Brandon Sanderson

WORDS OF RADIANCE

2014

Dedication

For Oliver Sanderson,

Who was born during the middle of the writing of this book, and was walking by the time it was done.

Acknowledgments

As you might imagine, producing a book in the Stormlight Archive is a major undertaking. It involved almost eighteen months of writing, from outline to final revision, and includes the artwork of four different individuals and the editorial eyes of a whole host of people, not to mention the teams at Tor who do production, publicity, marketing, and everything else a major book needs in order to be successful.

For some two decades now, the Stormlight Archive has been my dream – the story I always wished I could tell. The people you’ll read about below quite literally make my dreams a reality, and there aren’t words to express my gratitude for their efforts. First in line on this novel needs to be my assistant and primary continuity editor, the incumbent Peter Ahlstrom. He worked very long hours on this book, putting up with my repeated insistence that things which did not fit continuity actually did – eventually persuading me I was wrong far more often than not.

As always, Moshe Feder – the man who discovered me as a writer – did excellent editorial work on the book. Joshua Bilmes, my agent, worked hard on the book in both an agenting and editorial capacity. He’s joined by Eddie Schneider, Brady “Words of Bradiance” McReynolds, Krystyna Lopez, Sam Morgan, and Christa Atkinson at the agency. At Tor, Tom Doherty put up with me delivering a book even longer than the last one when I promised to make it shorter. Terry McGarry did the copyediting, Irene Gallo is responsible for the art direction for the cover, Greg Collins for interior design, Brian Lipofsky’s team at Westchester Publishing Services for compositing, Meryl Gross and Karl Gold for production, Patty Garcia and her team for publicity. Paul Stevens acted as superman whenever we needed him. A big thanks to all of you.

You may have noticed that this volume, like the one before it, includes amazing art. My vision for the Stormlight Archive has always been of a series that transcended common artistic expectations for a book of its nature. As such, it is an honor to once again have my favorite artist, Michael Whelan, involved in the project. I feel that his cover has captured Kaladin perfectly, and I am extremely grateful for the extra time he spent on the cover – at his own insistence – going through three drafts before he was satisfied. To have endpapers of Shallan as well is more than I had hoped to see for the book, and I’m humbled by how well this whole package came together.

When I pitched the Stormlight Archive, I spoke of having “guest star” artists do pieces for the books here and there. We have our first of those in this novel, for which Dan dos Santos (another of my personal favorite artists, and the man who did the cover for Warbreaker) agreed to do some interior illustrations.

Ben McSweeney graciously returned to do more brilliant sketchbook pages for us, and he is a pure delight to work with. Quick to recognize what I want, sometimes even when I’m not quite sure what I want, I’ve rarely met a person who mixes talent and professionalism in the way Ben does. You can find more of his art at InkThinker.net.

A long time ago, almost ten years now, I met a man named Isaác Stewart who – in addition to being an aspiring writer – was an excellent artist, particularly when it came to things like maps and symbols. I started collaborating with him on books (starting with Mistborn) and he eventually set me up on a blind date with a woman named Emily Bushman – whom I subsequently married. So needless to say, I owe Isaac a few big favors. With each progressive book he works on, that debt on my part grows greater as I see the amazing work he has done. This year, we decided to make his involvement a little more official as I hired him full-time to be an in-house artist and to help me with administrative tasks. So if you see him, welcome him to the team. (And tell him to keep working on his own books, which are quite good.)

Also joining us at Dragonsteel Entertainment is Kara Stewart, Isaac’s wife, as our shipping manager. (I actually tried to hire Kara first – and Isaac piped up noting that some of the things I wanted to hire her for, he could do. And it ended up that I got both of them, in a very convenient deal.) She’s the one you’ll interact with if you order T-shirts, posters, or the like through my website. And she’s awesome.

We used a few expert consultants on this book, including Matt Bushman for his songwriting and poetry expertise. Ellen Asher gave some great direction on the scenes with horses, and Karen Ahlstrom was an additional poetry and song consultant. Mi’chelle Walker acted as Alethi handwriting consultant. Finally, Elise Warren gave us some very nice notes relating to the psychology of a key character. Thank you all for lending me your brains.

This book had an extensive beta read done under some strict time constraints, and so a hearty bridgeman salute goes to those who participated. They are: Jason Denzel, Mi’chelle Walker, Josh Walker, Eric Lake, David Behrens, Joel Phillips, Jory Phillips, Kristina Kugler, Lyndsey Luther, Kim Garrett, Layne Garrett, Brian Delambre, Brian T. Hill, Alice Arneson, Bob Kluttz, and Nathan Goodrich.

Proofreaders at Tor include Ed Chapman, Brian Connolly, and Norma Hoffman. Community proofreaders include Adam Wilson, Aubree and Bao Pham, Blue Cole, Chris King, Chris Kluwe, Emily Grange, Gary Singer, Jakob Remick, Jared Gerlach, Kelly Neumann, Kendra Wilson, Kerry Morgan, Maren Menke, Matt Hatch, Patrick Mohr, Richard Fife, Rob Harper, Steve Godecke, Steve Karam, and Will Raboin.

My writing group managed to get through about half of the book, which is a lot, considering how long the novel is. They are an invaluable resource to me. Members are: Kaylynn ZoBell, Kathleen Dorsey Sanderson, Danielle Olsen, Ben-son-son-Ron, E. J. Patten, Alan Layton, and Karen Ahlstrom.

And finally, thanks to my loving (and rambunctious) family. Joel, Dallin, and little Oliver help keep me humble each day by always making me be the “bad guy” who gets beat up. My forgiving wife, Emily, put up with a lot this past year, as tours grew long, and I’m still not sure what I did to deserve her. Thank you all for making my world one of magic.

Book Two

of

The Stormlight Archive

WORDS OF RADIANCE

Prologue: To Question

SIX YEARS AGO

Jasnah Kholin pretended to enjoy the party, giving no indication that she intended to have one of the guests killed.

She wandered through the crowded feast hall, listening as wine greased tongues and dimmed minds. Her uncle Dalinar was in the full swing of it, rising from the high table to shout for the Parshendi to bring out their drummers. Jasnah’s brother, Elhokar, hurried to shush their uncle – though the Alethi politely ignored Dalinar’s outburst. All save Elhokar’s wife, Aesudan, who snickered primly behind a handkerchief.

Jasnah turned away from the high table and continued through the room. She had an appointment with an assassin, and she was all too glad to be leaving the stuffy room, which stank of too many perfumes mingling. A quartet of women played flutes on a raised platform across from the lively hearth, but the music had long since grown tedious.

Unlike Dalinar, Jasnah drew stares. Like flies to rotten meat those eyes were, constantly following her. Whispers like buzzing wings. If there was one thing the Alethi court enjoyed more than wine, it was gossip. Everyone expected Dalinar to lose himself to wine during a feast – but the king’s daughter, admitting to heresy? That was unprecedented.

Jasnah had spoken of her feelings for precisely that reason.

She passed the Parshendi delegation, which clustered near the high table, talking in their rhythmic language. Though this celebration honored them and the treaty they’d signed with Jasnah’s father, they didn’t look festive or even happy. They looked nervous. Of course, they weren’t human, and the way they reacted was sometimes odd.

Jasnah wanted to speak with them, but her appointment would not wait. She’d intentionally scheduled the meeting for the middle of the feast, as so many would be distracted and drunken. Jasnah headed toward the doors but then stopped in place.

Her shadow was pointing in the wrong direction.

The stuffy, shuffling, chattering room seemed to grow distant. Highprince Sadeas walked right through the shadow, which quite distinctly pointed toward the sphere lamp on the wall nearby. Engaged in conversation with his companion, Sadeas didn’t notice. Jasnah stared at that shadow – skin growing clammy, stomach clenched, the way she felt when she was about to vomit. Not again. She searched for another light source. A reason. Could she find a reason? No.

The shadow languidly melted back toward her, oozing to her feet and then stretching out the other way. Her tension eased. But had anyone else seen?

Blessedly, as she searched the room, she didn’t find any aghast stares. People’s attention had been drawn by the Parshendi drummers, who were clattering through the doorway to set up. Jasnah frowned as she noticed a non-Parshendi servant in loose white clothing helping them. A Shin man? That was unusual.

Jasnah composed herself. What did these episodes of hers mean? Superstitious folktales she’d read said that misbehaving shadows meant you were cursed. She usually dismissed such things as nonsense, but some superstitions were rooted in fact. Her other experiences proved that. She would need to investigate further.

The calm, scholarly thoughts felt like a lie compared to the truth of her cold, clammy skin and the sweat trickling down the back of her neck. But it was important to be rational at all times, not just when calm. She forced herself out through the doors, leaving the muggy room for the quiet hallway. She’d chosen the back exit, commonly used by servants. It was the most direct route, after all.

Here, master-servants dressed in black and white moved on errands from their brightlords or ladies. She had expected that, but had not anticipated the sight of her father standing just ahead, in quiet conference with Brightlord Meridas Amaram. What was the king doing out here?

Gavilar Kholin was shorter than Amaram, yet the latter stooped shallowly in the king’s company. That was common around Gavilar, who would speak with such quiet intensity that you wanted to lean in and listen, to catch every word and implication. He was a handsome man, unlike his brother, with a beard that outlined his strong jaw rather than covering it. He had a personal magnetism and intensity that Jasnah felt no biographer had yet managed to convey.

Tearim, captain of the King’s Guard, loomed behind them. He wore Gavilar’s Shardplate; the king himself had stopped wearing it of late, preferring to entrust it to Tearim, who was known as one of the world’s great duelists. Instead, Gavilar wore robes of a majestic, classical style.

Jasnah glanced back at the feast hall. When had her father slipped out? Sloppy, she accused herself. You should have checked to see if he was still there before leaving.

Ahead, he rested his hand on Amaram’s shoulder and raised a finger, speaking harshly but quietly, the words indistinct to Jasnah.

“Father?” she asked.

He glanced at her. “Ah, Jasnah. Retiring so early?”

“It’s hardly early,” Jasnah said, gliding forward. It seemed obvious to her that Gavilar and Amaram had ducked out to find privacy for their discussion. “This is the tiresome part of the feast, where the conversation grows louder but no smarter, and the company drunken.”

“Many people consider that sort of thing enjoyable.”

“Many people, unfortunately, are idiots.”

Her father smiled. “Is it terribly difficult for you?” he asked softly. “Living with the rest of us, suffering our average wits and simple thoughts? Is it lonely to be so singular in your brilliance, Jasnah?”

She took it as the rebuke it was, and found herself blushing. Even her mother Navani could not do that to her.

“Perhaps if you found pleasant associations,” Gavilar said, “you would enjoy the feasts.” His eyes swung toward Amaram, whom he’d long fancied as a potential match for her.

It would never happen. Amaram met her eyes, then murmured words of parting to her father and hastened away down the corridor.

“What errand did you give him?” Jasnah asked. “What are you about this night, Father?”

“The treaty, of course.”

The treaty. Why did he care so much about it? Others had counseled that he either ignore the Parshendi or conquer them. Gavilar insisted upon an accommodation.

“I should return to the celebration,” Gavilar said, motioning to Tearim. The two moved along the hallway toward the doors Jasnah had left.

“Father?” Jasnah said. “What is it you aren’t telling me?”

He glanced back at her, lingering. Pale green eyes, evidence of his good birth. When had he become so discerning? Storms… she felt as if she hardly knew this man any longer. Such a striking transformation in such a short time.

From the way he inspected her, it almost seemed that he didn’t trust her. Did he know about her meeting with Liss?

He turned away without saying more and pushed back into the party, his guard following.

What is going on in this palace? Jasnah thought. She took a deep breath. She would have to prod further. Hopefully he hadn’t discovered her meetings with assassins – but if he had, she would work with that knowledge. Surely he would see that someone needed to keep watch on the family as he grew increasingly consumed by his fascination with the Parshendi. Jasnah turned and continued on her way, passing a master-servant, who bowed.

After walking a short time in the corridors, Jasnah noticed her shadow behaving oddly again. She sighed in annoyance as it pulled toward the three Stormlight lamps on the walls. Fortunately, she’d passed from the populated area, and no servants were here to see.

“All right,” she snapped. “That’s enough.”

She hadn’t meant to speak aloud. However, as the words slipped out, several distant shadows – originating in an intersection up ahead – stirred to life. Her breath caught. Those shadows lengthened, deepened. Figures formed from them, growing, standing, rising.

Stormfather. I’m going insane.

One took the shape of a man of midnight blackness, though he had a certain reflective cast, as if he were made of oil. No… of some other liquid with a coating of oil floating on the outside, giving him a dark, prismatic quality.

He strode toward her and unsheathed a sword.

Logic, cold and resolute, guided Jasnah. Shouting would not bring help quickly enough, and the inky litheness of this creature bespoke a speed certain to exceed her own.

She stood her ground and met the thing’s glare, causing it to hesitate. Behind it, a small clutch of other creatures had materialized from the darkness. She had sensed those eyes upon her during the previous months.

By now, the entire hallway had darkened, as if it had been submerged and was slowly sinking into lightless depths. Heart racing, breath quickening, Jasnah raised her hand to the granite wall beside her, seeking to touch something solid. Her fingers sank into the stone a fraction, as if the wall had become mud.

Oh, storms. She had to do something. What? What could she possibly do?

The figure before her glanced at the wall. The wall lamp nearest Jasnah went dark. And then…

Then the palace disintegrated.

The entire building shattered into thousands upon thousands of small glass spheres, like beads. Jasnah screamed as she fell backward through a dark sky. She was no longer in the palace; she was somewhere else – another land, another time, another… something.

She was left with the sight of the dark, lustrous figure hovering in the air above, seeming satisfied as he resheathed his sword.

Jasnah crashed into something – an ocean of the glass beads. Countless others rained around her, clicking like hailstones into the strange sea. She had never seen this place; she could not explain what had happened or what it meant. She thrashed as she sank into what seemed an impossibility. Beads of glass on all sides. She couldn’t see anything beyond them, only felt herself descending through this churning, suffocating, clattering mass.

She was going to die. Leaving work unfinished, leaving her family unprotected!

She would never know the answers.

No.

Jasnah flailed in the darkness, beads rolling across her skin, getting into her clothing, working their way into her nose as she tried to swim. It was no use. She had no buoyancy in this mess. She raised a hand before her mouth and tried to make a pocket of air to use for breathing, and managed to gasp in a small breath. But the beads rolled around her hand, forcing between her fingers. She sank, more slowly now, as through a viscous liquid.

Each bead that touched her gave a faint impression of something. A door. A table. A shoe.

The beads found their way into her mouth. They seemed to move on their own. They would choke her, destroy her. No… no, it was just because they seemed attracted to her. An impression came to her, not as a distinct thought but a feeling. They wanted something from her.

She snatched a bead in her hand; it gave her an impression of a cup. She gave… something… to it? The other beads near her pulled together, connecting, sticking like rocks sealed by mortar. In a moment she was falling not among individual beads, but through large masses of them stuck together into the shape of…

A cup.

Each bead was a pattern, a guide for the others.

She released the one she held, and the beads around her broke apart. She floundered, searching desperately as her air ran out. She needed something she could use, something that would help, some way to survive! Desperate, she swept her arms wide to touch as many beads as she could.

A silver platter.

A coat.

A statue.

A lantern.

And then, something ancient.

Something ponderous and slow of thought, yet somehow strong. The palace itself. Frantic, Jasnah seized this sphere and forced her power into it. Her mind blurring, she gave this bead everything she had, and then commanded it to rise.

Beads shifted.

A great crashing sounded as beads met one another, clicking, cracking, rattling. It was almost like the sound of a wave breaking on rocks. Jasnah surged up from the depths, something solid moving beneath her, obeying her command. Beads battered her head, shoulders, arms, until finally she exploded from the surface of the sea of glass, hurling a spray of beads into a dark sky.

She knelt on a platform of glass made up of small beads locked together. She held her hand to the side, uplifted, clutching the sphere that was the guide. Others rolled around her, forming into the shape of a hallway with lanterns on the walls, an intersection ahead. It didn’t look right, of course – the entire thing was made of beads. But it was a fair approximation.

She wasn’t strong enough to form the entire palace. She created only this hallway, without even a roof – but the floor supported her, kept her from sinking. She opened her mouth with a groan, beads falling out to clack against the floor. Then she coughed, drawing in sweet breaths, sweat trickling down the sides of her face and collecting on her chin.

Ahead of her, the dark figure stepped up onto the platform. He again slid his sword from his sheath.

Jasnah held up a second bead, the statue she’d sensed earlier. She gave it power, and other beads collected before her, taking the shape of one of the statues that lined the front of the feast hall – the statue of Talenelat’Elin, Herald of War. A tall, muscular man with a large Shardblade.

It was not alive, but she made it move, lowering its sword of beads. She doubted it could fight. Round beads could not form a sharp sword. Yet the threat made the dark figure hesitate.

Gritting her teeth, Jasnah heaved herself to her feet, beads streaming from her clothing. She would not kneel before this thing, whatever it was. She stepped up beside the bead statue, noting for the first time the strange clouds overhead. They seemed to form a narrow ribbon of highway, straight and long, pointing toward the horizon.

She met the oil figure’s gaze. It regarded her for a moment, then raised two fingers to its forehead and bowed, as if in respect, a cloak flourishing out behind. Others had gathered beyond it, and they turned to each other, exchanging hushed whispers.

The place of beads faded, and Jasnah found herself back in the hallway of the palace. The real one, with real stone, though it had gone dark – the Stormlight dead in the lamps on the walls. The only illumination came from far down the corridor.

She pressed back against the wall, breathing deeply. I, she thought, need to write this experience down.

She would do so, then analyze and consider. Later. Now, she wanted to be away from this place. She hurried away, with no concern for her direction, trying to escape those eyes she still felt watching.

It didn’t work.

Eventually, she composed herself and wiped the sweat from her face with a kerchief. Shadesmar, she thought. That is what it is called in the nursery tales. Shadesmar, the mythological kingdom of the spren. Mythology she’d never believed. Surely she could find something if she searched the histories well enough. Nearly everything that happened had happened before. The grand lesson of history, and…

Storms! Her appointment.

Cursing to herself, she hurried on her way. That experience continued to distract her, but she needed to make her meeting. So she continued down two floors, getting farther from the sounds of the thrumming Parshendi drums until she could hear only the sharpest cracks of their beats.

That music’s complexity had always surprised her, suggesting that the Parshendi were not the uncultured savages many took them for. This far away, the music sounded disturbingly like the beads from the dark place, rattling against one another.

She’d intentionally chosen this out-of-the-way section of the palace for her meeting with Liss. Nobody ever visited this set of guest rooms. A man that Jasnah didn’t know lounged here, outside the proper door. That relieved her. The man would be Liss’s new servant, and his presence meant Liss hadn’t left, despite Jasnah’s tardiness. Composing herself, she nodded to the guard – a Veden brute with red speckling his beard – and pushed into the room.

Liss stood from the table inside the small chamber. She wore a maid’s dress – low cut, of course – and could have been Alethi. Or Veden. Or Bav. Depending on which part of her accent she chose to emphasize. Long dark hair, worn loose, and a plump, attractive figure made her distinctive in all the right ways.

“You’re late, Brightness,” Liss said.

Jasnah gave no reply. She was the employer here, and was not required to give excuses. Instead, she laid something on the table beside Liss. A small envelope, sealed with weevilwax.

Jasnah set two fingers on it, considering.

No. This was too brash. She didn’t know if her father realized what she was doing, but even if he hadn’t, too much was happening in this palace. She did not want to commit to an assassination until she was more certain.

Fortunately, she had prepared a backup plan. She slid a second envelope from the safepouch inside her sleeve and set it on the table in place of the first. She removed her fingers from it, rounding the table and sitting down.

Liss sat back down and made the letter vanish into the bust of her dress. “An odd night, Brightness,” the woman said, “to be engaging in treason.”

“I am hiring you to watch only.”

“Pardon, Brightness. But one does not commonly hire an assassin to watch. Only.”

“You have instructions in the envelope,” Jasnah said. “Along with initial payment. I chose you because you are expert at extended observations. It is what I want. For now.”

Liss smiled, but nodded. “Spying on the wife of the heir to the throne? It will be more expensive this way. You sure you don’t simply want her dead?”

Jasnah drummed her fingers on the table, then realized she was doing it to the beat of the drums above. The music was so unexpectedly complex – precisely like the Parshendi themselves.

Too much is happening, she thought. I need to be very careful. Very subtle.

“I accept the cost,” Jasnah replied. “In one week’s time, I will arrange for one of my sister-in-law’s maids to be released. You will apply for the position, using faked credentials I assume you are capable of producing. You will be hired.

“From there, you watch and report. I will tell you if your other services are needed. You move only if I say. Understood?”

“You’re the one payin’,” Liss said, a faint Bav dialect showing through.

If it showed, it was only because she wished it. Liss was the most skilled assassin Jasnah knew. People called her the Weeper, as she gouged out the eyes of the targets she killed. Although she hadn’t coined the cognomen, it served her purpose well, since she had secrets to hide. For one thing, nobody knew that the Weeper was a woman.

It was said the Weeper gouged the eyes out to proclaim indifference to whether her victims were lighteyed or dark. The truth was that the action hid a second secret – Liss didn’t want anyone to know that the way she killed left corpses with burned-out sockets.

“Our meeting is done, then,” Liss said, standing.

Jasnah nodded absently, mind again on her bizarre interaction with the spren earlier. That glistening skin, colors dancing across a surface the color of tar…

She forced her mind away from that moment. She needed to devote her attention to the task at hand. For now, that was Liss.

Liss hesitated at the door before leaving. “Do you know why I like you, Brightness?”

“I suspect that it has something to do with my pockets and their proverbial depth.”

Liss smiled. “There’s that, ain’t going to deny it, but you’re also different from other lighteyes. When others hire me, they turn up their noses at the entire process. They’re all too eager to use my services, but sneer and wring their hands, as if they hate being forced to do something utterly distasteful.”

“Assassination is distasteful, Liss. So is cleaning out chamber pots. I can respect the one employed for such jobs without admiring the job itself.”

Liss grinned, then cracked the door.

“That new servant of yours outside,” Jasnah said. “Didn’t you say you wanted to show him off for me?”

“Talak?” Liss said, glancing at the Veden man. “Oh, you mean that other one. No, Brightness, I sold that one to a slaver a few weeks ago.” Liss grimaced.

“Really? I thought you said he was the best servant you’d ever had.”

“Too good a servant,” Liss said. “Let’s leave it at that. Storming creepy, that Shin fellow was.” Liss shivered visibly, then slipped out the door.

“Remember our first agreement,” Jasnah said after her.

“Always there in the back o’ my mind, Brightness.” Liss closed the door.

Jasnah settled in her seat, lacing her fingers in front of her. Their “first agreement” was that if anyone should come to Liss and offer a contract on a member of Jasnah’s family, Liss would let Jasnah match the offer in exchange for the name of the one who made it.

Liss would do it. Probably. So would the dozen other assassins Jasnah dealt with. A repeat customer was always more valuable than a one-off contract, and it was in the best interests of a woman like Liss to have a friend in the government. Jasnah’s family was safe from the likes of these. Unless she herself employed the assassins, of course.

Jasnah let out a deep sigh, then rose, trying to shrug off the weight she felt bearing her down.

Wait. Did Liss say her old servant was Shin?

It was probably a coincidence. Shin people weren’t plentiful in the East, but you did see them on occasion. Still, Liss mentioning a Shin man and Jasnah seeing one among the Parshendi… well, there was no harm in checking, even if it meant returning to the feast. Something was off about this night, and not just because of her shadow and the spren.

Jasnah left the small chamber in the bowels of the palace and strode out into the hallway. She turned her steps upward. Above, the drums cut off abruptly, like an instrument’s strings suddenly cut. Was the party ending so early? Dalinar hadn’t done something to offend the celebrants, had he? That man and his wine…

Well, the Parshendi had ignored his offenses in the past, so they probably would again. In truth, Jasnah was happy for her father’s sudden focus on a treaty. It meant she would have a chance to study Parshendi traditions and histories at her leisure.

Could it be, she wondered, that scholars have been searching in the wrong ruins all these years?

Words echoed in the hallway, coming from up ahead. “I’m worried about Ash.”

“You’re worried about everything.”

Jasnah hesitated in the hallway.

“She’s getting worse,” the voice continued. “We weren’t supposed to get worse. Am I getting worse? I think I feel worse.”

“Shut up.”

“I don’t like this. What we’ve done was wrong. That creature carries my lord’s own Blade. We shouldn’t have let him keep it. He–”

The two passed through the intersection ahead of Jasnah. They were ambassadors from the West, including the Azish man with the white birthmark on his cheek. Or was it a scar? The shorter of the two men – he could have been Alethi – cut off when he noticed Jasnah. He let out a squeak, then hurried on his way.

The Azish man, the one dressed in black and silver, stopped and looked her up and down. He frowned.

“Is the feast over already?” Jasnah asked down the hallway. Her brother had invited these two to the celebration along with every other ranking foreign dignitary in Kholinar.

“Yes,” the man said.

His stare made her uncomfortable. She walked forward anyway. I should check further into these two, she thought. She’d investigated their backgrounds, of course, and found nothing of note. Had they been talking about a Shardblade?

“Come on!” the shorter man said, returning and taking the taller man by the arm.

He allowed himself to be pulled away. Jasnah walked to where the corridors crossed, then watched them go.

Where once drums had sounded, screams suddenly rose.

Oh no…

Jasnah turned with alarm, then grabbed her skirt and ran as hard as she could.

A dozen different potential disasters raced through her mind. What else could happen on this broken night, when shadows stood up and her father looked upon her with suspicion? Nerves stretched thin, she reached the steps and started climbing.

It took her far too long. She could hear the screams as she climbed and finally emerged into chaos. Dead bodies in one direction, a demolished wall in the other. How…

The destruction led toward her father’s rooms.

The entire palace shook, and a crunch echoed from that direction.

No, no, no!

She passed Shardblade cuts on the stone walls as she ran.

Please.

Corpses with burned eyes. Bodies littered the floor like discarded bones at the dinner table.

Not this.

A broken doorway. Her father’s quarters. Jasnah stopped in the hallway, gasping.

Control yourself, control…

She couldn’t. Not now. Frantic, she ran into the quarters, though a Shardbearer would kill her with ease. She wasn’t thinking straight. She should get someone who could help. Dalinar? He’d be drunk. Sadeas, then.

The room looked like it had been hit by a highstorm. Furniture in a shambles, splinters everywhere. The balcony doors were broken outward. Someone lurched toward them, a man in her father’s Shardplate. Tearim, the bodyguard?

No. The helm was broken. It was not Tearim, but Gavilar. Someone on the balcony screamed.

“Father!” Jasnah shouted.

Gavilar hesitated as he stepped out onto the balcony, looking back at her.

The balcony broke beneath him.

Jasnah screamed, dashing through the room to the broken balcony, falling to her knees at the edge. Wind tugged locks of hair loose from her bun as she watched two men fall.

Her father, and the Shin man in white from the feast.

The Shin man glowed with a white light. He fell onto the wall. He hit it, rolling, then came to a stop. He stood up, somehow remaining on the outer palace wall and not falling. It defied reason.

He turned, then stalked toward her father.

Jasnah watched, growing cold, helpless as the assassin stepped down to her father and knelt over him.

Tears fell from her chin, and the wind caught them. What was he doing down there? She couldn’t make it out.

When the assassin walked away, he left behind her father’s corpse. Impaled on a length of wood. He was dead – indeed, his Shardblade had appeared beside him, as they all did when their Bearers died.

“I worked so hard…” Jasnah whispered, numb. “Everything I did to protect this family…”

How? Liss. Liss had done this!

No. Jasnah wasn’t thinking straight. That Shin man… she wouldn’t have admitted to owning him in such a case. She’d sold him.

“We are sorry for your loss.”

Jasnah spun, blinking bleary eyes. Three Parshendi, including Klade, stood in the doorway in their distinctive clothing. Neatly stitched cloth wraps for both men and women, sashes at the waist, loose shirts with no sleeves. Hanging vests, open at the sides, woven in bright colors. They didn’t segregate clothing by gender. She thought they did by caste, however, and–

Stop it, she thought at herself. Stop thinking like a scholar for one storming day!

“We take responsibility for his death,” said the foremost Parshendi. Gangnah was female, though with the Parshendi, the gender differences seemed minimal. The clothing hid breasts and hips, neither of which were ever very pronounced. Fortunately, the lack of a beard was a clear indication. All the Parshendi men she’d ever seen had beards, which they wore tied with bits of gemstone, and–

STOP IT.

“What did you say?” Jasnah demanded, forcing herself to her feet. “Why would it be your fault, Gangnah?”

“Because we hired the assassin,” the Parshendi woman said in her heavily accented singsong voice. “We killed your father, Jasnah Kholin.”

“You…”

Emotion suddenly ran cold, like a river freezing in the heights. Jasnah looked from Gangnah to Klade, to Varnali. Elders, all three of them. Members of the Parshendi ruling council.

“Why?” Jasnah whispered.

“Because it had to be done,” Gangnah said.

“Why?” Jasnah demanded, stalking forward. “He fought for you! He kept the predators at bay! My father wanted peace, you monsters! Why would you betray us now, of all times?”

Gangnah drew her lips to a line. The song of her voice changed. She seemed almost like a mother, explaining something very difficult to a small child. “Because your father was about to do something very dangerous.”

“Send for Brightlord Dalinar!” a voice outside in the hall shouted. “Storms! Did my orders get to Elhokar? The crown prince must be taken to safety!” Highprince Sadeas stumbled into the room along with a team of soldiers. His bulbous, ruddy face was wet with sweat, and he wore Gavilar’s clothing, the regal robes of office. “What are the savages doing here? Storms! Protect Princess Jasnah. The one who did this – he was in their retinue!”

The soldiers moved to surround the Parshendi. Jasnah ignored them, turning and stepping back to the broken doorway, hand on the wall, looking down at her father splayed on the rocks below, Blade beside him.

“There will be war,” she whispered. “And I will not stand in its way.”

“This is understood,” Gangnah said from behind.

“The assassin,” Jasnah said. “He walked on the wall.”

Gangnah said nothing.

In the shattering of her world, Jasnah caught hold of this fragment. She had seen something tonight. Something that should not have been possible. Did it relate to the strange spren? Her experience in that place of glass beads and a dark sky?

These questions became her lifeline for stability. Sadeas demanded answers from the Parshendi leaders. He received none. When he stepped up beside her and saw the wreckage below, he went barreling off, shouting for his guards and running down below to reach the fallen king.

Hours later, it was discovered that the assassination – and the surrender of three of the Parshendi leaders – had covered the flight of the larger portion of their number. They escaped the city quickly, and the cavalry Dalinar sent after them were destroyed. A hundred horses, each nearly priceless, lost along with their riders.

The Parshendi leaders said nothing more and gave no clues, even when they were strung up, hanged for their crimes.

Jasnah ignored all that. Instead, she interrogated the surviving guards on what they had seen. She followed leads about the now-famous assassin’s nature, prying information from Liss. She got almost nothing. Liss had owned him only a short time, and claimed she hadn’t known about his strange powers. Jasnah couldn’t find the previous owner.

Next came the books. A dedicated, frenzied effort to distract her from what she had lost.

That night, Jasnah had seen the impossible.

She would learn what it meant.

Part

One

ALIGHT

Shallan ♦ Kaladin ♦ Dalinar

1. Santhid

To be perfectly frank, what has happened these last two months is upon my head. The death, destruction, loss, and pain are my burden. I should have seen it coming. And I should have stopped it.

From the personal journal of Navani Kholin, Jeseses 1174

Shallan pinched the thin charcoal pencil and drew a series of straight lines radiating from a sphere on the horizon. That sphere wasn’t quite the sun, nor was it one of the moons. Clouds outlined in charcoal seemed to stream toward it. And the sea beneath them… A drawing could not convey the bizarre nature of that ocean, made not of water but of small beads of translucent glass.

Shallan shivered, remembering that place. Jasnah knew much more of it than she would speak of to her ward, and Shallan wasn’t certain how to ask. How did one demand answers after a betrayal such as Shallan’s? Only a few days had passed since that event, and Shallan still didn’t know exactly how her relationship with Jasnah would proceed.

The deck rocked as the ship tacked, enormous sails fluttering overhead. Shallan was forced to grab the railing with her clothed safehand to steady herself. Captain Tozbek said that so far, the seas hadn’t been bad for this part of Longbrow’s Straits. However, she might have to go below if the waves and motion got much worse.

Shallan exhaled and tried to relax as the ship settled. A chill wind blew, and windspren zipped past on invisible air currents. Every time the sea grew rough, Shallan remembered that day, that alien ocean of glass beads…

She looked down again at what she’d drawn. She had only glimpsed that place, and her sketch was not perfect. It–

She frowned. On her paper, a pattern had risen, like an embossing. What had she done? That pattern was almost as wide as the page, a sequence of complex lines with sharp angles and repeated arrowhead shapes. Was it an effect of drawing that weird place, the place Jasnah said was named Shadesmar? Shallan hesitantly moved her freehand to feel the unnatural ridges on the page.

The pattern moved, sliding across the page like an axehound pup under a bedsheet.

Shallan yelped and leapt from her seat, dropping her sketchpad to the deck. The loose pages slumped to the planks, fluttering and then scattering in the wind. Nearby sailors – Thaylen men with long white eyebrows they combed back over their ears – scrambled to help, snatching sheets from the air before they could blow overboard.

“You all right, young miss?” Tozbek asked, looking over from a conversation with one of his mates. The short, portly Tozbek wore a wide sash and a coat of gold and red matched by the cap on his head. He wore his eyebrows up and stiffened into a fanned shape above his eyes.

“I’m well, Captain,” Shallan said. “I was merely spooked.”

Yalb stepped up to her, proffering the pages. “Your accouterments, my lady.”

Shallan raised an eyebrow. “Accouterments?”

“Sure,” the young sailor said with a grin. “I’m practicing my fancy words. They help a fellow obtain reasonable feminine companionship. You know – the kind of young lady who doesn’t smell too bad an’ has at least a few teeth left.”

“Lovely,” Shallan said, taking the sheets back. “Well, depending on your definition of lovely, at least.” She suppressed further quips, suspiciously regarding the stack of pages in her hand. The picture she’d drawn of Shadesmar was on top, no longer bearing the strange embossed ridges.

“What happened?” Yalb said. “Did a cremling crawl out from under you or something?” As usual, he wore an open-fronted vest and a pair of loose trousers.

“It was nothing,” Shallan said softly, tucking the pages away into her satchel.

Yalb gave her a little salute – she had no idea why he had taken to doing that – and went back to tying rigging with the other sailors. She soon caught bursts of laughter from the men near him, and when she glanced at him, gloryspren danced around his head – they took the shape of little spheres of light. He was apparently very proud of the jape he’d just made.

She smiled. It was indeed fortunate that Tozbek had been delayed in Kharbranth. She liked this crew, and was happy that Jasnah had selected them for their voyage. Shallan sat back down on the box that Captain Tozbek had ordered lashed beside the railing so she could enjoy the sea as they sailed. She had to be wary of the spray, which wasn’t terribly good for her sketches, but so long as the seas weren’t rough, the opportunity to watch the waters was worth the trouble.

The scout atop the rigging let out a shout. Shallan squinted in the direction he pointed. They were within sight of the distant mainland, sailing parallel to it. In fact, they’d docked at port last night to shelter from the highstorm that had blown past. When sailing, you always wanted to be near to port – venturing into open seas when a highstorm could surprise you was suicidal.

The smear of darkness to the north was the Frostlands, a largely uninhabited area along the bottom edge of Roshar. Occasionally, she caught a glimpse of higher cliffs to the south. Thaylenah, the great island kingdom, made another barrier there. The straits passed between the two.

The lookout had spotted something in the waves just north of the ship, a bobbing shape that at first appeared to be a large log. No, it was much larger than that, and wider. Shallan stood, squinting, as it drew closer. It turned out to be a domed brown-green shell, about the size of three rowboats lashed together. As they passed by, the shell came up alongside the ship and somehow managed to keep pace, sticking up out of the water perhaps six or eight feet.

A santhid! Shallan leaned out over the rail, looking down as the sailors jabbered excitedly, several joining her in craning out to see the creature. Santhidyn were so reclusive that some of her books claimed they were extinct and all modern reports of them untrustworthy.

“You are good luck, young miss!” Yalb said to her with a laugh as he passed by with rope. “We ain’t seen a santhid in years.”

“You still aren’t seeing one,” Shallan said. “Only the top of its shell.” To her disappointment, waters hid anything else – save shadows of something in the depths that might have been long arms extending downward. Stories claimed the beasts would sometimes follow ships for days, waiting out in the sea as the vessel went into port, then following them again once the ship left.

“The shell is all you ever see of one,” Yalb said. “Passions, this is a good sign!”

Shallan clutched her satchel. She took a Memory of the creature down there beside the ship by closing her eyes, fixing the image of it in her head so she could draw it with precision.

Draw what, though? she thought. A lump in the water?

An idea started to form in her head. She spoke it aloud before she could think better. “Bring me that rope,” she said, turning to Yalb.

“Brightness?” he asked, stopping in place.

“Tie a loop in one end,” she said, hurriedly setting her satchel on her seat. “I need to get a look at the santhid. I’ve never actually put my head underwater in the ocean. Will the salt make it difficult to see?”

“Underwater?” Yalb said, voice squeaking.

“You’re not tying the rope.”

“Because I’m not a storming fool! Captain will have my head if…”

“Get a friend,” Shallan said, ignoring him and taking the rope to tie one end into a small loop. “You’re going to lower me down over the side, and I’m going to get a glimpse of what’s under the shell. Do you realize that nobody has ever produced a drawing of a live santhid? All the ones that have washed up on beaches were badly decomposed. And since sailors consider hunting the things to be bad luck–”

“It is!” Yalb said, voice growing more high pitched. “Ain’t nobody going to kill one.”

Shallan finished the loop and hurried to the side of the ship, her red hair whipping around her face as she leaned out over the rail. The santhid was still there. How did it keep up? She could see no fins.

She looked back at Yalb, who held the rope, grinning. “Ah, Brightness. Is this payback for what I said about your backside to Beznk? That was just in jest, but you got me good! I…” He trailed off as she met his eyes. “Storms. You’re serious.”

“I’ll not have another opportunity like this. Naladan chased these things for most of her life and never got a good look at one.”

“This is insanity!”

“No, this is scholarship! I don’t know what kind of view I can get through the water, but I have to try.”

Yalb sighed. “We have masks. Made from a tortoise shell with glass in hollowed-out holes on the front and bladders along the edges to keep the water out. You can duck your head underwater with one on and see. We use them to check over the hull at dock.”

“Wonderful!”

“Of course, I’d have to go to the captain to get permission to take one…”

She folded her arms. “Devious of you. Well, get to it.” It was unlikely she’d be able to go through with this without the captain finding out anyway.

Yalb grinned. “What happened to you in Kharbranth? Your first trip with us, you were so timid, you looked like you’d faint at the mere thought of sailing away from your homeland!”

Shallan hesitated, then found herself blushing. “This is somewhat foolhardy, isn’t it?”

“Hanging from a moving ship and sticking your head in the water?” Yalb said. “Yeah. Kind of a little.”

“Do you think… we could stop the ship?”

Yalb laughed, but went jogging off to speak with the captain, taking her query as an indication she was still determined to go through with her plan. And she was.

What did happen to me? she wondered.

The answer was simple. She’d lost everything. She’d stolen from Jasnah Kholin, one of the most powerful women in the world – and in so doing had not only lost her chance to study as she’d always dreamed, but had also doomed her brothers and her house. She had failed utterly and miserably.

And she’d pulled through it.

She wasn’t unscathed. Her credibility with Jasnah had been severely wounded, and she felt that she had all but abandoned her family. But something about the experience of stealing Jasnah’s Soulcaster – which had turned out to be a fake anyway – then nearly being killed by a man she’d thought was in love with her…

Well, she now had a better idea of how bad things could get. It was as if… once she had feared the darkness, but now she had stepped into it. She had experienced some of the horrors that awaited her there. Terrible as they were, at least she knew.

You always knew, a voice whispered deep inside of her. You grew up with horrors, Shallan. You just won’t let yourself remember them.

“What is this?” Tozbek asked as he came up, his wife, Ashlv, at his side. The diminutive woman did not speak much; she dressed in a skirt and blouse of bright yellow, a headscarf covering all of her hair except the two white eyebrows, which she had curled down beside her cheeks.

“Young miss,” Tozbek said, “you want to go swimming? Can’t you wait until we get into port? I know of some nice areas where the water is not nearly so cold.”

“I won’t be swimming,” Shallan said, blushing further. What would she wear to go swimming with men about? Did people really do that? “I need to get a closer look at our companion.” She gestured toward the sea creature.

“Young miss, you know I can’t allow something so dangerous. Even if we stopped the ship, what if the beast harmed you?”

“They’re said to be harmless.”

“They are so rare, can we really know for certain? Besides, there are other animals in these seas that could harm you. Redwaters hunt this area for certain, and we might be in shallow enough water for khornaks to be a worry.” Tozbek shook his head. “I’m sorry, I just cannot allow it.”

Shallan bit her lip, and found her heart beating traitorously. She wanted to push harder, but that decisive look in his eyes made her wilt. “Very well.”

Tozbek smiled broadly. “I’ll take you to see some shells in the port at Amydlatn when we stop there, young miss. They have quite a collection!”

She didn’t know where that was, but from the jumble of consonants squished together, she assumed it would be on the Thaylen side. Most cities were, this far south. Though Thaylenah was nearly as frigid as the Frostlands, people seemed to enjoy living there.

