time and flopped on the chasmfiend’s back amid the rubble. Her arms felt like she’d been lifting something heavy—and technically she probably had, since climbing meant lifting herself. “Done?” Kaladin called up from the chasm floor. “No,” Shallan said, “but close enough. I think we might fit.” Kaladin was silent. “You are coming up into the hole I just cut, Kaladin bridgeboy, chasmfiend-slayer and gloombringer.” She leaned over the side of the chasmfiend to look at him. “We are not having another stupid conversation about you dying in here while I bravely continue on. Understand?” “I’m not sure if I can walk, Shallan,” Kaladin said with a sigh. “Let alone climb.” “You’re going,” Shallan said, “if I have to carry you.” He looked up, then grinned, face covered in dried violet ichor that he’d wiped away as best he could. “I’d like to see that.” “Come on,” Shallan said, rising with some difficulty herself. Storms, she was tired. She used the Blade to hack a vine off the wall. It took two hits to get it free, amusingly. The first severed its soul. Then, dead, it could actually be cut by the sword. The upper part withdrew, curling like a corkscrew to get height. She tossed down one side of the length she’d cut free. Kaladin took it with one hand, and—favoring his bad leg—carefully made his way up to the top of the chasmfiend. Once up, he flopped down beside her, sweat making trails through the grime on his face. He looked up at the ladder cut into the rock. “You’re really going to make me climb that.” “Yes,” she said. “For perfectly selfish reasons.” He looked to her. “I’m not going to have your last sight in life be a view of me standing in half a filthy dress, covered in purple blood, my hair an utter mess. It’s undignified. On your feet, bridgeboy.” In the distance, she heard a rumbling. Not good . . . “Climb up,” he said. “I’m not—” “Climb up,” he said more firmly, “and lie down in the cubby, then reach your hand over the edge. Once I near the top, you can help me the last few feet.” She fretted for a moment, then fetched her satchel and
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made the climb. Storms, those handholds were slick. Once up, she crawled into the shallow cubby and perched precariously, reaching down with one hand as she braced herself with the other. He looked up at her, then set his jaw and started climbing. He mostly pulled himself with his hands, wounded leg dangling, the other one steadying him. Heavily muscled, his soldier’s arms slowly pulled him up slot by slot. Below, water trickled down the chasm. Then it started to gush. “Come on!” she said. Wind howled through the chasms, a haunting, eerie sound that called through the many rifts. Like the moaning of spirits long dead. The high sound was accompanied by a low, rumbling roar. All around, plants withdrew, vines twisting and pulling tight, rockbuds closing, frillblooms folding away. The chasm hid. Kaladin grunted, sweating, his face tense with pain and exertion, his fingers trembling. He pulled himself up another rung, then reached his hand up toward hers. The stormwall hit. ONE YEAR AGO Shallan slipped into Balat’s room, holding a short note between her fingers. Balat spun, standing. He relaxed. “Shallan! You nearly killed me with fright.” The small room, like many in the manor house, had open windows with simple reed shutters—those were closed and latched today, as a highstorm was approaching. The last one before the Weeping. Servants outside pounded on the walls as they affixed sturdy stormshutters over the reed ones. Shallan wore one of her new dresses, the expensive kind that Father bought for her, after the Vorin style, straight and slim-waisted with a pocket on the sleeve. A woman’s dress. She also wore the necklace he had given her. He liked it when she did that. Jushu lounged on a chair nearby, rubbing some kind of plant between his fingers, his face distant. He had lost weight during the two years since his creditors had dragged him from the house, though with those sunken eyes and the scars on his wrists, he still didn’t look much like his twin. Shallan eyed the bundles Balat had been preparing. “Good thing Father never checks in on you, Balat. Those bundles look so fishy, we could make a stew out of them.” Jushu chuckled, rubbing the scar on one wrist with the other hand. “Doesn’t help that he jumps every time a servant so much as sneezes out in the hallway.” “Quiet, both of you,” Balat said, eyeing the window where workers locked a stormshutter in place. “This is not a time for levity. Damnation. If he discovers that I’m planning to leave . . .” “He won’t,” Shallan said, unfolding the letter. “He’s too busy getting ready to parade himself in front of the highprince.” “Does it feel odd to anyone else,” Jushu said, “to be this rich? How many deposits of valuable stone are there on our lands?” Balat turned back to packing his bundles. “So long as it keeps Father happy, I don’t care.” The problem was, it hadn’t made Father happy. Yes, House Davar was now wealthy—the new quarries provided a fantastic income.
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Yet, the better off they were, the darker Father grew. Walking the hallways grumbling. Lashing out at servants. Shallan scanned the letter’s contents. “That’s not a pleased face,” Balat said. “They still haven’t been able to find him?” Shallan shook her head. Helaran had vanished. Really vanished. No more contact, no more letters; even the people he’d been in touch with earlier had no idea where he’d gone. Balat sat down on one of his bundles. “So what do we do?” “You will need to decide,” Shallan said. “I have to get out. I have to.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Eylita is ready to go with me. Her parents are away for the month, visiting Alethkar. It’s the perfect time.” “If you can’t find Helaran, then what?” “I’ll go to the highprince. His bastard said that he’d listen to anyone willing to speak against Father.” “That was years ago,” Jushu said, leaning back. “Father’s in favor now. Besides, the highprince is nearly dead; everyone knows it.” “It’s our only chance,” Balat said. He stood up. “I’m going to leave. Tonight, after the storm.” “But Father—” Shallan began. “Father wants me to ride out and check on some of the villages along the eastern valley. I’ll tell him I’m doing that, but instead I’ll pick up Eylita and we’ll ride for Vedenar and go straight to the highprince. By the time Father arrives a week later, I’ll have had my say. It might be enough.” “And Malise?” Shallan asked. The plan was still for him to take their stepmother to safety. “I don’t know,” Balat said. “He’s not going to let her go. Maybe once he leaves to visit the highprince, you can send her away someplace safe? I don’t know. Either way, I have to go. Tonight.” Shallan stepped forward, laying a hand on his arm. “I’m tired of the fear,” Balat said to her. “I’m tired of being a coward. If Helaran has vanished, then I really am eldest. Time to show it. I won’t just run, spending my life wondering if Father’s minions are hunting us. This way . . . this way it will be over. Decided.” The door slammed open. For all her complaints that Balat was acting suspicious, Shallan jumped just as high as he did, letting out a squeak of surprise. It was only Wikim. “Storms, Wikim!” Balat said. “You could at least knock or—” “Eylita is here,” Wikim said. “What?” Balat leaped forward, grabbing his brother. “She wasn’t to come! I was going to pick her up.” “Father summoned her,” Wikim said. “She arrived with her handmaid just now. He’s speaking with her in the feast hall.” “Oh no,” Balat said, shoving Wikim aside, barreling through the door. Shallan followed, but stopped in the doorway. “Don’t do anything foolish!” she called after him. “Balat, the plan!” He didn’t appear to have heard her. “This could be bad,” Wikim said. “Or it could be wonderful,” Jushu said from behind them, still lounging. “If Father pushes Balat too far, maybe he’ll stop whining and
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do something.” Shallan felt cold as she stepped into the hallway. That coldness . . . was that panic? Overwhelming panic, so sharp and strong it washed away everything else. This had been coming. She’d known this had been coming. They tried to hide, they tried to flee. Of course that wouldn’t work. It hadn’t worked with Mother either. Wikim passed her, running. She stepped slowly. Not because she was calm, but because she felt pulled forward. A slow pace resisted the inevitability. She turned up the steps instead of going down to the feast hall. She needed to fetch something. It took only a minute. She soon returned, the pouch given to her long ago tucked into the safepouch in her sleeve. She walked down the steps and to the doorway of the feast hall. Jushu and Wikim waited just outside of it, watching tensely. They made way for her. Inside the feast hall, there was shouting, of course. “You shouldn’t have done this without talking to me!” Balat said. He stood before the high table, Eylita at his side, holding to his arm. Father stood on the other side of the table, half-eaten meal before him. “Talking to you is useless, Balat. You don’t hear.” “I love her!” “You’re a child,” Father said. “A foolish child without regard for your house.” Bad, bad, bad, Shallan thought. Father’s voice was soft. He was most dangerous when his voice was soft. “You think,” Father continued, leaning forward, palms on the tabletop, “I don’t know about your plan to leave?” Balat stumbled back. “How?” Shallan stepped into the room. What is that on the floor? she thought, walking along the wall toward the door into the kitchens. Something blocked the door from closing. Rain began to pelt the rooftop outside. The storm had come. The guards were in their guardhouse, the servants in their quarters to wait the storm’s passing. The family was alone. With the windows closed, the only light in the room was the cool illumination of spheres. Father did not have a fire burning in the hearth. “Helaran is dead,” Father said. “Did you know that? You can’t find him because he’s been killed. I didn’t even have to do it. He found his own death on a battlefield in Alethkar. Idiot.” The words threatened Shallan’s cold calm. “How did you find out I was leaving?” Balat demanded. He stepped forward, but Eylita held him back. “Who told you?” Shallan knelt by the obstruction in the kitchen doorway. Thunder rumbled, making the building vibrate. The obstruction was a body. Malise. Dead from several blows to the head. Fresh blood. Warm corpse. He had killed her recently. Storms. He’d found out about the plan, had sent for Eylita and waited for her to arrive, then killed his wife. Not a crime of the moment. He’d murdered her as punishment. So it has come to this, Shallan thought, feeling a strange, detached calm. The lie becomes the truth. This was Shallan’s fault. She stood up and rounded the room toward where servants
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had left a pitcher of wine, with cups, for Father. “Malise,” Balat said. He hadn’t looked toward Shallan; he was just guessing. “She broke down and told you, didn’t she? Damnation. We shouldn’t have trusted her.” “Yes,” Father said. “She talked. Eventually.” Balat’s sword made a whispering rasp as he pulled it from its leather sheath. Father’s sword followed. “Finally,” Father said. “You show hints of a backbone.” “Balat, no,” Eylita said, clinging to him. “I won’t fear him any longer, Eylita! I won’t!” Shallan poured wine. They clashed, Father leaping over the high table, swinging in a two-handed blow. Eylita screamed and scrambled back while Balat swung at his father. Shallan did not know much of swordplay. She had watched Balat and the others spar, but the only real fights she’d seen were duels at the fair. This was different. This was brutal. Father bashing his sword down again and again toward Balat, who blocked as best he could with his own sword. The clang of metal on metal, and above it all the storm. Each blow seemed to shake the room. Or was that the thunder? Balat stumbled before the onslaught, falling on one knee. Father batted the sword out of Balat’s fingers. Could it really be over that quickly? Only seconds had passed. Not like the duels at all. Father loomed over his son. “I’ve always despised you,” Father said. “The coward. Helaran was noble. He resisted me, but he had passion. You . . . you crawl about, whining and complaining.” Shallan moved up to him. “Father?” She handed the wine toward him. “He’s down. You’ve won.” “I always wanted sons,” Father said. “And I got four. All worthless! A coward, a drunkard, and a weakling.” He blinked. “Only Helaran . . . Only Helaran . . .” “Father?” Shallan said. “Here.” He took the wine, gulping it down. Balat grabbed his sword. Still on one knee, he struck with a lunge. Shallan screamed, and the sword made a strange clang as it barely missed Father, stabbing through his coat and out the back, connecting with something metallic. Father dropped the cup. It smashed, empty, to the ground. He grunted, feeling at his side. Balat pulled the sword back and stared upward at his father in horror. Father’s hand came back with a touch of blood on it, but not much. “That’s the best you have?” Father demanded. “Fifteen years of sword training, and that’s your best attack? Strike at me! Hit me!” He held his sword out to the side, raising his other hand. Balat started to blubber, sword slipping from his fingers. “Bah!” Father said. “Useless.” He tossed his sword onto the high table, then stepped over to the hearth. He grabbed an iron poker, then walked back. “Useless.” He slammed the poker down on Balat’s thigh. “Father!” Shallan screamed, trying to take his arm. He shoved her aside as he struck again, smashing his poker against Balat’s leg. Balat screamed. Shallan hit the ground hard, knocking her head against the floor. She could only hear
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what happened next. Shouts. The poker connecting with a sound like a dull thump. The storm raging above. “Why.” Smack. “Can’t.” Smack. “You.” Smack. “Do.” Smack. “Anything.” Smack. “Right?” Shallan’s vision cleared. Father drew deep breaths. Blood had splattered his face. Balat whimpered on the floor. Eylita held to him, face buried in his hair. Balat’s leg was a bloody mess. Wikim and Jushu still stood in the doorway to the hall, looking horrified. Father looked to Eylita, murder in his eyes. He raised his poker to strike. But then the weapon slipped from his fingers and clanged to the ground. He looked at his hand as if surprised, then stumbled. He grabbed the table for support, but fell to his knees, then slumped to the side. Rain pelted the roof. It sounded like a thousand scurrying creatures looking for a way into the building. Shallan forced herself to her feet. Coldness. Yes, she recognized that coldness inside of her now. She’d felt it before, on the day when she’d lost her mother. “Bind Balat’s wounds,” she said, approaching the weeping Eylita. “Use his shirt.” The woman nodded through her tears and began working with trembling fingers. Shallan knelt beside her father. He lay motionless, eyes open and dead, staring at the ceiling. “What . . . what happened?” Wikim asked. She hadn’t noticed him and Jushu timidly entering the room, rounding the table and joining her. Wikim peered over her shoulder. “Did Balat’s strike to the side . . .” Father was bleeding there; Shallan could feel it through the clothing. It wasn’t nearly bad enough to have caused this though. She shook her head. “You gave me something a few years ago,” she said. “A pouch. I kept it. You said it grows more potent over time.” “Oh, Stormfather,” Wikim said, raising his hand to his mouth. “The blackbane? You . . .” “In his wine,” Shallan said. “Malise is dead by the kitchen. He went too far.” “You’ve killed him,” Wikim said, staring at their father’s corpse. “You’ve killed him!” “Yes,” Shallan said, feeling exhausted. She stumbled over to Balat, then began helping Eylita with the bandages. Balat was conscious and grunting at the pain. Shallan nodded to Eylita, who fetched him some wine. Unpoisoned, of course. Father was dead. She’d killed him. “What is this?” Jushu asked. “Don’t do that!” Wikim said. “Storms! You’re going through his pockets already?” Shallan glanced over to see Jushu pulling something silvery from Father’s coat pocket. It was shrouded in a small black bag, mildly wet with blood, only pieces of it showing from where Balat’s sword had struck. “Oh, Stormfather,” Jushu said, pulling it out. The device consisted of several chains of silvery metal connecting three large gemstones, one of which was cracked, its glow lost. “Is this what I think it is?” “A Soulcaster,” Shallan said. “Prop me up,” Balat said as Eylita returned with the wine. “Please.” Reluctantly the girl helped him sit. His leg . . . his leg was not in good shape. They would need to
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get him a surgeon. Shallan stood, wiping bloodied hands on her dress, and took the Soulcaster from Jushu. The delicate metal was broken where the sword had struck it. “I don’t understand,” Jushu said. “Isn’t that blasphemy? Don’t those belong to the king, only to be used by ardents?” Shallan rubbed her thumb across the metal. She couldn’t think. Numbness . . . shock. That was it. Shock. I killed Father. Wikim yelped suddenly, jumping back. “His leg twitched.” Shallan spun on the body. Father’s fingers spasmed. “Voidbringers!” Jushu said. He looked up at the ceiling, and at the raging storm. “They’re here. They’re inside of him. It—” Shallan knelt next to the body. The eyes trembled, then focused on her. “It wasn’t enough,” she whispered. “The poison wasn’t strong enough.” “Oh, storms!” Wikim said, kneeling next to her. “He’s still breathing. It didn’t kill him, it just paralyzed him.” His eyes widened. “And he’s waking.” “We need to finish the job, then,” Shallan said. She looked to her brothers. Jushu and Wikim stumbled away, shaking their heads. Balat, dazed, was barely conscious. She turned back to her father. He was looking at her, his eyes moving easily now. His leg twitched. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, unhooking her necklace. “Thank you for what you did for me.” She wrapped the necklace around his neck. Then she began to twist. She used the handle of one of the forks that had fallen from the table as her father tried to steady himself. She looped one side of the closed necklace around it, and in twisting, pulled the chain very tight around Father’s throat. “Now go to sleep,” she whispered, “in chasms deep, with darkness all around you . . .” A lullaby. Shallan spoke the song through her tears—the song he’d sung for her as a child, when she was frightened. Red blood speckled his face and covered her hands. “Though rock and dread may be your bed, so sleep my baby dear.” She felt his eyes on her. Her skin squirmed as she held the necklace tight. “Now comes the storm,” she whispered, “but you’ll be warm, the wind will rock your basket . . .” Shallan had to watch as his eyes bulged out, his face turning colors. His body trembling, straining, trying to move. The eyes looked to her, demanding, betrayed. Almost, Shallan could imagine that the storm’s howls were part of a nightmare. That soon she would awaken in terror, and Father would sing to her. As he’d done when she was a child . . . “The crystals fine . . . will glow sublime . . .” Father stopped moving. “And with a song . . . you’ll sleep . . . my baby dear.” Kaladin caught Shallan’s hand. Boulders crashed above, smashing against the plateaus, breaking off chunks and tossing them down around him. Wind raged. Water swelled below, rising toward him. He clung to Shallan, but their wet hands started to slip. And then, in a sudden surge, her grip tightened. With a strength that
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seemed to belie her smaller form, she heaved. Kaladin shoved with his good leg as water washed over it, and forced himself up the remaining distance to join her in the rocky alcove. The hollow was barely three or four feet deep, shallower than the crack they’d hid in. Fortunately, it faced westward. Though icy wind twisted about and sprayed water on them, the brunt of the storm was broken by the plateau. Puffing, Kaladin pulled against the wall of the alcove, his injured leg smarting like nothing else, Shallan clinging to him. She was a warmth in his arms, and he held to her as much as she did him, both of them sitting hunched against the rock, his head brushing the top of the hollowed hole. The plateau shuddered, quivering like a frightened man. He couldn’t see much; the blackness was absolute except when lightning came. And the sound. Thunder crashing, seemingly disconnected from the sprays of lightning. Water roared like an angry beast, and the flashes illuminated a frothing, churning, raging river in the chasm. Damnation . . . it was almost up to their alcove. It had risen fifty or more feet in moments. The dirty water was filled with branches, broken plants, vines ripped from their mountings. “The sphere?” Kaladin asked in the blackness. “You had a sphere with you for light.” “Gone,” she shouted over the roar. “I must have dropped it when I grabbed you!” “I didn’t—” A crash of thunder, accompanied by a blinding flash of light, sent him stuttering. Shallan pulled more tightly against him, fingers digging into his arm. The light left an afterimage in his eyes. Storms. He could swear that afterimage was a face, horribly twisted, the mouth pulled open. The next lightning bolt lit the flood just outside with a sequence of crackling light, and it showed water bobbing with corpses. Dozens of them pulled past in the current, dead eyes toward the sky, many just empty sockets. Men and Parshendi. The water surged upward, and a few inches of it flooded the chamber. The water of dead men. The storm went dark again, as black as a cavern beneath the ground. Just Kaladin, Shallan, and the bodies. “That was,” Shallan said, her head near his, “the most surreal thing I’ve ever seen.” “Storms are strange.” “You speak from experience?” “Sadeas hung me out in one,” he said. “I was supposed to die.” That tempest had tried to rip the skin, then muscles, from his skeleton. Rain like knives. Lightning like a cauterizing iron. And a small figure, all white, standing before him with hands forward, as if to part the tempest for him. Tiny and frail, yet as strong as the winds themselves. Syl . . . what have I done to you? “I need to hear the story,” Shallan said. “I’ll tell it to you sometime.” Water washed up over them again. For a moment, they became lighter, floating in the sudden burst of water. The current pulled with unexpected strength, as if eager to tow them
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out into the river. Shallan screamed and Kaladin gripped the rock on either side, holding on in a panic. The river retreated, though he could still hear it rushing. They settled back into the alcove. Light came from above, too steady to be lightning. Something was glowing on the plateau. Something that moved. It was hard to see, since water streamed off the side of the plateau above, falling in a sheet before their refuge. He swore he saw an enormous figure walking up there, a glowing inhuman form, followed by another, alien and sleek. Striding the storm. Leg after leg, until the glow passed. “Please,” Shallan said. “I need to hear something other than that. Tell me.” He shivered, but nodded. Voices. Voices would help. “It started when Amaram betrayed me,” he said, tone hushed, just loud enough for her—pressed close—to hear. “He made me a slave for knowing the truth, that he’d killed my men in his lust to get a Shardblade. That it mattered more to him than his own soldiers, more to him than honor . . .” He continued on, talking of his days as a slave, of his attempts to escape. Of the men he’d gotten killed for trusting him. It gushed from him, a story he’d never told. Who would he have told it to? Bridge Four had lived most of it with him. He told her of the wagon and of Tvlakv—that name earned a gasp. She apparently knew him. He spoke of the numbness, the . . . nothing. The thinking he should kill himself, but the trouble believing that it was worth the effort. And then, Bridge Four. He didn’t talk about Syl. Too much pain there right now. Instead, he talked of bridge runs, of terror, of death, and of decision. Rain washed over them, blown in swirls, and he swore he could hear chanting out there somewhere. Some kind of strange spren zipped past their enclosure, red and violet and reminiscent of lightning. Was that what Syl had seen? Shallan listened. He would have expected questions from her, but she didn’t ask a single one. No pestering for details, no chattering. She apparently did know how to be quiet. He got through it all, amazingly. The last bridge run. Rescuing Dalinar. He wanted to spill it all out. He talked about facing the Parshendi Shardbearer, about how he’d offended Adolin, about holding the bridgehead on his own . . . When he finished, they both let the silence settle on them, and shared warmth. Together, they stared out at the rushing water just out of reach and lit by flashing. “I killed my father,” Shallan whispered. Kaladin looked toward her. In a flash of light, he saw her eyes as she looked up from where her head had been resting against his chest, beads of water on her eyelashes. With his hands around her waist, hers around him, it was as close as he’d held a woman since Tarah. “My father was a violent, angry man,” Shallan said. “A murderer.
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I loved him. And I strangled him as he lay on the floor, watching me, unable to move. I killed my own father . . .” He didn’t prod her, though he wanted to know. Needed to know. She went on, fortunately, speaking of her youth and the terrors she had known. Kaladin had thought his life terrible, but there was one thing he’d had, and perhaps not cherished enough: parents who loved him. Roshone had brought Damnation itself to Hearthstone, but at least Kaladin’s mother and father had always been there to rely upon. What would he have done, if his father had been like the abusive, hateful man Shallan described? If his mother had died before his own eyes? What would he have done if, instead of living off Tien’s light, he had been required to bring light to the family? He listened with wonder. Storms. Why wasn’t this woman broken, truly broken? She described herself that way, but she was no more broken than a spear with a chipped blade—and a spear like that could still be as sharp a weapon as any. He preferred one with a score or two on the blade, a worn handle. A spearhead that had known fighting was just . . . better than a new one. You could know it had been used by a man fighting for his life, and that it had remained sure and not broken. Marks like those were signs of strength. He did feel a chill as she mentioned her brother Helaran’s death, anger in her voice. Helaran had been killed in Alethkar. At Amaram’s hands. Storms . . . I killed him, didn’t I? Kaladin thought. The brother she loved. Had he told her about that? No. No, he hadn’t mentioned that he’d killed the Shardbearer, only that Amaram had killed Kaladin’s men to cover up his lust for the weapon. He’d gotten used to, over the years, referencing the event without mentioning that he’d killed a Shardbearer. His first few months as a slave had beaten into him the dangers of talking about an event like that. He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen into that habit of speaking here. Did she realize? Had she inferred that Kaladin, not Amaram, had been the one to actually kill the Shardbearer? She didn’t seem to have made that connection. She continued talking, speaking of the night—also during a storm—when she’d poisoned, then murdered her father. Almighty above. This woman was stronger than he’d ever been. “And so,” she continued, pressing her head back against his chest, “we decided that I would find Jasnah. She . . . had a Soulcaster, you see.” “You wanted to see if she could fix yours?” “That would have been too rational.” He couldn’t see her scowl at herself, but he heard it, somehow. “My plan—being stupid and naive—was to swap mine for hers and bring back a working one to make money for the family.” “You had never left your family’s lands before.” “Yes.” “And you went to rob one of the
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smartest women in the world?” “Er . . . yes. Remember that bit about ‘stupid and naive’? Anyway, Jasnah found out. Fortunately, I intrigued her and she agreed to take me on as a ward. The marriage to Adolin was her idea, a way to protect my family while I trained.” “Huh,” he said. Lightning flashed outside. The winds seemed to be building even further, if that was possible, and he had to raise his voice even though Shallan was right there. “Generous, for a woman you intended to rob.” “I think she saw something in me that—” Silence. Kaladin blinked. Shallan was gone. He panicked for a moment, searching about himself, until he realized that his leg no longer hurt and the fuzziness in his head—from blood loss, shock, and possible hypothermia—was gone too. Ah, he thought. This again. He took a deep breath and stood up, stepping out of the blackness to the lip of the opening. The stream below had stopped, as if frozen solid, and the opening of the alcove—which Shallan had made far too low to stand up in—could now hold him standing at full height. He looked out and met the gaze of a face as wide as eternity itself. “Stormfather,” Kaladin said. Some named him Jezerezeh, Herald. This didn’t fit what Kaladin had heard of any Herald, however. Was the Stormfather a spren, perhaps? A god? It seemed to stretch forever, yet he could see it, make out the face in its infinite expanse. The winds had stopped. Kaladin could hear his own heartbeat. CHILD OF HONOR. It spoke to him this time. Last time, in the middle of the storm, it had not—though it had done so in dreams. Kaladin looked to the side, again checking to see if Shallan was there, but he couldn’t see her any longer. She wasn’t part of this vision, whatever it was. “She’s one of them, isn’t she?” he asked. “Of the Knights Radiant, or at least a Surgebinder. That’s what happened when fighting the chasmfiend, that’s how she survived the fall. It wasn’t me either time. It was her.” The Stormfather rumbled. “Syl,” Kaladin said, looking back to the face. The plateaus in front of him had vanished. It was just him and the face. He had to ask. It hurt him, but he had to. “What have I done to her?” YOU HAVE KILLED HER. The voice shook everything. It was as if . . . as if the shaking of the plateau and his own body made the sounds for the voice. “No,” Kaladin whispered. “No!” IT HAPPENED AS IT ONCE DID, the Stormfather said, angry. A human emotion. Kaladin recognized it. MEN CANNOT BE TRUSTED, CHILD OF TANAVAST. YOU HAVE TAKEN HER FROM ME. MY BELOVED ONE. The face seemed to withdraw, fading. “Please!” Kaladin screamed. “How can I fix it? What can I do?” IT CANNOT BE FIXED. SHE IS BROKEN. YOU ARE LIKE THE ONES WHO CAME BEFORE, THE ONES WHO KILLED SO MANY OF THOSE I LOVE. FAREWELL, SON OF HONOR.