Of course, Thaylens were all a little off. How else to describe Yalb and the others wearing no shirts despite the chill in the air?

They weren’t the ones contemplating a dip in the ocean, Shallan reminded herself. She looked over the side of the ship again, watching waves break against the shell of the gentle santhid. What was it? A great-shelled beast, like the fearsome chasmfiends of the Shattered Plains? Was it more like a fish under there, or more like a tortoise? The santhidyn were so rare – and the occasions when scholars had seen them in person so infrequent – that the theories all contradicted one another.

She sighed and opened her satchel, then set to organizing her papers, most of which were practice sketches of the sailors in various poses as they worked to maneuver the massive sails overhead, tacking against the wind. Her father would never have allowed her to spend a day sitting and watching a bunch of shirtless darkeyes. How much her life had changed in such a short time.

She was working on a sketch of the santhid’s shell when Jasnah stepped up onto the deck.

Like Shallan, Jasnah wore the havah, a Vorin dress of distinctive design. The hemline was down at her feet and the neckline almost at her chin. Some of the Thaylens – when they thought she wasn’t listening – referred to the clothing as prudish. Shallan disagreed; the havah wasn’t prudish, but elegant. Indeed, the silk hugged the body, particularly through the bust – and the way the sailors gawked at Jasnah indicated they didn’t find the garment unflattering.

Jasnah was pretty. Lush of figure, tan of skin. Immaculate eyebrows, lips painted a deep red, hair up in a fine braid. Though Jasnah was twice Shallan’s age, her mature beauty was something to be admired, even envied. Why did the woman have to be so perfect?

Jasnah ignored the eyes of the sailors. It wasn’t that she didn’t notice men. Jasnah noticed everything and everyone. She simply didn’t seem to care, one way or another, how men perceived her.

No, that’s not true, Shallan thought as Jasnah walked over. She wouldn’t take the time to do her hair, or put on makeup, if she didn’t care how she was perceived. In that, Jasnah was an enigma. On one hand, she seemed to be a scholar concerned only with her research. On the other hand, she cultivated the poise and dignity of a king’s daughter – and, at times, used it like a bludgeon.

“And here you are,” Jasnah said, walking to Shallan. A spray of water from the side of the ship chose that moment to fly up and sprinkle her. She frowned at the drops of water beading on her silk clothing, then looked back to Shallan and raised her eyebrow. “The ship, you may have noticed, has two very fine cabins that I hired out for us at no small expense.”

“Yes, but they’re inside.”

“As rooms usually are.”

“I’ve spent most of my life inside.”

“So you will spend much more of it, if you wish to be a scholar.”

Shallan bit her lip, waiting for the order to go below. Curiously, it did not come. Jasnah gestured for Captain Tozbek to approach, and he did so, groveling his way over with cap in hand.

“Yes, Brightness?” he asked.

“I should like another of these… seats,” Jasnah said, regarding Shallan’s box.

Tozbek quickly had one of his men lash a second box in place. As she waited for the seat to be ready, Jasnah waved for Shallan to hand over her sketches. Jasnah inspected the drawing of the santhid, then looked over the side of the ship. “No wonder the sailors were making such a fuss.”

“Luck, Brightness!” one of the sailors said. “It is a good omen for your trip, don’t you think?”

“I shall take any fortune provided me, Nanhel Eltorv,” she said. “Thank you for the seat.”

The sailor bowed awkwardly before retreating.

“You think they’re superstitious fools,” Shallan said softly, watching the sailor leave.

“From what I have observed,” Jasnah said, “these sailors are men who have found a purpose in life and now take simple pleasure in it.” Jasnah looked at the next drawing. “Many people make far less out of life. Captain Tozbek runs a good crew. You were wise in bringing him to my attention.”

Shallan smiled. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“You didn’t ask a question,” Jasnah said. “These sketches are characteristically skillful, Shallan, but weren’t you supposed to be reading?”

“I… had trouble concentrating.”

“So you came up on deck,” Jasnah said, “to sketch pictures of young men working without their shirts on. You expected this to help your concentration?”

Shallan blushed, as Jasnah stopped at one sheet of paper in the stack. Shallan sat patiently – she’d been well trained in that by her father – until Jasnah turned it toward her. The picture of Shadesmar, of course.

“You have respected my command not to peer into this realm again?” Jasnah asked.

“Yes, Brightness. That picture was drawn from a memory of my first… lapse.”

Jasnah lowered the page. Shallan thought she saw a hint of something in the woman’s expression. Was Jasnah wondering if she could trust Shallan’s word?

“I assume this is what is bothering you?” Jasnah asked.

“Yes, Brightness.”

“I suppose I should explain it to you, then.”

“Really? You would do this?”

“You needn’t sound so surprised.”

“It seems like powerful information,” Shallan said. “The way you forbade me… I assumed that knowledge of this place was secret, or at least not to be trusted to one of my age.”

Jasnah sniffed. “I’ve found that refusing to explain secrets to young people makes them more prone to get themselves into trouble, not less. Your experimentation proves that you’ve already stumbled face-first into all of this – as I once did myself, I’ll have you know. I know through painful experience how dangerous Shadesmar can be. If I leave you in ignorance, I’ll be to blame if you get yourself killed there.”

“So you’d have explained about it if I’d asked earlier in our trip?”

“Probably not,” Jasnah admitted. “I had to see how willing you were to obey me. This time.”

Shallan wilted, and suppressed the urge to point out that back when she’d been a studious and obedient ward, Jasnah hadn’t divulged nearly as many secrets as she did now. “So what is it? That… place.”

“It’s not truly a location,” Jasnah said. “Not as we usually think of them. Shadesmar is here, all around us, right now. All things exist there in some form, as all things exist here.”

Shallan frowned. “I don’t–”

Jasnah held up a finger to quiet her. “All things have three components: the soul, the body, and the mind. That place you saw, Shadesmar, is what we call the Cognitive Realm – the place of the mind.

“All around us you see the physical world. You can touch it, see it, hear it. This is how your physical body experiences the world. Well, Shadesmar is the way that your cognitive self – your unconscious self – experiences the world. Through your hidden senses touching that realm, you make intuitive leaps in logic and you form hopes. It is likely through those extra senses that you, Shallan, create art.”

Water splashed on the bow of the ship as it crossed a swell. Shallan wiped a drop of salty water from her cheek, trying to think through what Jasnah had just said. “That made almost no sense whatsoever to me, Brightness.”

“I should hope that it didn’t,” Jasnah said. “I’ve spent six years researching Shadesmar, and I still barely know what to make of it. I shall have to accompany you there several times before you can understand, even a little, the true significance of the place.”

Jasnah grimaced at the thought. Shallan was always surprised to see visible emotion from her. Emotion was something relatable, something human – and Shallan’s mental image of Jasnah Kholin was of someone almost divine. It was, upon reflection, an odd way to regard a determined atheist.

“Listen to me,” Jasnah said. “My own words betray my ignorance. I told you that Shadesmar wasn’t a place, and yet I call it one in my next breath. I speak of visiting it, though it is all around us. We simply don’t have the proper terminology to discuss it. Let me try another tactic.”

Jasnah stood up, and Shallan hastened to follow. They walked along the ship’s rail, feeling the deck sway beneath their feet. Sailors made way for Jasnah with quick bows. They regarded her with as much reverence as they would a king. How did she do it? How could she control her surroundings without seeming to do anything at all?

“Look down into the waters,” Jasnah said as they reached the bow. “What do you see?”

Shallan stopped beside the rail and stared down at the blue waters, foaming as they were broken by the ship’s prow. Here at the bow, she could see a deepness to the swells. An unfathomable expanse that extended not just outward, but downward.

“I see eternity,” Shallan said.

“Spoken like an artist,” Jasnah said. “This ship sails across depths we cannot know. Beneath these waves is a bustling, frantic, unseen world.”

Jasnah leaned forward, gripping the rail with one hand unclothed and the other veiled within the safehand sleeve. She looked outward. Not at the depths, and not at the land distantly peeking over both the northern and southern horizons. She looked toward the east. Toward the storms.

“There is an entire world, Shallan,” Jasnah said, “of which our minds skim but the surface. A world of deep, profound thought. A world created by deep, profound thoughts. When you see Shadesmar, you enter those depths. It is an alien place to us in some ways, but at the same time we formed it. With some help.”

“We did what?”

“What are spren?” Jasnah asked.

The question caught Shallan off guard, but by now she was accustomed to challenging questions from Jasnah. She took time to think and consider her answer.

“Nobody knows what spren are,” Shallan said, “though many philosophers have different opinions on–”

“No,” Jasnah said. “What are they?”

“I…” Shallan looked up at a pair of windspren spinning through the air above. They looked like tiny ribbons of light, glowing softly, dancing around one another. “They’re living ideas.”

Jasnah spun on her.

“What?” Shallan said, jumping. “Am I wrong?”

“No,” Jasnah said. “You’re right.” The woman narrowed her eyes. “By my best guess, spren are elements of the Cognitive Realm that have leaked into the physical world. They’re concepts that have gained a fragment of sentience, perhaps because of human intervention.

“Think of a man who gets angry often. Think of how his friends and family might start referring to that anger as a beast, as a thing that possesses him, as something external to him. Humans personify. We speak of the wind as if it has a will of its own.

“Spren are those ideas – the ideas of collective human experience – somehow come alive. Shadesmar is where that first happens, and it is their place. Though we created it, they shaped it. They live there; they rule there, within their own cities.”

“Cities?”

“Yes,” Jasnah said, looking back out over the ocean. She seemed troubled. “Spren are wild in their variety. Some are as clever as humans and create cities. Others are like fish and simply swim in the currents.”

Shallan nodded. Though in truth she was having trouble grasping any of this, she didn’t want Jasnah to stop talking. This was the sort of knowledge that Shallan needed, the kind of thing she craved. “Does this have to do with what you discovered? About the parshmen, the Voidbringers?”

“I haven’t been able to determine that yet. The spren are not always forthcoming. In some cases, they do not know. In others, they do not trust me because of our ancient betrayal.”

Shallan frowned, looking to her teacher. “Betrayal?”

“They tell me of it,” Jasnah said, “but they won’t say what it was. We broke an oath, and in so doing offended them greatly. I think some of them may have died, though how a concept can die, I do not know.” Jasnah turned to Shallan with a solemn expression. “I realize this is overwhelming. You will have to learn this, all of it, if you are to help me. Are you still willing?”

“Do I have a choice?”

A smile tugged at the edges of Jasnah’s lips. “I doubt it. You Soulcast on your own, without the aid of a fabrial. You are like me.”

Shallan stared out over the waters. Like Jasnah. What did it mean? Why–

She froze, blinking. For a moment, she thought she’d seen the same pattern as before, the one that had made ridges on her sheet of paper. This time it had been in the water, impossibly formed on the surface of a wave.

“Brightness…” she said, resting her fingers on Jasnah’s arm. “I thought I saw something in the water, just now. A pattern of sharp lines, like a maze.”

“Show me where.”

“It was on one of the waves, and we’ve passed it now. But I think I saw it earlier, on one of my pages. Does it mean something?”

“Most certainly. I must admit, Shallan, I find the coincidence of our meeting to be startling. Suspiciously so.”

“Brightness?”

“They were involved,” Jasnah said. “They brought you to me. And they are still watching you, it appears. So no, Shallan, you no longer have a choice. The old ways are returning, and I don’t see it as a hopeful sign. It’s an act of self-preservation. The spren sense impending danger, and so they return to us. Our attention now must turn to the Shattered Plains and the relics of Urithiru. It will be a long, long time before you return to your homeland.”

Shallan nodded mutely.

“This worries you,” Jasnah said.

“Yes, Brightness. My family…”

Shallan felt like a traitor in abandoning her brothers, who had been depending on her for wealth. She’d written to them and explained, without many specifics, that she’d had to return the stolen Soulcaster – and was now required to help Jasnah with her work.

Balat’s reply had been positive, after a fashion. He said he was glad at least one of them had escaped the fate that was coming to the house. He thought that the rest of them – her three brothers and Balat’s betrothed – were doomed.

They might be right. Not only would Father’s debts crush them, but there was the matter of her father’s broken Soulcaster. The group that had given it to him wanted it back.

Unfortunately, Shallan was convinced that Jasnah’s quest was of the utmost importance. The Voidbringers would soon return – indeed, they were not some distant threat from stories. They lived among men, and had for centuries. The gentle, quiet parshmen who worked as perfect servants and slaves were really destroyers.

Stopping the catastrophe of the return of the Voidbringers was a greater duty than even protecting her brothers. It was still painful to admit that.

Jasnah studied her. “With regard to your family, Shallan. I have taken some action.”

“Action?” Shallan said, taking the taller woman’s arm. “You’ve helped my brothers?”

“After a fashion,” Jasnah said. “Wealth would not truly solve this problem, I suspect, though I have arranged for a small gift to be sent. From what you’ve said, your family’s problems really stem from two issues. First, the Ghostbloods desire their Soulcaster – which you have broken – to be returned. Second, your house is without allies and deeply in debt.”

Jasnah proffered a sheet of paper. “This,” she continued, “is from a conversation I had with my mother via spanreed this morning.”

Shallan traced it with her eyes, noting Jasnah’s explanation of the broken Soulcaster and her request for help.

This happens more often than you’d think, Navani had replied. The failing likely has to do with the alignment of the gem housings. Bring me the device, and we shall see.

“My mother,” Jasnah said, “is a renowned artifabrian. I suspect she can make yours function again. We can send it to your brothers, who can return it to its owners.”

“You’d let me do that?” Shallan asked. During their days sailing, Shallan had cautiously pried for more information about the sect, hoping to understand her father and his motives. Jasnah claimed to know very little of them beyond the fact that they wanted her research, and were willing to kill for it.

“I don’t particularly want them having access to such a valuable device,” Jasnah said. “But I don’t have time to protect your family right now directly. This is a workable solution, assuming your brothers can stall a while longer. Have them tell the truth, if they must – that you, knowing I was a scholar, came to me and asked me to fix the Soulcaster. Perhaps that will sate them for now.”

“Thank you, Brightness.” Storms. If she’d just gone to Jasnah in the first place, after being accepted as her ward, how much easier would it have been? Shallan looked down at the paper, noticing that the conversation continued.

As for the other matter, Navani wrote, I’m very fond of this suggestion. I believe I can persuade the boy to at least consider it, as his most recent affair ended quite abruptly – as is common with him – earlier in the week.

“What is this second part?” Shallan asked, looking up from the paper.

“Sating the Ghostbloods alone will not save your house,” Jasnah said. “Your debts are too great, particularly considering your father’s actions in alienating so many. I have therefore arranged a powerful alliance for your house.”

“Alliance? How?”

Jasnah took a deep breath. She seemed reluctant to explain. “I have taken the initial steps in arranging for you to be betrothed to one of my cousins, son of my uncle Dalinar Kholin. The boy’s name is Adolin. He is handsome and well-acquainted with amiable discourse.”

“Betrothed?” Shallan said. “You’ve promised him my hand?”

“I have started the process,” Jasnah said, speaking with uncharacteristic anxiety. “Though at times he lacks foresight, Adolin has a good heart – as good as that of his father, who may be the best man I have ever known. He is considered Alethkar’s most eligible son, and my mother has long wanted him wed.”

“Betrothed,” Shallan repeated.

“Yes. Is that distressing?”

“It’s wonderful!” Shallan exclaimed, grabbing Jasnah’s arm more tightly. “So easy. If I’m married to someone so powerful… Storms! Nobody would dare touch us in Jah Keved. It would solve many of our problems. Brightness Jasnah, you’re a genius!”

Jasnah relaxed visibly. “Yes, well, it did seem a workable solution. I had wondered, however, if you’d be offended.”

“Why on the winds would I be offended?”

“Because of the restriction of freedom implicit in a marriage,” Jasnah said. “And if not that, because the offer was made without consulting you. I had to see if the possibility was even open first. It has proceeded further than I’d expected, as my mother has seized on the idea. Navani has… a tendency toward the overwhelming.”

Shallan had trouble imagining anyone overwhelming Jasnah. “Stormfather! You’re worried I’d be offended? Brightness, I spent my entire life locked in my father’s manor – I grew up assuming he’d pick my husband.”

“But you’re free of your father now.”

“Yes, and I was so perfectly wise in my own pursuit of relationships,” Shallan said. “The first man I chose was not only an ardent, but secretly an assassin.”

“It doesn’t bother you at all?” Jasnah said. “The idea of being beholden to another, particularly a man?”

“It’s not like I’m being sold into slavery,” Shallan said with a laugh.

“No. I suppose not.” Jasnah shook herself, her poise returning. “Well, I will let Navani know you are amenable to the engagement, and we should have a causal in place within the day.”

A causal – a conditional betrothal, in Vorin terminology. She would be, for all intents and purposes, engaged, but would have no legal footing until an official betrothal was signed and verified by the ardents.

“The boy’s father has said he will not force Adolin into anything,” Jasnah explained, “though the boy is recently single, as he has managed to offend yet another young lady. Regardless, Dalinar would rather you two meet before anything more binding is agreed upon. There have been… shifts in the political climate of the Shattered Plains. A great loss to my uncle’s army. Another reason for us to hasten to the Plains.”

“Adolin Kholin,” Shallan said, listening with half an ear. “A duelist. A fantastic one. And even a Shardbearer.”

“Ah, so you were paying attention to your readings about my father and family.”

“I was – but I knew about your family before that. The Alethi are the center of society! Even girls from rural houses know the names of the Alethi princes.” And she’d be lying if she denied youthful daydreams of meeting one. “But Brightness, are you certain this match will be wise? I mean, I’m hardly the most important of individuals.”

“Well, yes. The daughter of another highprince might have been preferable for Adolin. However, it seems that he has managed to offend each and every one of the eligible women of that rank. The boy is, shall we say, somewhat overeager about relationships. Nothing you can’t work through, I’m sure.”

“Stormfather,” Shallan said, feeling her legs go weak. “He’s heir to a princedom! He’s in line to the throne of Alethkar itself!”

“Third in line,” Jasnah said, “behind my brother’s infant son and Dalinar, my uncle.”

“Brightness, I have to ask. Why Adolin? Why not the younger son? I–I have nothing to offer Adolin, or the house.”

“On the contrary,” Jasnah said, “if you are what I think you are, then you will be able to offer him something nobody else can. Something more important than riches.”

“What is it you think that I am?” Shallan whispered, meeting the older woman’s eyes, finally asking the question that she hadn’t dared.

“Right now, you are but a promise,” Jasnah said. “A chrysalis with the potential for grandeur inside. When once humans and spren bonded, the results were women who danced in the skies and men who could destroy the stones with a touch.”

“The Lost Radiants. Traitors to mankind.” She couldn’t absorb it all. The betrothal, Shadesmar and the spren, and this, her mysterious destiny. She’d known. But speaking it…

She sank down, heedless of getting her dress wet on the deck, and sat with her back against the bulwark. Jasnah allowed her to compose herself before, amazingly, sitting down herself. She did so with far more poise, tucking her dress underneath her legs as she sat sideways. They both drew looks from the sailors.

“They’re going to chew me to pieces,” Shallan said. “The Alethi court. It’s the most ferocious in the world.”

Jasnah snorted. “It’s more bluster than storm, Shallan. I will train you.”

“I’ll never be like you, Brightness. You have power, authority, wealth. Just look how the sailors respond to you.”

“Am I specifically using said power, authority, or wealth right now?”

“You paid for this trip.”

“Did you not pay for several trips on this ship?” Jasnah asked. “They did not treat you the same as they do me?”

“No. Oh, they are fond of me. But I don’t have your weight, Jasnah.”

“I will assume that did not have implications toward my girth,” Jasnah said with a hint of a smile. “I understand your argument, Shallan. It is, however, dead wrong.”

Shallan turned to her. Jasnah sat upon the deck of the ship as if it were a throne, back straight, head up, commanding. Shallan sat with her legs against her chest, arms around them below the knees. Even the ways they sat were different. She was nothing like this woman.

“There is a secret you must learn, child,” Jasnah said. “A secret that is even more important than those relating to Shadesmar and spren. Power is an illusion of perception.”

Shallan frowned.

“Don’t mistake me,” Jasnah continued. “Some kinds of power are real – power to command armies, power to Soulcast. These come into play far less often than you would think. On an individual basis, in most interactions, this thing we call power – authority – exists only as it is perceived.

“You say I have wealth. This is true, but you have also seen that I do not often use it. You say I have authority as the sister of a king. I do. And yet, the men of this ship would treat me exactly the same way if I were a beggar who had convinced them I was the sister to a king. In that case, my authority is not a real thing. It is mere vapors – an illusion. I can create that illusion for them, as can you.”

“I’m not convinced, Brightness.”

“I know. If you were, you would be doing it already.” Jasnah stood up, brushing off her skirt. “You will tell me if you see that pattern – the one that appeared on the waves – again?”

“Yes, Brightness,” Shallan said, distracted.

“Then take the rest of the day for your art. I need to consider how to best teach you of Shadesmar.” The older woman retreated, nodding at the bows of sailors as she passed and went back down belowdecks.

Shallan rose, then turned and grabbed the railing, one hand to either side of the bowsprit. The ocean spread before her, rippling waves, a scent of cold freshness. Rhythmic crashing as the sloop pushed through the waves.

Jasnah’s words fought in her mind, like skyeels with only one rat between them. Spren with cities? Shadesmar, a realm that was here, but unseen? Shallan, suddenly betrothed to the single most important bachelor in the world?

She left the bow, walking along the side of the ship, freehand trailing on the railing. How did the sailors regard her? They smiled, they waved. They liked her. Yalb, who hung lazily from the rigging nearby, called to her, telling her that in the next port, there was a statue she had to go visit. “It’s this giant foot, young miss. Just a foot! Never finished the blustering statue…”

She smiled to him and continued. Did she want them to look at her as they looked at Jasnah? Always afraid, always worried that they might do something wrong? Was that power?

When I first sailed from Vedenar, she thought, reaching the place where her box had been tied, the captain kept urging me to go home. He saw my mission as a fool’s errand.

Tozbek had always acted as if he were doing her a favor in conveying her after Jasnah. Should she have had to spend that entire time feeling as if she’d imposed upon him and his crew by hiring them? Yes, he had offered a discount to her because of her father’s business with him in the past – but she’d still been employing him.

The way he’d treated her was probably a thing of Thaylen merchants. If a captain could make you feel like you were imposing on him, you’d pay better. She liked the man, but their relationship left something to be desired. Jasnah would never have stood for being treated in such a way.

That santhid still swam alongside. It was like a tiny, mobile island, its back overgrown with seaweed, small crystals jutting up from the shell.

Shallan turned and walked toward the stern, where Captain Tozbek spoke with one of his mates, pointing at a map covered with glyphs. He nodded to her as she approached. “Just a warning, young miss,” he said. “The ports will soon grow less accommodating. We’ll be leaving Longbrow’s Straits, curving around the eastern edge of the continent, toward New Natanan. There’s nothing of worth between here and the Shallow Crypts – and even that’s not much of a sight. I wouldn’t send my own brother ashore there without guards, and he’s killed seventeen men with his bare hands, he has.”

“I understand, Captain,” Shallan said. “And thank you. I’ve revised my earlier decision. I need you to halt the ship and let me inspect the specimen swimming beside us.”

He sighed, reaching up and running his fingers along one of his stiff, spiked eyebrows – much as other men might play with their mustaches. “Brightness, that’s not advisable. Stormfather! If I dropped you in the ocean…”

“Then I would be wet,” Shallan said. “It is a state I’ve experienced one or two times in my life.”

“No, I simply cannot allow it. Like I said, we’ll take you to see some shells in–”

“Cannot allow it?” Shallan interrupted. She regarded him with what she hoped was a look of puzzlement, hoping he didn’t see how tightly she squeezed her hands closed at her sides. Storms, but she hated confrontation. “I wasn’t aware I had made a request you had the power to allow or disallow, Captain. Stop the ship. Lower me down. That is your order.” She tried to say it as forcefully as Jasnah would. The woman could make it seem easier to resist a full highstorm than to disagree with her.

Tozbek worked his mouth for a moment, no sound coming out, as if his body were trying to continue his earlier objection but his mind had been delayed. “It is my ship…” he finally said.

“Nothing will be done to your ship,” Shallan said. “Let’s be quick about it, Captain. I do not wish to overly delay our arrival in port tonight.”

She left him, walking back to her box, heart thumping, hands trembling. She sat down, partially to calm herself.

Tozbek, sounding profoundly annoyed, began calling orders. The sails were lowered, the ship slowed. Shallan breathed out, feeling a fool.

And yet, what Jasnah said worked. The way Shallan acted created something in the eyes of Tozbek. An illusion? Like the spren themselves, perhaps? Fragments of human expectation, given life?

The santhid slowed with them. Shallan rose, nervous, as sailors approached with rope. They reluctantly tied a loop at the bottom she could put her foot in, then explained that she should hold tightly to the rope as she was lowered. They tied a second, smaller rope securely around her waist – the means by which to haul her, wet and humiliated, back onto the deck. An inevitability, in their eyes.

She took off her shoes, then climbed up over the railing as instructed. Had it been this windy before? She had a moment of vertigo, standing there with socked toes gripping a tiny rim, dress fluttering in the coursing winds. A windspren zipped up to her, then formed into the shape of a face with clouds behind it. Storms, the thing had better not interfere. Was it human imagination that had given windspren their mischievous spark?

She stepped unsteadily into the rope loop as the sailors lowered it down beside her feet, then Yalb handed her the mask he’d told her of.

Jasnah appeared from belowdecks, looking about in confusion. She saw Shallan standing off the side of the ship, and then cocked an eyebrow.

Shallan shrugged, then gestured to the men to lower her.

She refused to let herself feel silly as she inched toward the waters and the reclusive animal bobbing in the waves. The men stopped her a foot or two above the water, and she put on the mask, held by straps, covering most of her face including the nose.

“Lower!” she shouted up at them.

She thought she could feel their reluctance in the lethargic way the rope descended. Her foot hit the water, and a biting cold shot up her leg. Stormfather! But she didn’t have them stop. She let them lower her farther until her legs were submerged in the frigid water. Her skirt ballooned out in a most annoying way, and she actually had to step on the end of it – inside the loop – to prevent it from rising up about her waist and floating on the water’s surface as she submerged.

She wrestled with the fabric for a moment, glad the men above couldn’t see her blushing. Once it got wetter, though, it was easier to manage. She finally was able to squat, still holding tightly to the rope, and go down into the water up to her waist.

Then she ducked her head under the water.

Light streamed down from the surface in shimmering, radiant columns. There was life here, furious, amazing life. Tiny fish zipped this way and that, picking at the underside of the shell that shaded a majestic creature. Gnarled like an ancient tree, with rippled and folded skin, the true form of the santhid was a beast with long, drooping blue tendrils, like those of a jellyfish, only far thicker. Those disappeared down into the depths, trailing behind the beast at a slant.

The beast itself was a knotted grey-blue mass underneath the shell. Its ancient-looking folds surrounded one large eye on her side – presumably, its twin would be on the other side. It seemed ponderous, yet majestic, with mighty fins moving like oarsmen. A group of strange spren shaped like arrows moved through the water here around the beast.

Schools of fish darted about. Though the depths seemed empty, the area just around the santhid teemed with life, as did the area under the ship. Tiny fish picked at the bottom of the vessel. They’d move between the santhid and the ship, sometimes alone, sometimes in waves. Was this why the creature swam up beside a vessel? Something to do with the fish, and their relationship to it?

She looked upon the creature, and its eye – as big as her head – rolled toward her, focusing, seeing her. In that moment, Shallan couldn’t feel the cold. She couldn’t feel embarrassed. She was looking into a world that, so far as she knew, no scholar had ever visited.

She blinked her eyes, taking a Memory of the creature, collecting it for later sketching.

2. Bridge Four

Our first clue was the Parshendi. Even weeks before they abandoned their pursuit of the gemhearts, their pattern of fighting changed. They lingered on the plateaus after battles, as if waiting for something.

From the personal journal of Navani Kholin, Jeseses 1174

Breath.

A man’s breath was his life. Exhaled, bit by bit, back into the world. Kaladin breathed deeply, eyes closed, and for a time that was all he could hear. His own life. In, out, to the beating of the thunder in his chest.

Breath. His own little storm.

Outside, the rain had stopped. Kaladin remained sitting in the darkness. When kings and wealthy lighteyes died, their bodies weren’t burned like those of common men. Instead, they were Soulcast into statues of stone or metal, forever frozen.

The darkeyes’ bodies were burned. They became smoke, to rise toward the heavens and whatever waited there, like a burned prayer.

Breath. The breath of a lighteyes was no different from that of a darkeyes. No more sweet, no more free. The breath of kings and slaves mingled, to be breathed by men again, over and over.

Kaladin stood up and opened his eyes. He’d spent the highstorm in the darkness of this small room alongside Bridge Four’s new barrack. Alone. He walked to the door, but stopped. He rested his fingers on a cloak he knew hung from a hook there. In the darkness, he could not make out its deep blue color, nor the Kholin glyph – in the shape of Dalinar’s sigil – on the back.

It seemed that every change in his life had been marked by a storm. This was a big one. He shoved open the door and stepped out into the light as a free man.

He left the cloak, for now.

Bridge Four cheered him as he emerged. They had gone out to bathe and shave in the riddens of the storm, as was their custom. The line was almost done, Rock having shaved each of the men in turn. The large Horneater hummed to himself as he worked the razor over Drehy’s balding head. The air smelled wet from the rain, and a washed-out firepit nearby was the only trace of the stew the group had shared the night before.

In many ways, this place wasn’t so different from the lumberyards his men had recently escaped. The long, rectangular stone barracks were much the same – Soulcast rather than having been built by hand, they looked like enormous stone logs. These, however, each had a couple of smaller rooms on the sides for sergeants, with their own doors that opened to the outside. They’d been painted with the symbols of the platoons using them before; Kaladin’s men would have to paint over those.

“Moash,” Kaladin called. “Skar, Teft.”

The three jogged toward him, splashing through puddles left by the storm. They wore the clothing of bridgemen: simple trousers cut off at the knees, and leather vests over bare chests. Skar was up and mobile despite the wound to his foot, and he tried rather obviously not to limp. For now, Kaladin didn’t order him to bed rest. The wound wasn’t too bad, and he needed the man.

“I want to look at what we’ve got,” Kaladin said, leading them away from the barrack. It would house fifty men along with a half-dozen sergeants. More barracks flanked it on either side. Kaladin had been given an entire block of them – twenty buildings – to house his new battalion of former bridgemen.

Twenty buildings. That Dalinar should so easily be able to find a block of twenty buildings for the bridgemen bespoke a terrible truth – the cost of Sadeas’s betrayal. Thousands of men dead. Indeed, female scribes worked near some of the barracks, supervising parshmen who carried out heaps of clothing and other personal effects. The possessions of the deceased.

Not a few of those scribes looked on with red eyes and frazzled composures. Sadeas had just created thousands of new widows in Dalinar’s camp, and likely as many orphans. If Kaladin had needed another reason to hate that man, he found it here, manifest in the suffering of those whose husbands had trusted him on the battlefield.

In Kaladin’s eyes, there was no sin greater than the betrayal of one’s allies in battle. Except, perhaps, for the betrayal of one’s own men – of murdering them after they risked their lives to protect you. Kaladin felt an immediate flare of anger at thoughts of Amaram and what he’d done. His slave brand seemed to burn again on his forehead.

Amaram and Sadeas. Two men in Kaladin’s life who would, at some point, need to pay for the things they’d done. Preferably, that payment would come with severe interest.

Kaladin continued to walk with Teft, Moash, and Skar. These barracks, which were slowly being emptied of personal effects, were also crowded with bridgemen. They looked much like the men of Bridge Four – same vests and knee-trousers. And yet, in some other ways, they couldn’t have looked less like the men of Bridge Four. Shaggy-haired with beards that hadn’t been trimmed in months, they bore hollow eyes that didn’t seem to blink often enough. Slumped backs. Expressionless faces.

Each man among them seemed to sit alone, even when surrounded by his fellows.

“I remember that feeling,” Skar said softly. The short, wiry man had sharp features and silvering hair at the temples, despite being in his early thirties. “I don’t want to, but I do.”

“We’re supposed to turn those into an army?” Moash asked.

“Kaladin did it to Bridge Four, didn’t he?” Teft asked, wagging a finger at Moash. “He’ll do it again.”

“Transforming a few dozen men is different from doing the same for hundreds,” Moash said, kicking aside a fallen branch from the highstorm. Tall and solid, Moash had a scar on his chin but no slave brand on his forehead. He walked straight-backed with his chin up. Save for those dark brown eyes of his, he could have passed for an officer.

Kaladin led the three past barrack after barrack, doing a quick count. Nearly a thousand men, and though he’d told them yesterday that they were now free – and could return to their old lives if they wished – few seemed to want to do anything but sit. Though there had originally been forty bridge crews, many had been slaughtered during the latest assault and others had already been short-manned.

“We’ll combine them into twenty crews,” Kaladin said, “of about fifty each.” Above, Syl fluttered down as a ribbon of light and zipped around him. The men gave no sign of seeing her; she would be invisible to them. “We can’t teach each of these thousand personally, not at first. We’ll want to train the more eager ones among them, then send them back to lead and train their own teams.”

“I suppose,” Teft said, scratching his chin. The oldest of the bridgemen, he was one of the few who retained a beard. Most of the others had shaved theirs off as a mark of pride, something to separate the men of Bridge Four from common slaves. Teft kept his neat for the same reason. It was light brown where it hadn’t gone grey, and he wore it short and square, almost like an ardent’s.

Moash grimaced, looking at the bridgemen. “You assume some of them will be ‘more eager,’ Kaladin. They all look the same level of despondent to me.”

“Some will still have fight in them,” Kaladin said, continuing on back toward Bridge Four. “The ones who joined us at the fire last night, for a start. Teft, I’ll need you to choose others. Organize and combine crews, then pick forty men – two from each team – to be trained first. You’ll be in command of that training. Those forty will be the seed we use to help the rest.”

“I suppose I can do that.”

“Good. I’ll give you a few men to help.”

“A few?” Teft asked. “I could use more than a few…”

“You’ll have to make do with a few,” Kaladin said, stopping on the path and turning westward, toward the king’s complex beyond the camp wall. It rose on a hillside overlooking the rest of the warcamps. “Most of us are going to be needed to keep Dalinar Kholin alive.”

Moash and the others stopped beside him. Kaladin squinted at the palace. It certainly didn’t look grand enough to house a king – out here, everything was just stone and more stone.

“You are willing to trust Dalinar?” Moash asked.

“He gave up his Shardblade for us,” Kaladin said.

“He owed it to us,” Skar said with a grunt. “We saved his storming life.”

“It could have just been posturing,” Moash said, folding his arms. “Political games, him and Sadeas trying to manipulate each other.”

Syl alighted on Kaladin’s shoulder, taking the form of a young woman with a flowing, filmy dress, all blue-white. She held her hands clasped together as she looked up at the king’s complex, where Dalinar Kholin had gone to plan.

He’d told Kaladin that he was going to do something that would anger a lot of people. I’m going to take away their games…

“We need to keep that man alive,” Kaladin said, looking back to the others. “I don’t know if I trust him, but he’s the only person on these Plains who has shown even a hint of compassion for bridgemen. If he dies, do you want to guess how long it will take his successor to sell us back to Sadeas?”

Skar snorted in derision. “I’d like to see them try with a Knight Radiant at our head.”

“I’m not a Radiant.”

“Fine, whatever,” Skar said. “Whatever you are, it will be tough for them to take us from you.”

“You think I can fight them all, Skar?” Kaladin said, meeting the older man’s eyes. “Dozens of Shardbearers? Tens of thousands of troops? You think one man could do that?”

“Not one man,” Skar said, stubborn. “You.”

“I’m not a god, Skar,” Kaladin said. “I can’t hold back the weight of ten armies.” He turned to the other two. “We decided to stay here on the Shattered Plains. Why?”

“What good would it do to run?” Teft asked, shrugging. “Even as free men, we’d just end up conscripted into one army or another out there in the hills. Either that, or we’d end up starving.”

Moash nodded. “This is as good a place as any, so long as we’re free.”

“Dalinar Kholin is our best hope for a real life,” Kaladin said. “Bodyguards, not conscripted labor. Free men, despite the brands on our foreheads. Nobody else will give us that. If we want freedom, we need to keep Dalinar Kholin alive.”

“And the Assassin in White?” Skar asked softly.

They’d heard of what the man was doing around the world, slaughtering kings and highprinces in all nations. The news was the buzz of the warcamps, ever since reports had started trickling in through spanreed. The emperor of Azir, dead. Jah Keved in turmoil. A half-dozen other nations left without a ruler.

“He already killed our king,” Kaladin said. “Old Gavilar was the assassin’s first murder. We’ll just have to hope he’s done here. Either way, we protect Dalinar. At all costs.”

They nodded one by one, though those nods were grudging. He didn’t blame them. Trusting lighteyes hadn’t gotten them far – even Moash, who had once spoken well of Dalinar, now seemed to have lost his fondness for the man. Or any lighteyes.

In truth, Kaladin was a little surprised at himself and the trust he felt. But, storm it, Syl liked Dalinar. That carried weight.

“We’re weak right now,” Kaladin said, lowering his voice. “But if we play along with this for a time, protecting Kholin, we’ll be paid handsomely. I’ll be able to train you – really train you – as soldiers and officers. Beyond that, we’ll be able to teach these others.

“We could never make it on our own out there as two dozen former bridgemen. But what if we were instead a highly skilled mercenary force of a thousand soldiers, equipped with the finest gear in the warcamps? If worst comes to worst, and we have to abandon the camps, I’d like to do so as a cohesive unit, hardened and impossible to ignore. Give me a year with this thousand, and I can have it done.”

“Now that plan I like,” Moash said. “Do I get to learn to use a sword?”

“We’re still darkeyes, Moash.”

“Not you,” Skar said from his other side. “I saw your eyes during the–”

“Stop!” Kaladin said. He took a deep breath. “Just stop. No more talk of that.”

Skar fell silent.

“I am going to name you officers,” Kaladin said to them. “You three, along with Sigzil and Rock. You’ll be lieutenants.”

“Darkeyed lieutenants?” Skar said. The rank was commonly used for the equivalent of sergeants in companies made up only of lighteyes.

“Dalinar made me a captain,” Kaladin said. “The highest rank he said he dared commission a darkeyes. Well, I need to come up with a full command structure for a thousand men, and we’re going to need something between sergeant and captain. That means appointing you five as lieutenants. I think Dalinar will let me get away with it. We’ll make master sergeants if we need another rank.

“Rock is going to be quartermaster and in charge of food for the thousand. I’ll appoint Lopen his second. Teft, you’ll be in charge of training. Sigzil will be our clerk. He’s the only one who can read glyphs. Moash and Skar…”

He glanced toward the two men. One short, the other tall, they walked the same way, with a smooth gait, dangerous, spears always on their shoulders. They were never without. Of all the men he’d trained in Bridge Four, only these two had instinctively understood. They were killers.

Like Kaladin himself.

“We three,” Kaladin told them, “are each going to focus on watching Dalinar Kholin. Whenever possible, I want one of us three personally guarding him. Often one of the other two will watch his sons, but make no mistake, the Blackthorn is the man we’re going to keep alive. At all costs. He is our only guarantee of freedom for Bridge Four.”

The others nodded.

“Good,” Kaladin said. “Let’s go get the rest of the men. It’s time for the world to see you as I do.”

By common agreement, Hobber sat down to get his tattoo first. The gap-toothed man was one of the very first who had believed in Kaladin. Kaladin remembered that day; exhausted after a bridge run, wanting to simply lie down and stare. Instead, he’d chosen to save Hobber rather than letting him die. Kaladin had saved himself that day too.

The rest of Bridge Four stood around Hobber in the tent, watching in silence as the tattooist worked carefully on his forehead, covering up the scar of his slave’s brand with the glyphs Kaladin had provided. Hobber winced now and then at the pain of the tattoo, but he kept a grin on his face.

Kaladin had heard that you could cover a scar with a tattoo, and it ended up working quite well. Once the tattoo ink was injected, the glyphs drew the eye, and you could barely tell that the skin beneath was scarred.

Once the process was finished, the tattooist provided a mirror for Hobber to look into. The bridgeman touched his forehead hesitantly. The skin was red from the needles, but the dark tattoo perfectly covered the slave brand.

“What does it say?” Hobber asked softly, tears in his eyes.

“Freedom,” Sigzil said before Kaladin could reply. “The glyph means freedom.”

“The smaller ones above,” Kaladin said, “say the date you were freed and the one who freed you. Even if you lose your writ of freedom, anyone who tries to imprison you for being a runaway can easily find proof that you are not. They can go to Dalinar Kholin’s scribes, who keep a copy of your writ.”

Hobber nodded. “That’s good, but it’s not enough. Add ‘Bridge Four’ to it. Freedom, Bridge Four.”

“To imply you were freed from Bridge Four?”

“No, sir. I wasn’t freed from Bridge Four. I was freed by it. I wouldn’t trade my time there for anything.”

It was crazy talk. Bridge Four had been death – scores of men had been slaughtered running that cursed bridge. Even after Kaladin had determined to save the men, he’d lost far too many. Hobber would have been a fool not to take any opportunity to escape.

And yet, he sat stubbornly until Kaladin drew out the proper glyphs for the tattooist – a calm, sturdy darkeyed woman who looked like she could have lifted a bridge all on her own. She settled down on her stool and began adding the two glyphs to Hobber’s forehead, tucked right below the freedom glyph. She spent the process explaining – again – how the tattoo would be sore for days and how Hobber would need to care for it.