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YOU WILL NOT RIDE MY WINDS AGAIN. “No, I—” The storm returned. Kaladin collapsed back into the alcove, gasping at the sudden restoration of pain and cold. “Kelek’s breath!” Shallan said. “What was that?” “You saw the face?” Kaladin asked. “Yes. So vast . . . I could see stars in it, stars upon stars, infinity . . .” “The Stormfather,” Kaladin said, tired. He reached around beneath him for something that was suddenly glowing. A sphere, the one Shallan had dropped earlier. It had gone dun, but was now renewed. “That was amazing,” she whispered. “I need to draw it.” “Good luck,” Kaladin said, “in this rain.” As if to punctuate his point, another wave of it washed over them. It would swirl in between the chasms, twisting about and sometimes blowing back at them. They sat in water a few inches deep, but it didn’t threaten to pull them away again. “My poor drawings,” Shallan said, pulling her satchel to her breast with her safehand as she held to him—the only thing to hold to—with her other. “The satchel is waterproof, but . . . I don’t know that it’s highstorm-proof.” Kaladin grunted, staring out at the rushing water. There was a mesmerizing pattern to it, surging with broken plants and leaves. No corpses, not anymore. The flowing water rose in a large bump before them, as if rushing over something large beneath. The chasmfiend’s carcass, he realized, was still wedged down there. It was too heavy for even the flood to budge. They fell silent. With light, the need to speak had passed, and though he considered confronting her about what he was increasingly sure she was, he said nothing. Once they were free, there would be time. For now, he wanted to think—though he was still glad for her presence. And aware of it in more ways than one, pushed against him and wearing the wet, increasingly tattered dress. His conversation with the Stormfather, however, drew his attention away from that sort of thought. Syl. Had he really . . . killed her? He had heard her weeping earlier, hadn’t he? He tried, just out of futile experimentation, to pull in some Stormlight. He kind of wanted Shallan to see, to gauge her reaction. It didn’t work, of course. The storm slowly passed, the floodwaters receding bit by bit. After the rains slackened to the level of an ordinary storm, the waters started flowing in the other direction. It was as he’d always assumed, though never seen. Now rain was falling more on the ground west of the Plains than on the Plains themselves, and the drainage was all to the east. The river churned—far more lethargically—back out the way it had come. The chasmfiend’s corpse emerged from the river. Then, finally, the flood was done—the river reduced to a trickle, the rain a drizzle. The drops that dripped from the plateaus above were far larger and heavier than the rain itself. He shifted to move to climb down, but realized that Shallan, curled up against him, had
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fallen asleep. She snored softly. “You must be the only person,” he whispered, “to ever fall asleep while outside in a highstorm.” Uncomfortable though he was, he realized he really didn’t fancy the idea of climbing down with this wounded leg. Strength sapped, feeling a crushing darkness at what the Stormfather had said about Syl, he let himself succumb to the numbness, and fell asleep. “At least speak with him, Dalinar,” Amaram said. The man walked quickly to match Dalinar’s pace, his cloak of the Knights Radiant billowing behind him, as they inspected the lines of troops loading up wagons with supplies for the trip out onto the Shattered Plains. “Come to an accommodation with Sadeas before you leave. Please.” Dalinar, Navani, and Amaram passed a group of spearmen running to get into place with their battalion, which was counting ranks. Just beyond them, the men and women of the camp acted similarly excited. Cremlings scuttled this way and that, moving through pools of water left by the storm. Last night’s highstorm was the final one of the season. Sometime tomorrow, the Weeping would begin. Wet though it would be, it provided a window. Safety from storms, time to strike out. He planned to leave by midday. “Dalinar?” Amaram asked. “Will you talk to him?” Careful, Dalinar thought. Don’t make any judgments just yet. This had to be done with precision. At his side, Navani eyed him. He’d shared his plans regarding Amaram with her. “I—” Dalinar began. A series of horns interrupted him, blaring above through the camp. They seemed more urgent than usual. A chrysalis had been spotted. Dalinar counted the rhythms, placing the plateau location. “Too far,” he said, pointing to one of his scribes, a tall, lanky woman that often helped Navani with her experiments. “Who is on the schedule for today’s runs?” “Highprinces Sebarial and Roion, sir,” the scribe said, consulting her ledger. Dalinar grimaced. Sebarial never sent troops, even when commanded. Roion was slow. “Send the signal flags to tell those two the gemheart is too far out to try for. We’ll be marching for the Parshendi camp later today, and I can’t have some of our troops splitting off and running for a gemheart.” He made the order as if either man would commit any troops to his march. He had hopes for Roion. Almighty send that the man didn’t get frightened at the last minute and refuse to go on the expedition. The attendant rushed away to call off the plateau run. Navani pointed to a group of scribes who were tabulating supply lists, and he nodded, stopping while she walked over to talk to the women and get an estimate on readiness. “Sadeas won’t like a gemheart being left unharvested,” Amaram said as the two of them waited. “When he hears you called off the run, he’ll send his own troops for it.” “Sadeas will do as he wishes, regardless of my intervention.” “Each time you allow him to disobey openly,” Amaram said, “it drives a wedge between him and the Throne.” Amaram
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took Dalinar by the arm. “We have bigger problems than you and Sadeas, my friend. Yes, he betrayed you. Yes, he likely will again. But we can’t afford to let the two of you go to war. The Voidbringers are coming.” “How can you be certain of that, Amaram?” Dalinar asked. “Instinct. You gave me this title, this position, Dalinar. I can feel something from the Stormfather himself. I know that a disaster is coming. Alethkar needs to be strong. That means you and Sadeas working together.” Dalinar shook his head slowly. “No. The opportunity for Sadeas to work with me has long since passed. The road to unity in Alethkar is not at the table of negotiation, it’s out there.” Across the plateaus, to the Parshendi camp, wherever it was. An end to this war. Closure for both him and his brother. Unite them. “Sadeas wants you to try this expedition,” Amaram said. “He’s certain you will fail.” “And when I do not,” Dalinar said, “he will lose all credibility.” “You don’t even know where you’ll find the Parshendi!” Amaram said, throwing his hands into the air. “What are you going to do, just wander out there until you run across them?” “Yes.” “Madness. Dalinar, you appointed me to this position—an impossible position, mind you—with the charge to be a light to all nations. I’m finding it hard to even get you to listen to me. Why should anyone else?” Dalinar shook his head, looking eastward, over those broken plains. “I have to go, Amaram. The answers are out there, not here. It’s like we walked all the way to the shore, then huddled there for years, peering out at the waters but afraid to get wet.” “But—” “Enough.” “Eventually, you’re going to have to give away authority and let it stay given, Dalinar,” Amaram said softly. “You can’t hold it all, pretending you aren’t in charge, but then ignore orders and advice as if you were.” The words, problematically truthful, slapped him hard. He did not react, not outwardly. “What of the matter I assigned you?” Dalinar asked him. “Bordin?” Amaram said. “So far as I can tell, his story checks out. I really think that the madman is only raving about having had a Shardblade. It’s patently ridiculous that he might have actually had one. I—” “Brightlord!” A breathless young woman in a messenger uniform—narrow skirt slit up the sides, with silk leggings beneath—scrambled up to him. “The plateau!” “Yes,” Dalinar said, sighing. “Sadeas is sending out troops?” “No, sir,” the woman said, flush in the cheeks from her run. “Not . . . I mean . . . He came out of the chasms.” Dalinar frowned, looking sharply toward her. “Who?” “Stormblessed.” * * * Dalinar ran the entire way. When he drew close to the triage pavilion at the edge of camp—normally reserved for tending to the wounded who came back from plateau runs—he had trouble seeing because of the crowd of men in cobalt blue uniforms blocking the path. A surgeon was yelling for them to
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back up and give him room. Some of the men saw Dalinar and saluted, hastily pulling out of the way. The blue parted like waters blown in a storm. And there he was. Ragged, hair matted in snarls, face scratched and leg wrapped in an improvised bandage. He sat on a triage table and had removed his uniform coat, which sat on the table beside him, tied into a round bundle with what looked like a vine wrapping it. Kaladin looked up as Dalinar approached, and then moved to pull himself to his feet. “Soldier, don’t—” Dalinar began, but Kaladin didn’t listen. He hauled himself up tall, using a spear to support his bad leg. Then he raised hand to breast, a slow motion, as if the arm were tied with weights. It was, Dalinar figured, the most tired salute he’d ever seen. “Sir,” Kaladin said. Exhaustionspren puffed around Kaladin like little jets of dust. “How . . .” Dalinar said. “You fell into a chasm!” “I fell face-first, sir,” Kaladin said, “and fortunately, I’m particularly hard-headed.” “But . . .” Kaladin sighed, leaning on his spear. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t really know how I survived. Some spren were involved, we think. Anyway, I hiked back through the chasms. I had a duty to see to.” He nodded to the side. Farther into the triage tent, Dalinar saw something he hadn’t originally noticed. Shallan Davar—a tangle of red hair and ripped clothing—sat amid a pack of surgeons. “One future daughter-in-law,” Kaladin said, “delivered safe and sound. Sorry about the damage done to the packaging.” “But there was a highstorm!” Dalinar said. “We really wanted to get back before that,” Kaladin said. “Ran into some troubles along the way, I’m afraid.” With lethargic movements, he took out his side knife and cut the vines off the package beside him. “You know how everyone kept saying there was a chasmfiend prowling about in the nearby chasms?” “Yes . . .” Kaladin lifted the remnants of his coat away from the table, revealing a massive green gemstone. Though bulbous and uncut, the gemheart shone with a powerful inner light. “Yeah,” Kaladin said, taking the gemheart in one hand and tossing it to the ground before Dalinar. “We took care of that for you, sir.” In the blink of an eye, gloryspren replaced his exhaustionspren. Dalinar stared mutely at the gemheart as it rolled and tapped against the front of his boot, its light almost blinding. “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic, bridgeman,” Shallan called. “Brightlord Dalinar, we found the beast already dead and rotting in the chasm. We survived the highstorm by climbing up its back to a crack in the side of the plateau, where we waited out the rains. We could only get the gemheart out because the thing was half-rotted already.” Kaladin looked to her, frowning. He turned back to Dalinar almost immediately. “Yes,” Kaladin said. “That’s what happened.” He was a far worse liar than Shallan was. Amaram and Navani finally arrived, the former having remained behind to escort the latter.