He accepted the new tattoos with a grin on his face. Pure foolishness, but the others nodded in agreement, clasping Hobber on the arm. Once Hobber was done, Skar sat quickly, eager, demanding the same full set of tattoos.

Kaladin stepped back, folding his arms and shaking his head. Outside the tent, a bustling marketplace sold and bought. The “warcamp” was really a city, built up inside the craterlike rim of some enormous rock formation. The prolonged war on the Shattered Plains had attracted merchants of all varieties, along with tradesmen, artists, and even families with children.

Moash stood nearby, face troubled, watching the tattooist. He wasn’t the only one in the bridge crew who didn’t have a slave brand. Teft didn’t either. They had been made bridgemen without technically being made slaves first. It happened frequently in Sadeas’s camp, where running bridges was a punishment that one could earn for all manner of infractions.

“If you don’t have a slave’s brand,” Kaladin said loudly to the men, “you don’t need to get the tattoo. You’re still one of us.”

“No,” Rock said. “I will get this thing.” He insisted on sitting down after Skar and getting the tattoo right on his forehead, though he had no slave brand. Indeed, every one of the men without a slave brand – Beld and Teft included – sat down and got the tattoo on their foreheads.

Only Moash abstained, and had the tattoo placed on his upper arm. Good. Unlike most of them, he wouldn’t have to go about with a proclamation of former slavery in plain view.

Moash stood up from the seat, and another took his place. A man with red and black skin in a marbled pattern, like stone. Bridge Four had a lot of variety, but Shen was in a class all his own. A parshman.

“I can’t tattoo him,” the artist said. “He’s property.”

Kaladin opened his mouth to object, but the other bridgemen jumped in first.

“He’s been freed, like us,” Teft said.

“One of the team,” Hobber said. “Give him the tattoo, or you won’t see a sphere from any of us.” He blushed after he said it, glancing at Kaladin – who would be paying for all this, using spheres granted by Dalinar Kholin.

Other bridgemen spoke out, and the tattoo artist finally sighed and gave in. She pulled over her stool and began working on Shen’s forehead.

“You won’t even be able to see it,” she grumbled, though Sigzil’s skin was nearly as dark as Shen’s, and the tattoo showed up fine on him.

Eventually, Shen looked in the mirror, then stood up. He glanced at Kaladin, and nodded. Shen didn’t say much, and Kaladin didn’t know what to make of the man. It was actually easy to forget about him, usually trailing along silently at the back of the group of bridgemen. Invisible. Parshmen were often that way.

Shen finished, only Kaladin himself remained. He sat down next and closed his eyes. The pain of the needles was a lot sharper than he’d anticipated.

After a short time, the tattooist started cursing under her breath.

Kaladin opened his eyes as she wiped a rag on his forehead. “What is it?” he asked.

“The ink won’t take!” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. When I wipe your forehead, the ink all just comes right off! The tattoo won’t stay.”

Kaladin sighed, realizing he had a little Stormlight raging in his veins. He hadn’t even noticed drawing it in, but he seemed to be getting better and better at holding it. He frequently took in a little these days while walking about. Holding Stormlight was like filling a wineskin – if you filled it to bursting and unstopped it, it would squirt out quickly, then slow to a trickle. Same with the Light.

He banished it, hoping the tattoo artist didn’t notice when he breathed out a small cloud of glowing smoke. “Try again,” he said as she got out new ink.

This time, the tattoo took. Kaladin sat through the process, teeth clenched against the pain, then looked up as she held the mirror for him. The face that looked back at Kaladin seemed alien. Clean-shaven, hair pulled back from his face for the tattooing, the slave brands covered up and, for the moment, forgotten.

Can I be this man again? he thought, reaching up, touching his cheek. This man died, didn’t he?

Syl landed on his shoulder, joining him in looking into the mirror. “Life before death, Kaladin,” she whispered.

He unconsciously sucked in Stormlight. Just a little, a fraction of a sphere’s worth. It flowed through his veins like a wave of pressure, like winds trapped in a small enclosure.

The tattoo on his forehead melted. His body shoved out the ink, which started to drip down his face. The tattooist cursed again and grabbed her rag.

Kaladin was left with the image of those glyphs melting away. Freedom dissolved, and underneath, the violent scars of his captivity. Dominated by a branded glyph.

Shash. Dangerous.

The woman wiped his face. “I don’t know why this is happening! I thought it would stay that time. I–”

“It’s all right,” Kaladin said, taking the rag as he stood, finishing the cleanup. He turned to face the rest of them, bridgemen now soldiers. “The scars haven’t finished with me yet, it appears. I’ll try again another time.”

They nodded. He’d have to explain to them later what was happening; they knew of his abilities.

“Let’s go,” Kaladin said to them, tossing a small bag of spheres to the tattooist, then taking his spear from beside the tent entrance. The others joined him, spears to shoulders. They didn’t need to be armed while in camp, but he wanted them to get used to the idea that they were free to carry weapons now.

The market outside was crowded and vibrant. The tents, of course, would have been taken down and stowed during last night’s highstorm, but they’d already sprung up again. Perhaps because he was thinking about Shen, he noticed the parshmen. He picked out dozens of them with a cursory glance, helping set up a few last tents, carrying purchases for lighteyes, helping shopowners stack their wares.

What do they think of this war on the Shattered Plains? Kaladin wondered. A war to defeat, and perhaps subjugate, the only free parshmen in the world?

Would that he could get an answer out of Shen regarding questions like that. It seemed all he ever got from the parshman were shrugs.

Kaladin led his men through the market, which seemed far friendlier than the one in Sadeas’s camp. Though people stared at the bridgemen, nobody sneered, and the haggling at nearby stands – while energetic – didn’t progress to shouting. There even seemed to be fewer urchins and beggars.

You just want to believe that, Kaladin thought. You want to believe Dalinar is the man everyone says he is. The honorable lighteyes of the stories. But everyone said the same things about Amaram.

As they walked, they did pass some soldiers. Too few. Men who had been on duty back in the camp when the others had gone on the disastrous assault where Sadeas had betrayed Dalinar. As they passed one group patrolling the market, Kaladin caught two men at their front raising their hands before themselves, crossed at the wrist.

How had they learned Bridge Four’s old salute, and so quickly? These men didn’t do it as a full salute, just a small gesture, but they nodded their heads to Kaladin and his men as they passed. Suddenly, the more calm nature of the market took on another cast to Kaladin. Perhaps this wasn’t simply the order and organization of Dalinar’s army.

There was an air of quiet dread over this warcamp. Thousands had been lost to Sadeas’s betrayal. Everyone here had probably known a man who had died out on those plateaus. And everyone probably wondered if the conflict between the two highprinces would escalate.

“It’s nice to be seen as a hero, isn’t it?” Sigzil asked, walking beside Kaladin and watching another group of soldiers pass by.

“How long will the goodwill last, do you think?” Moash asked. “How long before they resent us?”

“Ha!” Rock, towering behind him, clapped Moash on the shoulder. “No complaining today! You do this thing too much. Do not make me kick you. I do not like kicking. It hurts my toes.”

“Kick me?” Moash snorted. “You won’t even carry a spear, Rock.”

“Spears are not for kicking complainers. But big Unkalaki feet like mine – it is what they were made for! Ha! This thing is obvious, yes?”

Kaladin led the men out of the market and to a large rectangular building near the barracks. This one was constructed of worked stone, rather than Soulcast rock, allowing far more finesse in design. Such buildings were becoming more common in the warcamps, as more masons arrived.

Soulcasting was quicker, but also more expensive and less flexible. He didn’t know much about it, only that Soulcasters were limited in what they could do. That was why the barracks were all essentially identical.

Kaladin led his men inside the towering building to the counter, where a grizzled man with a belly that stretched to next week supervised a few parshmen stacking bolts of blue cloth. Rind, the Kholin head quartermaster, to whom Kaladin had sent instructions the night before. Rind was lighteyed, but what was known as a “tenner,” a lowly rank barely above darkeyes.

“Ah!” Rind said, speaking with a high-pitched voice that did not match his girth. “You’re here, finally! I’ve got them all out for you, Captain. Everything I have left.”

“Left?” Moash asked.

“Uniforms of the Cobalt Guard! I’ve commissioned some new ones, but this is what stock remained.” Rind grew more subdued. “Didn’t expect to need so many so soon, you see.” He looked Moash up and down, then handed him a uniform and pointed to a stall for changing.

Moash took it. “We going to wear our leather jerkins over these?”

“Ha!” Rind said. “The ones tied with so much bone you looked like some Western skullbearer on feast day? I’ve heard of that. But no, Brightlord Dalinar says you’re each to be outfitted with breastplates, steel caps, new spears. Chain mail for the battlefield, if you need it.”

“For now,” Kaladin said, “uniforms will do.”

“I think I’ll look silly in this,” Moash grumbled, but walked over to change. Rind distributed the uniforms to the men. He gave Shen a strange look, but delivered the parshman a uniform without complaint.

The bridgemen gathered in an eager bunch, jabbering with excitement as they unfolded their uniforms. It had been a long time since any of them had worn anything other than bridgeman leathers or slave wraps. They stopped talking when Moash stepped out.

These were newer uniforms, of a more modern style than Kaladin had worn in his previous military service. Stiff blue trousers and black boots polished to a shine. A buttoned white shirt, only the edges of its collar and cuffs extending beyond the jacket, which came down to the waist and buttoned closed beneath the belt.

“Now, there’s a soldier!” the quartermaster said with a laugh. “Still think you look silly?” He gestured for Moash to inspect his reflection in the mirror on the wall.

Moash fixed his cuffs and actually blushed. Kaladin had rarely seen the man so out of sorts. “No,” Moash said. “I don’t.”

The others moved eagerly and began changing. Some went to the stalls at the side, but most didn’t care. They were bridgemen and slaves; they’d spent most of their recent lives being paraded about in loincloths or little more.

Teft had his on before anyone else, and knew to do up the buttons in the right places. “Been a long time,” he whispered, buckling his belt. “Don’t know that I deserve to wear something like this again.”

“This is what you are, Teft,” Kaladin said. “Don’t let the slave rule you.”

Teft grunted, affixing his combat knife in its place on his belt. “And you, son? When are you going to admit what you are?”

“I have.”

“To us. Not to everyone else.”

“Don’t start this again.”

“I’ll storming start whatever I want,” Teft snapped. He leaned in, speaking softly. “At least until you give me a real answer. You’re a Surgebinder. You’re not a Radiant yet, but you’re going to be one when this is all blown through. The others are right to push you. Why don’t you go have a hike up to that Dalinar fellow, suck in some Stormlight, and make him recognize you as a lighteyes?”

Kaladin glanced at the men in a muddled jumble as they tried to get the uniforms on, an exasperated Rind explaining to them how to do up the coats.

“Everything I’ve ever had, Teft,” Kaladin whispered, “the lighteyes have taken from me. My family, my brother, my friends. More. More than you can imagine. They see what I have, and they take it.” He held up his hand, and could faintly make out a few glowing wisps trailing from his skin, since he knew what to look for. “They’ll take it. If they can find out what I do, they’ll take it.”

“Now, how in Kelek’s breath would they do that?”

“I don’t know,” Kaladin said. “I don’t know, Teft, but I can’t help feeling panic when I think about it. I can’t let them have this, can’t let them take it – or you men – from me. We remain quiet about what I can do. No more talk of it.”

Teft grumbled as the other men finally got themselves sorted out, though Lopen – one armed, with his empty sleeve turned inside out and pushed in so it didn’t hang down – prodded at the patch on his shoulder. “What’s this?”

“It’s the insignia of the Cobalt Guard,” Kaladin said. “Dalinar Kholin’s personal bodyguard.”

“They’re dead, gancho,” Lopen said. “We aren’t them.”

“Yeah,” Skar agreed. To Rind’s horror, he got out his knife and cut the patch free. “We’re Bridge Four.”

“Bridge Four was your prison,” Kaladin protested.

“Doesn’t matter,” Skar said. “We’re Bridge Four.” The others agreed, cutting off the patches, tossing them to the ground.

Teft nodded and did likewise. “We’ll protect the Blackthorn, but we’re not just going to replace what he had before. We’re our own crew.”

Kaladin rubbed his forehead, but this was what he had accomplished in bringing them together, galvanizing them into a cohesive unit. “I’ll draw up a glyphpair insignia for you to use,” he told Rind. “You’ll have to commission new patches.”

The portly man sighed as he gathered up the discarded patches. “I suppose. I’ve got your uniform over there, Captain. A darkeyed captain! Who would have thought it possible? You’ll be the only one in the army. The only one ever, so far as I know!”

He didn’t seem to find it offensive. Kaladin had little experience with low-dahn lighteyes like Rind, though they were very common in the warcamps. In his hometown, there had only been the citylord’s family – of upper-middle dahn – and the darkeyes. It hadn’t been until he’d reached Amaram’s army that he’d realized there was an entire spectrum of lighteyes, many of whom worked common jobs and scrambled for money just like ordinary people.

Kaladin walked over to the last bundle on the counter. His uniform was different. It included a blue waistcoat and a double-breasted blue longcoat, the lining white, the buttons of silver. The longcoat was meant to hang open, despite the rows of buttons down each side.

He’d seen such uniforms frequently. On lighteyes.

“Bridge Four,” he said, cutting the Cobalt Guard insignia from the shoulder and tossing it to the counter with the others.

Notes

From left to right: Freedom | Bridge 4 | Kholin | Tanat

I had to spend hours watching bridgemen to sketch their stupid forehead glyphs so you could have them, my friend. I’m pretty sure this how they were designed.

– Nazh

Traditional Year 1173 | Stylized Year 1173

sas nahn

shash

Kaladin’s forehead brands | Bridge 4 Uniform Insignia

3. Pattern

Soldiers reported being watched from afar by an unnerving number of Parshendi scouts. Then we noticed a new pattern of their penetrating close to the camps in the night and then quickly retreating. I can only surmise that our enemies were even then preparing their stratagem to end this war.

From the personal journal of Navani Kholin, Jeseses 1174

Research into times before the Hierocracy is frustratingly difficult, the book read. During the reign of the Hierocracy, the Vorin Church had near-absolute control over eastern Roshar. The fabrications they promoted – and then perpetuated as absolute truth – became ingrained in the consciousness of society. More disturbingly, modified copies of ancient texts were made, aligning history to match Hierocratic dogma.

In her cabin, Shallan read by the glow of a goblet of spheres, wearing her nightgown. Her cramped chamber lacked a true porthole and had just a thin slit of a window running across the top of the outside wall. The only sound she could hear was the water lapping against the hull. Tonight, the ship did not have a port in which to shelter.

The church of this era was suspicious of the Knights Radiant, the book read. Yet it relied upon the authority granted Vorinism by the Heralds. This created a dichotomy in which the Recreance, and the betrayal of the knights, was overemphasized. At the same time, the ancient knights – the ones who had lived alongside the Heralds in the shadowdays – were celebrated.

This makes it particularly difficult to study the Radiants and the place named Shadesmar. What is fact? What records did the church, in its misguided attempt to cleanse the past of perceived contradictions, rewrite to suit its preferred narrative? Few documents from the period survive that did not pass through Vorin hands to be copied from the original parchment into modern codices.

Shallan glanced up over the top of her book. The volume was one of Jasnah’s earliest published works as a full scholar. Jasnah had not assigned Shallan to read it. Indeed, she’d been hesitant when Shallan had asked for a copy, and had needed to dig it out of one of the numerous trunks full of books she kept in the ship’s hold.

Why had she been so reluctant, when this volume dealt with the very things that Shallan was studying? Shouldn’t Jasnah have given her this right off? It–

The pattern returned.

Shallan’s breath caught in her throat as she saw it on the cabin wall beside the bunk, just to her left. She carefully moved her eyes back to the page in front of her. The pattern was the same one that she’d seen before, the shape that had appeared on her sketchpad.

Ever since then, she’d been seeing it from the corner of her eye, appearing in the grain of wood, the cloth on the back of a sailor’s shirt, the shimmering of the water. Each time, when she looked right at it, the pattern vanished. Jasnah would say nothing more, other than to indicate it was likely harmless.

Shallan turned the page and steadied her breathing. She had experienced something like this before with the strange symbol-headed creatures who had appeared unbidden in her drawings. She allowed her eyes to slip up off the page and look at the wall – not right at the pattern, but to the side of it, as if she hadn’t noticed it.

Yes, it was there. Raised, like an embossing, it had a complex pattern with a haunting symmetry. Its tiny lines twisted and turned through its mass, somehow lifting the surface of the wood, like iron scrollwork under a taut tablecloth.

It was one of those things. The symbolheads. This pattern was similar to their strange heads. She looked back at the page, but did not read. The ship swayed, and the glowing white spheres in her goblet clinked as they shifted. She took a deep breath.

Then looked directly at the pattern.

Immediately, it began to fade, the ridges sinking. Before it did, she got a clear look at it, and she took a Memory.

“Not this time,” she muttered as it vanished. “This time I have you.” She threw away her book, scrambling to get out her charcoal pencil and a sheet of sketching paper. She huddled down beside her light, red hair tumbling around her shoulders.

She worked furiously, possessed by a frantic need to have this drawing done. Her fingers moved on their own, her unclothed safehand holding the sketchpad toward the goblet, which sprinkled the paper with shards of light.

She tossed aside the pencil. She needed something crisper, capable of sharper lines. Ink. Pencil was wonderful for drawing the soft shades of life, but this thing she drew was not life. It was something else, something unreal. She dug a pen and inkwell from her supplies, then went back to her drawing, replicating the tiny, intricate lines.

She did not think as she drew. The art consumed her, and creationspren popped into existence all around. Dozens of tiny shapes soon crowded the small table beside her cot and the floor of the cabin near where she knelt. The spren shifted and spun, each no larger than the bowl of a spoon, becoming shapes they’d recently encountered. She mostly ignored them, though she’d never seen so many at once.

Faster and faster they shifted forms as she drew, intent. The pattern seemed impossible to capture. Its complex repetitions twisted down into infinity. No, a pen could never capture this thing perfectly, but she was close. She drew it spiraling out of a center point, then re-created each branch off the center, which had its own swirl of tiny lines. It was like a maze created to drive its captive insane.

When she finished the last line, she found herself breathing hard, as if she’d run a great distance. She blinked, again noticing the creationspren around her – there were hundreds. They lingered before fading away one by one. Shallan set the pen down beside her vial of ink, which she’d stuck to the tabletop with wax to keep it from sliding as the ship swayed. She picked up the page, waiting for the last lines of ink to dry, and felt as if she’d accomplished something significant – though she knew not what.

As the last line dried, the pattern rose before her. She heard a distinct sigh from the paper, as if in relief.

She jumped, dropping the paper and scrambling onto her bed. Unlike the other times, the embossing didn’t vanish, though it left the paper – budding from her matching drawing – and moved onto the floor.

She could describe it in no other way. The pattern somehow moved from paper to floor. It came to the leg of her cot and wrapped around it, climbing upward and onto the blanket. It didn’t look like something moving beneath the blanket; that was simply a crude approximation. The lines were too precise for that, and there was no stretching. Something beneath the blanket would have been just an indistinct lump, but this was exact.

It drew closer. It didn’t look dangerous, but she still found herself trembling. This pattern was different from the symbolheads in her drawings, but it was also somehow the same. A flattened-out version, without torso or limbs. It was an abstraction of one of them, just as a circle with a few lines in it could represent a human’s face on the page.

Those things had terrified her, haunted her dreams, made her worry she was going insane. So as this one approached, she scuttled from her bed and went as far from it in the small cabin as she could. Then, heart thumping in her chest, she pulled open the door to go for Jasnah.

She found Jasnah herself just outside, reaching toward the doorknob, her left hand cupped before her. A small figure made of inky blackness – shaped like a man in a smart, fashionable suit with a long coat – stood in her palm. He melted away into shadow as he saw Shallan. Jasnah looked to Shallan, then glanced toward the floor of the cabin, where the pattern was crossing the wood.

“Put on some clothing, child,” Jasnah said. “We have matters to discuss.”

“I had originally hoped that we would have the same type of spren,” Jasnah said, sitting on a stool in Shallan’s cabin. The pattern remained on the floor between her and Shallan, who lay prone on the cot, properly clothed with a robe over the nightgown and a thin white glove on her left hand. “But of course, that would be too easy. I have suspected since Kharbranth that we would be of different orders.”

“Orders, Brightness?” Shallan asked, timidly using a pencil to prod at the pattern on the floor. It shied away, like an animal that had been poked. Shallan was fascinated by how it raised the surface of the floor, though a part of her did not want to have anything to do with it and its unnatural, eye-twisting geometries.

“Yes,” Jasnah said. The inklike spren that had accompanied her before had not reappeared. “Each order reportedly had access to two of the Surges, with overlap between them. We call the powers Surgebinding. Soulcasting was one, and is what we share, though our orders are different.”

Shallan nodded. Surgebinding. Soulcasting. These were talents of the Lost Radiants, the abilities – supposedly just legend – that had been their blessing or their curse, depending upon which reports you read. Or so she’d learned from the books Jasnah had given her to read during their trip.

“I’m not one of the Radiants,” Shallan said.

“Of course you aren’t,” Jasnah said, “and neither am I. The orders of knights were a construct, just as all society is a construct, used by men to define and explain. Not every man who wields a spear is a soldier, and not every woman who makes bread is a baker. And yet weapons, or baking, become the hallmarks of certain professions.”

“So you’re saying that what we can do…”

“Was once the definition of what initiated one into the Knights Radiant,” Jasnah said.

“But we’re women!”

“Yes,” Jasnah said lightly. “Spren don’t suffer from human society’s prejudices. Refreshing, wouldn’t you say?”

Shallan looked up from poking at the pattern spren. “There were women among the Knights Radiant?”

“A statistically appropriate number,” Jasnah said. “But don’t fear that you will soon find yourself swinging a sword, child. The archetype of Radiants on the battlefield is an exaggeration. From what I’ve read – though records are, unfortunately, untrustworthy – for every Radiant dedicated to battle, there were another three who spent their time on diplomacy, scholarship, or other ways to aid society.”

“Oh.” Why was Shallan disappointed by that?

Fool. A memory rose unbidden. A silvery sword. A pattern of light. Truths she could not face. She banished them, squeezing her eyes shut.

Ten heartbeats.

“I have been looking into the spren you told me about,” Jasnah said. “The creatures with the symbol heads.”

Shallan took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “This is one of them,” she said, pointing her pencil at the pattern, which had approached her trunk and was moving up onto it and off it – like a child jumping on a sofa. Instead of threatening, it seemed innocent, even playful – and hardly intelligent at all. She had been frightened of this thing?

“Yes, I suspect that it is,” Jasnah said. “Most spren manifest differently here than they do in Shadesmar. What you drew before was their form there.”

“This one is not very impressive.”

“Yes. I will admit that I’m disappointed. I feel that we’re missing something important about this, Shallan, and I find it annoying. The Cryptics have a fearful reputation, and yet this one – the first specimen I’ve ever seen – seems…”

It climbed up the wall, then slipped down, then climbed back up, then slipped down again.

“Imbecilic?” Shallan asked.

“Perhaps it simply needs more time,” Jasnah said. “When I first bonded with Ivory–” She stopped abruptly.

“What?” Shallan said.

“I’m sorry. He does not like me to speak of him. It makes him anxious. The knights’ breaking of their oaths was very painful to the spren. Many spren died; I’m certain of it. Though Ivory won’t speak of it, I gather that what he’s done is regarded as a betrayal by the others of his kind.”

“But–”

“No more of that,” Jasnah said. “I’m sorry.”

“Fine. You mentioned the Cryptics?”

“Yes,” Jasnah said, reaching into the sleeve that hid her safehand and slipping out a folded piece of paper – one of Shallan’s drawings of the symbolheads. “That is their own name for themselves, though we would probably name them liespren. They don’t like the term. Regardless, the Cryptics rule one of the greater cities in Shadesmar. Think of them as the lighteyes of the Cognitive Realm.”

“So this thing,” Shallan said, nodding to the pattern, which was spinning in circles in the center of the cabin, “is like… a prince, on their side?”

“Something like that. There is a complex sort of conflict between them and the honorspren. Spren politics are not something I’ve been able to devote much time to. This spren will be your companion – and will grant you the ability to Soulcast, among other things.”

“Other things?”

“We will have to see,” Jasnah said. “It comes down to the nature of spren. What has your research revealed?”

With Jasnah, everything seemed to be a test of scholarship. Shallan smothered a sigh. This was why she had come with Jasnah, rather than returning to her home. Still, she did wish that sometimes Jasnah would just tell her answers rather than making her work so hard to find them. “Alai says that the spren are fragments of the powers of creation. A lot of the scholars I read agreed with that.”

“It is one opinion. What does it mean?”

Shallan tried not to let herself be distracted by the spren on the floor. “There are ten fundamental Surges – forces – by which the world works. Gravitation, pressure, transformation. That sort of thing. You told me spren are fragments of the Cognitive Realm that have somehow gained sentience because of human attention. Well, it stands to reason that they were something before. Like… like a painting was a canvas before being given life.”

“Life?” Jasnah said, raising her eyebrow.

“Of course,” Shallan said. Paintings lived. Not lived like a person or a spren, but… well, it was obvious to her, at least. “So, before the spren were alive, they were something. Power. Energy. Zen-daughter-Vath sketched tiny spren she found sometimes around heavy objects. Gravitationspren – fragments of the power or force that causes us to fall. It stands to reason that every spren was a power before it was a spren. Really, you can divide spren into two general groups. Those that respond to emotions and those that respond to forces like fire or wind pressure.”

“So you believe Namar’s theory on spren categorization?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Jasnah said. “As do I. I suspect, personally, that these groupings of spren – emotion spren versus nature spren – are where the ideas of mankind’s primeval ‘gods’ came from. Honor, who became Vorinism’s Almighty, was created by men who wanted a representation of ideal human emotions as they saw in emotion spren. Cultivation, the god worshipped in the West, is a female deity that is an embodiment of nature and nature spren. The various Voidspren, with their unseen lord – whose name changes depending on which culture we’re speaking of – evoke an enemy or antagonist. The Stormfather, of course, is a strange offshoot of this, his theoretical nature changing depending on which era of Vorinism is doing the talking…”

She trailed off. Shallan blushed, realizing she’d looked away and had begun tracing a glyphward on her blanket against the evil in Jasnah’s words.

“That was a tangent,” Jasnah said. “I apologize.”

“You’re so sure he isn’t real,” Shallan said. “The Almighty.”

“I have no more proof of him than I do of the Thaylen Passions, Nu Ralik of the Purelake, or any other religion.”

“And the Heralds? You don’t think they existed?”

“I don’t know,” Jasnah said. “There are many things in this world that I don’t understand. For example, there is some slight proof that both the Stormfather and the Almighty are real creatures – simply powerful spren, such as the Nightwatcher.”

“Then he would be real.”

“I never claimed he was not,” Jasnah said. “I merely claimed that I do not accept him as God, nor do I feel any inclination to worship him. But this is, again, a tangent.” Jasnah stood. “You are relieved of other duties of study. For the next few days, you have only one focus for your scholarship.” She pointed toward the floor.

“The pattern?” Shallan asked.

“You are the only person in centuries to have the chance to interact with a Cryptic,” Jasnah said. “Study it and record your experiences – in detail. This will likely be your first writing of significance, and could be of utmost importance to our future.”

Shallan regarded the pattern, which had moved over and bumped into her foot – she could feel it only faintly – and was now bumping into it time and time again.

“Great,” Shallan said.

4. Taker of Secrets

The next clue came on the walls. I did not ignore this sign, but neither did I grasp its full implications.

From the journal of Navani Kholin, Jeseses 1174

“I’m running through water,” Dalinar said, coming to himself. He was moving, charging forward.

The vision coalesced around him. Warm water splashed his legs. On either side of him, a dozen men with hammers and spears ran through the shallow water. They lifted their legs high with each step, feet back, thighs lifting parallel to the water’s surface, like they were marching in a parade – only no parade had ever been such a mad scramble. Obviously, running that way helped them move through the liquid. He tried to imitate the odd gait.

“I’m in the Purelake, I think,” he said, under his breath. “Warm water that only comes up to the knees, no signs of land anywhere. It’s dusk, though, so I can’t see much.

“People run with me. I don’t know if we’re running toward something or away from it. Nothing over my shoulder that I can see. These people are obviously soldiers, though the uniforms are antiquated. Leather skirts, bronze helms and breastplates. Bare legs and arms.” He looked down at himself. “I’m wearing the same.”

Some highlords in Alethkar and Jah Keved still used uniforms like this, so he couldn’t place the exact era. The modern uses were all calculated revivals by traditionalist commanders who hoped a classical look would inspire their men. In those cases, however, modern steel equipment would be used alongside the antique uniforms – and he didn’t see any of that here.

Dalinar didn’t ask questions. He’d found that playing along with these visions taught him more than it did to stop and demand answers.

Running through this water was tough. Though he’d started near the front of the group, he was now lagging behind. The group ran toward some kind of large rock mound ahead, shadowed in the dusk. Maybe this wasn’t the Purelake. It didn’t have rock formations like–

That wasn’t a rock mound. It was a fortress. Dalinar halted, looking up at the peaked, castle-like structure that rose straight from the still lake waters. He’d never seen its like before. Jet-black stone. Obsidian? Perhaps this place had been Soulcast.

“There’s a fortress ahead,” he said, continuing forward. “It must not still exist – if it did, it would be famous. It looks like it’s created entirely from obsidian. Finlike sides rising toward peaked tips above, towers like arrowheads… Stormfather. It’s majestic.

“We’re approaching another group of soldiers who stand in the water, holding spears wardingly in all directions. There are perhaps a dozen of them; I’m in the company of another dozen. And… yes, there’s someone in the middle of them. Shardbearer. Glowing armor.”

Not just a Shardbearer. Radiant. A knight in resplendent Shardplate that glowed with a deep red at the joints and in certain markings. Armor did that in the shadowdays. This vision was taking place before the Recreance.

Like all Shardplate, the armor was distinctive. With that skirt of chain links, those smooth joints, the vambraces that extended back just so… Storms, that looked like Adolin’s armor, though this armor pulled in more at the waist. Female? Dalinar couldn’t tell for certain, as the faceplate was down.

“Form up!” the knight ordered as Dalinar’s group arrived, and he nodded to himself. Yes, female.

Dalinar and the other soldiers formed a ring around the knight, weapons outward. Not far off, another group of soldiers with a knight at their center marched through the water.

“Why did you call us back?” asked one of Dalinar’s companions.

“Caeb thinks he saw something,” the knight said. “Be alert. Let’s move carefully.”

The group started away from the fortress in another direction from the one they’d come. Dalinar held his spear outward, sweating at his temples. To his own eyes, he didn’t look any different from his normal self. The others, however, would see him as one of their own.

He still didn’t know terribly much about these visions. The Almighty sent them to him, somehow. But the Almighty was dead, by his own admission. So how did that work?

“We’re looking for something,” Dalinar said, under his breath. “Teams of knights and soldiers have been sent into the night to find something that was spotted.”

“You all right, new kid?” asked one of the soldiers to his side.

“Fine,” Dalinar said. “Just worried. I mean, I don’t even really know what we’re looking for.”

“A spren that doesn’t act like it should,” the man said. “Keep your eyes open. Once Sja-anat touches a spren, it acts strange. Call attention to anything you see.”

Dalinar nodded, then under his breath repeated the words, hoping that Navani could hear him. He and the soldiers continued their sweep, the knight at their center speaking with… nobody? She sounded like she was having a conversation, but Dalinar couldn’t see or hear anyone else with her.

He turned his attention to the surroundings. He’d always wanted to see the center of the Purelake, but he’d never had a chance to do much besides visit the border. He’d been unable to find time for a detour in that direction during his last visit to Azir. The Azish had always acted surprised that he would want to go to such a place, as they claimed there was “nothing there.”

Dalinar wore some kind of tight shoes on his feet, perhaps to keep him from cutting them on anything hidden by the water. The footing was uneven in places, with holes and ridges he felt rather than saw. He found himself watching little fish dart this way and that, shadows in the water, and next to them a face.

A face.

Dalinar shouted, jumping back, pointing his spear downward. “That was a face! In the water!”

“Riverspren?” the knight asked, stepping up beside him.

“It looked like a shadow,” Dalinar said. “Red eyes.”

“It’s here, then,” the knight said. “Sja-anat’s spy. Caeb, run to the checkpoint. The rest of you, keep watching. It won’t be able to go far without a carrier.” She yanked something off her belt, a small pouch.

“There!” Dalinar said, spotting a small red dot in the water. It flowed away from him, swimming like a fish. He charged after, running as he’d learned earlier. What good would it do to chase a spren, though? You couldn’t catch them. Not with any method he knew.

The others charged behind. Fish scattered away, frightened by Dalinar’s splashing. “I’m chasing a spren,” Dalinar said under his breath. “It’s what we’ve been hunting. It looks a little like a face – a shadowy one, with red eyes. It swims through the water like a fish. Wait! There’s another one. Joining it. Larger, like a full figure, easily six feet. A swimming person, but like a shadow. It–”

“Storms!” the knight shouted suddenly. “It brought an escort!”

The larger spren twisted, then dove downward in the water, vanishing into the rocky ground. Dalinar stopped, uncertain if he should keep chasing the smaller one or remain here.

The others turned and started to run the other way.

Uh-oh…

Dalinar scrambled back as the rocky lake bottom began to shake. He stumbled, splashing down into the water. It was so clear he could see the floor cracking under him, as if something large were pounding against it from beneath.

“Come on!” one of the soldiers cried, grabbing him by the arm. Dalinar was pulled to his feet as the cracks below widened. The once-still surface of the lake churned and thrashed.

The ground jolted, almost tumbling Dalinar off his feet again. Ahead of him, several of the soldiers did fall.

The knight stood firm, an enormous Shardblade forming in her hands.

Dalinar glanced over his shoulder in time to see rock emerging from the water. A long arm! Slender, perhaps fifteen feet long, it burst from the water, then slammed back down as if to get a firm purchase on the lakebed. Another arm rose nearby, elbow toward the sky, then they both heaved as if attached to a body doing a push-up.

A giant body ripped itself out of the rocky floor. It was like someone had been buried in sand and was now emerging. Water streamed from the creature’s ridged and pocked back, which was overgrown with bits of shalebark and submarine fungus. The spren had somehow animated the stone itself.

As it stood and twisted about, Dalinar could make out glowing red eyes – like molten rock – set deep in an evil stone face. The body was skeletal, with thin bony limbs and spiky fingers that ended in rocky claws. The chest was a rib cage of stone.

“Thunderclast!” soldiers yelled. “Hammers! Ready hammers!”

The knight stood before the rising creature, which stood thirty feet tall, dripping water. A calm, white light began to rise from her. It reminded Dalinar of the light of spheres. Stormlight. She raised her Shardblade and charged, stepping through the water with uncanny ease, as if it had no purchase on her. Perhaps it was the strength of Shardplate.

“They were created to watch,” a voice said from beside him.

Dalinar looked to the soldier who had helped him rise earlier, a long-faced Selay man with a balding scalp and a wide nose. Dalinar reached down to help the man to his feet.

This wasn’t how the man had spoken before, but Dalinar recognized the voice. It was the same one that came at the end of most of the visions. The Almighty.

“The Knights Radiant,” the Almighty said, standing up beside Dalinar, watching the knight attack the nightmare beast. “They were a solution, a way to offset the destruction of the Desolations. Ten orders of knights, founded with the purpose of helping men fight, then rebuild.”

Dalinar repeated it, word for word, focused on catching every one and not on thinking about what they meant.

The Almighty turned to him. “I was surprised when these orders arrived. I did not teach my Heralds this. It was the spren – wishing to imitate what I had given men – who made it possible. You will need to refound them. This is your task. Unite them. Create a fortress that can weather the storm. Vex Odium, convince him that he can lose, and appoint a champion. He will take that chance instead of risking defeat again, as he has suffered so often. This is the best advice I can give you.”

Dalinar finished repeating the words. Beyond him, the fight began in earnest, water splashing, rock grinding. Soldiers approached bearing hammers, and unexpectedly, these men now also glowed with Stormlight, though far more faintly.

“You were surprised by the coming of the knights,” Dalinar said to the Almighty. “And this force, this enemy, managed to kill you. You were never God. God knows everything. God cannot be killed. So who were you?”

The Almighty did not answer. He couldn’t. Dalinar had realized that these visions were some kind of predetermined experience, like a play. The people in them could react to Dalinar, like actors who could improvise to an extent. The Almighty himself never did this.

“I will do what I can,” Dalinar said. “I will refound them. I will prepare. You have told me many things, but there is one I have figured out on my own. If you could be killed, then the other like you – your enemy – probably can be as well.”

The darkness came upon Dalinar. The yelling and splashing faded. Had this vision occurred during a Desolation, or between? These visions never told him enough. As the darkness evaporated he found himself lying in a small stone chamber within his complex in the warcamps.

Navani knelt beside him, clipboard held before her, pen moving as she scribbled. Storms, she was beautiful. Mature, lips painted red, hair wound about her head in a complex braid that sparkled with rubies. Bloodred dress. She looked at him, noting that he was blinking back awake, and smiled.

“It was–” he began.

“Hush,” she said, still writing. “That last part sounded important.” She wrote for a moment, then finally removed pen from pad, the latter held through the cloth of her sleeve. “I think I got it all. It’s hard when you change languages.”

“I changed languages?” he asked.

“At the end. Before, you were speaking Selay. An ancient form of it, certainly, but we have records of that. I hope my translators can make sense of my transcription; my command of that language is rusty. You do need to speak more slowly when you do this, dearest.”

“That can be hard, in the moment,” Dalinar said, rising. Compared to what he’d felt in the vision, the air here was cold. Rain pelted the room’s closed shutters, though he knew from experience that an end to his vision meant that the storm had nearly spent itself.

Feeling drained, he walked to a seat beside the wall and settled down. Only he and Navani were in the room; he preferred it that way. Renarin and Adolin waited out the storm nearby, in another room of Dalinar’s quarters and under the watchful eyes of Captain Kaladin and his bridgeman bodyguards.

Perhaps he should invite more scholars in to observe his visions; they could all write down his words, then consult to produce the most accurate version. But storms, he had enough trouble with one person watching him in such a state, raving and thrashing on the ground. He believed in the visions, even depended upon them, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t embarrassing.

Navani sat down beside him, and wrapped her arms around him. “Was it bad?”

“This one? No. Not bad. Some running, then some fighting. I didn’t participate. The vision ended before I needed to help.”

“Then why that expression?”

“I have to refound the Knights Radiant.”

“Refound the… But how? What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything; I only have hints and shadowy threats. Something dangerous is coming, that much is certain. I have to stop it.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. He stared at the hearth, which crackled softly, giving the small room a warm glow. This was one of the few hearths that hadn’t been converted to the new fabrial heating devices.

He preferred the real fire, though he wouldn’t say it to Navani. She worked so hard to bring new fabrials to them all.

“Why you?” Navani asked. “Why do you have to do this?”

“Why is one man born a king, and another a beggar?” Dalinar asked. “It is the way of the world.”

“It is that easy for you?”

“Not easy,” Dalinar said, “but there is no point in demanding answers.”

“Particularly if the Almighty is dead…”

Perhaps he should not have shared that fact with her. Speaking of just that one idea could brand him a heretic, drive his own ardents from him, give Sadeas a weapon against the Throne.

If the Almighty was dead, what did Dalinar worship? What did he believe?

“We should record your memories of the vision,” Navani said with a sigh, pulling back from him. “While they are fresh.”

He nodded. It was important to have a description to match the transcriptions. He began to recount what he’d seen, speaking slowly enough that she could write it all down. He described the lake, the clothing of the men, the strange fortress in the distance. She claimed there were stories of large structures on the Purelake told by some who lived there. Scholars had considered them mythological.

Dalinar stood up and paced as he moved on to the description of the unholy thing that had risen from the lake. “It left behind a hole in the lakebed,” Dalinar explained. “Imagine if you were to outline a body on the floor, then watch that body rip itself free from the ground.

“Imagine the tactical advantage such a thing would have. Spren move quickly and easily. One could slip in behind battle lines, then stand up and start attacking the support staff. That beast’s stone body must have been difficult to break. Storms… Shardblades. Makes me wonder if these are the things the weapons were truly designed to fight.”

Navani smiled as she wrote.

“What?” Dalinar asked, stopping in his pacing.

“You are such a soldier.”

“Yes. And?”

“And it’s endearing,” she said, finishing her writing. “What happened next?”

“The Almighty spoke to me.” He gave her the monologue as best he could remember while he paced in a slow, restful walk. I need to sleep more, he thought. He wasn’t the youth he’d been twenty years ago, capable of staying up all night with Gavilar, listening with a cup of wine as his brother made plans, then charging to battle the next day full of vigor and hungering for a contest.

Once he was done with his narrative, Navani rose, tucking her writing implements away. She’d take what he’d said and have her scholars – well, his scholars, which she’d appropriated – work at matching his Alethi words up with the transcriptions she’d recorded. Though, of course, she’d first remove the lines where he mentioned sensitive issues, such as the Almighty’s death.

She’d also search for historical references to match his descriptions. Navani liked things neat and quantified. She’d prepared a timeline of all of his visions, trying to piece them into a single narrative.

“You’re still going to publish the proclamation this week?” she asked.

Dalinar nodded. He’d released it to the highprinces a week ago, in private. He’d intended to release it the same day to the camps, but Navani had convinced him that this was the wiser course. News was seeping out, but this would let the highprinces prepare.

“The proclamation will go to the public within a few days,” he said. “Before the highprinces can put further pressure on Elhokar to retract it.”

Navani pursed her lips.

“It must be done,” Dalinar said.

“You’re supposed to unite them.”

“The highprinces are spoiled children,” Dalinar said. “Changing them will require extreme measures.”

“If you break the kingdom apart, we’ll never unify it.”

“We’ll make certain that it doesn’t break.”

Navani looked him up and down, then smiled. “I am fond of this more confident you, I must admit. Now, if I could just borrow a little of that confidence in regards to us…”

“I am quite confident about us,” he said, pulling her close.

“Is that so? Because this traveling between the king’s palace and your complex wastes a lot of my time each day. If I were to move my things here – say, into your quarters – think how much more convenient everything would be.”

“No.”

“You’re confident they won’t let us marry, Dalinar. So what else are we to do? Is it the morality of the thing? You yourself said that the Almighty was dead.”

“Something is either right or it’s wrong,” Dalinar said, feeling stubborn. “The Almighty doesn’t come into it.”

“God,” Navani said flatly, “doesn’t come into whether his commands are right or wrong.”

“Er. Yes.”

“Careful,” Navani said. “You’re sounding like Jasnah. Anyway, if God is dead–”

“God isn’t dead. If the Almighty died, then he was never God, that’s all.”

She sighed, still close to him. She went up on her toes and kissed him – and not demurely, either. Navani considered demureness for the coy and frivolous. So, a passionate kiss, pressing against his mouth, pushing his head backward, hungering for more. When she pulled away, Dalinar found himself breathless.

She smiled at him, then turned and picked up her things – he hadn’t noticed her dropping them during the kiss – and then walked to the door. “I am not a patient woman, you realize. I am as spoiled as those highprinces, accustomed to getting what I want.”

He snorted. Neither was true. She could be patient. When it suited her. What she meant was that it didn’t suit her at the moment.

She opened the door, and Captain Kaladin himself peered in, inspecting the room. The bridgeman certainly was earnest. “Watch her as she travels home for the day, soldier,” Dalinar said to him.

Kaladin saluted. Navani pushed by him and left without a goodbye, closing the door and leaving Dalinar alone again.

Dalinar sighed deeply, then walked to the chair and settled down by the hearth to think.

He started awake some time later, the fire having burned out. Storms. Was he falling asleep in the middle of the day, now? If only he didn’t spend so much time at night tossing and turning, head full of worries and burdens that should never have been his. What had happened to the simple days? His hand on a sword, secure in the knowledge that Gavilar would handle the difficult parts?

Dalinar stretched, rising. He needed to go over preparations for releasing the king’s proclamation, and then see to the new guards–

He stopped. The wall of his room bore a series of stark white scratches forming glyphs. They hadn’t been there before.

Sixty-two days, the glyphs read. Death follows.

A short time later, Dalinar stood, straight-backed, hands clasped behind him as he listened to Navani confer with Rushu, one of the Kholin scholars. Adolin stood nearby, inspecting a chunk of white rock that had been found on the floor. It had apparently been pried from the row of ornamental stones rimming the room’s window, then used to write the glyphs.

Straight back, head up, Dalinar told himself, even though you want to just slump in that chair. A leader did not slump. A leader was in control. Even when he least felt like he controlled anything.

Especially then.

“Ah,” said Rushu – a young female ardent with long eyelashes and buttonlike lips. “Look at the sloppy lines! The improper symmetry. Whoever did this is not practiced with drawing glyphs. They almost spelled death wrong – it looks more like ‘broken.’ And the meaning is vague. Death follows? Or is it ‘follow death’? Or Sixty-Two Days of Death and Following? Glyphs are imprecise.”

“Just make the copy, Rushu,” Navani said. “And don’t speak of this to anyone.”

“Not even you?” Rushu asked, sounding distracted as she wrote.

Navani sighed, walking over to Dalinar and Adolin. “She is good at what she does,” Navani said softly, “but she’s a little oblivious sometimes. Anyway, she knows handwriting better than anyone. It’s one of her many areas of interest.”

Dalinar nodded, bottling his fears.

“Why would anyone do this?” Adolin asked, dropping the rock. “Is it some kind of obscure threat?”

“No,” Dalinar said.

Navani met Dalinar’s eyes. “Rushu,” she said. “Leave us for a moment.”

The woman didn’t respond at first, but scuttled out at further prompting. As she opened the door, she revealed members of Bridge Four outside, led by Captain Kaladin, his expression dark. He’d escorted Navani away, then come back to find this – and then had immediately sent men to check on and retrieve Navani.

He obviously considered this lapse his fault, thinking that someone had sneaked into Dalinar’s room while he was sleeping. Dalinar waved the captain in.

Kaladin hurried over, and hopefully didn’t see how Adolin’s jaw tightened as he regarded the man. Dalinar had been fighting the Parshendi Shardbearer when Kaladin and Adolin had clashed on the battlefield, but he’d heard talk of their run-in. His son certainly did not like hearing that this darkeyed bridgeman had been put in charge of the Cobalt Guard.

“Sir,” Captain Kaladin said, stepping up. “I’m embarrassed. One week on the job, and I’ve failed you.”

“You did as commanded, Captain,” Dalinar said.

“I was commanded to keep you safe, sir,” Kaladin said, anger bleeding into his voice. “I should have posted guards at individual doors inside your quarters, not just outside of the room complex.”

“We’ll be more observant in the future, Captain,” Dalinar said. “Your predecessor always posted the same guard as you did, and it was sufficient before.”

“Times were different before, sir,” Kaladin said, scanning the room and narrowing his eyes. He focused on the window, too small to let someone slip in. “I still wish I knew how they got in. The guards heard nothing.”

Dalinar inspected the young soldier, scarred and dark of expression. Why, Dalinar thought, do I trust this man so much? He couldn’t put his finger on it, but over the years, he’d learned to trust his instincts as a soldier and a general. Something within him urged him to trust Kaladin, and he accepted those instincts.

“This is a small matter,” Dalinar said.

Kaladin looked at him sharply.

“Don’t worry yourself overly much about how the person got in to scribble on my wall,” Dalinar said. “Just be more watchful in the future. Dismissed.” He nodded to Kaladin, who retreated reluctantly, pulling the door closed.

Adolin walked over. The mop-haired youth was as tall as Dalinar was. That was hard to remember, sometimes. It didn’t seem so long ago that Adolin had been an eager little boy with a wooden sword.

“You said you awoke to this here,” Navani said. “You said you didn’t see anyone enter or hear anyone make the drawing.”

Dalinar nodded.

“Then why,” she said, “do I get the sudden and distinct impression that you know why it is here?”

“I don’t know for certain who made it, but I know what it means.”

“What, then?” Navani demanded.

“It means we have very little time left,” Dalinar said. “Send out the proclamation, then go to the highprinces and arrange a meeting. They’ll want to speak with me.”

The Everstorm comes…

Sixty-two days. Not enough time.

It was, apparently, all he had.

5. Ideals

The sign on the wall proposed a greater danger, even, than its deadline. To foresee the future is of the Voidbringers.

From the journal of Navani Kholin, Jeseses 1174

“Toward victory and, at long last, vengeance.” The crier carried a writ with the king’s words on it – bound between two cloth-covered boards – though she obviously had the words memorized. Not surprising. Kaladin alone had made her repeat the proclamation three times.

“Again,” he said, sitting on his stone beside Bridge Four’s firepit. Many members of the crew had lowered their breakfast bowls, going silent. Nearby, Sigzil repeated the words to himself, memorizing them.

The crier sighed. She was a plump, lighteyed young woman with strands of red hair mixed in her black, bespeaking Veden or Horneater heritage. There would be dozens of women like her moving through the warcamp to read, and sometimes explain, Dalinar’s words.

She opened the ledger again. In any other battalion, Kaladin thought idly, its leader would be of a high enough social class to outrank her.

“Under the authority of the king,” she said, “Dalinar Kholin, Highprince of War, hereby orders changes to the manner of collection and distribution of gemhearts on the Shattered Plains. Henceforth, each gemheart will be collected in turn by two highprinces working in tandem. The spoils become the property of the king, who will determine – based on the effectiveness of the parties involved and their alacrity to obey – their share.

“A prescribed rotation will detail which highprinces and armies are responsible for hunting gemhearts, and in what order. The pairings will not always be the same, and will be judged based on strategic compatibility. It is expected that by the Codes we all hold dear, the men and women of these armies will welcome this renewed focus on victory and, at long last, vengeance.”

The crier snapped the book closed, looking up at Kaladin and cocking a long black eyebrow he was pretty sure had been painted on with makeup.

“Thank you,” he said. She nodded to him, then moved off toward the next battalion square.

Kaladin climbed to his feet. “Well, there’s the storm we’ve been expecting.”

The men nodded. Conversation at Bridge Four had been subdued, following the strange break-in at Dalinar’s quarters yesterday. Kaladin felt a fool. Dalinar, however, seemed to be ignoring the break-in entirely. He knew far more than he was telling Kaladin. How am I supposed to do my job if I don’t have the information I need?

Not two weeks on the job, and already the politics and machinations of the lighteyes were tripping him up.

“The highprinces are going to hate this proclamation,” Leyten said from beside the firepit, where he was working on Beld’s breastplate straps, which had come from the quartermaster with the buckles twisted about. “They base pretty much everything on getting those gemhearts. We’re going to have discontent aplenty on today’s winds.”

“Ha!” Rock said, ladling up curry for Lopen, who had come back for seconds. “Discontent? Today, this will mean riots. Did you not hear that mention of the Codes? This thing, it is an insult against the others, whom we know do not follow their oaths.” He was smiling, and seemed to consider the anger – even rioting – of the highprinces to be amusing.

“Moash, Drehy, Mart, and Eth with me,” Kaladin said. “We’ve got to go relieve Skar and his team. Teft, how goes your assignment?”

“Slowly,” Teft said. “Those lads in the other bridge crews… they have a long way to go. We need something more, Kal. Some way to inspire them.”

“I’ll work on it,” Kaladin said. “For now, we should try food. Rock, we’ve only got five officers at the moment, so you can have that last room on the outside for storage. Kholin gave us requisition rights from the camp quartermaster. Pack it full.”

“Full?” Rock asked, an enormous grin splitting his face. “How full?”

“Very,” Kaladin said. “We’ve been eating broth and stew with Soulcast grain for months. For the next month, Bridge Four eats like kings.”

“No shells, now,” Mart said, pointing at Rock as he gathered his spear and did up his uniform jacket. “Just because you can fix anything you want, it doesn’t mean we’re going to eat something stupid.”

“Airsick lowlanders,” Rock said. “Don’t you want to be strong?”

“I want to keep my teeth, thank you,” Mart said. “Crazy Horneater.”

“I will fix two things,” Rock said, hand to his chest, as if making a salute. “One for the brave and one for the silly. You may choose between these things.”

“You’ll make feasts, Rock,” Kaladin said. “I need you to train cooks for the other barracks. Even if Dalinar has extra cooks to spare now with fewer regular troops to feed, I want the bridgemen to be self-sufficient. Lopen, I’m assigning Dabbid and Shen to help you assist Rock from here on out. We need to turn those thousand men into soldiers. It starts the same way it did with all of you – by filling their stomachs.”

“It will be done,” Rock said, laughing, slapping Shen on the shoulder as the parshman stepped up for seconds. He’d only just started doing things like that, and seemed to hide in the back less than he once had. “I will not even put any dung in it!”

The others chuckled. Putting dung in food was what had gotten Rock turned into a bridgeman in the first place. As Kaladin started out toward the king’s palace – Dalinar had an important meeting with the king today – Sigzil joined him.

“A moment of your time, sir,” Sigzil said quietly.

“If you wish.”

“You promised me that I could have a chance to measure your… particular abilities.”

“Promised?” Kaladin asked. “I don’t remember a promise.”

“You grunted.”

“I… grunted?”

“When I talked about taking some measurements. You seemed to think it was a good idea, and you told Skar we could help you figure out your powers.”

“I suppose I did.”

“We need to know exactly what you can do, sir – the extent of the abilities, the length of time the Stormlight remains in you. Do you agree that having a clear understanding of your limits would be valuable?”

“Yes,” Kaladin said reluctantly.

“Excellent. Then…”

“Give me a couple of days,” Kaladin said. “Go prepare a place where we can’t be seen. Then… yes, all right. I’ll let you measure me.”

“Excellent,” Sigzil said. “I’ve been devising some experiments.” He stopped on the path, allowing Kaladin and the others to draw away from him.

Kaladin rested his spear on his shoulder and relaxed his hand. He frequently found his grip on the weapon too strong, his knuckles white. It was like part of him still didn’t believe he could carry it in public now, and feared it would be taken from him again.

Syl floated down from her daily sprint around the camp on the morning winds. She alighted on his shoulder and sat, seeming lost in thought.

Dalinar’s warcamp was an organized place. Soldiers never lounged lazily here. They were always doing something. Working on their weapons, fetching food, carrying cargo, patrolling. Men patrolled a lot in this camp. Even with the reduced army numbers, Kaladin passed three patrols as his men marched toward the gates. That was three more than he’d ever seen in Sadeas’s camp.

He was reminded again of the emptiness. The dead didn’t need to become Voidbringers to haunt this camp; the empty barracks did that. He passed one woman, seated on the ground beside one of those hollow barracks, staring up at the sky and clutching a bundle of masculine clothing. Two small children stood on the path beside her. Too silent. Children that small shouldn’t be quiet.

The barracks formed blocks in an enormous ring, and in the center of them was a more populated part of camp – the bustling section that contained Dalinar’s living complex, along with the quarters of the various highlords and generals. Dalinar’s complex was a moundlike stone bunker with fluttering banners and scuttling clerks carrying armfuls of ledgers. Nearby, several officers had set up recruitment tents, and a long line of would-be soldiers had formed. Some were sellswords who had made their way to the Shattered Plains seeking work. Others were bakers or the like, who had heeded the cry for more soldiers following the disaster.

“Why didn’t you laugh?” Syl said, inspecting the line as Kaladin hiked around it, on toward the gates out of the warcamp.

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “Did you do something funny that I didn’t see?”

“I mean earlier,” she said. “Rock and the others laughed. You didn’t. When you laughed during the weeks things were hard, I knew that you were forcing yourself to. I thought, maybe, once things got better…”

“I’ve got an entire battalion of bridgemen to keep track of now,” Kaladin said, eyes forward. “And a highprince to keep alive. I’m in the middle of a camp full of widows. I guess I don’t feel like laughing.”

“But things are better,” she said. “For you and your men. Think of what you did, what you accomplished.”

A day spent on a plateau, slaughtering. A perfect melding of himself, his weapon, and the storms themselves. And he’d killed with it. Killed to protect a lighteyes.

He’s different, Kaladin thought.

They always said that.

“I guess I’m just waiting,” Kaladin said.

“For what?”

“The thunder,” Kaladin said softly. “It always follows after the lightning. Sometimes you have to wait, but eventually it comes.”

“I…” Syl zipped up in front of him, standing in the air, moving backward as he walked. She didn’t fly – she didn’t have wings – and didn’t bob in the air. She just stood there, on nothing, and moved in unison with him. She seemed to take no notice of normal physical laws.

She cocked her head at him. “I don’t understand what you mean. Drat! I thought I was figuring this all out. Storms? Lightning?”

“You know how, when you encouraged me to fight to save Dalinar, it still hurt you when I killed?”

“Yes.”

“It’s like that,” Kaladin said softly. He looked to the side. He was again gripping his spear too tightly.

Syl watched him, hands on hips, waiting for him to say more.

“Something bad is going to happen,” Kaladin said. “Things can’t just continue to be good for me. That’s not how life is. It might have to do with those glyphs on Dalinar’s wall yesterday. They seemed like a countdown.”

She nodded.

“Have you ever seen anything like that before?”

“I remember… something,” she whispered. “Something bad. Seeing what is to come – it isn’t of Honor, Kaladin. It’s something else. Something dangerous.”

Wonderful.

When he said nothing more, Syl sighed and zipped into the air, becoming a ribbon of light. She followed him up there, moving between gusts of wind.

She said that she’s honorspren, Kaladin thought. So why does she still keep up the act of playing with winds?

He’d have to ask her, assuming she’d answer him. Assuming she even knew the answer.

Torol Sadeas laced his fingers before himself, elbows on the fine stonework tabletop, as he stared at the Shardblade he’d thrust down through the center of the table. It reflected his face.

Damnation. When had he gotten old? He imagined himself as a young man, in his twenties. Now he was fifty. Storming fifty. He set his jaw, looking at that Blade.

Oathbringer. It was Dalinar’s Shardblade – curved, like a back arching, with a hooklike tip on the end matched by a sequence of jutting serrations by the crossguard. Like waves in motion, peeking up from the ocean below.

How often had he lusted for this weapon? Now it was his, but he found the possession hollow. Dalinar Kholin – driven mad by grief, broken to the point that battle frightened him – still clung to life. Sadeas’s old friend was like a favored axehound he’d been forced to put down, only to find it whimpering at the window, the poison having not quite done its work.

Worse, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Dalinar had gotten the better of him somehow.

The door to his sitting room opened, and Ialai slipped in. With a slender neck and a large mouth, his wife had never been described as a beauty – particularly as the years stretched long. He didn’t care. Ialai was the most dangerous woman he knew. That was more attractive than any simple pretty face.

“You’ve destroyed my table, I see,” she said, eyeing the Shardblade slammed down through the center. She flopped down onto the small couch beside him, draped one arm across his back, and put her feet up on the table.

While with others, she was the perfect Alethi woman. In private, she preferred to lounge. “Dalinar is recruiting heavily,” she said. “I’ve taken the opportunity to place a few more of my associates among the staff of his warcamp.”

“Soldiers?”

“What do you take me for? That would be far too obvious; he will have new soldiers under careful watch. However, much of his support staff has holes as men join the call to take up spears and reinforce his army.”

Sadeas nodded, still staring at that Blade. His wife ran the most impressive network of spies in the warcamps. Most impressive indeed, since very, very few knew of it. She scratched at his back, sending shivers up the skin.

“He released his proclamation,” Ialai noted.

“Yes. Reactions?”

“As anticipated. The others hate it.”

Sadeas nodded. “Dalinar should be dead, but since he is not, at least we can depend upon him to hang himself in time.” Sadeas narrowed his eyes. “By destroying him, I sought to prevent the collapse of the kingdom. Now I’m wondering if that collapse wouldn’t be better for us all.”

“What?”

“I’m not meant for this, love,” Sadeas whispered. “This stupid game on the plateaus. It sated me at first, but I’m growing to loathe it. I want war, Ialai. Not hours of marching on the off chance that we’ll find some little skirmish!”

“Those little skirmishes bring us wealth.”

Which was why he’d suffered them so long. He rose. “I will need to meet with some of the others. Aladar. Ruthar. We need to fan the flames among the other highprinces, raise their indignation at what Dalinar attempts.”

“And our end goal?”

“I will have it back, Ialai,” he said, resting his fingers on Oathbringer’s hilt. “The conquest.”

It was the only thing that made him feel alive any longer. That glorious, wonderful Thrill of being on the battlefield and striving, man against man. Of risking everything for the prize. Domination. Victory.

It was the only time he felt like a youth again.

It was a brutal truth. The best truths, however, were simple.

He grabbed Oathbringer by the hilt and yanked it up out of the table. “Dalinar wants to play politician now, which is unsurprising. He has always secretly wanted to be his brother. Fortunately for us, Dalinar is no good at this sort of thing. His proclamation will alienate the others. He will push the highprinces, and they’ll take up arms against him, fracturing the kingdom. And then, with blood at my feet and Dalinar’s own sword in my hand, I will forge a new Alethkar from flame and tears.”

“What if, instead, he succeeds?”

“That, my dear, is when your assassins will be of use.” He dismissed the Shardblade; it turned to mist and vanished. “I will conquer this kingdom anew, and then Jah Keved will follow. After all, the purpose of this life is to train soldiers. In a way, I’m only doing what God himself wants.”

The walk between the barracks and the king’s palace – which the king had started calling the Pinnacle – took an hour or so, which gave Kaladin plenty of time to think. Unfortunately, on his way, he passed a group of Dalinar’s surgeons in a field with servants, gathering knobweed sap for an antiseptic.

Seeing them made Kaladin think not only of his own efforts gathering the sap, but of his father. Lirin.

If he were here, Kaladin thought as he passed them, he’d ask why I wasn’t out there, with the surgeons. He’d demand to know why, if Dalinar had taken me in, I hadn’t requested to join his medical corps.

In fact, Kaladin could probably have gotten Dalinar to employ all of Bridge Four as surgeons’ assistants. Kaladin could have trained them in medicine almost as easily as he had the spear. Dalinar would have done it. An army could never have too many good surgeons.

He hadn’t even considered it. The choice for him had been simpler – either become Dalinar’s bodyguards or leave the warcamps. Kaladin had chosen to put his men in the path of the storm again. Why?

Eventually, they reached the king’s palace, which was built up the side of a large stone hill, with tunnels dug down into the rock. The king’s own quarters sat at the very top. That meant lots of climbing for Kaladin and his men.

They hiked up the switchbacks, Kaladin still lost in thought about his father and his duty.

“That’s a tad unfair, you know,” Moash said as they reached the top.

Kaladin looked to the others, realizing that they were puffing from the long climb. Kaladin, however, had drawn in Stormlight without noticing. He wasn’t even winded.

He smiled pointedly for Syl’s benefit, and regarded the cavernous hallways of the Pinnacle. A few men stood guard at the entrance gates, wearing the blue and gold of the King’s Guard, a separate and distinct unit from Dalinar’s own guard.

“Soldier,” Kaladin said with a nod to one of them, a lighteyes of low rank. Militarily, Kaladin outranked a man like this – but not socially. Again, he wasn’t certain how all of this was supposed to work.

The man looked him up and down. “I heard you held a bridge, practically by yourself, against hundreds of Parshendi. How’d you do that?” He did not address Kaladin with “sir,” as would have been appropriate for any other captain.

“You want to find out?” Moash snapped from behind. “We can show you. Personally.”

“Hush,” Kaladin said, glaring at Moash. He turned back to the soldier. “I got lucky. That’s it.” He stared the man in the eyes.

“I suppose that makes sense,” the soldier said.

Kaladin waited.

“Sir,” the soldier finally added.

Kaladin waved his men forward, and they passed the lighteyed guards. The interior of the palace was lit by spheres grouped in lamps on the walls – sapphires and diamonds blended to give a blue-white cast. The spheres were a small but striking reminder of how things had changed. Nobody would have let bridgemen near such casual use of spheres.

The Pinnacle was still unfamiliar to Kaladin – so far, his time spent guarding Dalinar had mostly been in the warcamp. However, he’d made certain to look over maps of the place, so he knew the way to the top.

“Why did you cut me off like that?” Moash demanded, catching up to Kaladin.

“You were in the wrong,” Kaladin said. “You’re a soldier now, Moash. You’re going to have to learn to act like one. And that means not provoking fights.”

“I’m not going to scrape and bow before lighteyes, Kal. Not anymore.”

“I don’t expect you to scrape, but I do expect you to watch your tongue. Bridge Four is better than petty gibes and threats.”

Moash fell back, but Kaladin could tell he was still smoldering.

“That’s odd,” Syl said, landing on Kaladin’s shoulder again. “He looks so angry.”

“When I took over the bridgemen,” Kaladin said softly, “they were caged animals who had been beaten into submission. I brought back their fight, but they were still caged. Now the doors are off those cages. It will take time for Moash and the others to adjust.”

They would. During the final weeks as bridgemen, they’d learned to act with the precision and discipline of soldiers. They stood at attention while their abusers marched across bridges, never uttering a word of derision. Their discipline itself had become their weapon.

They’d learn to be real soldiers. No, they were real soldiers. Now they had to learn how to act without Sadeas’s oppression to push against.

Moash moved up beside him. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “You’re right.”

Kaladin smiled, this time genuinely.

“I’m not going to pretend I don’t hate them,” Moash said. “But I’ll be civil. We have a duty. We’ll do it well. Better than anyone expects. We’re Bridge Four.”

“Good man,” Kaladin said. Moash was going to be particularly tricky to deal with, as more and more, Kaladin found himself confiding in the man. Most of the others idolized Kaladin. Not Moash, who was as close to a real friend as Kaladin had known since being branded.

The hallway grew surprisingly decorative as they approached the king’s conference chamber. There was even a series of reliefs being carved on the walls – the Heralds, embellished with gemstones on the rock to glow at appropriate locations.

More and more like a city, Kaladin thought to himself. This might actually be a true palace soon.

He met Skar and his team at the door into the king’s conference chambers. “Report?” Kaladin asked softly.

“Quiet morning,” Skar said. “And I’m fine with that.”

“You’re relieved for the day, then,” Kaladin said. “I’ll stay here for the meeting, then let Moash take the afternoon shift. I’ll come back for the evening shift. You and your squad get some sleep; you’ll be back on duty tonight, stretching to tomorrow morning.”

“Got it, sir,” Skar said, saluting. He collected his men and moved off.

The chamber beyond the doors was decorated with a thick rug and large unshuttered windows on the leeward side. Kaladin had never been in this room, and the palace maps – for the protection of the king – only included the basic hallways and routes through the servants’ quarters. This room had one other door, probably out onto the balcony, but no exits other than the one Kaladin stepped through.

Two other guards in blue and gold stood on either side of the door. The king himself paced back and forth beside the room’s desk. His nose was larger than the paintings of him showed.

Dalinar spoke with Highlady Navani, an elegant woman with grey in her hair. The scandalous relationship between the king’s uncle and mother would have been the talk of the warcamp, if Sadeas’s betrayal hadn’t overshadowed it.

“Moash,” Kaladin said, pointing. “See where that door goes. Mart and Eth, stand watch just outside in the hall. Nobody other than a highprince comes in until you’ve checked with us in here.”

Moash gave the king a salute instead of a bow, and checked on the door. It indeed led to the balcony that Kaladin had spotted from below. It ran all around this upmost room.

Dalinar studied Kaladin and Moash as they worked. Kaladin saluted, and met the man’s eyes. He wasn’t going to fail again, as he’d done the day before.

“I don’t recognize these guards, Uncle,” the king said with annoyance.

“They’re new,” Dalinar said. “There is no other way onto that balcony, soldier. It’s a hundred feet in the air.”

“Good to know,” Kaladin said. “Drehy, join Moash out there on the balcony, close the door, and keep watch.”

Drehy nodded, jumping into motion.

“I just said there’s no way to reach that balcony from the outside,” Dalinar said.

“Then that’s the way I’d try to get in,” Kaladin said, “if I wanted to, sir.”

Dalinar smiled in amusement.

The king, however, was nodding. “Good… good.”

“Are there any other ways into this room, Your Majesty?” Kaladin asked. “Secret entrances, passages?”

“If there were,” the king said, “I wouldn’t want people knowing about them.”

“My men can’t keep this room safe if we don’t know what to guard. If there are passages nobody is supposed to know about, those are immediately suspect. If you share them with me, I’ll use only my officers in guarding them.”

The king stared at Kaladin for a moment, then turned to Dalinar. “I like this one. Why haven’t you put him in charge of your guard before?”

“I haven’t had the opportunity,” Dalinar said, studying Kaladin with eyes that had a depth behind them. A weight. He stepped over and rested a hand on Kaladin’s shoulder, pulling him aside.

“Wait,” the king said from behind, “is that a captain’s insignia? On a darkeyes? When did that start happening?”

Dalinar didn’t answer, instead walking Kaladin to the side of the room. “The king,” he said softly, “is very worried about assassins. You should know this.”

“A healthy paranoia makes the job easier for his bodyguards, sir,” Kaladin said.

“I didn’t say it was healthy,” Dalinar said. “You call me ‘sir.’ The common address is ‘Brightlord.’”

“I will use that term if you command, sir,” Kaladin said, meeting the man’s eyes. “But ‘sir’ is an appropriate address, even for a lighteyes, if he’s your direct superior.”

“I’m a highprince.”

“Speaking frankly,” Kaladin said – he wouldn’t ask for permission. This man had put him in the role, so Kaladin would assume it came with certain privileges, unless told otherwise. “Every man I’ve ever called ‘Brightlord’ has betrayed me. A few men I’ve called ‘sir’ still have my trust to this day. I use one more reverently than the other. Sir.”

“You’re an odd one, son.”

“The normal ones are dead in the chasms, sir,” Kaladin said softly. “Sadeas saw to that.”

“Well, have your men on the balcony guard from farther to the side, where they can’t hear through the window.”

“I’ll wait with the men in the hall, then,” Kaladin said, noticing that the two men of the King’s Guard had already moved through the doors.

“I didn’t order that,” Dalinar said. “Guard the doors, but on the inside. I want you to hear what we’re planning. Just don’t repeat it outside this room.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Four more people are coming to the meeting,” Dalinar said. “My sons, General Khal, and Brightness Teshav, Khal’s wife. They may enter. Anyone else should be kept back until the meeting is over.”

Dalinar went back to a conversation with the king’s mother. Kaladin got Moash and Drehy positioned, then explained the door protocol to Mart and Eth. He’d have to do some training later. Lighteyes never truly meant “Don’t let anyone else in” when they said “Don’t let anyone else in.” What they meant was “If you let anyone else in, I’d better agree that it was important enough, or you’re in trouble.”

Then, Kaladin took his post inside the closed door, standing against a wall with carved paneling made of a rare type of wood he didn’t recognize. It’s probably worth more than I’ve earned in my entire lifetime, he thought idly. One wooden panel.

The highprince’s sons arrived, Adolin and Renarin Kholin. Kaladin had seen the former on the battlefield, though he looked different without his Shardplate. Less imposing. More like a spoiled rich boy. Oh, he wore a uniform like everyone else, but the buttons were engraved, and the boots… those were expensive hogshide ones without a scuff on them. Brand new, likely bought at ridiculous expense.

He did save that woman in the market, though, Kaladin thought, remembering the encounter from weeks ago. Don’t forget about that.

Kaladin wasn’t sure what to make of Renarin. The youth – he might have been older than Kaladin, but sure didn’t look it – wore spectacles and walked after his brother like a shadow. Those slender limbs and delicate fingers had never known battle or real work.

Syl bobbed around the room, poking into nooks, crannies, and vases. She stopped at a paperweight on the women’s writing desk beside the king’s chair, poking at the block of crystal with a strange kind of crab-thing trapped inside. Were those wings?

“Shouldn’t that one wait outside?” Adolin asked, nodding toward Kaladin.

“What we’re doing is going to put me in direct danger,” Dalinar said, hands clasped behind his back. “I want him to know the details. That might be important to his job.” Dalinar didn’t look toward Adolin or Kaladin.

Adolin walked up, taking Dalinar by the arm and speaking in a hushed tone that was not so soft that Kaladin couldn’t hear. “We barely know him.”

“We have to trust some people, Adolin,” his father said in a normal voice. “If there’s one person in this army I can guarantee isn’t working for Sadeas, it’s that soldier.” He turned and glanced at Kaladin, once again studying him with those unfathomable eyes.

He didn’t see me with the Stormlight, Kaladin told himself forcefully. He was practically unconscious. He doesn’t know.

Does he?

Adolin threw up his hands but walked to the other side of the room, muttering something to his brother. Kaladin remained in position, standing comfortably at parade rest. Yes, definitely spoiled.

The general who arrived soon after was a limber, bald man with a straight back and pale yellow eyes. His wife, Teshav, had a pinched face and hair streaked blond. She took up position by the writing desk, which Navani had made no move to occupy.

“Reports,” Dalinar said from the window as the door clicked shut behind the two newcomers.

“I suspect you know what you’ll hear, Brightlord,” said Teshav. “They’re irate. They sincerely hoped you would reconsider the command – and sending it out to the public has provoked them. Highprince Hatham was the only one to make a public announcement. He plans to – and I quote– ‘see that the king is dissuaded from this reckless and ill-advised course.’”

The king sighed, settling into his seat. Renarin sat down immediately, as did the general. Adolin found his seat more reluctantly.

Dalinar remained standing, looking out the window.

“Uncle?” the king asked. “Did you hear that reaction? It’s a good thing you didn’t go so far as you had considered: to proclaim that they must follow the Codes or face seizure of assets. We’d be in the middle of a rebellion.”

“That will come,” Dalinar said. “I still wonder if I should have announced it all at once. When you’ve got an arrow stuck in you, it’s sometimes best to just yank it out in one pull.”

Actually, when you had an arrow in you, the best thing to do was leave it there until you could find a surgeon. Often it would plug the blood flow and keep you alive. It was probably best not to speak up and undermine the highprince’s metaphor, however.

“Storms, what a ghastly image,” the king said, wiping his face with a handkerchief. “Do you have to say such things, Uncle? I already fear we’ll be dead before the week is out.”

“Your father and I survived worse than this,” Dalinar said.

“You had allies, then! Three highprinces for you, only six against, and you never fought them all at the same time.”

“If the highprinces unite against us,” General Khal said, “we will not be able to stand firm. We’ll have no choice but to rescind this proclamation, which will weaken the Throne considerably.”

The king leaned back, hand to his forehead. “Jezerezeh, this is going to be a disaster…”

Kaladin raised an eyebrow.

“You disagree?” Syl asked, moving over toward him as a cluster of fluttering leaves. It was disconcerting to hear her voice coming from such shapes. The others in the room, of course, couldn’t see or hear her.

“No,” Kaladin whispered. “This proclamation sounds like a real tempest. I just expected the king to be less… well, whiny.”

“We need to secure allies,” Adolin said. “Form a coalition. Sadeas will gather one, and so we counter him with our own.”

“Dividing the kingdom into two?” Teshav said, shaking her head. “I don’t see how a civil war would serve the Throne. Particularly one we’re unlikely to win.”

“This could be the end of Alethkar as a kingdom,” the general agreed.

“Alethkar ended as a kingdom centuries ago,” Dalinar said softly, staring out that window. “This thing we have created is not Alethkar. Alethkar was justice. We are children wearing our father’s cloak.”

“But Uncle,” the king said, “at least the kingdom is something. More than it has been in centuries! If we fail here, and fracture to ten warring princedoms, it will negate everything my father worked for!”

“This isn’t what your father worked for, son,” Dalinar said. “This game on the Shattered Plains, this nauseating political farce. This isn’t what Gavilar envisioned. The Everstorm comes…”

“What?” the king asked.

Dalinar turned from the window finally, walking to the others, and rested his hand on Navani’s shoulder. “We’re going to find a way to do this, or we’re going to destroy the kingdom in the process. I won’t suffer this charade any longer.”

Kaladin, arms folded, tapped one finger against his elbow. “Dalinar acts like he’s the king,” he mouthed, whispering so softly only Syl could hear. “And everyone else does as well.” Troubling. It was like what Amaram had done. Seizing the power he saw before him, even if it wasn’t his.

Navani looked up at Dalinar, raising her hand to rest on his. She was in on whatever he was planning, judging by that expression.

The king wasn’t. He sighed lightly. “You’ve obviously got a plan, Uncle. Well? Out with it. This drama is tiring.”

“What I really want to do,” Dalinar said frankly, “is beat the lot of them senseless. That’s what I’d do to new recruits who weren’t willing to obey orders.”

“I think you’ll have a hard time spanking obedience into the highprinces, Uncle,” the king said dryly. For some reason, he absently rubbed at his chest.

“You need to disarm them,” Kaladin found himself saying.

All eyes in the room turned toward him. Brightness Teshav gave him a frown, as if speaking were not Kaladin’s right. It probably wasn’t.

Dalinar, however, nodded toward him. “Soldier? You have a suggestion?”

“Your pardon, sir,” Kaladin said. “And your pardon, Your Majesty. But if a squad is giving you trouble, the first thing you do is separate its members. Split them up, stick them in better squads. I don’t think you can do that here.”

“I don’t know how we’d break apart the highprinces,” Dalinar said. “I doubt I could stop them from associating with one another. Perhaps if this war were won, I could assign different highprinces different duties, send them off, then work on them individually. But for the time being, we are trapped here.”

“Well, the second thing you do to troublemakers,” Kaladin said, “is you disarm them. They’re easier to control if you make them turn in their spears. It’s embarrassing, makes them feel like recruits again. So… can you take their troops away from them, maybe?”

“We can’t, I’m afraid,” Dalinar said. “The soldiers swore allegiance to their lighteyes, not to the Crown specifically – it’s only the highprinces who have sworn to the Crown. However, you are thinking along the right lines.”

He squeezed Navani’s shoulder. “For the last two weeks,” he said, “I’ve been trying to decide how to approach this problem. My gut tells me that I need to treat the highprinces – the entire lighteyed population of Alethkar – like new recruits, in need of discipline.”

“He came to me, and we talked,” Navani said. “We can’t actually bust the highprinces down to a manageable rank, as much as Dalinar would like to do just that. Instead, we need to lead them to believe that we’re going to take it all from them, if they don’t shape up.”

“This proclamation will make them mad,” Dalinar said. “I want them mad. I want them to think about the war, their place here, and I want to remind them of Gavilar’s assassination. If I can push them to act more like soldiers, even if it starts with them taking up arms against me, then I might be able to persuade them. I can reason with soldiers. Regardless, a big part of this will involve the threat that I’m going to take away their authority and power if they don’t use it correctly. And that begins, as Captain Kaladin suggested, with disarming them.”

“Disarm the highprinces?” the king asked. “What foolishness is this?”

“It’s not foolishness,” Dalinar said, smiling. “We can’t take their armies from them, but we can do something else. Adolin, I intend to take the lock off your scabbard.”

Adolin frowned, considering that for a moment. Then a wide grin split his face. “You mean, letting me duel again? For real?”

“Yes,” Dalinar said. He turned to the king. “For the longest time, I’ve forbidden him from important bouts, as the Codes prohibit duels of honor between officers at war. More and more, however, I’ve come to realize that the others don’t see themselves as being at war. They’re playing a game. It’s time to allow Adolin to duel the camp’s other Shardbearers in official bouts.”

“So he can humiliate them?” the king asked.

“It wouldn’t be about humiliation; it would be about depriving them of their Shards.” Dalinar stepped into the middle of the group of chairs. “The highprinces would have a hard time fighting against us if we controlled all of the Shardblades and Shardplate in the army. Adolin, I want you to challenge the Shardbearers of other highprinces in duels of honor, the prizes being the Shards themselves.”

“They won’t agree to it,” General Khal said. “They’ll refuse the bouts.”

“We’ll have to make sure they agree,” Dalinar said. “Find a way to force them, or shame them, into the fights. I’ve considered that this would probably be easier if we could ever track down where Wit ran off to.”

“What happens if the lad loses?” General Khal asked. “This plan seems too unpredictable.”

“We’ll see,” Dalinar said. “This is only one part of what we will do, the smaller part – but also the most visible part. Adolin, everyone tells me how good you are at dueling, and you have pestered me incessantly to relax my prohibition. There are thirty Shardbearers in the army, not counting our own. Can you defeat that many men?”

“Can I?” Adolin said, grinning. “I’ll do it without breaking a sweat, so long as I can start with Sadeas himself.”

So he’s spoiled and cocky, Kaladin thought.

“No,” Dalinar said. “Sadeas won’t accept a personal challenge, though eventually bringing him down is our goal. We start with some of the lesser Shardbearers and work up.”

The others in the room seemed troubled. That included Brightness Navani, who drew her lips to a line and glanced at Adolin. She might be in on Dalinar’s plan, but she didn’t love the idea of her nephew dueling.

She didn’t say so. “As Dalinar indicated,” Navani said, “this won’t be our entire plan. Hopefully, Adolin’s duels won’t need to go far. They are meant mostly to inspire worry and fear, to apply pressure to some factions who are working against us. The greater part of what we must do will entail a complex and determined political effort to connect with those who can be swayed to our side.”

“Navani and I will work to persuade the highprinces of the advantages of a truly unified Alethkar,” Dalinar said, nodding. “Though the Stormfather knows, I’m less certain of my political acumen than Adolin is of his dueling. It is what must be. If Adolin is to be the stick, I must be the feather.”

“There will be assassins, Uncle,” Elhokar said, sounding tired. “I don’t think Khal is right; I don’t think Alethkar will shatter immediately. The highprinces have come to like the idea of being one kingdom. But they also like their sport, their fun, their gemhearts. So they will send assassins. Quietly, at first, and probably not directly at you or me. Our families. Sadeas and the others will try to hurt us, make us back down. Are you willing to risk your sons on this? How about my mother?”

“Yes, you are right,” Dalinar said. “I hadn’t… but yes. That is how they think.” He sounded regretful to Kaladin.

“And you’re still willing to go through with this plan?” the king asked.

“I have no choice,” Dalinar said, turning away, walking back toward the window. Looking out westward, in toward the continent.

“Then at least tell me this,” Elhokar said. “What is your endgame, Uncle? What is it you want out of all of this? In a year, if we survive this fiasco, what do you want us to be?”

Dalinar put his hands on the thick stone windowsill. He stared out, as if at something he could see and the rest of them could not. “I’ll have us be what we were before, son. A kingdom that can stand through storms, a kingdom that is a light and not a darkness. I will have a truly unified Alethkar, with highprinces who are loyal and just. I’ll have more than that.” He tapped the windowsill. “I’m going to refound the Knights Radiant.”

Kaladin nearly dropped his spear in shock. Fortunately, nobody was watching him – they were leaping to their feet, staring at Dalinar.

“The Radiants?” Brightness Teshav demanded. “Are you mad? You’re going to try to rebuild a sect of traitors who gave us over to the Voidbringers?”

“The rest of this sounds good, Father,” Adolin said, stepping forward. “I know you think about the Radiants a lot, but you see them… differently than everyone else. It won’t go well if you announce that you want to emulate them.”

The king just groaned, burying his face in his hands.