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Navani gasped when she saw Shallan, then ran to her, snapping angrily at the surgeons. She fussed and bustled around Shallan, who seemed far less the worse for wear than Kaladin, despite the terrible state of her dress and hair. In moments, Navani had Shallan wrapped in a blanket to cover her exposed skin, then she sent a runner back to prepare a warm bath and meal at Dalinar’s complex, to be had in whichever order Shallan wished. Dalinar found himself smiling. Navani pointedly ignored Shallan’s protests that none of this was necessary. The mother axehound had finally emerged. Shallan was apparently no longer an outsider, but one of Navani’s clutch—and Chana help the man or woman who stood between Navani and one of her own. “Sir,” Kaladin said, finally letting the surgeons settle him back on the table. “The soldiers are gathering supplies. The battalions forming up. Your expedition?” “You needn’t worry, soldier,” Dalinar said. “I could hardly expect you to guard me in your state.” “Sir,” Kaladin said, more softly, “Brightness Shallan found something out there. Something you need to know. Talk to her before you set out.” “I’ll do so,” Dalinar said. He waited for a moment, then waved the surgeons aside. Kaladin seemed to be in no immediate danger. Dalinar stepped closer, leaning in. “Your men waited for you, Stormblessed. They skipped meals, pulled triple shifts. I half think they’d have sat out here, at the head of the chasms, through the highstorm itself if I hadn’t intervened.” “They are good men,” Kaladin said. “It’s more than that. They knew you would return. What is it they understand about you that I don’t?” Kaladin met his eyes. “I’ve been searching for you, haven’t I?” Dalinar said. “All this time, without seeing it.” Kaladin looked away. “No, sir. Maybe once, but . . . I’m just what you see, and not what you think. I’m sorry.” Dalinar grunted, inspecting Kaladin’s face. He had almost thought . . . But perhaps not. “Give him anything he wants or needs,” Dalinar said to the surgeons, letting them approach. “This man is a hero. Again.” He withdrew, letting the bridgemen crowd around—which, of course, started the surgeons cursing at them again. Where had Amaram gone? The man had been here just a few minutes ago. As the palanquin arrived for Shallan, Dalinar decided to follow and find out just what it was that Kaladin said the girl knew. * * * One hour later, Shallan snuggled into a nest of warm blankets, wet hair on her neck, smelling of flowered perfume. She wore one of Navani’s dresses—which was too big for her. She felt like a child in her mother’s clothing. That was, perhaps, exactly what she was. Navani’s sudden affection was unexpected, but Shallan would certainly accept it. The bath had been glorious. Shallan wanted to curl up on this couch and sleep for ten days. For the moment, however, she let herself revel in the distinctive feeling of being clean, warm, and safe for the first time in what seemed
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like an eternity. “You can’t take her, Dalinar.” Navani’s voice came from Pattern on the table beside Shallan’s couch. She didn’t feel a moment’s guilt for sending him to spy on the two of them while she bathed. After all, they had been talking about her. “This map . . .” Dalinar’s voice said. “She can draw you a better map and you can take it.” “She can’t draw what she hasn’t seen, Navani. She’ll need to be there, with us, to draw out the center of the pattern on the Plains once we penetrate in that direction.” “Someone else—” “Nobody else has been able to do this,” Dalinar said, sounding awed. “Four years, and none of our scouts or cartographers saw the pattern. If we’re going to find the Parshendi, I’m going to need her. I’m sorry.” Shallan winced. She was not doing a very good job of keeping her drawing ability hidden. “She just got back from that terrible place,” Navani’s voice said. “I won’t let a similar accident occur. She will be safe.” “Unless you all die,” Navani snapped. “Unless this entire expedition is a disaster. Then everything will be taken from me. Again.” Pattern stopped, then spoke further in his own voice. “He held her at this point, and whispered some things I did not hear. From there, they got very close and made some interesting noises. I can reproduce—” “No,” Shallan said, blushing. “Too private.” “Very well.” “I need to go with them,” Shallan said. “I need to complete that map of the Shattered Plains and find some way to correlate it with the ancient ones of Stormseat.” It was the only way to find the Oathgate. Assuming it wasn’t destroyed in whatever shattered the Plains, Shallan thought. And, if I do find it, will I even be able to open it? Only one of the Knights Radiant was said to be able to open the pathway. “Pattern,” she said softly, clutching a mug of warmed wine, “I’m not a Radiant, right?” “I do not think so,” he said. “Not yet. There is more to do, I believe, though I cannot be certain.” “How can you not know?” “I was not me when the Knights Radiant existed. It is complex to explain. I have always existed. We are not ‘born’ as men are, and we cannot truly die as men do. Patterns are eternal, as is fire, as is the wind. As are all spren. Yet, I was not in this state. I was not . . . aware.” “You were a mindless spren?” Shallan said. “Like the ones that gather around me when I draw?” “Less than that,” Pattern said. “I was . . . everything. In everything. I cannot explain it. Language is insufficient. I would need numbers.” “Surely there are others among you, though,” Shallan said. “Older Cryptics? Who were alive back then?” “No,” Pattern said softly. “None who experienced the bond.” “Not a single one?” “All dead,” Pattern said. “To us, this means they are mindless—as a force cannot truly be destroyed. These
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old ones are patterns in nature now, like Cryptics unborn. We have tried to restore them. It does not work. Mmmm. Perhaps if their knights still lived, something could be done . . .” Stormfather. Shallan pulled the blanket around her closer. “An entire people, all killed?” “Not just one people,” Pattern said, solemn. “Many. Spren with minds were less plentiful then, and the majorities of several spren peoples were all bonded. There were very few survivors. The one you call Stormfather lived. Some others. The rest, thousands of us, were killed when the event happened. You call it the Recreance.” “No wonder you’re certain I will kill you.” “It is inevitable,” Pattern said. “You will eventually betray your oaths, breaking my mind, leaving me dead—but the opportunity is worth the cost. My kind is too static. We always change, yes, but we change in the same way. Over and over. It is difficult to explain. You, though, you are vibrant. Coming to this place, this world of yours, I had to give up many things. The transition was . . . traumatic. My memory returns slowly, but I am pleased at the chance. Yes. Mmm.” “Only a Radiant can open the pathway,” Shallan said, then took a sip of her wine. She liked the warmth it built inside of her. “But we don’t know why, or how. Maybe I’ll count as enough of a Radiant to make it work.” “Perhaps,” Pattern said. “Or you could progress. Become more. There is something more you must do.” “Words?” Shallan said. “You have said the Words,” Pattern said. “You said them long ago. No . . . it is not words that you lack. It is truth.” “You prefer lies.” “Mmm. Yes, and you are a lie. A powerful one. However, what you do is not just lie. It is truth and lie mixed. You must understand both.” Shallan sat in thought, finishing her wine, until the door to the sitting room burst open, letting in Adolin. He stopped, wild-eyed, regarding her. Shallan stood up, smiling. “It appears that I have failed at properly—” She cut off as he grabbed her in an embrace. Drat. She’d had a perfectly clever quip prepared too. She’d worked on it during the entire bath. Still, it was nice to be held. This was the most physically forward he’d ever been. Surviving an impossible journey did have its benefits. She let herself wrap her arms around him, feel the muscles on his back through his uniform, breathe in his cologne. He held her for several heartbeats. Not enough. She twisted her head and forced a kiss, her mouth enclosing his, firm in his embrace. Adolin melted into the kiss, and did not pull back. Eventually, though, the perfect moment ended. Adolin took her head in his hands, looking into her eyes, and smiled. Then he grabbed her in another hug and laughed that barking, exuberant laugh of his. A real laugh, the one of which she was so fond. “Where were you?” she asked. “Visiting the other highprinces,”
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Adolin said, “one at a time and delivering Father’s final ultimatum—to join us in this assault, or forever be known as those who refused to see the Vengeance Pact fulfilled. Father thought giving me something to do would help distract me from . . . well, you.” He leaned back, holding her by the arms, and gave her a silly grin. “I have pictures to draw for you,” Shallan said, grinning back. “I saw a chasmfiend.” “A dead one, right?” “Poor thing.” “Poor thing?” Adolin said, laughing. “Shallan, if you’d seen a live one, you’d have surely been killed!” “Almost surely.” “I still can’t believe . . . I mean, you fell. I should have saved you. Shallan, I’m sorry. I ran for Father first—” “You did what you should have,” she said. “No person on that bridge would have had you rescue one of us instead of your father.” He embraced her once more. “Well, I won’t let it happen again. Nothing like it. I’ll protect you, Shallan.” She stiffened. “I will make sure you aren’t ever hurt,” Adolin said fiercely. “I should have realized that you could be caught in an assassination attempt intended for Father. We’ll have to make it so that you aren’t ever in that kind of position again.” She pulled away from him. “Shallan?” Adolin said. “Don’t worry, they won’t get to you. I’ll protect you. I—” “Don’t say things like that,” she hissed. “What?” He ran his hand through his hair. “Just don’t,” Shallan said, shivering. “The man who did this, who threw that lever, is dead now,” Adolin said. “Is that what you’re worried about? He was poisoned before we could get answers—though we’re sure he belonged to Sadeas—but you don’t need to worry about him.” “I will worry about what I wish to worry about,” Shallan said. “I don’t need to be protected.” “But—” “I don’t!” Shallan said. She breathed in and out, calming herself. She reached out and took him by the hand. “I won’t be locked away again, Adolin.” “Again?” “It’s not important.” Shallan raised his hand and wove his fingers between her own. “I appreciate the concern. That’s all that matters.” But I won’t let you, or anyone else, treat me like a thing to be hidden away. Never, never again. Dalinar opened the door into his study, letting Navani pass through first, then followed her into the room. Navani looked serene, her face a mask. “Child,” Dalinar said to Shallan, “I have a somewhat difficult request to make of you.” “Anything you wish, Brightlord,” Shallan said, bowing. “But I do wish to make a request of you in turn.” “What is it?” “I need to accompany you on your expedition.” Dalinar smiled, shooting a glance at Navani. The older woman did not react. She can be so good with her emotions, Shallan thought. I can’t even read what she’s thinking. That would be a useful skill to learn. “I believe,” Shallan said, looking back to Dalinar, “that the ruins of an ancient city are hidden on the Shattered Plains.
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Jasnah was searching for them. So, then, must I.” “This expedition will be dangerous,” Navani said. “You understand the risks, child?” “Yes.” “One would think,” Navani continued, “that considering your recent ordeal, you would wish for a time of shelter.” “Uh, I wouldn’t say things like that to her, Aunt,” Adolin said, scratching at his head. “She’s kind of funny about them.” “It is not a matter of humor,” Shallan said, lifting her head high. “I have a duty.” “Then I shall allow it,” Dalinar said. He liked anything having to do with duty. “And your request of me?” Shallan asked him. “This map,” Dalinar said, crossing the room and holding up the crinkled map detailing her path back through the chasms. “Navani’s scholars say this is as accurate as any map we have. You can truly expand this? Deliver a map of the entire Shattered Plains?” “Yes.” Particularly if she used what she remembered of Amaram’s map to fill in some details. “But Brightlord, might I make a suggestion?” “Speak.” “Leave your parshmen behind in the warcamp,” she said. He frowned. “I cannot accurately explain why,” Shallan said, “but Jasnah felt that they were dangerous. Particularly to bring out onto the Plains. If you wish my help, if you trust me to create this map for you, then trust me on this one single point. Leave the parshmen. Conduct this expedition without them.” Dalinar looked to Navani, who shrugged. “Once our things are packed, they won’t be needed really. The only ones inconvenienced will be the officers, who will have to set up their own tents.” Dalinar considered, chewing on her request. “This comes from Jasnah’s notes?” Dalinar asked. Shallan nodded. To the side, blessedly, Adolin piped in. “She’s told me some of it, Father. You should listen to her.” Shallan shot him a grateful smile. “Then it shall be done,” Dalinar said. “Gather your things and send word to your uncle Sebarial, Brightness. We’re leaving within the hour. Without parshmen.” THE END OF Part Four “Congratulations,” Brother Lhan said. “You have found your way to the easiest job in the world.” The young ardent pursed her lips, looking him up and down. She had obviously not expected her new mentor to be rotund, slightly drunk, and yawning. “You are the . . . senior ardent I’ve been assigned to?” “‘To whom I’ve been assigned,’” Brother Lhan corrected, putting an arm around the young woman’s shoulders. “You’re going to have to learn how to speak punctiliously. Queen Aesudan likes to feel that those around her are refined. It makes her feel refined by association. My job is to mentor you on these items.” “I have been an ardent here in Kholinar for over a year,” the woman said. “I hardly think that I need mentoring at all—” “Yes, yes,” Brother Lhan said, guiding her out of the monastery’s entryway. “It’s just that, you see, your superiors say you might need a little extra direction. Being assigned to the queen’s own retinue is a marvelous privilege! One, I understand, you have requested
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with some measure of . . . ah . . . persistence.” She walked with him, and each step revealed her reluctance. Or perhaps confusion. They passed into the Circle of Memories, a round room with ten lamps on the walls, one for each of the ancient Epoch Kingdoms. An eleventh lamp represented the Tranquiline Halls, and a large ceremonial keyhole set into the wall represented the need for ardents to ignore borders, and look only at the hearts of men . . . or something like that. He wasn’t sure, honestly. Outside the Circle of Memories, they entered one of the covered walkways between monastery buildings, a light rain sprinkling the rooftops. The last leg of the walkways, the sunwalk, gave a wonderful view of Kholinar—at least on a clear day. Even today, Lhan could see much of the city, as both the temple and the high palace occupied a flat-topped hill. Some said that the Almighty himself had drawn Kholinar in rock, scooping out sections of ground with a fluent finger. Lhan wondered how drunk he’d been at the time. Oh, the city was beautiful, but it was the beauty of an artist who wasn’t quite right in the mind. The rock took the shape of rolling hills and steeply sloping valleys, and when the stone was cut into, it exposed thousands of brilliant strata of red, white, yellow, and orange. The most majestic formations were the windblades—enormous, curving spines of rock that cut through the city. Beautifully lined with colorful strata on the sides, they curved, curled, rose, and fell unpredictably, like fish leaping from the ocean. Supposedly, this all had to do with how the winds blew through the area. He did mean to get around to studying why that was. One of these days. Slippered feet fell softly on glossy marble, accompanying the sound of the rains, as Lhan escorted the girl—what was her name again? “Look at that city,” he said. “Everyone out there has to work, even the lighteyes. Bread to bake, lands to oversee, cobblestones to . . . ah . . . cobble? No, that’s shoes. Damnation. What do you call people who cobble, but don’t actually cobble?” “I don’t know,” the young woman said softly. “Well, it’s no matter to us. You see, we have only one job, and it’s an easy one. To serve the queen.” “That is not easy work.” “But it is!” Lhan said. “So long as we’re all serving the same way. In a very . . . ah . . . careful way.” “We are sycophants,” the young woman said, staring out over the city. “The queen’s ardents tell her only what she wants to hear.” “Ah, and here we are, at the point of the matter.” Lhan patted her on the arm. What was her name again? They’d told it to him. . . . Pai. Not a very Alethi name; she’d probably chosen it upon being made an ardent. It happened. A new life, a new name, often a simple one. “You see, Pai,” he
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said, watching to notice if she reacted. Yes, it did seem he’d gotten the name right. His memory must be improving. “This is what your superiors wanted me to talk to you about. They fear that if you’re not properly instructed, you might cause a bit of a storm here in Kholinar. Nobody wants that.” He and Pai passed other ardents along the sunwalk, and Lhan nodded to them. The queen had a lot of ardents. A lot of ardents. “Here’s the thing,” Lhan said. “The queen . . . she sometimes worries that maybe the Almighty isn’t pleased with her.” “Rightly so,” Pai said. “She—” “Hush, now,” Lhan said, wincing. “Just . . . hush. Listen. The queen figures that if she treats her ardents well, it will buy her favor with the One who makes the storms, so to speak. Nice food. Nice robes. Fantastic quarters. Lots of free time to do whatever we want. We get these things as long as she thinks she’s on the right path.” “Our duty is to give her the truth.” “We do!” Lhan said. “She’s the Almighty’s chosen, isn’t she? Wife of King Elhokar, ruler while he’s off fighting a holy war of retribution against the regicides on the Shattered Plains. Her life is very hard.” “She throws feasts every night,” Pai whispered. “She engages in debauchery and excess. She wastes money while Alethkar languishes. People in outer towns starve as they send food here, with the understanding that it will be passed on to soldiers who need it. It rots because the queen can’t be bothered.” “They have plenty of food on the Shattered Plains,” Lhan said. “They’ve got gemstones coming out of their ears there. And nobody is starving here either. You’re exaggerating. Life is good.” “It is if you’re the queen or one of her lackeys. She even canceled the Beggars’ Feasts. It is reprehensible.” Lhan groaned inside. This one . . . this one was going to be hard. How to persuade her? He wouldn’t want the child to do anything that endangered her. Or, well, him. Mostly him. They entered the palace’s grand eastern hall. The carved pillars here were considered one of the greatest artworks of all time, and one could trace their history back to before the shadowdays. The gilding on the floor was ingenious—a lustrous gold that had been placed beneath Soulcast ribbons of crystal. It ran like rivulets between floor mosaics. The ceiling had been decorated by Oolelen himself, the great ardent painter, and depicted a storm blowing in from the east. All of this could have been crem in the gutter for the reverence Pai gave it. She seemed to see only the ardents strolling about, contemplating the beauty. And eating. And composing new poems for Her Majesty—though honestly, Lhan avoided that sort of thing. It seemed like work. Perhaps Pai’s attitude came from a residual jealousy. Some ardents were envious of the queen’s personal chosen. He tried to explain some of the luxuries that were now hers: warm baths, horseback riding using
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the queen’s personal stables, music and art . . . Pai’s expression grew darker with each item. Bother. This wasn’t working. New plan. “Here,” Lhan said, steering her toward the steps. “There’s something I want to show you.” The steps twisted down through the palace complex. He loved this place, every bit of it. White stone walls, golden sphere lamps, and an age. Kholinar had never been sacked. It was one of the few eastern cities that hadn’t suffered that fate in the chaos after the Hierocracy’s fall. The palace had burned once, but that fire had died out after consuming the eastern wing. Rener’s miracle, it was called. The arrival of a highstorm to put out the fire. Lhan swore the place still smelled of smoke, three hundred years later. And . . . Oh, right. The girl. They continued down the steps and eventually entered the palace kitchens. Lunch had ended, though that didn’t stop Lhan from snatching a plate of fried bread, Herdazian style, from the counter as they passed. Plenty was laid out for the queen’s favorites, who might find themselves peckish at any time. Being a proper sycophant could work up an appetite. “Trying to lure me with exotic foods?” Pai asked. “For the past five years, I have eaten only a bowl of boiled tallew for each meal, with a piece of fruit on special occasions. This will not tempt me.” Lhan stopped in place. “You’re not serious, are you?” She nodded. “What is wrong with you?” She blushed. “I am of the Devotary of Denial. I wished to experience separation from the physical needs of my—” “This is worse than I thought,” Lhan said, taking her by the hand and pulling her through the kitchens. Near the back, they found the door leading out to the service yard, where supplies were delivered and refuse taken away. There, shaded from the rain by an awning, they found piles of uneaten food. Pai gasped. “Such waste! You bring me here to convince me not to make a storm? You are doing quite the opposite!” “There used to be an ardent who took all of this and distributed it to the poor,” Lhan said. “She died a few years back. Since then, the others have made some effort to take care of it. Not much, but some. The food does get taken away eventually, usually dumped into the square to be picked through by beggars. It’s mostly rotten by then.” Storms. He could almost feel the heat of her anger. “Now,” Lhan said, “if there were an ardent among us whose only hunger was to do good, think how much she could accomplish. Why, she could feed hundreds just from what is wasted.” Pai eyed the piles of rotting fruit, the sacks of open grain, now ruined in the rain. “Now,” Lhan said, “let us contemplate the opposite. If some ardent tried to take away that which we have . . . well, what might happen to her?” “Is that a threat?” she asked softly. “I do not
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fear physical harm.” “Storms,” Lhan said. “You think we’d— Girl, I have someone else put my slippers on for me in the morning. Don’t be dense. We’re not going to hurt you. Too much work.” He shivered. “You’d get sent away, quickly and quietly.” “I do not fear that either.” “I doubt you fear anything,” Lhan said, “except maybe having a little fun. But what good would it do anyone if you were sent away? Our lives wouldn’t change, the queen would remain the same, and that food out there would still spoil. But if you stay, you can do good. Who knows, maybe your example will help all of us reform, eh?” He patted her on the shoulder. “Think about it for a few minutes. I want to go finish my bread.” He wandered off, checking over his shoulder a few times. Pai settled down beside the heaps of rotting food and stared at them. She didn’t seem bothered by the ripe odor. Lhan watched her from inside until he got bored. When he got back from his afternoon massage, she was still there. He ate dinner in the kitchen, which wasn’t terribly luxurious. The girl was entirely too interested in those heaps of garbage. Finally, as evening fell, he ambled back to her. “Don’t you even wonder?” she asked, staring at those piles of refuse, rain pattering just beyond. “Don’t you stop to think about the cost of your gluttony?” “Cost?” he asked. “I told you nobody starves because we—” “I don’t mean the monetary cost,” she whispered. “I mean the spiritual cost. To you, to those around you. Everything’s wrong.” “Oh, it’s not that bad,” he said, settling down. “It is. Lhan, it’s bigger than the queen, and her wasteful feasts. It wasn’t much better before that, with King Gavilar’s hunts and the wars, princedom against princedom. The people hear of the glory of the battle on the Shattered Plains, of the riches there, but none of it ever materializes here. “Does anyone among the Alethi elite care about the Almighty anymore? Sure, they curse by his name. Sure, they talk about the Heralds, burn glyphwards. But what do they do? Do they change their lives? Do they listen to the Arguments? Do they transform, recasting their souls into something greater, something better?” “They have Callings,” Lhan said, fidgeting with his fingers. Digiting, then? “The devotaries help.” She shook her head. “Why don’t we hear from Him, Lhan? The Heralds said we defeated the Voidbringers, that Aharietiam was the great victory for mankind. But shouldn’t He have sent them to speak with us, to counsel us? Why didn’t they come during the Hierocracy and denounce us? If what the Church had been doing was so evil, where was the word of the Almighty against it?” “I . . . Surely you’re not suggesting we return to that?” He pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed at his neck and head. This conversation was getting worse and worse. “I don’t know what I’m suggesting,” she whispered. “Only that something is wrong.