“People are wrong about them,” Dalinar said. “And even if they are not, the original Radiants – the ones instituted by the Heralds – are something even the Vorin church admits were once moral and just. We’ll need to remind people that the Knights Radiant, as an order, stood for something grand. If they hadn’t, then they wouldn’t have been able to ‘fall’ as the stories claim they did.”

“But why?” Elhokar asked. “What is the point?”

“It is what I must do.” Dalinar hesitated. “I’m not completely certain why, yet. Only that I’ve been instructed to do it. As a protection, and a preparation, for what is coming. A storm of some sort. Perhaps it is as simple as the other highprinces turning against us. I doubt that, but perhaps.”

“Father,” Adolin said, hand on Dalinar’s arm. “This is all well and good, and maybe you can change people’s perception of the Radiants, but… Ishar’s soul, Father! They could do things we cannot. Simply naming someone a Radiant won’t give them fanciful powers, like in the stories.”

“The Radiants were about more than what they could do,” Dalinar said. “They were about an ideal. The kind of ideal we’re lacking, these days. We may not be able to reach for the ancient Surgebindings – the powers they had – but we can seek to emulate the Radiants in other ways. I am set on this. Do not try to dissuade me.”

The others did not seem convinced.

Kaladin narrowed his eyes. So did Dalinar know about Kaladin’s powers, or didn’t he? The meeting moved on to more mundane topics, such as how to maneuver Shardbearers into facing Adolin and how to step up patrols of the surrounding area. Dalinar considered making the warcamps safe to be a prerequisite for what he was attempting.

When the meeting finally ended, most people inside departing to carry out orders, Kaladin was still considering what Dalinar had said about the Radiants. The man hadn’t realized it, but he’d been very accurate. The Knights Radiant did have ideals – and they’d called them that very thing. The Five Ideals, the Immortal Words.

Life before death, Kaladin thought, playing with a sphere he’d pulled from his pocket, strength before weakness, journey before destination. Those Words made up the First Ideal in its entirety. He had only an inkling of what it meant, but his ignorance hadn’t stopped him from figuring out the Second Ideal of the Windrunners, the oath to protect those who could not protect themselves.

Syl wouldn’t tell him the other three. She said he would know them when he needed to. Or he wouldn’t, and would not progress.

Did he want to progress? To become what? A member of the Knights Radiant? Kaladin hadn’t asked for someone else’s ideals to rule his life. He’d just wanted to survive. Now, somehow, he was headed straight down a path that no man had trod in centuries. Potentially becoming something that people across Roshar would hate or revere. So much attention…

“Soldier?” Dalinar asked, stopping by the door.

“Sir.” Kaladin stood up straight again and saluted. It felt good to do that, to stand at attention, to find a place. He wasn’t certain if it was the good feeling of remembering a life he’d once loved, or if it was the pathetic feeling of an axehound finding its leash again.

“My nephew was right,” Dalinar said, watching the king retreat down the hallway. “The others might try to hurt my family. It’s how they think. I’m going to need guard details on Navani and my sons at all times. Your best men.”

“I’ve got about two dozen of those, sir,” Kaladin said. “That’s not enough for full guard details running all day protecting all four of you. I should have more men trained before too long, but putting a spear in the hands of a bridgeman does not make him a soldier, let alone a good bodyguard.”

Dalinar nodded, looking troubled. He rubbed his chin.

“Sir?”

“Your force isn’t the only one stretched thin in this warcamp, soldier,” Dalinar said. “I lost a lot of men to Sadeas’s betrayal. Very good men. Now I have a deadline. Just over sixty days…”

Kaladin felt a chill. The highprince was taking the number found scrawled on his wall very seriously.

“Captain,” Dalinar said softly, “I need every able-bodied man I can get. I need to be training them, rebuilding my army, preparing for the storm. I need them assaulting plateaus, clashing with the Parshendi, to get battle experience.”

What did this have to do with him? “You promised that my men wouldn’t be required to fight on plateau runs.”

“I’ll keep that promise,” Dalinar said. “But there are two hundred and fifty soldiers in the King’s Guard. They include some of my last remaining battle-ready officers, and I will need to put them in charge of new recruits.”

“I’m not just going to have to watch over your family, am I?” Kaladin asked, feeling a new weight settling in his shoulders. “You’re implying you want to turn over guarding the king to me as well.”

“Yes,” Dalinar said. “Slowly, but yes. I need those soldiers. Beyond that, maintaining two separate guard forces seems like a mistake to me. I feel that your men, considering your background, are the least likely to include spies for my enemies. You should know that a while back, there may have been an attempt on the king’s life. I still haven’t figured out who was behind it, but I worry that some of his guards may have been involved.”

Kaladin took a deep breath. “What happened?”

“Elhokar and I hunted a chasmfiend,” Dalinar said. “During that hunt, at a time of stress, the king’s Plate came close to failing. We found that many of the gemstones powering it had likely been replaced with ones that were flawed, making them crack under stress.”

“I don’t know much of Plate, sir,” Kaladin said. “Could they have just broken on their own, without sabotage?”

“Possible, but unlikely. I want your men to take shifts guarding the palace and the king, alternating with some of the King’s Guard, to get you familiar with him and the palace. It might also help your men learn from the more experienced guards. At the same time, I’m going to start siphoning off the officers from his guard to train soldiers in my army.

“Over the next few weeks, we’ll merge your group and the King’s Guard into one. You’ll be in charge. Once you’ve trained bridgemen from those other crews well enough, we’ll replace soldiers in the guard with your men, and move the soldiers to my army.” He looked Kaladin in the eyes. “Can you do this, soldier?”

“Yes, sir,” Kaladin said, though part of him was panicking. “I can.”

“Good.”

“Sir, a suggestion. You’ve said you’re going to expand patrols outside the warcamps, trying to police the hills around the Shattered Plains?”

“Yes. The number of bandits out there is embarrassing. This is Alethi land now. It needs to follow Alethi laws.”

“I have a thousand men I need to train,” Kaladin said. “If I could patrol them out there, it might help them feel like soldiers. I could use a large enough force that it sends a message to the bandits, maybe making them withdraw – but my men won’t need to see much combat.”

“Good. General Khal had been in command of patrol duty, but he’s now my most senior commander, and will be needed for other things. Train your men. Our goal will eventually be to have your thousand doing real roadway patrols between here, Alethkar, and the ports to the south and east. I’ll want scouting teams, watching for signs of bandit camps and searching out caravans that have been attacked. I need numbers on how much activity is out there, and just how dangerous it is.”

“I’ll see to it personally, sir.”

Storms. How was he going to do all of this?

“Good,” Dalinar said.

Dalinar walked from the chamber, clasping his hands behind him, as if lost in thought. Moash, Eth, and Mart fell in after him, as ordered by Kaladin. He’d have two men with Dalinar at all times, three if he could manage it. He’d once hoped to expand that to four or five, but storms, with so many to watch over now, that was going to be impossible.

Who is this man? Kaladin thought, watching Dalinar’s retreating form. He ran a good camp. You could judge a man – and Kaladin did – by the men who followed him.

But a tyrant could have a good camp with disciplined soldiers. This man, Dalinar Kholin, had helped unite Alethkar – and had done so by wading through blood. Now… now he spoke like a king, even when the king himself was in the room.

He wants to rebuild the Knights Radiant, Kaladin thought. That wasn’t something Dalinar Kholin could accomplish through simple force of will.

Unless he had help.

6. Terrible Destruction

We had never considered that there might be Parshendi spies hiding among our slaves. This is something else I should have seen.

From the journal of Navani Kholin, Jesesan 1174

Shallan sat again on her box on the ship’s deck, though she now wore a hat on her head, a coat over her dress, and a glove on her freehand – her safehand was, of course, pinned inside its sleeve.

The chill out here on the open ocean was something unreal. The captain said that far to the south, the ocean itself actually froze. That sounded incredible; she’d like to see it. She’d occasionally seen snow and ice in Jah Keved, during the odd winter. But an entire ocean of it? Amazing.

She wrote with gloved fingers as she observed the spren she’d named Pattern. At the moment, he had lifted himself up off the surface of the deck, forming a ball of swirling blackness – infinite lines that twisted in ways she could never have captured on the flat page. Instead, she wrote descriptions supplemented with sketches.

“Food…” Pattern said. The sound had a buzzing quality and he vibrated when he spoke.

“Yes,” Shallan said. “We eat it.” She selected a small limafruit from the bowl beside her and placed it in her mouth, then chewed and swallowed.

“Eat,” Pattern said. “You… make it… into you.”

“Yes! Exactly.”

He dropped down, the darkness vanishing as he entered the wooden deck of the ship. Once again, he became part of the material – making the wood ripple as if it were water. He slid across the floor, then moved up the box beside her to the bowl of small green fruits. Here, he moved across them, each fruit’s rind puckering and rising with the shape of his pattern.

“Terrible!” he said, the sound vibrating up from the bowl.

“Terrible?”

“Destruction!”

“What? No, it’s how we survive. Everything needs to eat.”

“Terrible destruction to eat!” He sounded aghast. He retreated from the bowl to the deck.

Pattern connects increasingly complex thoughts, Shallan wrote. Abstractions come easily to him. Early, he asked me the questions “Why? Why you? Why be?” I interpreted this as asking me my purpose. When I replied, “To find truth,” he easily seemed to grasp my meaning. And yet, some simple realities – such as why people would need to eat – completely escape him. It–

She stopped writing as the paper puckered and rose, Pattern appearing on the sheet itself, his tiny ridges lifting the letters she had just penned.

“Why this?” he asked.

“To remember.”

“Remember,” he said, trying the word.

“It means…” Stormfather. How did she explain memory? “It means to be able to know what you did in the past. In other moments, ones that happened days ago.”

“Remember,” he said. “I… cannot… remember…”

“What is the first thing you do remember?” Shallan asked. “Where were you first?”

“First,” Pattern said. “With you.”

“On the ship?” Shallan said, writing.

“No. Green. Food. Food not eaten.”

“Plants?” Shallan asked.

“Yes. Many plants.” He vibrated, and she thought she could hear in that vibration the blowing of wind through branches. Shallan breathed in. She could almost see it. The deck in front of her changing to a dirt path, her box becoming a stone bench. Faintly. Not really there, but almost. Her father’s gardens. Pattern on the ground, drawn in the dust…

“Remember,” Pattern said, voice like a whisper.

No, Shallan thought, horrified. NO!

The image vanished. It hadn’t really been there in the first place, had it? She raised her safehand to her breast, breathing in and out in sharp gasps. No.

“Hey, young miss!” Yalb said from behind. “Tell the new kid here what happened in Kharbranth!”

Shallan turned, heart still racing, to see Yalb walking over with the “new kid,” a six-foot-tall hulk of a man who was at least five years Yalb’s senior. They’d picked him up at Amydlatn, the last port. Tozbek wanted to be sure they wouldn’t be undermanned during the last leg to New Natanan.

Yalb squatted down beside her stool. In the face of the chill, he’d acquiesced to wearing a shirt with ragged sleeves and a kind of headband that wrapped over his ears.

“Brightness?” Yalb asked. “You all right? You look like you swallowed a turtle. And not just the head, neither.”

“I’m well,” Shallan said. “What… what was it you wanted of me, again?”

“In Kharbranth,” Yalb said, thumbing over his shoulder. “Did we or did we not meet the king?”

“We?” Shallan asked. “I met him.”

“And I was your retinue.”

“You were waiting outside.”

“Doesn’t matter none,” Yalb said. “I was your footman for that meeting, eh?”

Footman? He’d led her up to the palace as a favor. “I… guess,” she said. “You did have a nice bow, as I recall.”

“See,” Yalb said, standing and confronting the much larger man. “I mentioned the bow, didn’t I?”

The “new kid” rumbled his agreement.

“So get to washing those dishes,” Yalb said. He got a scowl in response. “Now, don’t give me that,” Yalb said. “I told you, galley duty is something the captain watches closely. If you want to fit in around here, you do it well, and do some extra. It will put you ahead with the captain and the rest of the men. I’m giving you quite the opportunity here, and I’ll have you appreciate it.”

That seemed to placate the larger man, who turned around and went tromping toward the lower decks.

“Passions!” Yalb said. “That fellow is as dun as two spheres made of mud. I worry about him. Somebody’s going to take advantage of him, Brightness.”

“Yalb, have you been boasting again?” Shallan said.

“’Tain’t boasting if some of it’s true.”

“Actually, that’s exactly what boasting entails.”

“Hey,” Yalb said, turning toward her. “What were you doing before? You know, with the colors?”

“Colors?” Shallan said, suddenly cold.

“Yeah, the deck turned green, eh?” Yalb said. “I swear I saw it. Has to do with that strange spren, does it?”

“I… I’m trying to determine exactly what kind of spren it is,” Shallan said, keeping her voice even. “It’s a scholarly matter.”

“I thought so,” Yalb said, though she’d given him nothing in the way of an answer. He raised an affable hand to her, then jogged off.

She worried about letting them see Pattern. She’d tried staying in her cabin to keep him a secret from the men, but being cooped up had been too difficult for her, and he didn’t respond to her suggestions that he stay out of their sight. So, during the last four days, she’d been forced to let them see what she was doing as she studied him.

They were understandably discomforted by him, but didn’t say much. Today, they were getting the ship ready to sail all night. Thoughts of the open sea at night unsettled her, but that was the cost of sailing this far from civilization. Two days back, they’d even been forced to weather a storm in a cove along the coast. Jasnah and Shallan had gone ashore to stay in a fortress maintained for the purpose – paying a steep cost to get in – while the sailors had stayed on board.

That cove, though not a true port, had at least had a stormwall to help shelter the ship. Next highstorm, they wouldn’t even have that. They’d find a cove and try to ride out the winds, though Tozbek said he’d send Shallan and Jasnah ashore to seek shelter in a cavern.

She turned back to Pattern, who had shifted into his hovering form. He looked something like the pattern of splintered light thrown on the wall by a crystal chandelier – except he was made of something black instead of light, and he was three-dimensional. So… Maybe not much like that at all.

“Lies,” Pattern said. “Lies from the Yalb.”

“Yes,” Shallan said with a sigh. “Yalb is far too skilled at persuasion for his own good, sometimes.”

Pattern hummed softly. He seemed pleased.

“You like lies?” Shallan asked.

“Good lies,” Pattern said. “That lie. Good lie.”

“What makes a lie good?” Shallan asked, taking careful notes, recording Pattern’s exact words.

“True lies.”

“Pattern, those two are opposites.”

“Hmmmm… Light makes shadow. Truth makes lies. Hmmmm.”

Liespren, Jasnah called them, Shallan wrote. A moniker they don’t like, apparently. When I Soulcast for the first time, a voice demanded a truth from me. I still don’t know what that means, and Jasnah has not been forthcoming. She doesn’t seem to know what to make of my experience either. I do not think that voice belonged to Pattern, but I cannot say, as he seems to have forgotten much about himself.

She returned to making a few sketches of Pattern both in his floating and flattened forms. Drawing let her mind relax. By the time she was done, there were several half-remembered passages from her research that she wanted to quote in her notes.

She made her way down the steps belowdecks, Pattern following. He drew looks from the sailors. Sailors were a superstitious lot, and some took him as a bad sign.

In her quarters, Pattern moved up the wall beside her, watching without eyes as she searched for a passage she remembered, which mentioned spren that spoke. Not just windspren and riverspren, which would mimic people and make playful comments. Those were a step up from ordinary spren, but there was yet another level of spren, one rarely seen. Spren like Pattern, who had real conversations with people.

The Nightwatcher is obviously one of these, Alai wrote, Shallan copying the passage. The records of conversations with her – and she is definitely female, despite what rural Alethi folktales would have one believe – are numerous and credible. Shubalai herself, intent on providing a firsthand scholarly report, visited the Nightwatcher and recorded her story word for word…

Shallan went to another reference, and before long got completely lost in her studies. A few hours later, she closed a book and set it on the table beside her bed. Her spheres were getting dim; they’d go out soon, and would need to be reinfused with Stormlight. Shallan released a contented sigh and leaned back against her bed, her notes from a dozen different sources laid out on the floor of her small chamber.

She felt… satisfied. Her brothers loved the plan of fixing the Soulcaster and returning it, and seemed energized by her suggestion that all was not lost. They thought they could last longer, now that a plan was in place.

Shallan’s life was coming together. How long had it been since she’d just been able to sit and read? Without worried concern for her house, without dreading the need to find a way to steal from Jasnah? Even before the terrible sequence of events that had led to her father’s death, she had always been anxious. That had been her life. She’d seen becoming a true scholar as something unreachable. Stormfather! She’d seen the next town over as being unreachable.

She stood up, gathering her sketchbook and flipping through her pictures of the santhid, including several drawn from the memory of her dip in the ocean. She smiled at that, recalling how she’d climbed back up on deck, dripping wet and grinning. The sailors had all obviously thought her mad.

Now she was sailing toward a city on the edge of the world, betrothed to a powerful Alethi prince, and was free to just learn. She was seeing incredible new sights, sketching them during the days, then reading through piles of books in the nights.

She had stumbled into the perfect life, and it was everything she’d wished for.

Shallan fished in the pocket inside her safehand sleeve, digging out some more spheres to replace those dimming in the goblet. The ones her hand emerged with, however, were completely dun. Not a glimmer of Light in them.

She frowned. These had been restored during the previous highstorm, held in a basket tied to the ship’s mast. The ones in her goblet were two storms old now, which was why they were running out. How had the ones in her pocket gone dun faster? It defied reason.

“Mmmmm…” Pattern said from the wall near her head. “Lies.”

Shallan replaced the spheres in her pocket, then opened the door into the ship’s narrow companionway and moved to Jasnah’s cabin. It was the cabin that Tozbek and his wife usually shared, but they had vacated it for the third – and smallest – of the cabins to give Jasnah the better quarters. People did things like that for her, even when she didn’t ask.

Jasnah would have some spheres for Shallan to use. Indeed, Jasnah’s door was cracked open, swaying slightly as the ship creaked and rocked along its evening path. Jasnah sat at the desk inside, and Shallan peeked in, suddenly uncertain if she wanted to bother the woman.

She could see Jasnah’s face, hand against her temple, staring at the pages spread before her. Jasnah’s eyes were haunted, her expression haggard.

This was not the Jasnah that Shallan was accustomed to seeing. The confidence had been overwhelmed by exhaustion, the poise replaced by worry. Jasnah started to write something, but stopped after just a few words. She set down the pen, closing her eyes and massaging her temples. A few dizzy-looking spren, like jets of dust rising into the air, appeared around Jasnah’s head. Exhaustionspren.

Shallan pulled back, suddenly feeling as if she’d intruded upon an intimate moment. Jasnah with her defenses down. Shallan began to creep away, but a voice from the floor suddenly said, “Truth!”

Startled, Jasnah looked up, eyes finding Shallan – who, of course, blushed furiously.

Jasnah turned her eyes down toward Pattern on the floor, then reset her mask, sitting up with proper posture. “Yes, child?”

“I… I needed spheres…” Shallan said. “Those in my pouch went dun.”

“Have you been Soulcasting?” Jasnah asked sharply.

“What? No, Brightness. I promised I would not.”

“Then it is the second ability,” Jasnah said. “Come in and close that door. I should speak to Captain Tozbek; it won’t latch properly.”

Shallan stepped in, pushing the door closed, though the latch didn’t catch. She stepped forward, hands clasped, feeling embarrassed.

“What did you do?” Jasnah asked. “It involved light, I assume?”

“I seemed to make plants appear,” Shallan said. “Well, really just the color. One of the sailors saw the deck turn green, but it vanished when I stopped thinking about the plants.”

“Yes…” Jasnah said. She flipped through one of her books, stopping at an illustration. Shallan had seen it before; it was as ancient as Vorinism. Ten spheres connected by lines forming a shape like an hourglass on its side. Two of the spheres at the center looked almost like pupils. The Double Eye of the Almighty.

“Ten Essences,” Jasnah said softly. She ran her fingers along the page. “Ten Surges. Ten orders. But what does it mean that the spren have finally decided to return the oaths to us? And how much time remains to me? Not long. Not long…”

“Brightness?” Shallan asked.

“Before your arrival, I could assume I was an anomaly,” Jasnah said. “I could hope that Surgebindings were not returning in large numbers. I no longer have that hope. The Cryptics sent you to me, of that I have no doubt, because they knew you would need training. That gives me hope that I was at least one of the first.”

“I don’t understand.”

Jasnah looked up toward Shallan, meeting her eyes with an intense gaze. The woman’s eyes were reddened with fatigue. How late was she working? Every night when Shallan turned in, there was still light coming from under Jasnah’s door.

“To be honest,” Jasnah said, “I don’t understand either.”

“Are you all right?” Shallan asked. “Before I entered, you seemed… distressed.”

Jasnah hesitated just briefly. “I have merely been spending too long at my studies.” She turned to one of her trunks, digging out a dark cloth pouch filled with spheres. “Take these. I would suggest that you keep spheres with you at all times, so that your Surgebinding has the opportunity to manifest.”

“Can you teach me?” Shallan asked, taking the pouch.

“I don’t know,” Jasnah said. “I will try. On this diagram, one of the Surges is known as Illumination, the mastery of light. For now, I would prefer you expend your efforts on learning this Surge, as opposed to Soulcasting. That is a dangerous art, more so now than it once was.”

Shallan nodded, rising. She hesitated before leaving, however. “Are you sure you are well?”

“Of course.” She said it too quickly. The woman was poised, in control, but also obviously exhausted. The mask was cracked, and Shallan could see the truth.

She’s trying to placate me, Shallan realized. Pat me on the head and send me back to bed, like a child awakened by a nightmare.

“You’re worried,” Shallan said, meeting Jasnah’s eyes.

The woman turned away. She pushed a book over something wiggling on her table – a small purple spren. Fearspren. Only one, true, but still.

“No…” Shallan whispered. “You’re not worried. You’re terrified.” Stormfather!

“It is all right, Shallan,” Jasnah said. “I just need some sleep. Go back to your studies.”

Shallan sat down on the stool beside Jasnah’s desk. The older woman looked back at her, and Shallan could see the mask cracking further. Annoyance as Jasnah drew her lips to a line. Tension in the way she held her pen, in a fist.

“You told me I could be part of this,” Shallan said. “Jasnah, if you’re worried about something…”

“My worry is what it has always been,” Jasnah said, leaning back in her chair. “That I will be too late. That I’m incapable of doing anything meaningful to stop what is coming – that I’m trying to stop a highstorm by blowing against it really hard.”

“The Voidbringers,” Shallan said. “The parshmen.”

“In the past,” Jasnah said, “the Desolation – the coming of the Voidbringers – was supposedly always marked by a return of the Heralds to prepare mankind. They would train the Knights Radiant, who would experience a rush of new members.”

“But we captured the Voidbringers,” Shallan said. “And enslaved them.” That was what Jasnah postulated, and Shallan agreed, having seen the research. “So you think a kind of revolution is coming. That the parshmen will turn against us as they did in the past.”

“Yes,” Jasnah said, rifling through her notes. “And soon. Your proving to be a Surgebinder does not comfort me, as it smacks too much of what happened before. But back then, new knights had teachers to train them, generations of tradition. We have nothing.”

“The Voidbringers are captive,” Shallan said, glancing toward Pattern. He rested on the floor, almost invisible, saying nothing. “The parshmen can barely communicate. How could they possibly stage a revolution?”

Jasnah found the sheet of paper she’d been seeking and handed it to Shallan. Written in Jasnah’s own hand, it was an account by a captain’s wife of a plateau assault on the Shattered Plains.

“Parshendi,” Jasnah said, “can sing in time with one another no matter how far they are separated. They have some ability to communicate that we do not understand. I can only assume that their cousins the parshmen have the same. They may not need to hear a call to action in order to revolt.”

Shallan read the report, nodding slowly. “We need to warn others, Jasnah.”

“You don’t think I’ve tried?” Jasnah asked. “I’ve written to scholars and kings all around the world. Most dismiss me as paranoid. The evidence you readily accept, others call flimsy.

“The ardents were my best hope, but their eyes are clouded by the interference of the Hierocracy. Besides, my personal beliefs make ardents skeptical of anything I say. My mother wants to see my research, which is something. My brother and uncle might believe, and that is why we are going to them.” She hesitated. “There is another reason we seek the Shattered Plains. A way to find evidence that might convince everyone.”

“Urithiru,” Shallan said. “The city you seek?”

Jasnah gave her another curt glance. The ancient city was something Shallan had first learned about by secretly reading Jasnah’s notes.

“You still blush too easily when confronted,” Jasnah noted.

“I’m sorry.”

“And apologize too easily as well.”

“I’m… uh, indignant?”

Jasnah smiled, picking up the representation of the Double Eye. She stared at it. “There is a secret hidden somewhere on the Shattered Plains. A secret about Urithiru.”

“You told me the city wasn’t there!”

“It isn’t. But the path to it may be.” Her lips tightened. “According to legend, only a Knight Radiant could open the way.”

“Fortunately, we know two of those.”

“Again, you are not a Radiant, and neither am I. Being able to replicate some of the things they could do may not matter. We don’t have their traditions or knowledge.”

“We’re talking about the potential end of civilization itself, aren’t we?” Shallan asked softly.

Jasnah hesitated.

“The Desolations,” Shallan said. “I know very little, but the legends…”

“In the aftermath of each one, mankind was broken. Great cities in ashes, industry smashed. Each time, knowledge and growth were reduced to an almost prehistoric state – it took centuries of rebuilding to restore civilization to what it had been before.” She hesitated. “I keep hoping that I’m wrong.”

“Urithiru,” Shallan said. She tried to refrain from just asking questions, trying instead to reason her way to the answer. “You said the city was a kind of base or home to the Knights Radiant. I hadn’t heard of it before speaking with you, and so can guess that it’s not commonly referred to in the literature. Perhaps, then, it is one of the things that the Hierocracy suppressed knowledge of?”

“Very good,” Jasnah said. “Although I think that it had begun to fade into legend even before then, the Hierocracy did not help.”

“So if it existed before the Hierocracy, and if the pathway to it was locked at the fall of the Radiants… then it might contain records that have not been touched by modern scholars. Unaltered, unchanged lore about the Voidbringers and Surgebinding.” Shallan shivered. “That’s why we’re really going to the Shattered Plains.”

Jasnah smiled through her fatigue. “Very good indeed. My time in the Palanaeum was very useful, but also in some ways disappointing. While I confirmed my suspicions about the parshmen, I also found that many of the great library’s records bore the same signs of tampering as others I’d read. This ‘cleansing’ of history, removing direct references to Urithiru or the Radiants because they were embarrassments to Vorinism – it’s infuriating. And people ask me why I am hostile to the church! I need primary sources. And then, there are stories – ones I dare to believe – claiming that Urithiru was holy and protected from the Voidbringers. Maybe that was wishful fancy, but I am not too much a scholar to hope that something like that might be true.”

“And the parshmen?”

“We will try to persuade the Alethi to rid themselves of those.”

“Not an easy task.”

“A nearly impossible one,” Jasnah said, standing. She began to pack her books away for the night, putting them in her waterproofed trunk. “Parshmen are such perfect slaves. Docile, obedient. Our society has become far too reliant upon them. The parshmen wouldn’t need to turn violent to throw us into chaos – though I’m certain that is what’s coming – they could simply walk away. It would cause an economic crisis.”

She closed the trunk after removing one volume, then turned back to Shallan. “Convincing everyone of what I say is beyond us without more evidence. Even if my brother listens, he doesn’t have the authority to force the highprinces to get rid of their parshmen. And, in all honesty, I fear my brother won’t be brave enough to risk the collapse expelling the parshmen might cause.”

“But if they turn on us, the collapse will come anyway.”

“Yes,” Jasnah said. “You know this, and I know it. My mother might believe it. But the risk of being wrong is so immense that… well, we will need evidence – overwhelming and irrefutable evidence. So we find the city. At all costs, we find that city.”

Shallan nodded.

“I did not want to lay all of this upon your shoulders, child,” Jasnah said, sitting back down. “However, I will admit that it is a relief to speak of these things to someone who doesn’t challenge me on every other point.”

“We’ll do it, Jasnah,” Shallan said. “We’ll travel to the Shattered Plains and we’ll find Urithiru. We’ll get the evidence and convince everyone to listen.”

“Ah, the optimism of youth,” Jasnah said. “That is nice to hear on occasion too.” She handed the book to Shallan. “Among the Knights Radiant, there was an order known as the Lightweavers. I know precious little about them, but of all the sources I’ve read, this one has the most information.”

Shallan took the volume eagerly. Words of Radiance, the title read.

“Go,” Jasnah said. “Read.”

Shallan glanced at her.

“I will sleep,” Jasnah promised, a smile creeping to her lips. “And stop trying to mother me. I don’t even let Navani do that.”

Shallan sighed, nodding, and left Jasnah’s quarters. Pattern tagged along behind; he’d spent the entire conversation silent. As she entered her cabin, she found herself much heavier of heart than when she’d left it. She couldn’t banish the image of terror in Jasnah’s eyes. Jasnah Kholin shouldn’t fear anything, should she?

Shallan crawled onto her cot with the book she’d been given and the pouch of spheres. Part of her was eager to begin, but she was exhausted, her eyelids drooping. It really had gotten late. If she started the book now…

Perhaps better to get a good night’s sleep, then dig refreshed into a new day’s studies. She set the book on the small table beside her bed, curled up, and let the rocking of the boat coax her to sleep.

She awoke to screams, shouts, and smoke.

7. Open Flame

I was unprepared for the grief my loss brought – like an unexpected rain – breaking from a clear sky and crashing down upon me. Gavilar’s death years ago was overwhelming, but this… this nearly crushed me.

From the journal of Navani Kholin, Jesesach 1174

Still half asleep, Shallan panicked. She scrambled off her cot, accidentally slapping the goblet of mostly drained spheres. Though she used wax to keep it in place, the swat knocked it free and sent spheres tumbling across her cabin.

The scent of smoke was powerful. She ran to her door, disheveled, heart thumping. At least she’d fallen asleep in her clothing. She threw open the door.

Three men crowded in the passageway outside, holding aloft torches, their backs to her.

Torches, sparking with flamespren dancing about the fires. Who brought open flame onto a ship? Shallan stopped in numb confusion.

The shouts came from the deck above, and it seemed that the ship wasn’t on fire. But who were these men? They carried axes, and were focused on Jasnah’s cabin, which was open.

Figures moved inside. In a frozen moment of horror, one threw something to the floor before the others, who stepped aside to make way.

A body in a thin nightgown, eyes staring sightlessly, blood blossoming from the breast. Jasnah.

“Be sure,” one of the men said.

The other one knelt and rammed a long, thin knife right into Jasnah’s chest. Shallan heard it hit the wood of the floor beneath the body.

Shallan screamed.

One of the men spun toward her. “Hey!” It was the blunt-faced, tall fellow that Yalb had called the “new kid.” She didn’t recognize the other men.

Somehow fighting through the terror and disbelief, Shallan slammed her door and threw the bolt with trembling fingers.

Stormfather! Stormfather! She backed away from the door as something heavy hit the other side. They wouldn’t need the axes. A few determined smashes of shoulder to door would bring it down.

Shallan stumbled back against her cot, nearly slipping on the spheres rolling to and fro with the ship’s motion. The narrow window near the ceiling – far too small to fit through – revealed only the dark of night outside. Shouts continued above, feet thumping on wood.

Shallan trembled, still numb. Jasnah…

“Sword,” a voice said. Pattern, hanging on the wall beside her. “Mmmm… The sword…”

“No!” Shallan screamed, hands to the sides of her head, fingers in her hair. Stormfather! She was trembling.

Nightmare. It was a nightmare! It couldn’t be–

“Mmmm… Fight…”

“No!” Shallan found herself hyperventilating as the men outside continued to ram their shoulders against her door. She was not ready for this. She was not prepared.

“Mmmm…” Pattern said, sounding dissatisfied. “Lies.”

“I don’t know how to use the lies!” Shallan said. “I haven’t practiced.”

“Yes. Yes… remember… the time before…”

The door crunched. Dared she remember? Could she remember? A child, playing with a shimmering pattern of light…

“What do I do?” she asked.

“You need the Light,” Pattern said.

It sparked something deep within her memory, something prickled with barbs she dared not touch. She needed Stormlight to fuel the Surgebinding.

Shallan fell to her knees beside her cot and, without knowing exactly what she was doing, breathed in sharply. Stormlight left the spheres around her, pouring into her body, becoming a storm that raged in her veins. The cabin went dark, black as a cavern deep beneath the earth.

Then Light began to rise from her skin like vapors off boiling water. It lit the cabin with swimming shadows.

“Now what?” she demanded.

“Shape the lie.”

What did that mean? The door crunched again, cracking, a large split opening down the center.

Panicked, Shallan let out a breath. Stormlight streamed from her in a cloud; she almost felt as if she could touch it. She could feel its potential.

“How!” she demanded.

“Make the truth.”

“That makes no sense!”

Shallan screamed as the door broke open. New light entered the cabin, torchlight – red and yellow, hostile.

The cloud of Light leaped from Shallan, more Stormlight streaming from her body to join it. It formed a vague upright shape. An illuminated blur. It washed past the men through the doorway, waving appendages that could have been arms. Shallan herself, kneeling by the bed, fell into shadow.

The men’s eyes were drawn to the glowing shape. Then, blessedly, they turned and gave chase.

Shallan huddled against the wall, shaking. The cabin was utterly dark. Above, men screamed.

“Shallan…” Pattern buzzed somewhere in the darkness.

“Go and look,” she said. “Tell me what is happening up on deck.”

She didn’t know if he obeyed, as he made no sound when he moved. After a few deep breaths, Shallan stood up. Her legs shook, but she stood.

She collected herself somewhat. This was terrible, this was awful, but nothing, nothing, could compare to what she’d had to do the night her father died. She had survived that. She could survive this.

These men, they would be of the same group Kabsal had been from – the assassins Jasnah feared. They had finally gotten her.

Oh, Jasnah…

Jasnah was dead.

Grieve later. What was Shallan going to do about armed men taking over the ship? How would she find a way out?

She felt her way out into the passageway. There was a little light here, from torches above on the deck. The yells she heard there grew more panicked.

“Killing,” a voice suddenly said.

She jumped, though of course it was only Pattern.

“What?” Shallan hissed.

“Dark men killing,” Pattern said. “Sailors tied in ropes. One dead, bleeding red. I… I do not understand…”

Oh, Stormfather… Above, the shouting heightened, but there was no scramble of boots on the deck, no clanging of weapons. The sailors had been captured. At least one had been killed.

In the darkness, Shallan saw shaking, wiggling forms creep up from the wood around her. Fearspren.

“What of the men who chased after my image?” she asked.

“Looking in water,” Pattern said.

So they thought she’d jumped overboard. Heart thumping, Shallan felt her way to Jasnah’s cabin, expecting at any moment to trip over the woman’s corpse on the floor. She didn’t. Had the men dragged it above?

Shallan entered Jasnah’s cabin and closed the door. It wouldn’t latch shut, so she pulled a box over to block it.

She had to do something. She felt her way to one of Jasnah’s trunks, which had been thrown open by the men, its contents – clothing – scattered about. In the bottom, Shallan found the hidden drawer and pulled it open. Light suddenly bathed the cabin. The spheres were so bright they blinded Shallan for a moment, and she had to look away.

Pattern vibrated on the floor beside her, form shaking in worry. Shallan looked about. The small cabin was a shambles, clothing on the floor, papers strewn everywhere. The trunk with Jasnah’s books was gone. Too fresh to have soaked in, blood was pooled on the bed. Shallan quickly looked away.

A shout suddenly sounded above, followed by a thump. The screaming grew louder. She heard Tozbek bellow for the men to spare his wife.

Almighty above… the assassins were executing the sailors one at a time. Shallan had to do something. Anything.

Shallan looked back at the spheres in their false bottom, lined with black cloth. “Pattern,” she said, “we’re going to Soulcast the bottom of the ship and sink it.”

“What!” His vibrating increased, a buzz of sound. “Humans… Humans… Eat water?”

“We drink it,” Shallan said, “but we cannot breathe it.”

“Mmmm… Confused…” Pattern said.

“The captain and the others are captured and being executed. The best chance I can give them is chaos.” Shallan placed her hands on the spheres and drew in the Light with a sharp breath. She felt afire with it inside of her, as if she were going to burst. The Light was a living thing, trying to press out through the pores of her skin.

“Show me!” she shouted, far more loudly than she’d intended. That Stormlight urged her to action. “I’ve Soulcast before. I must do it again!” Stormlight puffed from her mouth as she spoke, like breath on a cold day.

“Mmmmm…” Pattern said anxiously. “I will intercede. See.”

“See what?”

“See!”

Shadesmar. The last time she’d gone to that place, she’d nearly gotten herself killed. Only, it wasn’t a place. Or was it? Did it matter?

She reached back through recent memory to the time when she’d last Soulcast and accidentally turned a goblet into blood. “I need a truth.”

“You have given enough,” Pattern said. “Now. See.”

The ship vanished.

Everything… popped. The walls, the furniture, it all shattered into little globes of black glass. Shallan prepared herself to fall into the ocean of those glass beads, but instead she dropped onto solid ground.

She stood in a place with a black sky and a tiny, distant sun. The ground beneath her reflected light. Obsidian? Each way she turned, the ground was made of that same blackness. Nearby, the spheres – like those that would hold Stormlight, but dark and small – bounced to a rest on the ground.

Trees, like growing crystal, clustered here and there. The limbs were spiky and glassy, without leaves. Nearby, little lights hung in the air, flames without their candles. People, she realized. Those are each a person’s mind, reflected here in the Cognitive Realm. Smaller ones were scattered about her feet, dozens upon dozens, but so small she almost couldn’t make them out. The minds of fish?

She turned around and came face-to-face with a creature that had a symbol for a head. Startled, she screamed and jumped back. These things… they had haunted her… they…

It was Pattern. He stood tall and willowy, but slightly indistinct, translucent. The complex pattern of his head, with its sharp lines and impossible geometries, seemed to have no eyes. He stood with hands behind his back, wearing a robe that seemed too stiff to be cloth.

“Go,” he said. “Choose.”

“Choose what?” she said, Stormlight escaping her lips.

“Your ship.”

He did not have eyes, but she thought she could follow his gaze toward one of the little spheres on the glassy ground. She snatched it, and suddenly was given the impression of a ship.

The Wind’s Pleasure. A ship that had been cared for, loved. It had carried its passengers well for years and years, owned by Tozbek and his father before him. An old ship, but not ancient, still reliable. A proud ship. It manifested here as a sphere.

It could actually think. The ship could think. Or… well, it reflected the thoughts of the people who served on it, knew it, thought about it.

“I need you to change,” Shallan whispered to it, cradling the bead in her hands. It was too heavy for its size, as if the entire weight of the ship had been compressed to this singular bead.

“No,” the reply came, though it was Pattern who spoke. “No, I cannot. I must serve. I am happy.”

Shallan looked to him.

“I will intercede,” Pattern repeated. “… Translate. You are not ready.”

Shallan looked back to the bead in her hands. “I have Stormlight. Lots of it. I will give it to you.”

“No!” the reply seemed angry. “I serve.”

It really wanted to stay a ship. She could feel it, the pride it took, the reinforcement of years of service.

“They are dying,” she whispered.

“No!”

“You can feel them dying. Their blood on your deck. One by one, the people you serve will be cut down.”

She could feel it herself, could see it in the ship. They were being executed. Nearby, one of the floating candle flames vanished. Three of the eight captives dead, though she did not know which ones.

“There is only one chance to save them,” Shallan said. “And that is to change.”

“Change,” Pattern whispered for the ship.

“If you change, they might escape the evil men who kill,” Shallan whispered. “It is uncertain, but they will have a chance to swim. To do something. You can do them a last service, Wind’s Pleasure. Change for them.”

Silence.

“I…”

Another light vanished.

“I will change.”

It happened in a hectic second; the Stormlight ripped from Shallan. She heard distant cracks from the physical world as she withdrew so much Light from the nearby gemstones that they shattered.

Shadesmar vanished.

She was back in Jasnah’s cabin.

The floor, walls, and ceiling melted into water.

Shallan was plunged into the icy black depths. She thrashed in the water, dress hampering her movements. All around her, objects sank, the common artifacts of human life.

Frantic, she searched for the surface. Originally, she’d had some vague idea of swimming out and helping untie the sailors, if they were bound. Now, however, she found herself desperately even trying to find the way up.

As if the darkness itself had come alive, something wrapped around her.

It pulled her farther into the deep.

8. Knives in the Back, Soldiers on the Field

I seek not to use my grief as an excuse, but it is an explanation. People act strangely soon after encountering an unexpected loss. Though Jasnah had been away for some time, her loss was unexpected. I, like many, assumed her to be immortal.

From the journal of Navani Kholin, Jesesach 1174

The familiar scraping of wood as a bridge slid into place. The stomping of feet in unison, first a flat sound on stone, then the ringing thump of boots on wood. The distant calls of scouts, shouting back the all-clear.

The sounds of a plateau run were familiar to Dalinar. Once, he had craved these sounds. He’d been impatient between runs, longing for the chance to strike down Parshendi with his Blade, to win wealth and recognition.

That Dalinar had been seeking to cover up his shame – the shame of lying slumped in a drunken stupor while his brother fought an assassin.

The setting of a plateau run was uniform: bare, jagged rocks, mostly the same dull color as the stone surface they sat on, broken only by the occasional cluster of closed rockbuds. Even those, as their name implied, could be mistaken for more rocks. There was nothing but more of the same from here where you stood, all the way out to the far horizon; and everything you’d brought with you, everything human, was dwarfed by the vastness of these endless, fractured plains and deadly chasms.