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All of this is just so very wrong.” She looked to him, then climbed to her feet. “I have accepted your proposal.” “You have?” “I will not leave Kholinar,” she said. “I will stay here and do what good I can.” “You won’t get the other ardents into trouble?” “My problem is not with the ardents,” she said, offering a hand to help him to his feet. “I will simply try to be a good example for all to follow.” “Well, then. That seems like a fine choice.” She walked off, and he dabbed his head. She hadn’t promised, not exactly. He wasn’t certain how worried he should be about that. Turned out, he should have been very worried. The next morning, he stumbled into the People’s Hall—a large, open building in the shadow of the palace where the king or queen addressed the concerns of the masses. A murmuring crowd of horrified ardents stood just inside the perimeter. Lhan had already heard, but he had to see for himself. He forced his way to the front. Pai knelt on the floor here, head bowed. She’d painted all night, apparently, writing glyphs on the floor by spherelight. Nobody had noticed. The place was usually locked up tight when not in use, and she’d started working well after everyone was either asleep or drunk. Ten large glyphs, written directly on the stone of the floor running up to the dais with the king’s Common Throne. The glyphs listed the ten foolish attributes, as represented by the ten fools. Beside each glyph was a written paragraph in women’s script explaining how the queen exemplified each of the fools. Lhan read with horror. This . . . this didn’t just chastise. It was a condemnation of the entire government, of the lighteyes, and of the Throne itself! Pai was executed the very next morning. The riots started that evening. That voice deep within Eshonai still screamed. Even when she didn’t attune the old Rhythm of Peace. She kept herself busy to quiet it, walking the perfectly circular plateau just outside of Narak, the one where her soldiers often practiced. Her people had become something old, yet something new. Something powerful. They stood in lines on this plateau, humming to Fury. She divided them by combat experience. A new form would not a soldier make; many of these had been workers all their lives. They would have a part to play. They would bring about something grand. “The Alethi will come,” Venli said, strolling at Eshonai’s side and absently bringing energy to her fingers and letting it play between two of them. Venli smiled often while wearing this new form. Otherwise, it didn’t seem to have changed her at all. Eshonai knew that she herself had changed. But Venli . . . Venli acted the same. Something felt wrong about that. “The agent who sent this report is certain of it,” Venli continued. “Your visit to the Blackthorn seems to have encouraged them to action, and the humans intend to strike toward Narak in force. Of
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course, this could still turn into a disaster.” “No,” Eshonai said. “No. It is perfect.” Venli looked to her, stopping on the rock field. “We need no more training. We should act, right now, to bring a highstorm.” “We will do it when the humans near,” Eshonai said. “Why? Let us do it tonight.” “Foolishness,” Eshonai said. “This is a tool to use in battle. If we produce an unexpected storm now, the Alethi won’t come, and we won’t win this war. We must wait.” Venli seemed thoughtful. Finally, she smiled, then nodded. “What do you know that you aren’t telling me?” Eshonai demanded, taking her sister by the shoulder. Venli smiled more broadly. “I’m simply persuaded. We must wait. The storm will blow the wrong way, after all. Or is it all other storms that have blown the wrong way, and this one will be the first to blow the right way?” The wrong way? “How do you know? About the direction?” “The songs.” The songs. But . . . they said nothing about . . . Something deep within Eshonai nudged her to move on. “If that is true,” she said, “we’ll have to wait until the humans are practically on top of us to catch them in it.” “Then that is what we do,” Venli said. “I will set to the teaching. Our weapon will be ready.” She spoke to the Rhythm of Craving, a rhythm like the old Rhythm of Anticipation, but more violent. Venli walked away, joined by her once-mate and many of her scholars. They seemed comfortable in these forms. Too comfortable. They couldn’t have held these forms before . . . could they? Eshonai shoved down the screams and went to prepare another battalion of new soldiers. She had always hated being a general. How ironic, then, that she would be recorded in their songs as the warleader who had finally crushed the Alethi. Taravangian, king of Kharbranth, awoke to stiff muscles and an ache in his back. He didn’t feel stupid. That was a good sign. He sat up with a groan. Those aches were perpetual now, and his best healers could only shake their heads and promise him that he was fit for his age. Fit. His joints cracked like logs on the fire and he couldn’t stand quickly, lest he lose his balance and topple to the floor. To age truly was to suffer the ultimate treason, that of one’s body against oneself. He sat up in his cot. Water lapped quietly against the hull of his cabin, and the air smelled of salt. He heard shouts in the near distance, however. The ship had arrived on schedule. Excellent. As he settled himself, one servant approached with a table and another with a warm, wet cloth for wiping his eyes and hands. Behind them waited the King’s Testers. How long had it been since Taravangian had been alone, truly alone? Not since before the aches had come upon him. Maben knocked on the open door, bearing his morning meal on a tray,
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stewed and spiced grain mush. It was supposed to be good for his constitution. Tasted like dishwater. Bland dishwater. Maben stepped forward to set out the meal, but Mrall—a Thaylen man in a black leather cuirass who wore both his head and eyebrows shaved—stopped her with a hand to the arm. “Tests first,” Mrall said. Taravangian looked up, meeting the large man’s gaze. Mrall could loom over a mountain and intimidate the wind itself. Everyone assumed he was Taravangian’s head bodyguard. The truth was more disturbing. Mrall was the one who got to decide whether Taravangian would spend the day as king or as a prisoner. “Surely you can let him eat first!” Maben said. “This is an important day,” Mrall said, voice low. “I would know the result of the testing.” “But—” “It is his right to demand this, Maben,” Taravangian said. “Let us be on with it.” Mrall stepped back, and the testers approached, a group of three stormwardens in deliberately esoteric robes and caps. They presented a series of pages covered in figures and glyphs. They were today’s variation on a sequence of increasingly challenging mathematical problems devised by Taravangian himself on one of his better days. He picked up his pen with hesitant fingers. He did not feel stupid, but he rarely did. Only on the worst of days did he immediately recognize the difference. On those days, his mind was thick as tar, and he felt like a prisoner in his own mind, aware that something was profoundly wrong. Today wasn’t one of those, fortunately. He wasn’t a complete idiot. At worst, he’d just be very stupid. He set to his task, solving what mathematical problems he could. It took the better part of an hour, but during the process, he was able to gauge his capacity. As he had suspected, he was not terribly smart—but he was not stupid, either. Today . . . he was average. That would do. He turned over the problems to the stormwardens, who consulted in low voices. They turned to Mrall. “He is fit to serve,” one proclaimed. “He may not offer binding commentary on the Diagram, but he may interact outside of supervision. He may change government policy so long as there is a three-day delay before the changes take effect, and he may also freely pass judgment in trials.” Mrall nodded, looking to Taravangian. “Do you accept this assessment and these restrictions, Your Majesty?” “I do.” Mrall nodded, then stepped back, allowing Maben to set out Taravangian’s morning meal. The trio of stormwardens tucked away the papers he’d filled out, then they retreated to their own cabins. The testing was an extravagant procedure, and consumed valuable time each morning. Still, it was the best way he had found to deal with his condition. Life could be tricky for a man who awoke each morning with a different level of intelligence. Particularly when the entire world might depend upon his genius, or might come crashing down upon his idiocy. “How is it out there?” Taravangian asked softly, picking at
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his meal, which had gone cold during the testing. “Horrible,” Mrall said with a grin. “Just as we wanted it.” “Do not take pleasure in suffering,” Taravangian replied. “Even when it is a work of our hands.” He took a bite of the mush. “Particularly when it is a work of our hands.” “As you wish. I will do so no more.” “Can you really change that easily?” Taravangian asked. “Turn off your emotions on a whim?” “Of course,” Mrall said. Something about that tickled at Taravangian, some thread of interest. If he had been in one of his more brilliant states, he might have seized upon it—but today, he sensed thought seeping away like water between fingers. Once, he had fretted about these missed opportunities, but he had eventually made his peace. Days of brilliance—he had come to learn—brought their own problems. “Let me see the Diagram,” he said. Anything to distract from this slop they insisted on feeding him. Mrall stepped aside, allowing Adrotagia—head of Taravangian’s scholars—to approach, bearing a thick, leatherbound volume. She set it onto the table before Taravangian, then bowed. Taravangian rested his fingers upon the leatherbound cover, feeling a moment of . . . reverence? Was that right? Did he revere anything anymore? God was dead, after all, and Vorinism therefore a sham. This book, though, was holy. He opened it to one of the pages marked with a reed. Inside were scribbles. Frenetic, bombastic, majestic scribbles that had been painstakingly copied from the walls of his former bedroom. Sketches laid atop one another, lists of numbers that seemed to make no sense, lines upon lines upon lines of script written in a cramped hand. Madness. And genius. Here and there, Taravangian could find hints that this writing was his own. The way he wiggled a line, the way he wrote along the edge of a wall, much like how he would write along the side of a page when he was running out of room. He didn’t remember any of this. It was the product of twenty hours of lucid insanity, the most brilliant he had ever been. “Does it strike you as odd, Adro,” Taravangian asked the scholar, “that genius and idiocy are so similar?” “Similar?” Adrotagia asked. “Vargo, I do not see them as similar at all.” He and Adrotagia had grown up together, and she still used Taravangian’s boyhood nickname. He liked that. It reminded him of days before all of this. “On both my most stupid days and my most incredible,” Taravangian said, “I am unable to interact with those around me in a meaningful way. It is like . . . like I become a gear that cannot fit those turning beside it. Too small or too large, it does not matter. The clock will not work.” “I had not considered that,” Adrotagia said. When Taravangian was at his stupidest, he was not allowed from his room. Those were the days he spent drooling in a corner. When he was merely dull-minded, he was allowed out under supervision. He spent
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those nights crying for what he had done, knowing that the atrocities he committed were important, but not understanding why. When he was dull, he could not change policy. Interestingly, he had decided that when he was too brilliant, he was also not allowed to change policy. He’d made this decision after a day of genius where he’d thought to fix all of Kharbranth’s problems with a series of very rational edicts—such as requiring people to take an intelligence test of his own devising before being allowed to breed. So brilliant on one hand. So stupid on another. Is that your joke here, Nightwatcher? he wondered. Is that the lesson I’m to learn? Do you even care about lessons, or is what you do to us merely for your own amusement? He turned his attention back to the book, the Diagram. That grand plan he had devised on his singular day of unparalleled brilliance. Then, too, he’d spent the day staring at a wall. He’d written on it. Babbling the whole time, making connections no man had ever before made, he had scribbled all over his walls, floor, even parts of the ceiling he could reach. Most of it had been written in an alien script—a language he himself had devised, for the scripts he had known had been unable to convey ideas precisely enough. Fortunately, he’d thought to carve a key on the top of his bedside table, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to make sense of his masterpiece. They could barely make sense of it anyway. He flipped through several pages, copied exactly from his room. Adrotagia and her scholars had made notations here and there, offering theories on what various drawings and lists might mean. They wrote those in the women’s script, which Taravangian had learned years ago. Adrotagia’s notes on one page indicated that a picture there appeared to be a sketch of the mosaic on the floor of the Veden palace. He paused on that page. It might have relevance to this day’s activities. Unfortunately, he wasn’t smart enough today to make much sense of the book or its secrets. He had to trust that his smarter self was correct in his interpretations of his even smarter self’s genius. He shut the book and put down his spoon. “Let us be on with it.” He stood up and left the cabin, Mrall on one side of him and Adrotagia on the other. He emerged into sunlight and to the sight of a smoldering coastal city, complete with enormous terraced formations—like plates, or sections of shalebark, the remnants of city covering them and practically spilling over the sides. Once, this sight had been wondrous. Now, it was black, the buildings—even the palace—destroyed. Vedenar, one of the great cities of the world, was now little more than a heap of rubble and ash. Taravangian idled by the rail. When his ship had sailed into the harbor the night before, the city had been dotted with the red glow of burning buildings. Those had seemed alive. More alive than
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this. The wind was blowing in off the ocean, pushing at him from behind. It swept the smoke inland, away from the ship, so that Taravangian could barely smell it. An entire city burned just beyond his fingertips, and yet the stench vanished into the wind. The Weeping would come soon. Perhaps it would wash away some of this destruction. “Come, Vargo,” Adrotagia said. “They are waiting.” He nodded, joining her in climbing into the rowboat for tendering to shore. There had once been grand docks for this city. No more. One faction had destroyed them in an attempt to keep out the others. “It’s amazing,” Mrall said, settling down into the tender beside him. “I thought you said you weren’t going to be pleased any longer,” Taravangian said, stomach turning as he saw one of the heaps at the edge of the city. Bodies. “I am not pleased,” Mrall said, “but in awe. Do you realize that the Eighty’s War between Emul and Tukar has lasted six years, and hasn’t produced nearly this level of desolation? Jah Keved ate itself in a matter of months!” “Soulcasters,” Adrotagia whispered. It was more than that. Even in his painfully normal state, Taravangian could see it was so. Yes, with Soulcasters to provide food and water, armies could march at speed—no carts or supply lines to slow them—and commence a slaughter in almost no time at all. But Emul and Tukar had their share of Soulcasters as well. Sailors started rowing them toward shore. “There was more,” Mrall said. “Each highprince sought to seize the capital. That made them converge. It was almost like the wars of some Northern savages, with a time and place appointed for the shaking of spears and chanting of threats. Only here, it depopulated a kingdom.” “Let us hope, Mrall, that you make an overstatement,” Taravangian said. “We will need this kingdom’s people.” He turned away, stifling a moment of emotion as he saw bodies upon the rocks of the shore, men who had died by being shoved over the side of a nearby cliff into the ocean. That ridge normally sheltered the dock from highstorms. In war, it had been used to kill, one army pressing the other back off the drop. Adrotagia saw his tears, and though she said nothing, she pursed her lips in disapproval. She did not like how emotional he became when he was low of intellect. And yet, he knew for a fact that the old woman still burned a glyphward each morning as a prayer for her deceased husband. A strangely devout action for blasphemers such as they. “What is the day’s news from home?” Taravangian asked to draw attention from the tears he wiped away. “Dova reports that the number of Death Rattles we’re finding has dropped even further. She didn’t find a single one yesterday, and only two the day before.” “Moelach moves, then,” Taravangian said. “It is certain now. The creature must have been drawn by something westward.” What now? Did Taravangian suspend the murders? His heart yearned to—but
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if they could discover even one more glimmer about the future, one fact that could save hundreds of thousands, would it not be worth the lives of the few now? “Tell Dova to continue the work,” he said. He had not anticipated that their covenant would attract the loyalty of an ardent, of all things. The Diagram, and its members, knew no boundaries. Dova had discovered their work on her own, and they’d needed to either induct her or assassinate her. “It will be done,” Adrotagia said. The boatmen moved them up alongside some smoother rocks at the harbor’s edge, then hopped out into the water. The men were servants of his, and were part of the Diagram. He trusted them, for he needed to trust some people. “Have you researched that other matter I requested?” Taravangian asked. “It is a difficult matter to answer,” Adrotagia said. “The exact intelligence of a man is impossible to measure; even your tests only give us an approximation. The speed at which you answer questions and the way you answer them . . . well, it lets us make a judgment, but it is a crude one.” The boatmen hauled them up onto the stony beach with ropes. Wood scraped stone with an awful sound. At least it covered up the moans in the near distance. Adrotagia took a sheet from her pocket and unfolded it. Upon it was a graph, with dots plotted in a kind of hump shape, a small trail to the left rising to a mountain in the center, then falling off in a similar curve to the right. “I took your last five hundred days’ test results and assigned each one a number between zero and ten,” Adrotagia said. “A representation of how intelligent you were that day, though as I said, it is not exact.” “The hump near the middle?” Taravangian asked, pointing. “When you were average intelligence,” Adrotagia said. “You spend most of your time near there, as you can see. Days of pure intelligence and days of ultimate stupidity are both rare. I had to extrapolate from what we had, but I think this graph is somewhat accurate.” Taravangian nodded, then allowed one of the boatmen to help him debark. He had known that he spent more days average than he did otherwise. What he had asked her to figure out, however, was when he could expect another day like the one during which he’d created the Diagram. It had been years now since that day of transcendent mastery. She climbed out of the boat and Mrall followed. She stepped up to him with her sheet. “So this is where I was most intelligent,” Taravangian said, pointing at the last point on the chart. It was far to the right, and very close to the bottom. A representation of high intelligence and a low frequency of occurrence. “This was that day, that day of perfection.” “No,” Adrotagia said. “What?” “That was the time you were the most intelligent during the last five hundred days,” Adrotagia explained. “This
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point represents the day you finished the most complex problems you’d left for yourself, and the day you devised new ones for use in future tests.” “I remember that day,” he said. “It was when I solved Fabrisan’s Conundrum.” “Yes,” she said. “The world may thank you for that, someday, if it survives.” “I was smart on that day,” he said. Smart enough that Mrall had declared he needed to be locked in the palace, lest he reveal his nature. He’d been convinced that if he could just explain his condition to the city, they would all listen to reason and let him control their lives perfectly. He’d drafted a law requiring that all people of less than average intellect be required to commit suicide for the good of the city. It had seemed reasonable. He had considered they might resist, but thought that the brilliance of the argument would sway them. Yes, he had been smart on that day. But not nearly as smart as the day of the Diagram. He frowned, inspecting the paper. “This is why I can’t answer your question, Vargo,” Adrotagia said. “That graph, it’s what we call a logarithmic scale. Each step from that center point is not equal—they compound on one another the farther out you get. How smart were you on the day of the Diagram? Ten times smarter than your smartest otherwise?” “A hundred,” Taravangian said, looking at the graph. “Maybe more. Let me do the calculations. . . .” “Aren’t you stupid today?” “Not stupid. Average. I can figure this much. Each step to the side is . . .” “A measureable change in intelligence,” she said. “You might say that each step sideways is a doubling of your intelligence, though that is hard to quantify. The steps upward are easier; they measure how frequently you have days of the given intelligence. So if you start at the center of the peak, you can see that for every five days you spend being average, you spend one day being mildly stupid and one day mildly smart. For every five of those, you spend one day moderately stupid and one day moderately genius. For every five days like that . . .” Taravangian stood on the rocks, his soldiers waiting above, as he counted on the graph. He moved sideways off the graph until he reached the point where he guessed the day of the Diagram might have been. Even that seemed conservative to him. “Almighty above . . .” he whispered. Thousands of days. Thousands upon thousands. “It should never have happened.” “Of course it should have,” she said. “But it’s so unlikely as to be impossible!” “It’s perfectly possible,” she said. “The likelihood of it having happened is one, as it already occurred. That is the oddity of outliers and probability, Taravangian. A day like that could happen again tomorrow. Nothing forbids it. It’s all pure chance, so far as I can determine. But if you want to know the likelihood of it happening again . . .” He nodded. “If
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you were to live another two thousand years, Vargo,” she said, “you’d maybe have one single day like this among them. Maybe. Even odds, I’d say.” Mrall snorted. “So it was luck.” “No, it was simple probability.” “Either way,” Taravangian said, folding the paper. “This was not the answer I wanted.” “Since when has it mattered what we want?” “Never,” he said. “And it never will.” He tucked the sheet into his pocket. They picked their way up the rocks, passing corpses bloated from too long in the sun, and joined a small group of soldiers at the top of the beach. They wore the burnt-orange crest of Kharbranth. He had few soldiers to his name. The Diagram called for his nation to be unthreatening. The Diagram was not perfect, however. They caught errors in it now and then. Or . . . not truly errors, just missed guesses. Taravangian had been supremely brilliant that day, but he had not been able to see the future. He had made educated guesses—very educated—and had been right an eerie amount of the time. But the farther they went from that day and the knowledge he’d had then, the more the Diagram needed tending and cultivation to stay on course. That was why he’d hoped for another such day soon, a day to revamp the Diagram. That would not come, most likely. They would have to continue, trusting in that man that he had once been, trusting his vision and understanding. Better that than anything else in this world. Gods and religion had failed them. Kings and highlords were selfish, petty things. If he was going to trust one thing to believe in, it would be himself and the raw genius of a human mind unfettered. It was difficult at times, though, to stay the course. Particularly when he faced the consequences of his actions. They entered the battlefield. Most of the fighting had apparently moved outside of the city, once the fire began. The men had continued warring even as their capital burned. Seven factions. The Diagram had guessed six. Would that matter? A soldier handed him a scented handkerchief to hold over his face as they passed the dead and dying. Blood and smoke. Scents he would come to know all too well before this was through. Men and women in the burnt-orange livery of Kharbranth picked through the dead and wounded. Throughout the East, the color had become synonymous with healing. Indeed, tents flying his banner—the banner of the surgeon—dotted the battlefield. Taravangian’s healers had arrived just before the battle, and had started ministering to the wounded immediately. As he left the fields of the dead, Veden soldiers began to stand up from where they sat in a dull-eyed stupor at the edges of the battlefield. Then they started to cheer him. “Pali’s mind,” Adrotagia said, watching them rise. “I don’t believe it.” The soldiers sat separated in groups by banner, being tended to by Taravangian’s surgeons, water-bearers, and comforters. Wounded and unwounded alike, any who could stand rose for the king
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of Kharbranth and cheered him. “The Diagram said it would happen,” Taravangian said. “I thought for certain that was an error,” she replied, shaking her head. “They know,” Mrall said. “We are the only victors this day. Our healers, who earned the respect of all sides. Our comforters who helped the dying pass. Their highlords brought them only misery. You brought them life and hope.” “I brought them death,” Taravangian whispered. He had ordered the execution of their king, along with specific highprinces the Diagram indicated. In doing so, he had pushed the various factions into war with one another. He had brought this kingdom to its knees. Now they cheered him for it. He forced himself to stop with one of the groups, asking after their health, seeing if there was anything he could do for them. It was important to be seen by the people as a compassionate man. The Diagram explained this in casual sterility, as if compassion were something one could measure in a cup next to a pint of blood. He visited another group of soldiers, then a third. Many stepped up to him, touching his arms or his robe, weeping tears of thanks and joy. Many more of the Veden soldiers remained sitting in the tents, however, staring out over the fields of dead. Numb of mind. “The Thrill?” he whispered to Adrotagia as they left the latest group of men. “They fought through the night as their capital burned. It must have been in force.” “I agree,” she said. “It gives us a further reference point. The Thrill is at least as strong here as it is in Alethkar. Maybe stronger. I will speak to our scholars. Perhaps this will help pinpoint Nergaoul.” “Do not spend too much effort on that,” Taravangian said, approaching another group of Veden soldiers. “I’m not sure what we would even do if we found the thing.” An ancient, evil spren was not something he had the resources to tackle. Not yet at least. “I would rather know where Moelach is moving.” Hopefully, Moelach hadn’t decided to slumber again. The Death Rattles had, so far, offered them the best way that they’d found to augment the Diagram. There was one answer, however, he’d never been able to determine. One he’d give almost anything to know. Would all of this be enough? He met with the soldiers, and adopted the air of a kindly—if not bright—old man. Caring and helpful. He was almost that man in truth, today. He tried to do an imitation of himself when he was a little dumber. People accepted that man, and when he was of that intellect, he did not need to feign compassion nearly as much as he did when smarter. Blessed with intelligence, cursed with compassion to feel pain for what he had done. They came inversely. Why couldn’t he have both at once? He did not think that in other people, intelligence and compassion were tied in such a way. The Nightwatcher’s motives behind her boons and curses were unfathomable. Taravangian moved
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through the crowd of men, listening to them beg for more relief and for drugs to ease their pain. Listening to their thanks. These soldiers had suffered a fight that—even yet—seemed to have no victor. They wanted something to hold to, and Taravangian was neutral, supposedly. It was shocking how easily they bared their souls to him. He came to the next soldier in line, a cloaked man clutching an apparently broken arm. Taravangian looked into the man’s hooded eyes. It was Szeth-son-son-Vallano. Taravangian felt a moment of sheer panic. “We need to speak,” the Shin man said. Taravangian grabbed the assassin by the arm, hauling him away from the crowd of Veden soldiers. With his other hand, Taravangian felt in his pocket for the Oathstone he carried on his person at all times. He pulled it out just to see. Yes, it was no fake. Damnation, seeing Szeth there had made him think that he’d been bested somehow, the stone stolen and Szeth sent to kill him. Szeth let himself be pulled away. What had he said? That he needed to talk, you fool, Taravangian thought to himself. If he’d come to kill you, you would be dead. Had Szeth been seen here? What would people say if they saw Taravangian interacting with a bald Shin man? Rumors had started from less. If anyone got even a hint that Taravangian had been involved with the infamous Assassin in White . . . Mrall noticed immediately that something was wrong. He barked orders to the guards, separating Taravangian from the Veden soldiers. Adrotagia—who had been sitting with crossed arms nearby, watching and tapping her foot—leaped to stride over. She peeked at the person under the hood, then gasped, the color draining from her face. “How dare you come here?” Taravangian said to Szeth, speaking under his breath while maintaining a cheerful pose and expression. He was of only average intelligence today, but he was still a king, raised and trained to the court. He could maintain his composure. “A problem has arisen,” Szeth said, face hooded, voice emotionless. Speaking to this creature was like speaking to one of the dead themselves. “Why have you failed to kill Dalinar Kholin?” Adrotagia demanded with quiet urgency. “We know you fled. Return and do the job!” Szeth glanced at her, but did not reply. She did not hold his Oathstone. He did seem to note her, however, with those too-blank eyes of his. Damnation. Their plan had been to keep Szeth from meeting or knowing of Adrotagia, just in case he decided to turn against Taravangian and kill him. The Diagram hypothesized this possibility. “Kholin has a Surgebinder,” Szeth said. So, Szeth knew about Jasnah. Had she faked her death, then, as he’d suspected? Damnation. The battlefield seemed to grow still. To Taravangian, the moans of the wounded faded away. Everything narrowed to just him and Szeth. Those eyes. The tone of the man’s voice. A dangerous tone. What— He spoke with emotion, Taravangian realized. That last sentence was said with passion. It had sounded