Over the years, this activity had become rote. Marching beneath that white sun like molten steel. Crossing gap after gap. Eventually, plateau runs had become less something to anticipate and more a dogged obligation. For Gavilar and glory, yes, but mainly because they – and the enemy – were here. This was what you did.

The scents of a plateau run were the scents of a great stillness: baked stone, dried crem, long-traveled winds.

Most recently, Dalinar was coming to detest plateau runs. They were a frivolity, a waste of life. They weren’t about fulfilling the Vengeance Pact, but about greed. Many gemhearts appeared on the near plateaus, convenient to reach. Those didn’t sate the Alethi. They had to reach farther, toward assaults that cost dearly.

Ahead, Highprince Aladar’s men fought on a plateau. They had arrived before Dalinar’s army, and the conflict told a familiar story. Men against Parshendi, fighting in a sinuous line, each army trying to shove the other back. The humans could field far more men than the Parshendi, but the Parshendi could reach plateaus faster and secure them quickly.

The scattered bodies of bridgemen on the staging plateau, leading up to the chasm, attested to the danger of charging an entrenched foe. Dalinar did not miss the dark expressions on his bodyguards’ faces as they surveyed the dead. Aladar, like most of the other highprinces, used Sadeas’s philosophy on bridge runs. Quick, brutal assaults that treated manpower as an expendable resource. It hadn’t always been this way. In the past, bridges had been carried by armored troops, but success bred imitation.

The warcamps needed a constant influx of cheap slaves to feed the monster. That meant a growing plague of slavers and bandits roaming the Unclaimed Hills, trading in flesh. Another thing I’ll have to change, Dalinar thought.

Aladar himself didn’t fight, but had instead set up a command center on an adjacent plateau. Dalinar pointed toward the flapping banner, and one of his large mechanical bridges rolled into place. Pulled by chulls and full of gears, levers, and cams, the bridges protected the men who worked them. They were also very slow. Dalinar waited with self-disciplined patience as the workers ratcheted the bridge down, spanning the chasm between this plateau and the one where Aladar’s banner flew.

Once the bridge was in position and locked, his bodyguard – led by one of Captain Kaladin’s darkeyed officers – trotted onto it, spears to shoulders. Dalinar had promised Kaladin his men would not have to fight except to defend him. Once they were across, Dalinar kicked Gallant into motion to cross to Aladar’s command plateau. Dalinar felt too light on the stallion’s back – the lack of Shardplate. In the many years since he’d obtained his suit, he’d never gone out onto a battlefield without it.

Today, however, he didn’t ride to battle – not truly. Behind him, Adolin’s own personal banner flew, and he led the bulk of Dalinar’s armies to assault the plateau where Aladar’s men already fought. Dalinar didn’t send any orders regarding how the assault should go. His son had been trained well, and he was ready to take battlefield command – with General Khal at his side, of course, for advice.

Yes, from now on, Adolin would lead the battles.

Dalinar would change the world.

He rode toward Aladar’s command tent. This was the first plateau run following his proclamation requiring the armies to work together. The fact that Aladar had come as commanded, and Roion had not – even though the target plateau was closest to Roion’s warcamp – was a victory unto itself. A small encouragement, but Dalinar would take what he could get.

He found Highprince Aladar watching from a small pavilion set up on a secure, raised part of this plateau overlooking the battlefield. A perfect location for a command post. Aladar was a Shardbearer, though he commonly lent his Plate and Blade to one of his officers during battles, preferring to lead tactically from behind the battle lines. A practiced Shardbearer could mentally command a Blade to not dissolve when he let go of it, though – in an emergency – Aladar could summon it to himself, making it vanish from the hands of his officer in an eyeblink, then appear in his own hands ten heartbeats later. Lending a Blade required a great deal of trust on both sides.

Dalinar dismounted. His horse, Gallant, glared at the groom who tried to take him, and Dalinar patted the horse on the neck. “He’ll be fine on his own, son,” he said to the groom. Most common grooms didn’t know what to do with one of the Ryshadium anyway.

Trailed by his bridgeman guards, Dalinar joined Aladar, who stood at the edge of the plateau, overseeing the battlefield ahead and just below. Slender and completely bald, the man had skin a darker tan than most Alethi. He stood with hands behind his back, and wore a sharp traditional uniform with a skirtlike takama, though he wore a modern jacket above it, cut to match the takama.

It was a style Dalinar had never seen before. Aladar also wore a thin mustache and a tuft of hair beneath his lip, again an unconventional choice. Aladar was powerful enough, and renowned enough, to make his own fashion – and he did so, often setting trends.

“Dalinar,” Aladar said, nodding to him. “I thought you weren’t going to fight on plateau runs any longer.”

“I’m not,” Dalinar said, nodding toward Adolin’s banner. There, soldiers streamed across Dalinar’s bridges to join the battle. The plateau was small enough that many of Aladar’s men had to withdraw to make way, something they were obviously all too eager to do.

“You almost lost this day,” Dalinar noted. “It is well that you had support.” Below, Dalinar’s troops restored order to the battlefield and pushed against the Parshendi.

“Perhaps,” Aladar said. “Yet in the past, I was victorious in one out of three assaults. Having support will mean I win a few more, certainly, but will also cost half my earnings. Assuming the king even assigns me any. I’m not convinced that I’ll be better off in the long run.”

“But this way, you lose fewer men,” Dalinar said. “And the total winnings for the entire army will rise. The honor of the–”

“Don’t talk to me about honor, Dalinar. I can’t pay my soldiers with honor, and I can’t use it to keep the other highprinces from snapping at my neck. Your plan favors the weakest among us and undercuts the successful.”

“Fine,” Dalinar snapped, “honor has no value to you. You will still obey, Aladar, because your king demands it. That is the only reason you need. You will do as told.”

“Or?” Aladar said.

“Ask Yenev.”

Aladar started as if slapped. Ten years back, Highprince Yenev had refused to accept the unification of Alethkar. At Gavilar’s order, Sadeas had dueled the man. And killed him.

“Threats?” Aladar asked.

“Yes.” Dalinar turned to look the shorter man in the eyes. “I’m done cajoling, Aladar. I’m done asking. When you disobey Elhokar, you mock my brother and what he stood for. I will have a unified kingdom.”

“Amusing,” Aladar said. “Good of you to mention Gavilar, as he didn’t bring the kingdom together with honor. He did it with knives in the back and soldiers on the field, cutting the heads off any who resisted. Are we back to that again, then? Such things don’t sound much like the fine words of your precious book.”

Dalinar ground his teeth, turning away to watch the battlefield. His first instinct was to tell Aladar he was an officer under Dalinar’s command, and take the man to task for his tone. Treat him like a recruit in need of correction.

But what if Aladar just ignored him? Would he force the man to obey? Dalinar didn’t have the troops for it.

He found himself annoyed – more at himself than at Aladar. He’d come on this plateau run not to fight, but to talk. To persuade. Navani was right. Dalinar needed more than brusque words and military commands to save this kingdom. He needed loyalty, not fear.

But storms take him, how? What persuading he’d done in life, he’d accomplished with a sword in hand and a fist to the face. Gavilar had always been the one with the right words, the one who could make people listen.

Dalinar had no business trying to be a politician.

Half the lads on that battlefield probably didn’t think they had any business being soldiers, at first, a part of him whispered. You don’t have the luxury of being bad at this. Don’t complain. Change.

“The Parshendi are pushing too hard,” Aladar said to his generals. “They want to shove us off the plateau. Tell the men to give a little and let the Parshendi lose their advantage of footing; that will let us surround them.”

The generals nodded, one calling out orders.

Dalinar narrowed his eyes at the battlefield, reading it. “No,” he said softly.

The general stopped giving orders. Aladar glanced at Dalinar.

“The Parshendi are preparing to pull back,” Dalinar said.

“They certainly don’t act like it.”

“They want some room to breathe,” Dalinar said, reading the swirl of combat below. “They nearly have the gemheart harvested. They will continue to push hard, but will break into a quick retreat around the chrysalis to buy time for the final harvesting. That’s what you’ll need to stop.”

The Parshendi surged forward.

“I took point on this run,” Aladar said. “By your own rules, I get final say over our tactics.”

“I observe only,” Dalinar said. “I’m not even commanding my own army today. You may choose your tactics, and I will not interfere.”

Aladar considered, then cursed softly. “Assume Dalinar is correct. Prepare the men for a withdrawal by the Parshendi. Send a strike team forward to secure the chrysalis, which should be almost opened up.”

The generals set up the new details, and messengers raced off with the tactical orders. Aladar and Dalinar watched, side by side, as the Parshendi shoved forward. That singing of theirs hovered over the battlefield.

Then they pulled back, careful as always to respectfully step over the bodies of the dead. Ready for this, the human troops rushed after. Led by Adolin in gleaming Plate, a strike force of fresh troops broke through the Parshendi line and reached the chrysalis. Other human troops poured through the gap they opened, shoving the Parshendi to the flanks, turning the Parshendi withdrawal into a tactical disaster.

In minutes, the Parshendi had abandoned the plateau, jumping away and fleeing.

“Damnation,” Aladar said softly. “I hate that you’re so good at this.”

Dalinar narrowed his eyes, noticing that some of the fleeing Parshendi stopped on a plateau a short distance from the battlefield. They lingered there, though much of their force continued on away.

Dalinar waved for one of Aladar’s servants to hand him a spyglass, then he raised it, focusing on that group. A figure stood at the edge of the plateau out there, a figure in glistening armor.

The Parshendi Shardbearer, he thought. The one from the battle at the Tower. He almost killed me.

Dalinar didn’t remember much from that encounter. He’d been beaten near senseless toward the end of it. This Shardbearer hadn’t participated in today’s battle. Why? Surely with a Shardbearer, they could have opened the chrysalis sooner.

Dalinar felt a disturbing pit inside of him. This one fact, the watching Shardbearer, changed his understanding of the battle entirely. He thought he’d been able to read what was going on. Now it occurred to him that the enemy’s tactics were more opaque than he’d assumed.

“Are some of them still out there?” Aladar asked. “Watching?”

Dalinar nodded, lowering his spyglass.

“Have they done that before in any battle you’ve fought?”

Dalinar shook his head.

Aladar mulled for a moment, then gave orders for his men on the plateau to remain alert, with scouts posted to watch for a surprise return of the Parshendi.

“Thank you,” Aladar added, grudgingly, turning to Dalinar. “Your advice proved helpful.”

“You trusted me when it came to tactics,” Dalinar said, turning to him. “Why not try trusting me in what is best for this kingdom?”

Aladar studied him. Behind, soldiers cheered their victory and Adolin ripped the gemheart free from the chrysalis. Others fanned out to watch for a return attack, but none came.

“I wish I could, Dalinar,” Aladar finally said. “But this isn’t about you. It’s about the other highprinces. Maybe I could trust you, but I’ll never trust them. You’re asking me to risk too much of myself. The others would do to me what Sadeas did to you on the Tower.”

“What if I can bring the others around? What if I can prove to you that they’re worthy of trust? What if I can change the direction of this kingdom, and this war? Will you follow me then?”

“No,” Aladar said. “I’m sorry.” He turned away, calling for his horse.

The trip back was miserable. They’d won the day, but Aladar kept his distance. How could Dalinar do so many things so right, yet still be unable to persuade men like Aladar? And what did it mean that the Parshendi were changing tactics on the battlefield, not committing their Shardbearer? Were they too afraid to lose their Shards?

When, at long last, Dalinar returned to his bunker in the warcamps – after seeing to his men and sending a report to the king – he found an unexpected letter waiting for him.

He sent for Navani to read him the words. Dalinar stood waiting in his private study, staring at the wall that had borne the strange glyphs. Those had been sanded away, the scratches hidden, but the pale patch of stone whispered.

Sixty-two days.

Sixty-two days to come up with an answer. Well, sixty now. Not much time to save a kingdom, to prepare for the worst. The ardents would condemn the prophecy as a prank at best, or blasphemous at worst. To foretell the future was forbidden. It was of the Voidbringers. Even games of chance were suspect, for they incited men to look for the secrets of what was to come.

He believed anyway. For he suspected his own hand had written those words.

Navani arrived and looked over the letter, then started reading aloud. It turned out to be from an old friend who was going to arrive soon on the Shattered Plains – and who might provide a solution to Dalinar’s problems.

9. Walking the Grave

I wish to think that had I not been under sorrow’s thumb, I would have seen earlier the approaching dangers. Yet in all honesty, I’m not certain anything could have been done.

From the journal of Navani Kholin, Jesesach 1174

Kaladin led the way down into the chasms, as was his right.

They used a rope ladder, as they had in Sadeas’s army. Those ladders had been unsavory things, the ropes frayed and stained with moss, the planks battered by far too many highstorms. Kaladin had never lost a man because of those storming ladders, but he’d always worried.

This one was brand new. He knew that for a fact, as Rind the quartermaster had scratched his head at the request, and then had one built to Kaladin’s specifications. It was sturdy and well made, like Dalinar’s army itself.

Kaladin reached the bottom with a final hop. Syl floated down and landed on his shoulder as he held up a sphere to survey the chasm bottom. The single sapphire broam was worth more by itself than the entirety of his wages as a bridgeman.

In Sadeas’s army, the chasms had been a frequent destination for bridgemen. Kaladin still didn’t know if the purpose had been to scavenge every possible resource from the Shattered Plains, or if it had really been about finding something menial – and will-breaking – for bridgemen to do between runs.

The chasm bottom here, however, was untouched. There were no paths cut through the snarl of stormleavings on the ground, and there were no scratched messages or instructions in the lichen on the walls. Like the other chasms, this one opened up like a vase, wider at the bottom than at the cracked top – a result of waters rushing through during highstorms. The floor was relatively flat, smoothed by the hardened sediment of settling crem.

As he moved forward, Kaladin had to pick his way over all kinds of debris. Broken sticks and logs from trees blown in from across the Plains. Cracked rockbud shells. Countless tangles of dried vines, twisted through one another like discarded yarn.

And bodies, of course.

A lot of corpses ended up in the chasms. Whenever men lost their battle to seize a plateau, they had to retreat and leave their dead behind. Storms! Sadeas often left the corpses behind even if he won – and bridgemen he’d leave wounded, abandoned, even if they could have been saved.

After a highstorm, the dead ended up here, in the chasms. And since storms blew westward, toward the warcamps, the bodies washed in this direction. Kaladin found it hard to move without stepping on bones entwined in the accumulated foliage on the chasm floor.

He picked his way through as respectfully as he could as Rock reached the bottom behind him, uttering a quiet phrase in his native tongue. Kaladin couldn’t tell if it was a curse or a prayer. Syl moved from Kaladin’s shoulder, zipping into the air, then streaking in an arc to the ground. There, she formed into what he thought of as her true shape, that of a young woman with a simple dress that frayed to mist just below the knees. She perched on a branch and stared at a femur poking up through the moss.

She didn’t like violence. He wasn’t certain if, even now, she understood death. She spoke of it like a child trying to grasp something beyond her.

“What a mess,” Teft said as he reached the bottom. “Bah! This place hasn’t seen any kind of care at all.”

“It is a grave,” Rock said. “We walk in a grave.”

“All of the chasms are graves,” Teft said, his voice echoing in the dank confines. “This one’s just a messy grave.”

“Hard to find death that isn’t messy, Teft,” Kaladin said.

Teft grunted, then started to greet the new recruits as they reached the bottom. Moash and Skar were watching over Dalinar and his sons as they attended some lighteyed feast – something that Kaladin was glad to be able to avoid. Instead, he’d come with Teft down here.

They were joined by the forty bridgemen – two from each reorganized crew – that Teft was training with the hope that they’d make good sergeants for their own crews.

“Take a good look, lads,” Teft said to them. “This is where we come from. This is why some call us the order of bone. We’re not going to make you go through everything we did, and be glad! We could have been swept away by a highstorm at any moment. Now, with Dalinar Kholin’s stormwardens to guide us, we won’t have nearly as much risk – and we’ll be staying close to the exit just in case…”

Kaladin folded his arms, watching Teft instruct as Rock handed practice spears to the men. Teft himself carried no spear, and though he was shorter than the bridgemen who gathered around him – wearing simple soldiers’ uniforms – they seemed thoroughly intimidated.

What else did you expect? Kaladin thought. They’re bridgemen. A stiff breeze could quell them.

Still, Teft looked completely in control. Comfortably so. This was right. Something about it was just… right.

A swarm of small glowing orbs materialized around Kaladin’s head, spren the shape of golden spheres that darted this way and that. He started, looking at them. Gloryspren. Storms. He felt as if he hadn’t seen the like in years.

Syl zipped up into the air and joined them, giggling and spinning around Kaladin’s head. “Feeling proud of yourself?”

“Teft,” Kaladin said. “He’s a leader.”

“Of course he is. You gave him a rank, didn’t you?”

“No,” Kaladin said. “I didn’t give it to him. He claimed it. Come on. Let’s walk.”

She nodded, alighting in the air and settling down, her legs crossed at the knees as if she were primly seating herself in an invisible chair. She continued to hover there, moving exactly in step with him.

“Giving up all pretense of obeying natural laws again, I see,” he said.

“Natural laws?” Syl said, finding the concept amusing. “Laws are of men, Kaladin. Nature doesn’t have them!”

“If I toss something upward, it comes back down.”

“Except when it doesn’t.”

“It’s a law.”

“No,” Syl said, looking upward. “It’s more like… more like an agreement among friends.”

He looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

“We have to be consistent,” she said, leaning in conspiratorially. “Or we’ll break your brains.”

He snorted, walking around a clump of bones and sticks pierced by a spear. Cankered with rust, it looked like a monument.

“Oh, come on,” Syl said, tossing her hair. “That was worth at least a chuckle.”

Kaladin kept walking.

“A snort is not a chuckle,” Syl said. “I know this because I am intelligent and articulate. You should compliment me now.”

“Dalinar Kholin wants to refound the Knights Radiant.”

“Yes,” Syl said loftily, hanging in the corner of his vision. “A brilliant idea. I wish I’d thought of it.” She grinned triumphantly, then scowled.

“What?” he said, turning back to her.

“Has it ever struck you as unfair,” she said, “that spren cannot attract spren? I should really have had some gloryspren of my own there.”

“I have to protect Dalinar,” Kaladin said, ignoring her complaint. “Not just him, but his family, maybe the king himself. Even though I failed to keep someone from sneaking into Dalinar’s rooms.” He still couldn’t figure out how someone had managed to get in. Unless it hadn’t been a person. “Could a spren have made those glyphs on the wall?” Syl had carried a leaf once. She had some physical form, just not much.

“I don’t know,” she said, glancing to the side. “I’ve seen…”

“What?”

“Spren like red lightning,” Syl said softly. “Dangerous spren. Spren I haven’t seen before. I catch them in the distance, on occasion. Stormspren? Something dangerous is coming. About that, the glyphs are right.”

He chewed on that for a while, then finally stopped and looked at her. “Syl, are there others like me?”

Her face grew solemn. “Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Oh, that question.”

“You’ve been expecting it, then?”

“Yeah. Sort of.”

“So you’ve had plenty of time to think about a good answer,” Kaladin said, folding his arms and leaning back against a somewhat dry portion of the wall. “That makes me wonder if you’ve come up with a solid explanation or a solid lie.”

“Lie?” Syl said, aghast. “Kaladin! What do you think I am? A Cryptic?”

“And what is a Cryptic?”

Syl, still perched as if on a seat, sat up straight and cocked her head. “I actually… I actually have no idea. Huh.”

“Syl…”

“I’m serious, Kaladin! I don’t know. I don’t remember.” She grabbed her hair, one clump of white translucence in each hand, and pulled sideways.

He frowned, then pointed. “That…”

“I saw a woman do it in the market,” Syl said, yanking her hair to the sides again. “It means I’m frustrated. I think it’s supposed to hurt. So… ow? Anyway, it’s not that I don’t want to tell you what I know. I do! I just… I don’t know what I know.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, imagine how frustrating it feels!”

Kaladin sighed, then continued along the chasm, passing pools of stagnant water clotted with debris. A scattering of enterprising rockbuds grew stunted along one chasm wall. They must not get much light down here.

He breathed in deeply the scents of overloaded life. Moss and mold. Most of the bodies here were mere bone, though he did steer clear of one patch of ground crawling with the red dots of rotspren. Just beside it, a group of frillblooms wafted their delicate fanlike fronds in the air, and those danced with green specks of lifespren. Life and death shook hands here in the chasms.

He explored several of the chasm’s branching paths. It felt odd to not know this area; he’d learned the chasms closest to Sadeas’s camp better than the camp itself. As he walked, the chasm grew deeper and the area opened up. He made a few marks on the wall.

Along one fork he found a round open area with little debris. He noted it, then walked back, marking the wall again before taking another branch. Eventually, they entered another place where the chasm opened up, widening into a roomy space.

“Coming here was dangerous,” Syl said.

“Into the chasms?” Kaladin asked. “There aren’t going to be any chasmfiends this close to the warcamps.”

“No. I meant for me, coming into this realm before I found you. It was dangerous.”

“Where were you before?”

“Another place. With lots of spren. I can’t remember well… it had lights in the air. Living lights.”

“Like lifespren.”

“Yes. And no. Coming here risked death. Without you, without a mind born of this realm, I couldn’t think. Alone, I was just another windspren.”

“But you’re not windspren,” Kaladin said, kneeling beside a large pool of water. “You’re honorspren.”

“Yes,” Syl said.

Kaladin closed his hand around his sphere, bringing near-darkness to the cavernous space. It was day above, but that crack of sky was distant, unreachable.

Mounds of flood-borne refuse fell into shadows that seemed almost to give them flesh again. Heaps of bones took on the semblance of limp arms, of corpses piled high. In a moment, Kaladin remembered it. Charging with a yell toward lines of Parshendi archers. His friends dying on barren plateaus, thrashing in their own blood.

The thunder of hooves on stone. The incongruous chanting of alien tongues. The cries of men both lighteyed and dark. A world that cared nothing for bridgemen. They were refuse. Sacrifices to be cast into the chasms and carried away by the cleansing floods.

This was their true home, these rents in the earth, these places lower than any other. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, the memories of death receded, though he would never be free of them. He would forever bear those scars upon his memory like the many upon his flesh. Like the ones on his forehead.

The pool in front of him glowed a deep violet. He’d noticed it earlier, but in the light of his sphere it had been harder to see. Now, in the dimness, the pool could reveal its eerie radiance.

Syl landed on the side of the pool, looking like a woman standing on an ocean’s shore. Kaladin frowned, leaning down to inspect her more closely. She seemed… different. Had her face changed shape?

“There are others like you,” Syl whispered. “I do not know them, but I know that other spren are trying, in their own way, to reclaim what was lost.”

She looked to him, and her face now had its familiar form. The fleeting change had been so subtle, Kaladin wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it.

“I am the only honorspren who has come,” Syl said. “I…” She seemed to be stretching to remember. “I was forbidden. I came anyway. To find you.”

“You knew me?”

“No. But I knew I’d find you.” She smiled. “I spent the time with my cousins, searching.”

“The windspren.”

“Without the bond, I am basically one of them,” she said. “Though they don’t have the capacity to do what we do. And what we do is important. So important that I left everything, defying the Stormfather, to come. You saw him. In the storm.”

The hair stood up on Kaladin’s arms. He had indeed seen a being in the storm. A face as vast as the sky itself. Whatever the thing was – spren, Herald, or god – it had not tempered its storms for Kaladin during that day he’d spent strung up.

“We are needed, Kaladin,” Syl said softly. She waved for him, and he lowered his hand to the shore of the tiny violet ocean glowing softly in the chasm. She stepped onto his hand, and he stood up, lifting her.

She walked up his fingers and he could actually feel a little weight, which was unusual. He turned his hand as she stepped up until she was perched on one finger, her hands clasped behind her back, meeting his eyes as he held that finger up before his face.

“You,” Syl said. “You’re going to need to become what Dalinar Kholin is looking for. Don’t let him search in vain.”

“They’ll take it from me, Syl,” Kaladin whispered. “They’ll find a way to take you from me.”

“That’s foolishness. You know that it is.”

“I know it is, but I feel it isn’t. They broke me, Syl. I’m not what you think I am. I’m no Radiant.”

“That’s not what I saw,” Syl said. “On the battlefield after Sadeas’s betrayal, when men were trapped, abandoned. That day I saw a hero.”

He looked into her eyes. She had pupils, though they were created only from the differing shades of white and blue, like the rest of her. She glowed more softly than the weakest of spheres, but it was enough to light his finger. She smiled, seeming utterly confident in him.

At least one of them was.

“I’ll try,” Kaladin whispered. A promise.

“Kaladin?” The voice was Rock’s, with his distinctive Horneater accent. He pronounced the name “kal-ah-deen,” instead of the normal “kal-a-din.”

Syl zipped off Kaladin’s finger, becoming a ribbon of light and flitting over to Rock. He showed respect to her in his Horneater way, touching his shoulders in turn with one hand, and then raising the hand to his forehead. She giggled; her profound solemnity had become girlish joy in moments. Syl might only be a cousin to windspren, but she obviously shared their impish nature.

“Hey,” Kaladin said, nodding to Rock, and fishing in the pool. He came out with an amethyst broam and held it up. Somewhere up there on the Plains, a lighteyes had died with this in his pocket. “Riches, if we still were bridgemen.”

“We are still bridgemen,” Rock said, coming over. He plucked the sphere from Kaladin’s fingers. “And this is still riches. Ha! Spices they have for us to requisition are tuma’alki! I have promised I will not fix dung for the men, but it is hard, with soldiers being accustomed to food that is not much better.” He held up the sphere. “I will use him to buy better, eh?”

“Sure,” Kaladin said. Syl landed on Rock’s shoulder and became a young woman, then sat down.

Rock eyed her and tried to bow to his own shoulder.

“Stop tormenting him, Syl,” Kaladin said.

“It’s so fun!”

“You are to be praised for your aid of us, mafah’liki,” Rock said to her. “I will endure whatever you wish of me. And now that I am free, I can create a shrine fitting to you.”

“A shrine?” Syl said, eyes widening. “Ooooh.”

“Syl!” Kaladin said. “Stop it. Rock, I saw a good place for the men to practice. It’s back a couple of branches. I marked it on the walls.”

“Yes, we saw this thing,” Rock said. “Teft has led the men there. It is strange. This place is frightening; it is a place that nobody comes, and yet the new recruits…”

“They’re opening up,” Kaladin guessed.

“Yes. How did you know this thing would happen?”

“They were there,” Kaladin said, “in Sadeas’s warcamp, when we were assigned to exclusive duty in the chasms. They saw what we did, and have heard stories of our training here. By bringing them down here, we’re inviting them in, like an initiation.”

Teft had been having problems getting the former bridgemen to show interest in his training. The old soldier was always sputtering at them in annoyance. They’d insisted on remaining with Kaladin rather than going free, so why wouldn’t they learn?

They had needed to be invited. Not just with words.

“Yes, well,” Rock said. “Sigzil sent me. He wishes to know if you are ready to practice your abilities.”

Kaladin took a deep breath, glancing at Syl, then nodded. “Yes. Bring him. We can do it here.”

“Ha! Finally. I will fetch him.”

10. Red Carpet Once White

SIX YEARS AGO

The world ended, and Shallan was to blame.

“Pretend it never happened,” her father whispered. He wiped something wet from her cheek. His thumb came back red. “I’ll protect you.”

Was the room shaking? No, that was Shallan. Trembling. She felt so small. Eleven had seemed old to her, once. But she was a child, still a child. So small.

She looked up at her father with a shudder. She couldn’t blink; her eyes were frozen open.

Father started to whisper, blinking tears. “Now go to sleep in chasms deep, with darkness all around you…”

A familiar lullaby, one he always used to sing to her. In the room behind him, dark corpses stretched out on the floor. A red carpet once white.

“Though rock and dread may be your bed, so sleep my baby dear.”

Father gathered her into his arms, and she felt her skin squirming. No. No, this affection wasn’t right. A monster should not be held in love. A monster who killed, who murdered. No.

She could not move.

“Now comes the storm, but you’ll be warm, the wind will rock your basket…”

Father carried Shallan over the body of a woman in white. Little blood there. It was the man who bled. Mother lay facedown, so Shallan couldn’t see the eyes. The horrible eyes.

Almost, Shallan could imagine that the lullaby was the end to a nightmare. That it was night, that she had awakened screaming, and her father was singing her to sleep…

“The crystals fine will glow sublime, so sleep my baby dear.”

They passed Father’s strongbox set into the wall. It glowed brightly, light streaming from the cracks around the closed door. A monster was inside.

“And with a song, it won’t be long, you’ll sleep my baby dear.”

With Shallan in his arms, Father left the room and closed the door on the corpses.

Notes

Shallan made landfall here

– Nazh

11. An Illusion of Perception

But, understandably, we were focused on Sadeas. His betrayal was still fresh, and I saw its signs each day as I passed empty barracks and grieving widows. We knew that Sadeas would not simply rest upon his slaughters in pride. More was coming.

From the journal of Navani Kholin, Jesesach 1174

Shallan awoke mostly dry, lying on an uneven rock that rose from the ocean. Waves lapped at her toes, though she could barely feel them through the numbness. She groaned, lifting her cheek from the wet granite. There was land nearby, and the surf sounded against it with a low roar. In the other direction stretched only the endless blue sea.

She was cold and her head throbbed as if she’d banged it repeatedly against a wall, but she was alive. Somehow. She raised her hand – rubbing at the itchy dried salt on her forehead – and hacked out a ragged cough. Her hair stuck to the sides of her face, and her dress was stained from the water and the seaweed on the rock.

How…?

Then she saw it, a large brown shell in the water, almost invisible as it moved toward the horizon. The santhid.

She stumbled to her feet, clinging to the pointy tip of her rock perch. Woozy, she watched the creature until it was gone.

Something hummed beside her. Pattern formed his usual shape on the surface of the churning sea, translucent as if he were a small wave himself.

“Did…” She coughed, clearing her voice, then groaned and sat down on the rock. “Did anyone else make it?”

“Make?” Pattern asked.

“Other people. The sailors. Did they escape?”

“Uncertain,” Pattern said, in his humming voice. “Ship… Gone. Splashing. Nothing seen.”

“The santhid. It rescued me.” How had it known what to do? Were they intelligent? Could she have somehow communicated with it? Had she missed an opportunity to–

She almost started laughing as she realized the direction her thoughts were going. She’d nearly drowned, Jasnah was dead, the crew of the Wind’s Pleasure likely murdered or swallowed by the sea! Instead of mourning them or marveling at her survival, Shallan was engaging in scholarly speculation?

That’s what you do, a deeply buried part of herself accused her. You distract yourself. You refuse to think about things that bother you.

But that was how she survived.

Shallan wrapped her arms around herself for warmth on her stone perch and stared out over the ocean. She had to face the truth. Jasnah was dead.

Jasnah was dead.

Shallan felt like weeping. A woman so brilliant, so amazing, was just… gone. Jasnah had been trying to save everyone, protect the world itself. And they’d killed her for it. The suddenness of what had happened left Shallan stunned, and so she sat there, shivering and cold and just staring out at the ocean. Her mind felt as numb as her feet.

Shelter. She’d need shelter… something. Thoughts of the sailors, of Jasnah’s research, those were of less immediate concern. Shallan was stranded on a stretch of coast that was almost completely uninhabited, in lands that froze at night. As she’d been sitting, the tide had slowly withdrawn, and the gap between herself and the shore was not nearly as wide as it had been. That was fortunate, as she couldn’t really swim.

She forced herself to move, though lifting her limbs was like trying to budge fallen tree trunks. She gritted her teeth and slipped into the water. She could still feel its biting cold. Not completely numb, then.

“Shallan?” Pattern asked.

“We can’t sit out here forever,” Shallan said, clinging to the rock and getting all the way down into the water. Her feet brushed rock beneath, and so she dared let go, half swimming in a splashing mess as she made her way toward the land.

She probably swallowed half the water in the bay as she fought through the frigid waves until she finally was able to walk. Dress and hair streaming, she coughed and stumbled up onto the sandy shore, then fell to her knees. The ground here was strewn with seaweed of a dozen different varieties that writhed beneath her feet, pulling away, slimy and slippery. Cremlings and larger crabs scuttled in every direction, some nearby making clicking sounds at her, as if to ward her off.

She dully thought it a testament to her exhaustion that she hadn’t even considered – before leaving the rock – the sea predators she’d read about: a dozen different kinds of large crustaceans that were happy to have a leg to snip free and chew on. Fearspren suddenly began to wiggle out of the sand, purple and sluglike.

That was silly. Now she was frightened? After her swim? The spren soon vanished.

Shallan glanced back at her rock perch. The santhid probably hadn’t been able to deposit her any closer, as the water grew too shallow. Stormfather. She was lucky to be alive.

Despite her mounting anxiety, Shallan knelt down and traced a glyphward into the sand in prayer. She didn’t have a means of burning it. For now, she had to assume the Almighty would accept this. She bowed her head and sat reverently for ten heartbeats.

Then she stood and, hope against hope, began to search for other survivors. This stretch of coast was pocketed with numerous beaches and inlets. She put off seeking shelter, instead walking for a long time down the shoreline. The beach was composed of sand that was coarser than she’d expected. It certainly didn’t match the idyllic stories she’d read, and it ground unpleasantly against her toes as she walked. Alongside her, it rose in a moving shape as Pattern kept pace with her, humming anxiously.

Shallan passed branches, even bits of wood that might have belonged to ships. She saw no people and found no footprints. As the day grew long, she gave up, sitting down on a weathered stone. She hadn’t noticed that her feet were sliced and reddened from walking on the rocks. Her hair was a complete mess. Her safepouch had a few spheres in it, but none were infused. They’d be of no use unless she found civilization.

Firewood, she thought. She’d gather that and build a fire. In the night, that might signal other survivors.

Or it might signal pirates, bandits, or the shipboard assassins, if they had survived.

Shallan grimaced. What was she going to do?

Build a small fire to keep warm, she decided. Shield it, then watch the night for other fires. If you see one, try to inspect it without getting too close.

A fine plan, except for the fact that she’d lived her entire life in a stately manor, with servants to light fires for her. She’d never started one in a hearth, let alone in the wilderness.

Storms… she’d be lucky not to die of exposure out here. Or starvation. What would she do when a highstorm came? When was the next one? Tomorrow night? Or was it the night after.

“Come!” Pattern said.

He vibrated in the sand. Grains jumped and shook as he spoke, rising and falling around him. I recognize that… Shallan thought, frowning at him. Sand on a plate. Kabsal…

“Come!” Pattern repeated, more urgent.

“What?” Shallan said, standing up. Storms, but she was tired. She could barely move. “Did you find someone?”

“Yes!”

That got her attention immediately. She didn’t ask further questions, but instead followed Pattern, who moved excitedly down the coast. Would he know the difference between someone dangerous and someone friendly? For the moment, cold and exhausted, she almost didn’t care.

He stopped beside something halfway submerged in the water and seaweed at the edge of the ocean. Shallan frowned.

A trunk. Not a person, but a large wooden trunk. Shallan’s breath caught in her throat, and she dropped to her knees, working the clasps and pulling open the lid.

Inside, like a glowing treasure, were Jasnah’s books and notes, carefully packed away, protected in their waterproof enclosure.

Jasnah might not have survived, but her life’s work had.

Shallan knelt down by her improvised firepit. A grouping of rocks, filled with sticks she’d gathered from this little stand of trees. Night was almost upon her.

With it came the shocking cold, as bad as the worst winter back home. Here in the Frostlands, this would be common. Her clothing, which in this humidity hadn’t completely dried despite the hours walking, felt like ice.

She did not know how to build a fire, but perhaps she could make one in another way. She fought through her weariness – storms, but she was exhausted – and took out a glowing sphere, one of many she’d found in Jasnah’s trunk.

“All right,” she whispered. “Let’s do this.” Shadesmar.

“Mmm…” Pattern said. She was learning to interpret his humming. This seemed anxious. “Dangerous.”

“Why?”

“What is land here is sea there.”

Shallan nodded dully. Wait. Think.

That was growing hard, but she forced herself to go over Pattern’s words again. When they’d sailed the ocean, and she’d visited Shadesmar, she’d found obsidian ground beneath her. But in Kharbranth, she’d dropped into that ocean of spheres.

“So what do we do?” Shallan asked.

“Go slowly.”

Shallan took a deep, cold breath, then nodded. She tried as she had before. Slowly, carefully. It was like… like opening her eyes in the morning.

Awareness of another place consumed her. The nearby trees popped like bubbles, beads forming in their place and dropping toward a shifting sea of them below. Shallan felt herself falling.

She gasped, then blinked back that awareness, closing her metaphoric eyes. That place vanished, and in a moment, she was back in the stand of trees.

Pattern hummed nervously.

Shallan set her jaw and tried again. More slowly this time, slipping into that place with its strange sky and not-sun. For a moment, she hovered between the worlds, Shadesmar overlaying the world around her like a shadowy afterimage. Holding between the two was difficult.

Use the Light, Pattern said. Bring them.

Shallan hesitantly drew the Light into herself. The spheres in the ocean below moved like a school of fish, surging toward her, clinking together. In her exhaustion, Shallan could barely maintain her double state, and she grew woozy, looking down.

She held on, somehow.

Pattern stood beside her, in his form with the stiff clothing and a head made of impossible lines, arms clasped behind his back, and hovering as if in the air. He was tall and imposing on this side, and she absently noticed that he cast a shadow the wrong way, toward the distant, cold-seeming sun instead of away from it.

“Good,” he said, his voice a deeper hum here. “Good.” He cocked his head, and though he had no eyes, turned around as if regarding the place. “I am from here, yet I remember so little…”

Shallan had a sense that her time was limited. Kneeling, she reached down and felt at the sticks she’d piled to form the place for her fire. She could feel the sticks – but as she looked into this strange realm, her fingers also found one of the glass beads that had surged up beneath her.

As she touched it, she noticed something sweeping through the air above her. She cringed, looking up to find large, birdlike creatures circling around her in Shadesmar. They were a dark grey and seemed to have no specific shape, their forms blurry.

“What…”

“Spren,” Pattern said. “Drawn by you. Your… tiredness?”

“Exhaustionspren?” she asked, shocked by their size here.

“Yes.”

She shivered, then looked down at the sphere beneath her hand. She was dangerously close to falling into Shadesmar completely, and could barely see the impressions of the physical realm around her. Only those beads. She felt as if she would tumble into their sea at any moment.

“Please,” Shallan said to the sphere. “I need you to become fire.”

Pattern buzzed, speaking with a new voice, interpreting the sphere’s words. “I am a stick,” he said. He sounded satisfied.

“You could be fire,” Shallan said.

“I am a stick.”

The stick was not particularly eloquent. She supposed that she shouldn’t be surprised.

“Why don’t you become fire instead?”

“I am a stick.”

“How do I make it change?” Shallan asked of Pattern.

“Mm… I do not know. You must persuade it. Offer it truths, I think?” He sounded agitated. “This place is dangerous for you. For us. Please. Speed.”

She looked back at the stick.

“You want to burn.”

“I am a stick.”

“Think how much fun it would be?”

“I am a stick.”

“Stormlight,” Shallan said. “You could have it! All that I’m holding.”

A pause. Finally, “I am a stick.”

“Sticks need Stormlight. For… things…” Shallan blinked away tears of fatigue.

“I am–”

“–a stick,” Shallan said. She gripped the sphere, feeling both it and the stick in the physical realm, trying to think through another argument. For a moment, she hadn’t felt quite so tired, but it was returning – crashing back upon her. Why…

Her Stormlight was running out.

It was gone in a moment, drained from her, and she exhaled, slipping into Shadesmar with a sigh, feeling overwhelmed and exhausted.

She fell into the sea of spheres. That awful blackness, millions of moving bits, consuming her.

She threw herself from Shadesmar.

The spheres expanded outward, growing into sticks and rocks and trees, restoring the world as she knew it. She collapsed into her small stand of trees, heart pounding.

All grew normal around her. No more distant sun, no more sea of spheres. Just frigid cold, a night sky, and biting wind that blew between the trees. The single sphere she’d drained slipped from her fingers, clicking against the stone ground. She leaned back against Jasnah’s trunk. Her arms still ached from dragging that up the beach to the trees.

She huddled there, frightened. “Do you know how to make fire?” she asked Pattern. Her teeth chattered. Stormfather. She didn’t feel cold anymore, but her teeth were chattering, and her breath was visible as vapor in the starlight.

She found herself growing drowsy. Maybe she should just sleep, then try to deal with it all in the morning.

“Change?” Pattern asked. “Offer the change.”

“I tried.”

“I know.” His vibrations sounded depressed.

Shallan stared at that pile of sticks, feeling utterly useless. What was it Jasnah had said? Control is the basis of all true power? Authority and strength are matters of perception? Well, this was a direct refutation of that. Shallan could imagine herself as grand, could act like a queen, but that didn’t change a thing out here in the wilderness.

Well, Shallan thought, I’m not going to sit here and freeze to death. I’ll at least freeze to death trying to find help.

She didn’t move, though. Moving was hard. At least here, huddled by the trunk, she didn’t have to feel the wind so much. Just lying here until morning…

She curled into a ball.

No. This didn’t seem right. She coughed, then somehow got to her feet. She stumbled away from her not-fire, dug a sphere from her safepouch, then started walking.

Pattern moved at her feet. Those were bloodier now. She left a red trail on the rock. She couldn’t feel the cuts.

She walked and walked.

And walked.

And…

Light.

She didn’t move any more quickly. She couldn’t. But she did keep going, shambling directly toward that pinprick in the darkness. A numb part of her worried that the light was really Nomon, the second moon. That she’d march toward it and fall off the edge of Roshar itself.

So she surprised herself by stumbling right into the middle of a small group of people sitting around a campfire. She blinked, looking from one face to another; then – ignoring the sounds they made, for words were meaningless to her in this state – she walked to the campfire and lay down, curled up, and fell asleep.

“Brightness?”

Shallan grumbled, rolling over. Her face hurt. No, her feet hurt. Her face was nothing compared to that pain.

If she slept a little longer, maybe it would fade. At least for that time…

“B-Brightness?” the voice asked again. “Are you feeling well, yes?”

That was a Thaylen accent. Dredged from deep within her, a light surfaced, bringing memories. The ship. Thaylens. The sailors?

Shallan forced her eyes open. The air smelled faintly of smoke from the still-smoldering fire. The sky was a deep violet, brightening as the sun broke the horizon. She’d slept on hard rock, and her body ached.

She didn’t recognize the speaker, a portly Thaylen man with a white beard wearing a knit cap and an old suit and vest, patched in a few inconspicuous places. He wore his white Thaylen eyebrows tucked up over his ears. Not a sailor. A merchant.

Shallan stifled a groan, sitting up. Then, in a moment of panic, she checked her safehand. One of her fingers had slipped out of the sleeve, and she pulled it back in. The Thaylen’s eyes flicked toward it, but he said nothing.

“You are well, then?” the man asked. He spoke in Alethi. “We were going to pack to go, you see. Your arrival last night was… unexpected. We did not wish to disturb you, but thought perhaps you would want to wake before we depart.”

Shallan ran her freehand through her hair, a mess of red locks stuck with twigs. Two other men – tall, hulking, and of Vorin descent – packed up blankets and bedrolls. She’d have killed for one of those during the night. She remembered tossing uncomfortably.

Stilling the needs of nature, she turned and was surprised to see three large chull wagons with cages on the back. Inside were a handful of dirty, shirtless men. It took just a moment for it all to click.

Slavers.

She shoved down an initial burst of panic. Slaving was a perfectly legal profession. Most of the time. Only this was the Frostlands, far from the rule of any group or nation. Who was to say what was legal here and what was not?

Be calm, she told herself forcefully. They wouldn’t have awakened you politely if they were planning something like that.

Selling a Vorin woman of high dahn – which the dress marked her as being – would be a risky gambit for a slaver. Most owners in civilized lands would require documentation of the slave’s past, and it was rare indeed that a lighteyes was made a slave, aside from ardents. Usually someone of higher breeding would simply be executed instead. Slavery was a mercy for the lower classes.

“Brightness?” the slaver asked nervously.

She was thinking like a scholar again, to distract herself. She’d need to get past that.

“What is your name?” Shallan asked. She hadn’t intended to make her voice quite so emotionless, but the shock of what she’d seen left her in turmoil.

The man stepped back at her tone. “I am Tvlakv, humble merchant.”

“Slaver,” Shallan said, standing up and pushing her hair back from her face.

“As I said. A merchant.”

His two guards watched her as they loaded equipment onto the lead wagon. She did not miss the cudgels they carried prominently at their waists. She’d had a sphere in her hand as she walked last night, hadn’t she?

Memories of that made her feet flare up again. She had to grit her teeth against the agony as painspren, like orange hands made of sinew, clawed out of the ground nearby. She’d need to clean her wounds, but bloodied and bruised as they were, she wasn’t going to be walking anywhere anytime soon. Those wagons had seats…

They likely stole the sphere from me, she thought. She felt around in her safepouch. The other spheres were still there, but the sleeve was unbuttoned. Had she done that? Had they peeked? She couldn’t suppress a blush at the thought.

The two guards regarded her hungrily. Tvlakv acted humble, but his leering eyes were also very eager. These men were one step from robbing her.

But if she left them, she’d probably die out here, alone. Stormfather! What could she do? She felt like sitting down and sobbing. After everything that had happened, now this?

Control is the basis of all power.

How would Jasnah respond to this situation?

The answer was simple. She would be Jasnah.

“I will allow you to assist me,” Shallan said. She somehow kept her voice even, despite the anxious terror she felt inside.

“… Brightness?” Tvlakv asked.

“As you can see,” Shallan said, “I am the victim of a shipwreck. My servants are lost to me. You and your men will do. I have a trunk. We will need to go fetch it.”

She felt like one of the ten fools. Surely he would see through the flimsy act. Pretending you had authority was not the same as having it, no matter what Jasnah said.

“It would… of course be our privilege to help,” Tvlakv said. “Brightness…?”

“Davar,” Shallan said, though she took care to soften her voice. Jasnah wasn’t condescending. Where other lighteyes, like Shallan’s father, went about with conceited egotism, Jasnah had simply expected people to do as she wished. And they had.

She could make this work. She had to.

“Tradesman Tvlakv,” Shallan said. “I will need to go to the Shattered Plains. Do you know the way?”

“The Shattered Plains?” the man asked, glancing at his guards, one of whom had approached. “We were there a few months ago, but are now heading to catch a barge over to Thaylenah. We have completed our trading in this area, with no need to return northward.”

“Ah, but you do have a need to return,” Shallan said, walking toward one of the wagons. Each step was agony. “To take me.” She glanced around, and gratefully noticed Pattern on the side of a wagon, watching. She walked to the front of that wagon, then held out her hand to the other guard, who stood nearby.

He looked at the hand mutely, scratching his head. Then he looked at the wagon and climbed onto it, reaching down to help her up.

Tvlakv walked over to her. “It will be an expensive trip for us to return without wares! I have only these slaves I purchased at the Shallow Crypts. Not enough to justify the trip back, not yet.”

“Expensive?” Shallan asked, seating herself, trying to project amusement. “I assure you, tradesman Tvlakv, the expense is minuscule to me. You will be greatly compensated. Now, let us be moving. There are important people waiting for me at the Shattered Plains.”

“But Brightness,” Tvlakv said. “You’ve obviously had a difficult time of events recently, yes, that I can see. Let me take you to the Shallow Crypts. It is much closer. You can find rest there and send word to those waiting for you.”

“Did I ask to be taken to the Shallow Crypts?”

“But…” He trailed off as she focused her gaze on him.

She softened her expression. “I know what I am doing, and thank you for the advice. Now let us be moving.”

The three men exchanged befuddled looks, and the slaver took his knit cap off, wringing it in his hands. Nearby, a pair of parshmen with marbled skin walked into camp. Shallan nearly jumped as they trudged by, carrying dried rockbud shells they’d apparently been gathering for fires. Tvlakv gave them no heed.

Parshmen. Voidbringers. Her skin crawled, but she couldn’t worry about them right now. She looked back at the slaver, expecting him to ignore her orders. However, he nodded. And then, he and his men simply… did as she said. They hitched up the chulls, the slaver got directions to her trunk, and they started moving without further objection.

They might just be going along for now, Shallan told herself, because they want to know what’s in my trunk. More to rob. But when they reached it, they heaved it onto the wagon, lashed it in place, and then turned around and headed to the north.

Toward the Shattered Plains.

12. Hero

Unfortunately, we fixated upon Sadeas’s plotting so much that we did not take note of the changed pattern of our enemies, the murderers of my husband, the true danger. I would like to know what wind brought about their sudden, inexplicable transformation.

From the journal of Navani Kholin, Jesesach 1174

Kaladin pressed the stone against the wall of the chasm, and it stuck there. “All right,” he said, stepping back.

Rock jumped up and grabbed it, then dangled from the wall, bending legs below. His deep, bellowing laugh echoed in the chasm. “This time, he holds me!”

Sigzil made a notation on his ledger. “Good. Keep hanging on, Rock.”

“For how long?” Rock asked.

“Until you fall.”

“Until I…” The large Horneater frowned, hanging from the stone with both hands. “I do not like this experiment any longer.”

“Oh, don’t whine,” Kaladin said, folding his arms and leaning on the wall beside Rock. Spheres lit the chasm floor around them, with its vines, debris, and blooming plants. “You’re not dropping far.”

“It is not the drop,” Rock complained. “It is my arms. I am big man, you see.”

“So it’s a good thing you have big arms to hold you.”

“It does not work that way, I think,” Rock said, grunting. “And the handhold is not good. And I–”

The stone popped free and Rock fell downward. Kaladin grabbed his arm, steadying him as he caught himself.

“Twenty seconds,” Sigzil said. “Not very long.”

“I warned you,” Kaladin said, picking up the fallen stone. “It lasts longer if I use more Stormlight.”

“I think we need a baseline,” Sigzil said. He fished in his pocket and pulled out a glowing diamond chip, the smallest denomination of sphere. “Take all of the Stormlight from this, put it into the stone, then we’ll hang Rock from that and see how long he takes to fall.”

Rock groaned. “My poor arms…”

“Hey, mancha,” Lopen called from farther down the chasm, “at least you’ve got two of them, eh?” The Herdazian was watching to make sure none of the new recruits somehow wandered over and saw what Kaladin was doing. It shouldn’t happen – they were practicing several chasms over – but Kaladin wanted someone on guard.

Eventually they’ll all know anyway, Kaladin thought, taking the chip from Sigzil. Isn’t that what you just promised Syl? That you’d let yourself become a Radiant?

Kaladin drew in the chip’s Stormlight with a sharp intake of breath, then infused the Light into the stone. He was getting better at that, drawing the Stormlight into his hand, then using it like luminescent paint to coat the bottom of the rock. The Stormlight soaked into the stone, and when he pressed it against the wall, it stayed there.

Smoky tendrils of luminescence rose from the stone. “We probably don’t need to make Rock hang from it,” Kaladin said. “If you need a baseline, why not just use how long the stone remains there on its own?”

“Well, that’s less fun,” Sigzil said. “But very well.” He continued to write numbers on his ledger. That would have made most of the other bridgemen uncomfortable. A man writing was seen as unmasculine, even blasphemous – though Sigzil was only writing glyphs.

Today, fortunately, Kaladin had with him Sigzil, Rock, and Lopen – all foreigners from places with different rules. Herdaz was Vorin, technically, but they had their own brand of it and Lopen didn’t seem to mind a man writing.

“So,” Rock said as they waited, “Stormblessed leader, you said there was something else you could do, did you not?”

“Fly!” Lopen said from down the passage.

“I can’t fly,” Kaladin said dryly.

“Walk on walls!”

“I tried that,” Kaladin said. “I nearly broke my head from the fall.”

“Ah, gancho,” Lopen said. “No flying or walking on walls? I need to impress the women. I do not think sticking rocks to walls will be enough.”

“I think anyone would find that impressive,” Sigzil said. “It defies the laws of nature.”

“You do not know many Herdazian women, do you?” Lopen asked, sighing. “Really, I think we should try again on the flying. It would be the best.”

“There is something more,” Kaladin said. “Not flying, but still useful. I’m not certain I can replicate it. I’ve never done it consciously.”

“The shield,” Rock said, standing by the wall, staring up at the rock. “On the battlefield, when the Parshendi shot at us. The arrows hit your shield. All the arrows.”

“Yes,” Kaladin said.

“We should test that,” Sigzil said. “We’ll need a bow.”

“Spren,” Rock said, pointing. “They pull the stone against the wall.”

“What?” Sigzil said, scrambling over, squinting at the rock Kaladin had pressed against the wall. “I don’t see them.”

“Ah,” Rock said. “Then they do not wish to be seen.” He bowed his head toward them. “Apologies, mafah’liki.”

Sigzil frowned, looking closer, holding up a sphere to light the area. Kaladin walked over and joined them. He could make out the tiny purple spren if he looked closely. “They’re there, Sig,” Kaladin said.

“Then why can’t I see them?”

“It has to do with my abilities,” Kaladin said, glancing at Syl, who sat on a cleft in the rock nearby, one leg draping over and swinging.

“But Rock–”

“I am alaii’iku,” Rock said, raising a hand to his breast.

“Which means?” Sigzil asked impatiently.

“That I can see these spren, and you cannot.” Rock rested a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. “It is all right, friend. I do not blame you for being blind. Most lowlanders are. It is the air, you see. Makes your brains stop working right.”

Sigzil frowned, but wrote down some notes while absently doing something with his fingers. Keeping track of the seconds? The rock finally popped off the wall, trailing a few final wisps of Stormlight as it hit the ground. “Well over a minute,” Sigzil said. “I counted eighty-seven seconds.” He looked to the rest of them.

“We were supposed to be counting?” Kaladin asked, glancing at Rock, who shrugged.

Sigzil sighed.

“Ninety-one seconds,” Lopen called. “You’re welcome.”

Sigzil sat down on a rock, ignoring a few finger bones peeking out of the moss beside him, and made some notations on his ledger. He scowled.

“Ha!” Rock said, squatting down beside him. “You look like you have eaten bad eggs. What is problem?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Rock,” Sigzil said. “My master taught me to ask questions and find precise answers. But how can I be precise? I would need a clock for the timing, but they are too expensive. Even if we had one, I don’t know how to measure Stormlight!”

“With chips,” Kaladin said. “The gemstones are precisely weighed before being encased in glass.”

“And can they all hold the same amount?” Sigzil asked. “We know that uncut gems hold less than cut ones. So is one that was cut better going to hold more? Plus, Stormlight fades from a sphere over time. How many days has it been since that chip was infused, and how much Light has it lost since then? Do they all lose the same amount at the same rate? We know too little. I think perhaps I am wasting your time, sir.”

“It’s not a waste,” Lopen said, joining them. The one-armed Herdazian yawned, sitting down on the rock by Sigzil, forcing the other man over a little. “We just need to be testing other things, eh?”

“Like what?” Kaladin said.

“Well, gancho,” Lopen said. “Can you stick me to the wall?”

“I… I don’t know,” Kaladin said.

“Seems like it would be good to know, eh?” Lopen stood up. “Shall we try?”

Kaladin glanced at Sigzil, who shrugged.

Kaladin drew in more Stormlight. The raging tempest filled him, as if it were battering against his skin, a captive trying to find a way out. He drew the Stormlight into his hand and pressed it against the wall, painting the stones with luminescence.

Taking a deep breath, he picked up Lopen – the slender man was startlingly easy to lift, particularly with a measure of Stormlight still inside Kaladin’s veins. He pressed Lopen against the wall.

When Kaladin dubiously stepped back, the Herdazian remained there, stuck to the stone by his uniform, which bunched up under his armpits.

Lopen grinned. “It worked!”

“This thing could be useful,” Rock said, rubbing at his strangely cut Horneater beard. “Yes, this is what we need to test. You are a soldier, Kaladin. Can you use this in combat?”

Kaladin nodded slowly, a dozen possibilities popping into his head. What if his enemies ran across a pool of Light he had put on the floor? Could he stop a wagon from rolling? Stick his spear to an enemy shield, then yank it from their hands?

“How does it feel, Lopen?” Rock asked. “Does this thing hurt?”

“Nah,” Lopen said, wiggling. “I’m worried my coat will rip, or the buttons will snap. Oh. Oh. Question for you! What did the one-armed Herdazian do to the man who stuck him to the wall?”

Kaladin frowned. “I… I don’t know.”

“Nothing,” Lopen said. “The Herdazian was ’armless.” The slender man burst into laughter.

Sigzil groaned, though Rock laughed. Syl had cocked her head, zipping over to Kaladin. “Was that a joke?” she asked softly.

“Yes,” Kaladin said. “A distinctly bad one.”

“Ah, don’t say that!” Lopen said, still chuckling. “It’s the best one I know – and trust me, I’m an expert on one-armed Herdazian jokes. ‘Lopen,’ my mother always says, ‘you must learn these to laugh before others do. Then you steal the laughter from them, and have it all for yourself.’ She is a very wise woman. I once brought her the head of a chull.”

Kaladin blinked. “You… What?”

“Chull head,” Lopen said. “Very good to eat.”

“You are a strange man, Lopen,” Kaladin said.

“No,” Rock said. “They really are good. The head, he is best part of chull.”

“I will trust you two on that,” Kaladin said. “Marginally.” He reached up, taking Lopen by the arm as the Stormlight holding him in place began to fade. Rock grabbed the man’s waist, and they helped him down.

“All right,” Kaladin said, instinctively checking the sky for the time, though he couldn’t see the sun through the narrow chasm opening above. “Let’s experiment.”

Tempest stoked within him, Kaladin dashed across the chasm floor. His movement startled a group of frillblooms, which pulled in frantically, like hands closing. Vines trembled on the walls and began to curl upward.

Kaladin’s feet splashed in stagnant water. He leaped over a mound of debris, trailing Stormlight. He was filled with it, pounding with it. That made it easier to use; it wanted to flow. He pushed it into his spear.

Ahead, Lopen, Rock, and Sigzil waited with practice spears. Though Lopen wasn’t very good – the missing arm was a huge disadvantage – Rock made up for it. The large Horneater would not fight Parshendi and would not kill, but had agreed to spar today, in the name of “experimentation.”

He fought very well, and Sigzil was acceptable with the spear. Together on the battlefield, the three bridgemen might once have given Kaladin trouble.

Times changed.

Kaladin tossed his spear sideways at Rock, surprising the Horneater, who had raised his weapon to block. The Stormlight made Kaladin’s spear stick to Rock’s, forming a cross. Rock cursed, trying to turn his spear around to strike, but in doing so smacked himself on the side with Kaladin’s spear.

As Lopen’s spear struck, Kaladin pushed it down easily with one hand, filling the tip with Stormlight. The weapon hit the pile of refuse and stuck to the wood and bones.

Sigzil’s weapon came in, missing Kaladin’s chest by a wide margin as he stepped aside. Kaladin nudged and infused the weapon with the flat of his hand, shoving it into Lopen’s, which he’d just pulled out of the refuse, plastered with moss and bone. The two spears stuck together.

Kaladin slipped between Rock and Sigzil, leaving the three of them in a jumbled mess, off balance and trying to disentangle their weapons. Kaladin smiled grimly, jogging down to the other end of the chasm. He picked up a spear, then turned, dancing from one foot to the other. The Stormlight encouraged him to move. Standing still was practically impossible while holding so much.

Come on, come on, he thought. The three others finally got their weapons apart as the Stormlight ran out. They formed up to face him again.

Kaladin dashed forward. In the dim light of the chasm, the glow of the smoke rising from him was strong enough to cast shadows that leaped and spun. He crashed through pools, the water cold on his unshod feet. He’d removed his boots; he wanted to feel the stone underneath him.

This time, the three bridgemen set the butts of their spears on the ground as if against a charge. Kaladin smiled, then grabbed the top of his spear – like theirs, it was a practice one, without a real spearhead – and infused it with Stormlight.

He slapped it against Rock’s, intending to yank it out of the Horneater’s hands. Rock had other plans, and hauled his spear back with a strength that took Kaladin by surprise. He nearly lost his grip.

Lopen and Sigzil quickly moved to come at him from either side. Nice, Kaladin thought, proud. He’d taught them formations like that, showing them how to work together on the battlefield.

As they drew close, Kaladin let go of his spear and stuck out his leg. The Stormlight flowed out of his bare foot as easily as it did his hands, and he was able to swipe a large glowing arc on the ground. Sigzil stepped in it and tripped, his foot sticking to the Light. He tried to stab as he fell, but there was no force behind the blow.

Kaladin slammed his weight against Lopen, whose strike was off-center. He shoved Lopen against the wall, then pulled back, leaving the Herdazian stuck to the stone, which Kaladin had infused in the heartbeat they’d been pressed together.

“Ah, not again,” Lopen said with a groan.

Sigzil had fallen face-first in the water. Kaladin barely had time to smile before he noticed Rock swinging a log at his head.

An entire log. How had Rock lifted that thing? Kaladin threw himself out of the way, rolling on the ground and scraping his hand as the log crashed against the floor of the chasm.

Kaladin growled, Stormlight passing between his teeth and rising into the air in front of him. He jumped onto Rock’s log as the Horneater tried to lift it again.

Kaladin’s landing slammed the wood back against the ground. He leaped toward Rock, and part of him wondered just what he was thinking, getting into a hand-to-hand fight with someone twice his weight. He slammed into the Horneater, hurling them both to the ground. They rolled in the moss, Rock twisting to pin Kaladin’s arms. The Horneater obviously had training as a wrestler.

Kaladin poured Stormlight into the ground. It wouldn’t affect or hamper him, he’d found. So, as they rolled, first Rock’s arm stuck to the ground, then his side.

The Horneater kept fighting to get Kaladin into a hold. He almost had it, till Kaladin pushed with his legs, rolling both of them so Rock’s other elbow touched the ground, where it stuck.

Kaladin tore away, gasping and puffing, losing most of his remaining Stormlight as he coughed. He leaned up against the wall, mopping sweat from his face.

“Ha!” Rock said, stuck to the ground, splayed with arms to the sides. “I almost had you. Slippery as a fifth son, you are!”

“Storms, Rock,” Kaladin said. “What I wouldn’t do to get you on the battlefield. You are wasted as a cook.”

“You don’t like the food?” Rock asked, laughing. “I will have to try something with more grease. This thing will fit you! Grabbing you was like trying to keep my hands on a live lakefish! One that has been covered in butter! Ha!”

Kaladin stepped up to him, squatting down. “You’re a warrior, Rock. I saw it in Teft, and you can say whatever you want, but I see it in you.”

“I am wrong son to be soldier,” Rock said stubbornly. “It is a thing of the tuanalikina, the fourth son or below. Third son cannot be wasted in battle.”

“Didn’t stop you from throwing a tree at my head.”

“Was small tree,” Rock said. “And very hard head.”

Kaladin smiled, then reached down, touching the Stormlight infused into the stone beneath Rock. He hadn’t ever tried to take it back after using it in this way. Could he? He closed his eyes and breathed in, trying… yes.

Some of the tempest within him stoked again. When he opened his eyes, Rock was free. Kaladin hadn’t been able to take it all back, but some. The rest was evaporating into the air.

He took Rock by the hand, helping the larger man to his feet. Rock dusted himself off.

“That was embarrassing,” Sigzil said as Kaladin walked over to free him too. “It’s like we’re children. The Prime’s own eyes have not seen such a shameful show.”

“I have a very unfair advantage,” Kaladin said, helping Sigzil to his feet. “Years of training as a soldier, a larger build than you. Oh, and the ability to emit Stormlight from my fingers.” He patted Sigzil on the shoulder. “You did well. This is just a test, like you wanted.”

A more useful type of test, Kaladin thought.

“Sure,” Lopen said from behind them. “Just go ahead and leave the Herdazian stuck to the wall. The view here is wonderful. Oh, and is that slime running down my cheek? A fresh new look for the Lopen, who cannot brush it away, because – have I mentioned? – his hand is stuck to the wall.”

Kaladin smiled, walking over. “You were the one who asked me to stick you to a wall in the first place, Lopen.”

“My other hand?” Lopen said. “The one that was cut off long ago, eaten by a fearsome beast? It is making a rude gesture toward you right now. I thought you would wish to know, so that you can prepare to be insulted.” He said it with the same lightheartedness with which he seemed to approach everything. He had even joined the bridge crew with a certain crazy eagerness.

Kaladin let him down.

“This thing,” Rock said, “it worked well.”

“Yes,” Kaladin said. Though honestly, he probably could have dispatched the three men more easily just by using a spear and the extra speed and strength the Stormlight lent. He didn’t know yet whether that was because he was unfamiliar with these new powers, but he did think that forcing himself to use them had put him in some awkward positions.

Familiarity, he thought. I need to know these abilities as well as I know my spear.

That meant practice. Lots of practice. Unfortunately, the best way to practice was to find someone who matched or bested you in skill, strength, and capacity. Considering what he could now do, that was going to be a tall order.

The three others walked over to dig waterskins from their packs, and Kaladin noticed a figure standing in the shadows a little ways down the chasm. Kaladin stood up, alarmed until Teft emerged into the light of their spheres.

“I thought you were going to be on watch,” Teft growled at Lopen.

“Too busy being stuck to walls,” Lopen said, raising his waterskin. “I thought you had a bunch of greenvines to train?”

“Drehy has them in hand,” Teft said, picking his way around some debris, joining Kaladin beside the chasm wall. “I don’t know if the lads told you, Kaladin, but bringing that lot down here broke them out of their shells somehow.”

Kaladin nodded.

“How did you get to know people so well?” Teft asked.

“It involves a lot of cutting them apart,” Kaladin said, looking down at his hand, which he’d scraped while fighting Rock. The scrape was gone, Stormlight having healed the tears in his skin.

Teft grunted, glancing back at Rock and the other two, who had broken out rations. “You ought to put Rock in charge of the new recruits.”

“He won’t fight.”

“He just sparred with you,” Teft said. “So maybe he will with them. People like him more than me. I’m just going to screw this up.”

“You’ll do a fine job, Teft, I won’t have you saying otherwise. We have resources now. No more scrimping for every last sphere. You’ll train those lads, and you’ll do it right.”

Teft sighed, but said no more.

“You saw what I did.”

“Aye,” Teft said. “We’ll need to bring down the entire group of twenty if we want to give you a proper challenge.”

“That or find another person like myself,” Kaladin said. “Someone to spar with.”

“Aye,” Teft said again, nodding, as if he hadn’t considered that.

“There were ten orders of knights, right?” Kaladin asked. “Do you know much of the others?” Teft had been the first one to figure out what Kaladin could do. He’d known before Kaladin himself had.

“Not much,” Teft said with a grimace. “I know the orders didn’t always get along, despite what the official stories say. We’ll need to see if we can find someone who knows more than I do. I… I kept away. And the people I knew who could tell us, they aren’t around any longer.”

If Teft had been in a dour mood before, this drove him down even further. He looked at the ground. He spoke of his past infrequently, but Kaladin was more and more certain that whoever these people had been, they were dead because of something Teft himself had done.

“What would you think if you heard that somebody wanted to refound the Knights Radiant?” Kaladin said softly to Teft.

Teft looked up sharply. “You–”

“Not me,” Kaladin said, speaking carefully. Dalinar Kholin had let him listen in on the conference, and while Kaladin trusted Teft, there were certain expectations of silence that an officer was required to uphold.

Dalinar is a lighteyes, part of him whispered. He wouldn’t think twice if he were revealing a secret you’d shared with him.

“Not me,” Kaladin repeated. “What if a king somewhere decided he wanted to gather a group of people and name them Knights Radiant?”

“I’d call him an idiot,” Teft said. “Now, the Radiants weren’t what people say. They weren’t traitors. They just weren’t. But everyone is sure they betrayed us, and you’re not going to change minds quickly. Not unless you can Surgebind to quiet them.” Teft looked Kaladin up and down. “Are you going to do it, lad?”

“They’d hate me, wouldn’t they?” Kaladin said. He couldn’t help noticing Syl, who walked through the air until she was close, studying him. “For what the old Radiants did.” He held up a hand to stop Teft’s objection. “What people think they did.”

“Aye,” Teft said.

Syl folded her arms, giving Kaladin a look. You promised, that look said.

“We’ll have to be careful about how we do it, then,” Kaladin said. “Go gather the new recruits. They’ve had enough practice down here for one day.”

Teft nodded, then jogged off to do as ordered. Kaladin gathered his spear and the spheres he’d set out to light the sparring, then waved to the other three. They packed up their things and began the hike back out.

“So you’re going to do it,” Syl said, landing on his shoulder.

“I want to practice more first,” Kaladin said. And get used to the idea.

“It will be fine, Kaladin.”

“No. It will be hard. People will hate me, and even if they don’t, I’ll be set apart from them. Separated. I’ve accepted that as my lot, though. I’ll deal with it.” Even in Bridge Four, Moash was the only one who didn’t treat Kaladin like some mythological savior Herald. Him and maybe Rock.

Still, the other bridgemen hadn’t reacted with the fear he’d once worried about. They might idolize him, but they did not isolate him. It was good enough.

They reached the rope ladder before Teft and the greenvines, but there was no reason to wait. Kaladin climbed up out of the muggy chasm onto the plateau just east of the warcamps. It felt so strange to be able to carry his spear and money out of the chasm. Indeed, the soldiers guarding the approach to Dalinar’s warcamp didn’t pester him – instead, they saluted and stood up straight. It was as crisp a salute as he’d ever gotten, as crisp as the ones given to a general.

“They seem proud of you,” Syl said. “They don’t even know you, but they’re proud of you.”

“They’re darkeyes,” Kaladin said, saluting back. “Probably men who were fighting on the Tower when Sadeas betrayed them.”

“Stormblessed,” one of them called. “Have you heard the news?”

Curse the one who told them that nickname, Kaladin thought as Rock and the other two caught up to him.

“No,” Kaladin called. “What news?”

“A hero has come to the Shattered Plains!” the soldier yelled back. “He’s going to meet with Brightlord Kholin, perhaps support him! It’s a good sign. Might help calm things down around here.”

“What’s this?” Rock called back. “Who?”

The soldier said a name.

Kaladin’s heart became ice.

He nearly lost his spear from numb fingers. And then, he took off running. He didn’t heed Rock’s cry behind him, didn’t stop to let the others catch up with him. He dashed through the camp, running toward Dalinar’s command complex at its center.

He didn’t want to believe when he saw the banner hanging in the air above a group of soldiers, probably matched by a much larger group outside the warcamp. Kaladin passed them, drawing cries and stares, questions if something was wrong.

He finally stumbled to a stop outside the short set of steps into Dalinar’s bunkered complex of stone buildings. There, standing in front, the Blackthorn clasped hands with a tall man.

Square-faced and dignified, the newcomer wore a pristine uniform. He laughed, then embraced Dalinar. “Old friend,” he said. “It’s been too long.”

“Too long by far,” Dalinar agreed. “I’m glad you finally made your way here, after years of promises. I heard you’ve even found yourself a Shardblade!”

“Yes,” the newcomer said, pulling back and holding his hand to the side. “Taken from an assassin who dared try to kill me on the field of battle.”

The Blade appeared. Kaladin stared at the silvery weapon. Etched along its length, the Blade was shaped to look like flames in motion, and to Kaladin it seemed that the weapon was stained red. Names flooded his mind: Dallet, Coreb, Reesh… a squad before time, from another life. Men Kaladin had loved.

He looked up and forced himself to see the face of the newcomer. A man Kaladin hated, hated beyond any other. A man he had once worshipped.

Highlord Amaram. The man who had stolen Kaladin’s Shardblade, branded his forehead, and sold him into slavery.

The end of Part One

Interludes

Eshonai ♦ Ym ♦ Rysn

Interlude 1: Narak

The Rhythm of Resolve thrummed softly in the back of Eshonai’s mind as she reached the plateau at the center of the Shattered Plains.

The central plateau. Narak. Exile.

Home.

She ripped the helm of the Shardplate from her head, taking a deep breath of cool air. Plate ventilated wonderfully, but even it grew stuffy after extended exertions. Other soldiers landed behind her – she had taken some fifteen hundred this run. Fortunately, this time they’d arrived well before the humans, and had harvested the gemheart with minimal fighting. Devi carried it; he had earned the privilege by being the one to spot the chrysalis from afar.

Almost she wished it had not been so easy a run. Almost.

Where are you, Blackthorn? she thought, looking westward. Why have you not come to face me again?

She thought she’d seen him on that run a week or so back, when they’d been forced off the plateau by his son. Eshonai had not participated in that fight; her wounded leg ached, and the jumping from plateau to plateau had stressed it, even in Shardplate. Perhaps she should not be going on these runs in the first place.

She’d wanted to be there in case her strike force grew surrounded, and needed a Shardbearer – even a wounded one – to break them free. Her leg still hurt, but Plate cushioned it enough. Soon she would have to return to the fighting. Perhaps if she participated directly, the Blackthorn would appear again.

She needed to speak with him. She felt an urgency to do so blowing upon the winds themselves.

Her soldiers raised hands in farewell as they went their separate ways. Many softly sang or hummed a song to the Rhythm of Mourning. These days, few sang to Excitement, or even to Resolve. Step by step, storm by storm, depression claimed her people – the listeners, as they called their race. “Parshendi” was a human term.

Eshonai strode toward the ruins that dominated Narak. After so many years, there wasn’t much left. Ruins of ruins, one might call them. The works of men and listeners alike did not last long before the might of the highstorms.

That stone spire ahead, that had probably once been a tower. Over the centuries, it had grown a thick coating of crem from the raging storms. The soft crem had seeped into cracks and filled windows, then slowly hardened. The tower now looked like an enormous stalagmite, rounded point toward the sky, side knobbed with rock that looked as if it had been melted.

The spire must have had a strong core to survive the winds so long. Other examples of ancient engineering had not fared so well. Eshonai passed lumps and mounds, remnants of fallen buildings that had slowly been consumed by the Shattered Plains. The storms were unpredictable. Sometimes huge sections of rock would break free from formations, leaving gouges and jagged edges. Other times, spires would stand for centuries, growing – not shrinking – as the winds both weathered and augmented them.

Eshonai had discovered similar ruins in her explorations, such as the one she’d been on when her people had first encountered humans. Only seven years ago, but also an eternity. She had loved those days, exploring a wide world that felt infinite. And now…

Now she spent her life trapped on this one plateau. The wilderness called to her, sang that she should gather up what things she could carry and strike out. Unfortunately, that was no longer her destiny.

She passed into the shadow of a big lump of rock that she always imagined might have been a city gate. From what little they’d learned from their spies over the years, she knew that the Alethi did not understand. They marched over the uneven surface of the plateaus and saw only natural rock, never knowing that they traversed the bones of a city long dead.

Eshonai shivered, and attuned the Rhythm of the Lost. It was a soft beat, yet still violent, with sharp, separated notes. She did not attune it for long. Remembering the fallen was important, but working to protect the living was more so.

She attuned Resolve again and entered Narak. Here, the listeners had built the best home they could during the years of war. Rocky shelves had become barracks, carapace from greatshells forming the walls and roofs. Mounds that had once been buildings now grew rockbuds for food on their leeward sides. Much of the Shattered Plains had once been populated, but the largest city had been here at the center. So now the ruins of her people made their home in the ruins of a dead city.

They had named it Narak – exile – for it was where they had come to be separated from their gods.

Listeners, both malen and femalen, raised hands to her as she passed. So few remained. The humans were relentless in their pursuit of vengeance.

She didn’t blame them.

She turned toward the Hall of Art. It was nearby, and she hadn’t put in an appearance there for days. Inside, soldiers did a laughable job of painting.

Eshonai strode among them, still wearing her Shardplate, helm under her arm. The long building had no roof – allowing in plenty of light to paint by – and the walls were thick with long-hardened crem. Holding thick-bristled brushes, the soldiers tried their best to depict the arrangement of rockbud flowers on a pedestal at the center. Eshonai did a round of the artists, looking at their work. Paper was precious and canvas nonexistent, so they painted on shell.

The paintings were awful. Splotches of garish color, off-center petals… Eshonai paused beside Varanis, one of her lieutenants. He held the brush delicately between armored fingers, a hulking form before an easel. Plates of chitin armor grew from his arms, shoulders, chest, even head. They were matched by her own, under her Plate.

“You are getting better,” Eshonai said to him, speaking to the Rhythm of Praise.

He looked to her, and hummed softly to Skepticism.

Eshonai chuckled, resting a hand on his shoulder. “It actually looks like flowers, Varanis. I mean it.”

“It looks like muddy water on a brown plateau,” he said. “Maybe with some brown leaves floating in it. Why do colors turn brown when they mix? Three beautiful colors put together, and they become the least beautiful color. It makes no sense, General.”

General. At times, she felt as awkward in the position as these men did trying to paint pictures. She wore warform, as she needed the armor for battle, but she preferred workform. More limber, more rugged. It wasn’t that she disliked leading these men, but doing the same thing every day – drills, plateau runs – numbed her mind. She wanted to be seeing new things, going new places. Instead, she joined her people in a long funeral vigil as, one by one, they died.

No. We will find a way out of it.

The art was part of that, she hoped. By her order, each man or woman took a turn in the Hall of Art at their appointed time. And they tried; they tried hard. So far, it had been about as successful as trying to leap a chasm with the other side out of sight. “No spren?” she asked.

“Not a one.” He said it to the Rhythm of Mourning. She heard that rhythm far too often these days.

“Keep trying,” she said. “We will not lose this battle for lack of effort.”

“But General,” Varanis said, “what is the point? Having artists won’t save us from the swords of humans.”

Nearby, other soldiers turned to hear her answer.

“Artists won’t help,” she said to the Rhythm of Peace. “But my sister is confident that she is close to discovering new forms. If we can discover how to create artists, then it might teach her more about the process of change – and that might help her with her research. Help her discover forms stronger, even, than warform. Artists won’t get us out of this, but some other form might.”

Varanis nodded. He was a good soldier. Not all of them were – warform did not intrinsically make one more disciplined. Unfortunately, it did hamper one’s artistic skill.

Eshonai had tried painting. She couldn’t think the right way, couldn’t grasp the abstraction needed to create art. Warform was a good form, versatile. It didn’t impede thought, like mateform did. As with workform, you were yourself when you were warform. But each had its quirks. A worker had difficulty committing violence – there was a block in the mind somewhere. That was one of the reasons she liked the form. It forced her to think differently to get around problems.

Neither form could create art. Not well, at least. Mateform was better, but came with a whole host of other problems. Keeping those types focused on anything productive was almost impossible. There were two other forms, though the first – dullform – was one they rarely used. It was a relic of the past, before they’d rediscovered something better.

That left only nimbleform, a general form that was lithe and careful. They used it for nurturing young and doing the kind of work that required more dexterity than brawn. Few could be spared for that form, though it was more skilled at art.

The old songs spoke of hundreds of forms. Now they knew of only five. Well, six if one counted slaveform, the form with no spren, no soul, and no song. The form the humans were accustomed to, the ones they called parshmen. It wasn’t really a form at all, however, but a lack of any form.

Eshonai left the Hall of Art, helm under her arm, leg aching. She passed through the watering square, where nimbles had crafted a large pool from sculpted crem. It caught rain during the riddens of a storm, thick with nourishment. Here, workers carried buckets to fetch water. Their forms were strong, almost like that of warform, though with thinner fingers and no armor. Many nodded to her, though as a general she had no authority over them. She was their last Shardbearer.

A group of three mateforms – two female, one male – played in the water, splashing at one another. Barely clothed, they dripped with what others would be drinking.

“You three,” Eshonai snapped at them. “Shouldn’t you be doing something?”

Plump and vapid, they grinned at Eshonai. “Come in!” one called. “It’s fun!”

“Out,” Eshonai said, pointing.

The three muttered to the Rhythm of Irritation as they climbed from the water. Nearby, several workers shook their heads as they passed, one singing to Praise in appreciation of Eshonai. Workers did not like confrontation.

It was an excuse. Just as those who took on mateform used their form as an excuse for their inane activities. When a worker, Eshonai had trained herself to confront when necessary. She’d even been a mate once, and had proven to herself firsthand that one could indeed be productive as a mate, despite… distractions.

Of course, the rest of her experiences as a mate had been an utter disaster.

She spoke to Reprimand to the mateforms, her words so passionate that she actually attracted angerspren. She saw them coming from a ways off, drawn by her emotion, moving with an incredible speed – like lightning dancing toward her across the distant stone. The lightning pooled at her feet, turning the stones red.

That put the fear of the gods into the mateforms, and they ran off to report to the Hall of Art. Hopefully, they wouldn’t end up in an alcove along the way, mating. Her stomach churned at the thought. She had never been able to fathom people who wanted to remain in mateform. Most couples, in order to have a child, would enter the form and sequester themselves away for a year – then would be out of the form as soon after the child’s birth as possible. After all, who would want to go out in public like that?

The humans did it. That had baffled her during those early days, when she’d spent time learning their language, trading with them. Not only did humans not change forms, they were always ready to mate, always distracted by sexual urges.

What she wouldn’t have given to be able to go among them unnoticed, to adopt their monochrome skin for a year and walk their highways, see their grand cities. Instead, she and the others had ordered the murder of the Alethi king in a desperate gambit to stop the listener gods from returning.

Well, that had worked – the Alethi king hadn’t been able to put his plan into action. But now, her people were slowly being destroyed as a result.

She finally reached the rock formation she called home: a small, collapsed dome. It reminded her of the ones on the edge of the Shattered Plains, actually – the enormous ones that the humans called warcamps. Her people had lived in those, before abandoning them for the security of the Shattered Plains, with its chasms the humans couldn’t jump.

Her home was much, much smaller, of course. During the early days of living here, Venli had crafted a roof of greatshell carapace and built walls to divide the space into chambers. She’d covered it all over with crem, which had hardened with time, creating something that actually felt like a home instead of a shanty.

Eshonai set her helm on a table just inside, but left the rest of her armor on. Shardplate just felt right to her. She liked the sensation of strength. It let her know that something was still reliable in the world. And with the power of Shardplate, she could mostly ignore the wound to her leg.

She ducked through a few rooms, nodding to the people she passed. Venli’s associates were scholars, though no one knew the proper form for true scholarship. Nimbleform was their makeshift substitute for now. Eshonai found her sister beside the window of the farthest chamber. Demid, Venli’s once-mate, sat next to her. Venli had held nimbleform for three years, as long as they’d known of the form, though in Eshonai’s mind’s eye she still saw her sister as a worker, with thicker arms and a stouter torso.

That was the past. Now, Venli was a slender woman with a thin face, her marblings delicate swirling patterns of red and white. Nimbleform grew long hairstrands, with no carapace helm to block them. Venli’s, a deep red, flowed down to her waist, where they were tied in three places. She wore a robe, drawn tight at the waist and showing a hint of breasts at the chest. This was not mateform, so they were small.

Venli and her once-mate were close, though their time as mates had produced no children. If they’d gone to the battlefield, they’d have been a warpair. Instead, they were a researchpair, or something. The things they spent their days doing were very un-listener. That was the point. Eshonai’s people could not afford to be what they had been in the past. The days of lounging isolated on these plateaus – singing songs to one another, only occasionally fighting – were over.

“So?” Venli asked to Curiosity.