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like a plea. As if Szeth’s voice were being squeezed on the sides. This man was not sane. Szeth-son-son-Vallano was the most dangerous weapon on all of Roshar, and he was broken. Storms, why couldn’t this have happened on a day when Taravangian had more than half a wit? “What makes you say this?” Taravangian said, trying to buy time for his mind to lumber through the implications. He held Szeth’s Oathstone before him, almost as if it could chase away problems like a superstitious woman’s glyphward. “I fought him,” Szeth said. “He protected Kholin.” “Ah, yes,” Taravangian said, thinking furiously. Szeth had been banished from Shinovar, made Truthless for something relating to a claim that the Voidbringers had returned. If he discovered that he wasn’t wrong about that claim, then what— Him? “You fought a Surgebinder?” Adrotagia said, glancing at Taravangian. “Yes,” Szeth said. “An Alethi man who fed upon Stormlight. He healed a Blade-severed arm. He is . . . Radiant . . .” That strain in his voice did not sound safe. Taravangian glanced at Szeth’s hands. They were clenching into fists time and time again, like hearts beating. “No, no,” Taravangian said. “I have learned this only recently. Yes, it makes sense now. One of the Honorblades has vanished.” Szeth blinked, and he focused on Taravangian, as if returning from a distant place. “One of the other seven?” “Yes,” Taravangian said. “I have heard only hints. Your people are secretive. But yes . . . I see, it is one of the two that allow Regrowth. Kholin must have it.” Szeth swayed back and forth, though he did not seem conscious of the motion. Even now, he moved with a fighter’s grace. Storms. “This man I fought,” Szeth said, “he summoned no Blade.” “But he used Stormlight,” Taravangian said. “Yes.” “So he must have an Honorblade.” “I . . .” “It is the only explanation.” “It . . .” Szeth’s voice grew colder. “Yes, the only explanation. I will kill him and retrieve it.” “No,” Taravangian said firmly. “You are to return to Dalinar Kholin and do the task assigned you. Do not fight this other man. Attack when he is not present.” “But—” “Have I your Oathstone?” Taravangian demanded. “Is my word to be questioned?” Szeth stopped swaying. His gaze locked with Taravangian’s. “I am Truthless. I do as my master requires, and I do not ask for an explanation.” “Stay away from the man with the Honorblade,” Taravangian repeated. “Kill Dalinar.” “It will be done.” Szeth turned and strode away. Taravangian wanted to yell further instructions. Don’t be seen! Don’t ever come to me in public again! Instead, he sat right there on the path, composure crumbling. He gasped, trembling, sweat streaming down his brow. “Stormfather,” Adrotagia said, settling on the ground beside him. “I thought we were dead.” Servants brought Taravangian a chair while Mrall made excuses for him. The king is overcome with grief at the deaths of so many. He is old, you know. And so caring . . . Taravangian breathed in
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and out, struggling to regain control. He looked to Adrotagia, who sat in the middle of a circle of servants and soldiers, all sworn to the Diagram. “Who is it?” he asked softly. “Who is this Surgebinder?” “Jasnah’s ward?” Adrotagia said. They had been startled when that one arrived on the Shattered Plains. Already they hypothesized that the girl had been trained. If not by Jasnah, then by the girl’s brother, before his death. “No,” Taravangian said. “A male. One of Dalinar’s family members?” He thought for a time. “We need the Diagram itself.” She went to fetch it from the ship. Nothing else—his visits to the soldiers, more important meetings with Veden leaders—mattered right now. The Diagram was off. They strayed into dangerous territory. She returned with it, and with the stormwardens, who set up a tent around Taravangian right there on the path. Excuses continued. The king is weak from the sun. He must rest and burn glyphwards to the Almighty for the preservation of your nation. Taravangian cares while your own lighteyes sent you to the slaughter . . . By the light of spheres, Taravangian picked through the tome, poring over translations of his own words written in a language he had invented and then forgotten. Answers. He needed answers. “Did ever I tell you, Adro, what I asked for?” he whispered as he read. “Yes.” He was barely listening. “Capacity,” he whispered, turning a page. “Capacity to stop what was coming. The capacity to save humankind.” He searched. He was not brilliant today, but he had spent many days reading these pages, going over, and over, and over passages. He knew them. The answers would be here. They would. Taravangian worshipped only one god now. It was the man he had been on that day. There. He found it on a reproduction of one corner of his room, where he’d written in tiny script sentences over the top of one another because he’d run out of space. In his clarity of genius, the sentences had looked easy to separate, but it had taken his scholars years to piece together what this said. They will come. You cannot stop their oaths. Look for those who survive when they should not. That pattern will be your clue. “The bridgemen,” Taravangian whispered. “What?” Adrotagia asked. Taravangian looked up, blinking bleary eyes. “Dalinar’s bridgemen, the ones he took from Sadeas. Did you read the account of their survival?” “I didn’t think it important. Just another game of power between Sadeas and Dalinar.” “No. It’s more.” They had survived. Taravangian stood up. “Wake every Alethi sleeper we have; send every agent in the area. There will be stories told of one of these bridgemen. Miraculous survival. Favored of the winds. One is among them. He might not know yet exactly what he’s doing, but he has bonded a spren and sworn at least the First Ideal.” “If we find him?” Adrotagia asked. “We keep him away from Szeth at all costs.” Taravangian handed her the Diagram. “Our lives depend upon it. Szeth
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is a beast who gnaws at his leg to escape his bonds. If he gets free . . .” She nodded, moving off to do as he commanded. She hesitated at the flaps to their temporary tent. “We might have to reassess our methods of determining your intelligence. What I have seen in the last hour makes me question whether ‘average’ can be applied to you today.” “The assessments are not inaccurate,” he said. “You simply underestimate the average man.” Besides, in dealing with the Diagram, he might not remember what he had written or why—but there were echoes sometimes. She left, making way as Mrall stepped in. “Your Majesty,” he said. “Time runs short. The highprince is dying.” “He’s been dying for years.” Still, Taravangian did hasten his step—as much as he was capable of doing these days—as he resumed his hike. He didn’t stop with any more of the soldiers, and gave only brief waves toward the cheers he received. Eventually, Mrall led him over a hillside away from the immediate stench of the battle and the smoldering city. A series of stormwagons here flew an optimistic flag, that of the king of Jah Keved. The guards there let Taravangian enter their ring of wagons, and he approached the largest one, an enormous vehicle almost like a mobile building on wheels. They found Highprince Valam . . . King Valam . . . in bed coughing. His hair had fallen out since Taravangian had last seen him, and his cheeks were so sunken that rainwater would have pooled in them. Redin, the king’s bastard son, stood at the foot of the bed, head bowed. With the three guards who stood in the room, there wasn’t room for Taravangian, so he stopped in the doorway. “Taravangian,” Valam said, then coughed into his handkerchief. The cloth came back bloodied. “You’ve come for my kingdom, have you?” “I don’t know what you mean, Your Majesty,” Taravangian said. “Don’t play coy,” Valam snapped. “I can’t stand it in women or in rivals. Stormfather . . . I don’t know what they’re going to make of you. I half think they’ll have you assassinated by the end of the week.” He waved with a sickly hand, all draped in cloth, and the guards made way for Taravangian to enter the small bedchamber. “Clever ploy,” the king said. “Sending that food, those healers. The soldiers love you, I’ve heard. What would you have done if one side had won decisively?” “I’d have had a new ally,” Taravangian said. “Grateful for my aid.” “You helped all sides.” “But the winner the most, Your Majesty,” Taravangian said. “We can minister to survivors, but not the dead.” Valam coughed again, a great hacking mess. His bastard stepped up, concerned, but the king waved him back. “Would have figured,” the king said to him between wheezes, “you’d be the only one of my children to live, bastard.” He turned to Taravangian. “Turns out, you have a legitimate claim on the throne, Taravangian. Through your mother’s side, I think? A marriage
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to a Veden princess some three generations back?” “I am not aware,” Taravangian said. “Didn’t you hear me about being coy?” “We both have a role to play in this production, Your Majesty,” Taravangian said. “I am merely speaking the lines as they were written.” “You talk like a woman,” Valam said. He spat blood to the side. “I know what you’re up to. In a week or so, after caring for my people, your scribes will ‘discover’ your claim on the throne. You’ll reluctantly step in to save the kingdom, as urged by my own storming people.” “I see you’ve had the script read to you,” Taravangian said softly. “That assassin will come for you.” “He very well might.” That was the truth. “Don’t know why I even storming tried for this throne,” Valam said. “At least I’ll die as king.” He heaved a deep breath, then raised his hand, gesturing impatiently at the scribes huddled outside the room. The women perked up, peeking around Taravangian. “I’m making this idiot my heir,” Valam said, waving at Taravangian. “Ha! Let the other highprinces chew on that.” “They’re dead, Your Majesty,” Taravangian said. “What? All of them?” “Yes.” “Even Boriar?” “Yes.” “Huh,” Valam said. “Bastard.” At first, Taravangian thought that was a reference to one of the deceased. Then, however, he noticed the king waving at his illegitimate son. Redin stepped up, going onto one knee beside the bed as Taravangian made room. Valam struggled with something beneath his blankets; his side knife. Redin helped him get it out, then held the knife awkwardly. Taravangian inspected this Redin, curious. This was the king’s ruthless executioner that he had read about? This concerned, helpless-looking man? “Through my heart,” Valam said. “Father, no . . .” Redin said. “Through my storming heart!” Valam shouted, spraying bloody spittle across his sheet. “I won’t lie here and let Taravangian coax my own servants into poisoning me. Do it, boy! Or can’t you do a single thing that—” Redin slammed the knife down into his father’s chest with such force, it made Taravangian jump. Redin then stood, saluted, and shoved his way out of the room. The king heaved a final gasp, eyes glazing over. “So the night will reign, for the choice of honor is life . . .” Taravangian raised an eyebrow. A Death Rattle? Here, now? Blast, and he wasn’t in a position where he could write down the exact phrasing. He’d have to remember it. Valam’s life faded away until he was simply meat. A Shardblade appeared from vapor beside the bed, then thumped to the wooden floor of the wagon. Nobody reached for it, and the soldiers in the room and scribes outside it looked to Taravangian, then knelt. “Cruel, what Valam did to that one,” Mrall said, nodding toward the bastard, who shoved his way out of the stormwagon and into the light. “More than you know,” Taravangian said, reaching out to touch the knife protruding through blanket and clothing from the old king’s chest. He hesitated, fingers inches from the handle.
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“The bastard will be known as a patricide on the official records. If he had interest in the throne, this will make it . . . difficult for him, even more so than his parentage.” Taravangian pulled his fingers away from the knife. “Might I have a moment with the fallen king? I would speak a prayer for him.” The others left him, even Mrall. They shut the small door, and Taravangian sat down on the stool beside the corpse. He had no intention of saying any sort of prayer, but he did want a moment. Alone. To think. It had worked. Just as the Diagram instructed, Taravangian was king of Jah Keved. He had taken the first major step toward unifying the world, as Gavilar had insisted would need to happen if they were to survive. That was, at least, what the visions had proclaimed. Visions Gavilar had confided in him six years ago, the night of the Alethi king’s death. Gavilar had seen visions of the Almighty, who was also now dead, and of a coming storm. Unite them. “I am doing my best, Gavilar,” Taravangian whispered. “I am sorry that I need to kill your brother.” That would not be the only sin upon his head when this was done. Not by a faint breeze or a stormwind. He wished, once again, that this day had been a day of brilliance. Then he wouldn’t have felt so guilty. You have killed her. . . . Kaladin couldn’t sleep. He knew he should sleep. He lay in his dark barrack room, surrounded by familiar stone, comfortable for the first time in days. A soft pillow, a mattress as good as the one he’d had back home in Hearthstone. His body felt wrung out, like a rag after the washing was done. He’d survived the chasms and brought Shallan home safely. Now he needed to sleep and heal. You have killed her. . . . He sat up in his bed, and felt a wave of dizziness. He gritted his teeth and let it pass. His leg wound throbbed inside his bandage. The camp surgeons had done a good job with that; his father would have been pleased. The camp outside felt too quiet. After showering him with praise and enthusiasm, the men of Bridge Four had gone to join the army for its expedition, along with all of the other bridge crews, who would be carrying bridges for the army. Only a small force from Bridge Four would remain behind to guard the king. Kaladin reached out in the darkness, feeling beside the wall until he found his spear. He took hold, then propped himself up and stood. The leg flared with immediate pain, and he gritted his teeth, but it wasn’t so bad. He’d taken fathom bark for the pain, and it was working. He’d refused the firemoss the surgeons had tried to give him. His father had hated using the addictive stuff. Kaladin forced his way to the door of his small room, then shoved it open and
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stepped into the sunlight. He shaded his eyes and scanned the sky. No clouds yet. The Weeping, the worst part of the year, would roll in sometime tomorrow. Four weeks of ceaseless rain and gloom. It was a Light Year, so not even a highstorm in the middle. Misery. Kaladin longed for the storm within. That would have awakened his mind, made him feel like moving. “Hey, gancho?” Lopen said, popping up from where he sat beside the firepit. “You need something?” “Let’s go watch the army leave.” “You’re not supposed to be walking, I think. . . .” “I’ll be fine,” Kaladin said, hobbling with difficulty. Lopen rushed over to help him, getting up under Kaladin’s arm, lifting weight off the bad leg. “Why don’t you glow a bit, gon?” Lopen asked softly. “Heal that problem?” He’d prepared a lie: something about not wanting to alert the surgeons by healing too quickly. He couldn’t force it out. Not to a member of Bridge Four. “I’ve lost the ability, Lopen,” he said softly. “Syl has left me.” The lean Herdazian fell unusually silent. “Well,” he finally said, “maybe you should buy her something nice.” “Buy something nice? For a spren?” “Yeah. Like . . . I don’t know. A nice plant, maybe, or a new hat. Yes, a hat. Might be cheap. She’s small. If a tailor tries to charge you full price for a hat that small, you thump him real good.” “That’s the most ridiculous piece of advice I’ve ever been given.” “You should rub yourself with curry and go prancing through the camp singing Horneater lullabies.” Kaladin looked at Lopen, incredulous. “What?” “See? Now the bit about the hat is only the second most ridiculous piece of advice you’ve ever been given, so you should try it. Women like hats. I have this cousin who makes them. I can ask her. You might not even need the actual hat. Just the spren of the hat. That’ll make it even cheaper.” “You’re a very special kind of weird, Lopen.” “Of course I am, gon. There’s only one of me.” They continued through the empty camp. Storms, the place seemed hollow. They passed empty barrack after empty barrack. Kaladin walked with care, glad for Lopen’s help, but even this was draining. He shouldn’t be moving on the leg. Father’s words, the words of a surgeon, floated up from the depths of his mind. Torn muscles. Bind the leg, ward against infection, and keep the subject from putting weight on it. Further tearing could lead to a permanent limp, or worse. “You want to get a palanquin?” Lopen asked. “Those are for women.” “Ain’t nothing wrong with being a woman, gancho,” Lopen said. “Some of my relatives are women.” “Of course they . . .” He trailed off at Lopen’s grin. Storming Herdazian. How much of what he said was to deliberately sound obtuse? Well, Kaladin had heard men telling jokes about how stupid Herdazians were, but Lopen could talk rings around those men. Of course, half of Lopen’s own jokes were
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