“We won,” Eshonai said, leaning back against the wall and folding her arms with a clink of Shardplate. “The gemheart is ours. We will continue to eat.”

“That is well,” Venli said. “And your human?”

“Dalinar Kholin. He did not come to this battle.”

“He will not face you again,” Venli said. “You nearly killed him last time.” She said it to the Rhythm of Amusement as she rose, picking up a piece of paper – they made it from dried rockbud pulp following a harvest – which she handed to her once-mate. Looking it over, he nodded and began making notes on his own sheet.

That paper required precious time and resources to make, but Venli insisted the reward would be worth the effort. She’d better be right.

Venli regarded Eshonai. She had keen eyes – glassy and dark, like those of all listeners. Venli’s always seemed to have an extra depth of secret knowledge to them. In the right light, they had a violet cast.

“What would you do, Sister?” Venli asked. “If you and this Kholin were actually able to stop trying to kill each other long enough to have a conversation?”

“I’d sue for peace.”

“We murdered his brother,” Venli said. “We slaughtered King Gavilar on a night when he’d invited us into his home. That is not something the Alethi will forget, or forgive.”

Eshonai unfolded her arms and flexed a gauntleted hand. That night. A desperate plan, made between herself and five others. She had been part of it despite her youth, because of her knowledge of the humans. All had voted the same.

Kill the man. Kill him, and risk destruction. For if he had lived to do what he told them that night, all would have been lost. The others who had made that decision with her were dead now.

“I have discovered the secret of stormform,” Venli said.

“What?” Eshonai stood up straight. “You were to be working on a form to help! A form for diplomats, or for scholars.”

“Those will not save us,” Venli said to Amusement. “If we wish to deal with the humans, we will need the ancient powers.”

“Venli,” Eshonai said, grabbing her sister by the arm. “Our gods!”

Venli didn’t flinch. “The humans have Surgebinders.”

“Perhaps not. It could have been an Honorblade.”

“You fought him. Was it an Honorblade that struck you, wounded your leg, sent you limping?”

“I…” Her leg ached.

“We don’t know which of the songs are true,” Venli said. Though she said it to Resolve, she sounded tired, and she drew exhaustionspren. They came with a sound like wind, blowing in through the windows and doors like jets of translucent vapor before becoming stronger, more visible, and spinning around her head like swirls of steam.

My poor sister. She works herself as hard as the soldiers do.

“If the Surgebinders have returned,” Venli continued, “we must strive for something meaningful, something that can ensure our freedom. The forms of power, Eshonai…” She glanced at Eshonai’s hand, still on her arm. “At least sit and listen. And stop looming like a mountain.”

Eshonai removed her fingers, but did not sit. Her Shardplate’s weight would break a chair. Instead, she leaned forward, inspecting the table full of papers.

Venli had invented the script herself. They’d learned that concept from the humans – memorizing songs was good, but not perfect, even when you had the rhythms to guide you. Information stored on pages was more practical, especially for research.

Eshonai had taught herself the script, but reading was still difficult for her. She did not have much time to practice.

“So… stormform?” Eshonai said.

“Enough people of that form,” Venli said, “could control a highstorm, or even summon one.”

“I remember the song that speaks of this form,” Eshonai said. “It was a thing of the gods.”

“Most of the forms are related to them in some way,” Venli said. “Can we really trust the accuracy of words first sung so long ago? When those songs were memorized, our people were mostly dullform.”

It was a form of low intelligence, low capacity. They used it now to spy on the humans. Once, it and mateform had been the only forms her people had known.

Demid shuffled some of the pages, moving a stack. “Venli is right, Eshonai. This is a risk we must take.”

“We could negotiate with the Alethi,” Eshonai said.

“To what end?” Venli said, again to Skepticism, her exhaustionspren finally fading, the spren spinning away to search out more fresh sources of emotion. “Eshonai, you keep saying you want to negotiate. I think it is because you are fascinated by humans. You think they’ll let you go freely among them? A person they see as having the form of a rebellious slave?”

“Centuries ago,” Demid said, “we escaped both our gods and the humans. Our ancestors left behind civilization, power, and might in order to secure freedom. I would not give that up, Eshonai. Stormform. With it, we can destroy the Alethi army.”

“With them gone,” Venli said, “you can return to exploration. No responsibility – you could travel, make your maps, discover places no person has ever seen.”

“What I want for myself is meaningless,” Eshonai said to Reprimand, “so long as we are all in danger of destruction.” She scanned the specks on the page, scribbles of songs. Songs without music, written out as they were. Their souls stripped away.

Could the listeners’ salvation really be in something so terrible? Venli and her team had spent five years recording all of the songs, learning the nuances from the elderly, capturing them in these pages. Through collaboration, research, and deep thought, they had discovered nimbleform.

“It is the only way,” Venli said to Peace. “We will bring this to the Five, Eshonai. I would have you on our side.”

“I… I will consider.”

Interlude 2: Ym

Ym carefully trimmed the wood from the side of the small block. He held it up to the spherelight beside his bench, pinching his spectacles by the rim and holding them closer to his eyes.

Such delightful inventions, spectacles. To live was to be a fragment of the cosmere that was experiencing itself. How could he properly experience if he couldn’t see? The Azish man who had first created these devices was long deceased, and Ym had submitted a proposal that he be considered one of the Honored Dead.

Ym lowered the piece of wood and continued to carve it, carefully whittling off the front to form a curve. Some of his colleagues bought their lasts – the wooden forms around which a cobbler built his shoes – from carpenters, but Ym had been taught to make his own. That was the old way, the way it had been done for centuries. If something had been done one way for such a long time, he figured there was probably a good reason.

Behind him stood the shadowed cubbies of a cobbler’s shop, the toes of dozens of shoes peeking out like the noses of eels in their holes. These were test shoes, used to judge size, choose materials, and decide styles so he could construct the perfect shoe to fit the foot and character of the individual. A fitting could take quite a while, assuming you did it properly.

Something moved in the dimness to his right. Ym glanced in that direction, but didn’t change his posture. The spren had been coming more often lately – specks of light, like those from a piece of crystal suspended in a sunbeam. He did not know its type, as he had never seen one like it before.

It moved across the surface of the workbench, slinking closer. When it stopped, light crept upward from it, like small plants growing or climbing from their burrows. When it moved again, those withdrew.

Ym returned to his sculpting. “It will be for making a shoe.”

The evening shop was quiet save for the scraping of his knife on wood.

“Sh-shoe…?” a voice asked. Like that of a young woman, soft, with a kind of chiming musicality to it.

“Yes, my friend,” he said. “A shoe for young children. I find myself in need of those more and more these days.”

“Shoe,” the spren said. “For ch-children. Little people.”

Ym brushed wooden scraps off the bench for later sweeping, then set the last on the bench near the spren. It shied away, like a reflection off a mirror – translucent, really just a shimmer of light.

He withdrew his hand and waited. The spren inched forward – tentative, like a cremling creeping out of its crack after a storm. It stopped, and light grew upward from it in the shape of tiny sprouts. Such an odd sight.

“You are an interesting experience, my friend,” Ym said as the shimmer of light moved onto the last itself. “One in which I am honored to participate.”

“I…” the spren said. “I…” The spren’s form shook suddenly, then grew more intense, like light being focused. “He comes.”

Ym stood up, suddenly anxious. Something moved on the street outside. Was it that one? That watcher, in the military coat?

But no, it was just a child, peering in through the open door. Ym smiled, opening his drawer of spheres and letting more light into the room. The child shied back, just as the spren had.

The spren had vanished somewhere. It did that when others drew near.

“No need to fear,” Ym said, settling back down on his stool. “Come in. Let me get a look at you.”

The dirty young urchin peered back in. He wore only a ragged pair of trousers, no shirt, though that was common here in Iri, where both days and nights were usually warm.

The poor child’s feet were dirty and scraped.

“Now,” Ym said, “that won’t do. Come, young one, settle down. Let’s get something on those feet.” He moved out one of his smaller stools.

“They say you don’t charge nothin’,” the boy said, not moving.

“They are quite wrong,” Ym said. “But I think you will find my cost bearable.”

“Don’t have no spheres.”

“No spheres are needed. Your payment will be your story. Your experiences. I would hear them.”

“They said you was strange,” the boy said, finally walking into the shop.

“They were right,” Ym said, patting the stool.

The urchin stepped timidly up to the stool, walking with a limp he tried to hide. He was Iriali, though the grime darkened his skin and hair, both of which were golden. The skin less so – you needed the light to see it right – but the hair certainly. It was the mark of their people.

Ym motioned for the child to raise his good foot, then got out a washcloth, wetted it, and cleaned away the grime. He wasn’t about to do a fitting on feet so dirty. Noticeably, the boy tucked back the foot he’d limped on, as if trying to hide that it had a rag wrapped around it.

“So,” Ym said, “your story?”

“You’re old,” the boy said. “Older than anyone I know. Grandpa old. You must know everythin’ already. Why do you want to hear from me?”

“It is one of my quirks,” Ym said. “Come now. Let’s hear it.”

The boy huffed, but talked. Briefly. That wasn’t uncommon. He wanted to hold his story to himself. Slowly, with careful questions, Ym pried the story free. The boy was the son of a whore, and had been kicked out as soon as he could fend for himself. That had been three years ago, the boy thought. He was probably eight now.

As he listened, Ym cleaned the first foot, then clipped and filed the nails. Once done, he motioned for the other foot.

The boy reluctantly lifted it up. Ym undid the rag, and found a nasty cut on the bottom of that foot. It was already infected, crawling with rotspren, tiny motes of red.

Ym hesitated.

“Needed to get some shoes,” the urchin said, looking the other way. “Can’t keep on without ’em.”

The rip in the skin was jagged. Done climbing over a fence, perhaps? Ym thought.

The boy looked at him, feigning nonchalance. A wound like this would slow an urchin down terribly, which on the streets could easily mean death. Ym knew that all too well.

He looked up at the boy, noting the shadow of worry in those little eyes. The infection had spread up the leg.

“My friend,” Ym whispered, “I believe I am going to need your help.”

“What?” the urchin said.

“Nothing,” Ym replied, reaching into the drawer of his table. The light spilling out was just from five diamond chips. Every urchin who had come to him had seen those. So far, Ym had been robbed of them only twice.

He dug more deeply, unfolding a hidden compartment in the drawer and taking a more powerful sphere – a broam – from there, covering its light quickly in his hand while reaching for some antiseptic with the other hand.

The medicine wasn’t going to be enough, not with the boy unable to stay off his feet. Lying in bed for weeks to heal, constantly applying expensive medication? Impossible for an urchin fighting for food each day.

Ym brought his hands back, sphere tucked inside of one. Poor child. It must hurt something fierce. The boy probably ought to have been laid out in bed, feverish, but every urchin knew to chew ridgebark to stay alert and awake longer than they should.

Nearby, the sparkling light spren peeked out from underneath a stack of leather squares. Ym applied the medication, then set it aside and lifted the boy’s foot, humming softly.

The glow in Ym’s other hand vanished.

The rotspren fled from the wound.

When Ym removed his hand, the cut had scabbed over, the color returning to normal, the signs of infection gone. So far, Ym had used this ability only a handful of times, and had always disguised it as medicine. It was unlike anything he had ever heard of. Perhaps that was why he had been given it – so the cosmere could experience it.

“Hey,” the boy said, “that feels a lot better.”

“I’m glad,” Ym said, returning the sphere and the medicine to his drawer. The spren had retreated. “Let us see if I have something that fits you.”

He began fitting shoes. Normally, after fitting, he’d send the patron away and craft a perfect set of shoes just for them. For this child, unfortunately, he’d have to use shoes he’d already made. He’d had too many urchins never return for their pair of shoes, leaving him to fret and wonder. Had something happened to them? Had they simply forgotten? Or had their natural suspicion gotten the better of them?

Fortunately, he had several good, sturdy pairs that might fit this boy. I need more treated hogshide, he thought, making a note. Children would not properly care for shoes. He needed leather that would age well even if unattended.

“You’re really gonna give me a pair of shoes,” the urchin said. “For nothin’?”

“Nothing but your story,” Ym said, slipping another testing shoe onto the boy’s foot. He’d given up on trying to train urchins to wear socks.

“Why?”

“Because,” Ym said, “you and I are One.”

“One what?”

“One being,” Ym said. He set aside that shoe and got out another. “Long ago, there was only One. One knew everything, but had experienced nothing. And so, One became many – us, people. The One, who is both male and female, did so to experience all things.”

“One. You mean God?”

“If you wish to say it that way,” Ym said. “But it is not completely true. I accept no god. You should accept no god. We are Iriali, and part of the Long Trail, of which this is the Fourth Land.”

“You sound like a priest.”

“Accept no priests either,” Ym said. “Those are from other lands, come to preach to us. Iriali need no preaching, only experience. As each experience is different, it brings completeness. Eventually, all will be gathered back in – when the Seventh Land is attained – and we will once again become One.”

“So you an’ me…” the urchin said. “Are the same?”

“Yes. Two minds of a single being experiencing different lives.”

“That’s stupid.”

“It is simply a matter of perspective,” Ym said, dusting the boy’s feet with powder and slipping back on a pair of the test shoes. “Please walk on those for a moment.”

The boy gave him a strange look, but obeyed, trying a few steps. He didn’t limp any longer.

“Perspective,” Ym said, holding up his hand and wiggling his fingers. “From very close up, the fingers on a hand might seem individual and alone. Indeed, the thumb might think it has very little in common with the pinky. But with proper perspective, it is realized that the fingers are part of something much larger. That, indeed, they are One.”

The urchin frowned. Some of that had probably been beyond him. I need to speak more simply, and–

“Why do you get to be the finger with the expensive ring,” the boy said, pacing back the other direction, “while I gotta be the pinky with the broken fingernail?”

Ym smiled. “I know it sounds unfair, but there can be no unfairness, as we are all the same in the end. Besides, I didn’t always have this shop.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. I think you’d be surprised at where I came from. Please sit back down.”

The boy settled down. “That medicine works real well. Real, real well.”

Ym slipped off the shoes, using the powder – which had rubbed off in places – to judge how the shoe fit. He fished out a pair of premade shoes, then worked at them for a moment, flexing them in his hands. He’d want a cushion on the bottom for the wounded foot, but something that would tear off after a few weeks, once the wound was healed…

“The things you’re talking about,” the boy said. “They sound dumb to me. I mean, if we’re all the same person, shouldn’t everyone know this already?”

“As One, we knew truth,” Ym said, “but as many, we need ignorance. We exist in variety to experience all kinds of thought. That means some of us must know and others must not – just like some must be rich, and others must be poor.” He worked the shoe a moment longer. “More people did know this, once. It’s not talked about as much as it should be. Here, let’s see if these fit right.”

He handed the boy the shoes, who put them on and tied the laces.

“Your life might be unpleasant–” Ym began.

“Unpleasant?”

“All right. Downright awful. But it will get better, young one. I promise it.”

“I thought,” the boy said, stamping his good foot to test the shoes, “that you were gonna tell me that life is awful, but it all don’t matter in the end, ’cuz we’re going the same place.”

“That’s true,” Ym said, “but isn’t very comforting right now, is it?”

“Nope.”

Ym turned back to his worktable. “Try not to walk on that wounded foot too much, if you can help it.”

The urchin strode to the door with a sudden urgency, as if eager to get away before Ym changed his mind and took back the shoes. He did stop at the doorway, though.

“If we’re all just the same person trying out different lives,” the boy said, “you don’t need to give away shoes. ’Cuz it don’t matter.”

“You wouldn’t hit yourself in the face, would you? If I make your life better, I make my own better.”

“That’s crazy talk,” the boy said. “I think you’re just a nice person.” He ducked out, not speaking another word.

Ym smiled, shaking his head. Eventually, he went back to work on his last. The spren peeked out again.

“Thank you,” Ym said. “For your help.” He didn’t know why he could do what he did, but he knew the spren was involved.

“He’s still here,” the spren whispered.

Ym looked up toward the doorway out onto the night street. The urchin was there?

Something rustled behind Ym.

He jumped, spinning. The workroom was a place of dark corners and cubbies. Had he perhaps heard a rat?

Why was the door into the back room – where Ym slept – open? He usually left that closed.

A shadow moved in the blackness back there.

“If you’ve come for the spheres,” Ym said, trembling, “I have only the five chips here.”

More rustling. The shadow separated itself from the darkness, resolving into a man with dark, Makabaki skin – all save for a pale crescent on his cheek. He wore black and silver, a uniform, but not one from any military that Ym recognized. Thick gloves, with stiff cuffs at the back.

“I had to look very hard,” the man said, “to discover your indiscretion.”

“I…” Ym stammered. “Just… five chips…”

“You have lived a clean life, since your youth as a carouser,” the man said, his voice even. “A young man of means who drank and partied away what his parents left him. That is not illegal. Murder, however, is.”

Ym sank down onto his stool. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know it would kill her.”

“Poison delivered,” the man said, stepping into the room, “in the form of a bottle of wine.”

“They told me the vintage itself was the sign!” Ym said. “That she’d know the message was from them, and that it meant she would need to pay! I was desperate for money. To eat, you see. Those on the streets are not kind…”

“You were an accomplice to murder,” the man said, pulling his gloves on more tightly, first one hand, then the other. He spoke with such a stark lack of emotion, he could have been conversing about the weather.

“I didn’t know…” Ym pled.

“You are guilty nonetheless.” The man reached his hand to the side, and a weapon formed from mist there, then fell into his hand.

A Shardblade? What kind of constable of the law was this? Ym stared at that wondrous, silvery Blade.

Then he ran.

It appeared that he still had useful instincts from his time on the streets. He managed to fling a stack of leather toward the man and duck the Blade as it swung for him. Ym scrambled out onto the dark street and charged away, shouting. Perhaps someone would hear. Perhaps someone would help.

Nobody heard.

Nobody helped.

Ym was an old man now. By the time he reached the first cross street, he was gasping for air. He stopped beside the old barber shop, dark inside, door locked. The little spren moved along beside him, a shimmering light that sprayed outward in a circle. Beautiful.

“I guess,” Ym said, panting, “it is… my time. May One… find this memory… pleasing.”

Footsteps slapped on the street behind, getting closer.

“No,” the spren whispered. “Light!”

Ym dug in his pocket and pulled out a sphere. Could he use it, somehow, to–

The constable’s shoulder slammed Ym against the wall of the barber shop. Ym groaned, dropping the sphere.

The man in silver spun him around. He looked like a shade in the night, a silhouette against the black sky.

“It was forty years ago,” Ym whispered.

“Justice does not expire.”

The man shoved the Shardblade through Ym’s chest.

Experience ended.

Interlude 3: Rysn

Rysn liked to pretend that her pot of Shin grass was not stupid, but merely contemplative. She sat near the prow of her catamaran, holding the pot in her lap. The otherwise still surface of the Reshi Sea rippled from the paddling of the guide behind her. The warm, damp air made beads of sweat form on Rysn’s brow and neck.

It was probably going to rain again. Precipitation here on the sea was the worst kind – not mighty or impressive like a highstorm, not even insistent like an ordinary shower. Here, it was just a misting haze, more than a fog but less than a drizzle. Enough to ruin hair, makeup, clothing – indeed, every element of a careful young woman’s efforts to present a suitable face for trading.

Rysn shifted the pot in her lap. She’d named the grass Tyvnk. Sullen. Her babsk had laughed at the name. He understood. In naming the grass, she acknowledged that he was right and she had been wrong; his trade with the Shin people last year had been exceptionally profitable.

Rysn chose not to be sullen at being proven so clearly wrong. She’d let her plant be sullen instead.

They’d traversed these waters for two days now, and then only after waiting at port for weeks until the right time between highstorms for a trip onto the nearly enclosed sea. Today, the waters were shockingly still. Almost as serene as those of the Purelake.

Vstim himself rode two boats over in their irregular flotilla. Paddled by new parshmen, the sixteen sleek catamarans were laden with goods that had been purchased with the profits of their last expedition. Vstim was still resting in the back of his boat. He looked like little more than another bundle of cloth, almost indistinguishable from the sacks of goods.

He would be fine. People got sick. It happened, but he would become well again.

And the blood you saw on his handkerchief?

She suppressed the thought and pointedly turned around in her seat, shifting Tyvnk to the crook of her left arm. She kept the pot very clean. That soil stuff the grass needed in order to live was even worse than crem, and it had a proclivity for ruining clothing.

Gu, the flotilla’s guide, rode in her own boat, just behind her. He looked a lot like a Purelaker with those long limbs, the leathery skin, and dark hair. Every Purelaker she’d met, however, had cared deeply about those gods of theirs. She doubted Gu had ever cared about anything.

That included getting them to their destination in a timely manner.

“You said we were near,” she said to him.

“Oh, we are,” he said, lifting his oar and then slipping it back down into the water. “Soon, now.” He spoke Thaylen rather well, which was why he’d been hired. It certainly wasn’t for his punctuality.

“Define ‘soon,’” Rysn said.

“Define…”

“What do you mean by ‘soon’?”

“Soon. Today, maybe.”

Maybe. Delightful.

Gu continued to paddle, only doing so on one side of the boat, yet somehow keeping them from going in circles. At the rear of Rysn’s boat, Kylrm – head of their guards – played with her parasol, opening it and closing it again. He seemed to consider it a wondrous invention, though they’d been popular in Thaylenah for ages now.

Shows how rarely Vstim’s workers get back to civilization. Another cheerful thought. Well, she’d apprenticed under Vstim wanting to travel to exotic places, and exotic this was. True, she’d expected cosmopolitan and exotic to go hand in hand. If she’d had half a wit – which she wasn’t sure she did, these days – she’d have realized that the really successful traders weren’t the ones who went where everyone else wanted to go.

“Hard,” Gu said, still paddling with his lethargic pace. “Patterns are off, these days. The gods do not walk where they always should. We shall find her. Yes, we shall.”

Rysn stifled a sigh and turned forward. With Vstim incapacitated again, she was in charge of leading the flotilla. She wished she knew where she was leading it – or even knew how to find their destination.

That was the trouble with islands that moved.

The boats glided past a shoal of branches breaking the sea’s surface. Encouraged by the wind, gentle waves lapped against the stiff branches, which reached out of the waters like the fingers of drowning men. The sea was deeper than the Purelake, with its bafflingly shallow waters. Those trees would be dozens of feet tall at the very least, with bark of stone. Gu called them i-nah, which apparently meant bad. They could slice up a boat’s hull.

Sometimes they’d pass branches hiding just beneath the glassy surface, almost invisible. She didn’t know how Gu knew to steer clear of them. In this, as in so much else, they just had to trust him. What would they do if he led them into an ambush out here on these silent waters? Suddenly, she felt very glad that Vstim had ordered their guards to monitor his fabrial that showed if people were drawing near. It–

Land.

Rysn stood up in the catamaran, making it rock precariously. There was something ahead, a distant dark line.

“Ah,” Gu said. “See? Soon.”

Rysn remained standing, waving for her parasol when a sprinkle of rain started to fall. The parasol barely helped, though it was waxed to double as an umbrella. In her excitement, she hardly gave it – or her increasingly frizzy hair – a thought. Finally.

The island was much bigger than she’d expected. She’d imagined it to be like a very large boat, not this towering rock formation jutting from the waters like a boulder in a field. It was different from other islands she’d seen; there didn’t seem to be any beach, and it wasn’t flat and low, but mountainous. Shouldn’t the sides and top have eroded over time?

“It’s so green,” Rysn said as they drew closer.

“The Tai-na is a good place to grow,” Gu said. “Good place to live. Except when it’s at war.”

“When two islands get too close,” Rysn said. She’d read of this in preparation, though there were not many scholars who cared enough about the Reshi to write of them. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of these moving islands floated in the sea. The people on them lived simple lives, interpreting the movements of the islands as divine will.

“Not always,” Gu said, chuckling. “Sometimes close Tai-na is good. Sometimes bad.”

“What determines?” Rysn asked.

“Why, the Tai-na itself.”

“The island decides,” Rysn said flatly, humoring him. Primitives. What was her babsk expecting to gain by trading here? “How can an island–”

Then the island ahead of them moved.

Not in the drifting way she’d imagined. The island’s very shape changed, stones twisting and undulating, a huge section of rock rising in a motion that seemed lethargic until one appreciated the grand scale.

Rysn sat down with a plop, her eyes wide. The rock – the leg – lifted, streaming water like rainfall. It lurched forward, then crashed back down into the sea with incredible force.

The Tai-na, the gods of the Reshi Isles, were greatshells.

This was the largest beast she’d ever seen, or ever heard of. Big enough to make mythological monsters like the chasmfiends of distant Natanatan seem like pebbles in comparison!

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” she demanded, looking back at the boat’s other two occupants. Surely Kylrm at least should have said something.

“Is better to see,” Gu said, paddling with his usual relaxed posture. She did not much care for his smirk.

“And take away that moment of discovery?” Kylrm said. “I remember when I first saw one move. It’s worth not spoiling. We never tell the new guards when they first come.”

Rysn contained her annoyance and looked back at the “island.” Curse those inaccurate accounts from her readings. Too much hearsay, not enough experience. She found it hard to believe that no one had ever recorded the truth. Likely, she simply had the wrong sources.

A falling haze of rain shrouded the enormous beast in mist and enigma. What did a thing so big eat? Did it notice the people living upon its back; did it care? Kelek… What was mating like for these monsters?

It had to be ancient. The boat drew into its shadow, and she could see the greenery growing across its stony skin. Shalebark mounds made vast fields of vibrant colors. Moss coated nearly everything. Vines and rockbuds wound around trunks of small trees that had gained a foothold in cracks between plates of the animal’s shell.

Gu led the convoy around the hind leg – giving it a very wide berth, to her relief – and came up along the creature’s flank. Here, the shell dipped down into the water, forming a platform. She heard the people before she saw them, their laughter rising amid splashes. The rain stopped, so Rysn lowered her parasol and shook it over the water. She finally spotted the people, a group of youths both male and female climbing up onto a ridge of shell and leaping from it into the sea.

That was not so surprising. The water of the Reshi Sea, like that of the Purelake, was remarkably warm. She had once ventured into the water near her homeland. It was a frigid experience, and not one to be engaged in while of sound mind. Frequently, alcohol and bravado were involved in any ocean dip.

Out here, though, she expected that swimmers were commonplace. She had not expected them to be unclothed.

Rysn blushed furiously as a group of people ran past on the docklike shell outcropping, as bare as the day they were born. Young men and women alike, uncaring of who saw. She was no Alethi prude, but… Kelek! Shouldn’t they wear something?

Shamespren fell around her, shaped like white and red flower petals that drifted on a wind. Behind her, Gu chuckled.

Kylrm joined him. “That’s another thing we don’t warn the newcomers about.”

Primitives, Rysn thought. She shouldn’t blush so. She was an adult. Well, almost.

The flotilla continued toward a section of shell that formed a kind of dock – a low plate that hung mostly above water. They settled in to wait, though for what, she didn’t know.

After a few moments, the plate lurched – water streaming off it – as the beast took another lethargic step. Waves lapped against the boats from the splashdown ahead. Once things were settled, Gu guided the boat to the dock. “Up you go,” he said.

“Shall we tie the boats to anything?” Rysn said.

“No. Not safe, with movement. We will pull back.”

“And at night? How do you dock the boats?”

“When we sleep, we move boats away, tie together. Sleep out there. Find island again in the morning.”

“Oh,” Rysn said, taking a calming breath and checking to make sure her pot of grass was carefully stored in the bottom of the catamaran.

She stood up. This was not going to be kind to her shoes, which had been quite expensive. She had a feeling the Reshi wouldn’t care. She could probably meet their king barefooted. Passions! From what she’d seen, she could probably meet him bare-chested.

She climbed up carefully, and was pleased to find that despite being an inch or so underwater, the shell was not slippery. Kylrm climbed up with her and she handed him the folded-up parasol, stepping back and waiting as Gu maneuvered his boat away. Another oarsman brought up his boat instead, a longer catamaran with parshmen to help row.

Her babsk huddled inside, wrapped in his blanket despite the heat, head propped up against the back of the boat. His pale skin had a waxy cast.

“Babsk…” Rysn said, heart wrenching. “We should have turned around.”

“Nonsense,” he said, his voice frail. He smiled anyway. “I’ve suffered worse. The trade must happen. We’ve leveraged too much.”

“I will go to the island’s king and traders,” Rysn said. “And ask for them to come here to negotiate with you on the docks.”

Vstim coughed into his hand. “No. These people aren’t like the Shin. My weakness will ruin the deal. Boldness. You must be bold with the Reshi.”

“Bold?” Rysn said, glancing at the boat guide, who lounged with fingers in the water. “Babsk… the Reshi are a relaxed people. I do not think much matters to them.”

“You will be surprised, then,” Vstim said. He followed her gaze toward the nearby swimmers, who giggled and laughed as they leaped into the waters. “Life can be simple here, yes. It attracts such people like war attracts painspren.”

Attracts… One of the women scampered past, and Rysn noticed with shock that she had Thaylen eyebrows. Her skin had been tanned in the sun, so the difference in tones hadn’t been immediately obvious. Picking through those swimming, Rysn saw others. Two that were probably Herdazians, even… an Alethi? Impossible.

“People seek out this place,” Vstim said. “They like the life of the Reshi. Here, they can simply go with the island. Fight when it fights another island. Relax otherwise. There will be people like this in any culture, for every society is made of individuals. You must learn this. Do not let your assumptions about a culture block your ability to perceive the individual, or you will fail.”

She nodded. He seemed so frail, but his words were firm. She tried not to think about the swimming people. The fact that at least one of them was of her own kind made her even more embarrassed.

“If you cannot trade with them…” Rysn said.

“You must do it.”

Rysn felt cold, despite the heat. This was what she’d joined with Vstim to do, wasn’t it? How many times had she wished he would let her lead? Why feel so timid now?

She glanced toward her own boat, moving off, carrying her pot of grass. She looked back at her babsk. “Tell me what to do.”

“They know much of foreigners,” Vstim said. “More than we know of them. This is because so many of us come to live among them. Many of the Reshi are as carefree as you say, but there are also many who are not. Those prefer to fight. And a trade… it is like a fight to them.”

“To me too,” Rysn said.

“I know these people,” Vstim said. “We must have Passion that Talik is not here. He is their best, and often goes to trade with other islands. Whichever you do meet for trade, he or she will judge you as they would judge a rival in battle. And to them, battle is about posturing.

“I once had the misfortune to be on an isle during war.” He paused, coughing, but spurned the drink Kylrm tried to give him. “As the two islands raged, the people climbed down into boats to exchange insults and boasts. They would each start with their weakest, who would yell out boasts, then progress in a kind of verbal duel up to their greatest. After that, arrows and spears, struggling on ships and in the water. Fortunately, there was more yelling than actual cutting.”

Rysn swallowed, nodding.

“You are not ready for this, child,” Vstim said.

“I know.”

“Good. Finally you realize it. Go now. They will not suffer us long on their island unless we agree to join them permanently.”

“Which would require…?” Rysn said.

“Well, for one, it requires giving all you own to their king.”

“Lovely,” Rysn said, rising. “I wonder how he’d look wearing my shoes.” She took a deep breath. “You still haven’t told me what we’re trading for.”

“They know,” her babsk said, then coughed. “Your conversation will not be a negotiation. The terms were set years ago.”

She turned to him, frowning. “What?”

“This is not about what you can get,” Vstim said, “but about whether or not they think you are worthy of it. Convince them.” He hesitated. “Passions guide you, child. Do well.”

It seemed a plea. If their flotilla was turned away… The cost of this trade was not in the goods – woods, cloth, simple supplies purchased cheaply – but in the outfitting of a convoy. It was in traveling so far, paying guides, wasting time waiting for a break between storms, then more time searching for the right island. If she was turned away, they could still sell what they had – but at a stiff devastating loss, considering the high overhead of the trip.

Two of the guards, Kylrm and Nlent, joined her as she left Vstim and walked along the docklike protrusion of shell. Now that they were so close, it was difficult to see a creature and not an island. Just ahead of her, the patina of lichen made the shell nearly indistinguishable from rock. Trees clustered here, their roots draping into the water, their branches reaching high and creating a forest.

She hesitantly stepped onto the only path leading up from the waters. Here, the “ground” formed steps that seemed far too square and regular to be natural.

“They cut into its shell?” Rysn said, climbing.

Kylrm grunted. “Chulls can’t feel their shells. This monster probably can’t either.”

As they walked, he kept his hand on his gtet, a type of traditional Thaylen sword. The thing had a large triangular wedge of a blade with a grip directly at the base; you’d hold the grip like a fist, and the long blade would extend out down past the knuckles, with parts of the hilt resting around the wrist for support. Right now, he wore it in a sheath at his side, along with a bow on his back.

Why was he was so anxious? The Reshi were not supposed to be dangerous. Perhaps when you were a paid guard, it was better to assume everyone was dangerous.

The pathway wound upward through thick jungle. The trees here were limber and hale, their branches almost constantly moving. And when the beast stepped, everything shook.

Vines trembled and twisted on the pathway or drooped from branches, and these pulled out of the way at her approach, but crept back quickly after her passing. Soon, she couldn’t see the sea, or even smell its brine. The jungle enveloped everything. Its thick green and brown were broken occasionally by pink and yellow mounds of shalebark that seemed to have been growing for generations.

She’d found the humidity oppressive before, but here it was overwhelming. She felt as if she were swimming, and even her thin linen skirt, blouse, and vest seemed as thick as old Thaylen highland winter gear.

After an interminable climb, she heard voices. To her right, the forest opened up to a view of the ocean beyond. Rysn caught her breath. Endless blue waters, clouds dropping a haze of rain in patches that seemed so distinct. And in the distance…

“Another one?” she asked, pointing toward a shadow on the horizon.

“Yeah,” Kylrm said. “Hopefully going the other way. I’d rather not be here when they decide to war.” His grip tightened on the handle of his sword.

The voices came from farther up the way, so Rysn resigned herself to more climbing. Her legs ached from the effort.

Though the jungle remained impenetrable to her left, it remained open to her right, where the massive flank of the greatshell formed ridges and shelves. She caught sight of some people sitting around tents, leaning back and staring out over the sea. They hardly gave her and the two guards more than a glance. Up farther, she found more Reshi.

These were jumping.

Men and women alike – and in various states of undress – were taking turns leaping off the shell’s outcroppings with whoops and shouts, plummeting toward the waters far below. Rysn grew nauseated just watching them. How high up were they?

“They do it to shock you. They always jump from greater heights when a foreigner is here.”

Rysn nodded, then – with a sudden start – realized that the comment hadn’t come from one of her guards. She turned and discovered that to her left, the forest had moved back around a large outcrop of shell like a rock mound.

There, hanging upside down and tied by his feet to a point at the top of the shell, was a lanky man with pale white skin verging on blue. He wore only a loincloth, and his skin was covered with hundreds upon hundreds of small, intricate tattoos.

Rysn took a step toward him, but Kylrm grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. “Aimian,” he hissed. “Keep your distance.”

The blue fingernails and deep blue eyes should have been a clue. Rysn stepped back, though she couldn’t see his Voidbringer shadow.

“Keep your distance indeed,” the man said. “Always a wise idea.” His accent was unlike any she’d heard, though he spoke Thaylen well. He hung there with a pleasant smile on his face, as if completely indifferent to the fact that he was upside down.

“Are you… well?” Rysn asked the man.

“Hmmm?” he said. “Oh, between blackouts, yes. Quite well. I think I’m growing numb to the pain of my ankles, which is just delightful.”

Rysn brought her hands up to her chest, not daring to get any closer. Aimian. Very bad luck. She wasn’t particularly superstitious – she was even skeptical of the Passions sometimes – but… well, this was an Aimian.

“What fell curses did you bring on this people, beast?” Kylrm demanded.

“Improper puns,” the man said lazily. “And a stench from something I ate that did not sit well with me. Are you off to speak with the king, then?”

“I…” Rysn said. Behind her, another Reshi whooped and leaped from the shelf. “Yes.”

“Well,” the creature said, “don’t ask about the soul of their god. They don’t like to speak of that, it turns out. Must be spectacular, to let the beasts grow this large. Beyond even the spren who inhabit the bodies of ordinary greatshells. Hmmm…” He seemed very pleased by something.

“Do not feel for him, trademaster,” Kylrm said softly to her, steering her away from the dangling prisoner. “He could escape if he wished.”

Nlent, the other guard, nodded. “They can take off their limbs. Take off their skin too. No real body to them. Just something evil, taking human form.” The squat guard wore a charm on his wrist, a charm of courage, which he took off and held tightly in one hand. The charm hadn’t any properties itself, of course. It was a reminder. Courage. Passion. Want what you need, embrace it, desire it and bring it to you.

Well, what she needed was her babsk to be here with her. She turned her steps upward again, the confrontation with the Aimian leaving her unnerved. More people ran and leaped from the shelves to her right. Crazy.

Trademaster, she thought. Kylrm called me “trademaster.” She wasn’t, not yet. She was property owned by Vstim; for now just an apprentice who provided occasional slave labor.

She didn’t deserve the title, but hearing it strengthened her. She led the way up the steps, which twisted farther around the beast’s shell. They passed a place where the ground split, the shell showing skin far beneath. The rift was like a chasm; she couldn’t have leaped from one side to the other without falling in.

Reshi she passed on the path refused to respond to her questions. Fortunately, Kylrm knew the way, and when the path split, he pointed to the right fork. At times, the path leveled out for significant distances, but then there were always more steps.

Her legs burning, her clothing damp with sweat, they reached the top of this flight and – at long last – found no more steps. Here, the jungle fell away completely, though rockbuds clutched the shell in the open field – beyond which was only the empty sky.

The head, Rysn thought. We’ve climbed all the way to the beast’s head.

Soldiers lined the path, armed with spears bearing colorful tassels. Their breastplates and armguards were of carapace carved wickedly with points, and though they wore only wraps for clothing, they stood as stiff-backed as any Alethi soldier, with stern expressions to match. So her babsk was right. Not every Reshi was the “lounge and swim” type.

Boldness, she thought to herself, remembering Vstim’s words. She could not show these people a timid face. The king stood at the end of the pathway of guards and rockbuds, a diminutive figure on the edge of a carapace shelf, looking toward the sun.

Rysn strode forward, passing through a double row of spears. She would have expected the same kind of clothing on the king, but instead the man wore full, voluminous robes of vibrant green and yellow. They looked terribly hot.

As she drew nearer, Rysn got a sense for just how high she had climbed. The waters below shimmered in the sunlight, so far down that Rysn wouldn’t have heard a rock hit if she’d dropped one. Far enough that looking over the side made her stomach twist upon itself and her legs tremble.

Getting close to the king would require stepping out onto that shelf where he stood. It would place her within a breath of plummeting down hundreds and hundreds of feet.

Steady, Rysn told herself. She would show her babsk that she was capable. She was not the ignorant girl who had misjudged the Shin or who had offended the Iriali. She had learned.

Still, perhaps she should have asked Nlent to lend her his charm of courage.

She stepped out onto the shelf. The king seemed young, at least from behind. Built like a youth, or…

No, Rysn thought with a start as the king turned. It was a woman, old enough that her hair was greying, but not so old that she was bent with age.

Someone stepped out onto the shelf behind Rysn. Younger, he wore the standard wrap and tassels. His hair was in two braids that fell over tan, bare shoulders. When he spoke, there wasn’t even a hint of an accent to his voice. “The king wishes to know why his old trading partner, Vstim, has not come in person, and has instead sent a child in his place.”

“And are you the king?” Rysn asked the newcomer.

The man laughed. “You stand beside him, yet ask that of me?”

Rysn looked toward the robed figure. The robes were tied with the front open enough to show that the “king” definitely had breasts.

“We are led by a king,” the newcomer said. “Gender is irrelevant.”

It seemed to Rysn that gender was part of the definition, but it wasn’t worth arguing over. “My master is indisposed,” she said, addressing the newcomer – he’d be the island’s trademaster. “I am authorized to speak for him, and to accomplish the trade.”

The newcomer snorted, sitting down on the edge of the shelf, legs hanging out over the edge. Rysn’s stomach did a somersault. “He should have known better. The trade is off, then.”

“You are Talik, I assume?” Rysn said, folding her arms. The man was no longer facing her. It seemed an intentional slight.

“Yes.”

“My master warned me about you.”

“Then he isn’t a complete fool,” Talik said. “Just mostly.”

His pronunciation was astonishing. She found herself checking him for Thaylen eyebrows, but he was obviously Reshi.

Rysn clenched her teeth, then forced herself to sit down beside him on the edge. She tried to do it as nonchalantly as he had, but she just couldn’t. Instead, she settled down – not easy in a fashionable skirt – and scooted out beside him.

Oh, Passions! I’m going to fall off of this and die. Don’t look down! Do not look down!

She couldn’t help it. She glanced downward, and felt immediately woozy. She could see the side of the head down there, the massive line of a jaw. Nearby, standing on a ridge above the eye to Rysn’s right, people pushed large bundles of fruit off the side. Tied with vine rope, the bundles swung down beside the maw below.

Mandibles moved slowly, pulling the fruit in, jerking the ropes. The Reshi pulled those back up to affix more fruit, all under the eyes of the king, who was supervising the feeding from the very tip of the nose to Rysn’s left.

“A treat,” Talik said, noticing where she watched. “An offering. These small bundles of fruit, of course, do not sustain our god.”

“What does?”

He smiled. “Why are you still here, young one? Did I not dismiss you?”

“The trade does not have to be off,” Rysn said. “My master told me the terms were already set. We have brought everything you require in payment.” Though for what, I don’t know. “Turning me aside would be pointless.”

The king, she noticed, had stepped closer to listen.

“It would serve the same purpose as everything in life,” Talik said. “To please Relu-na.”

That would be the name of their god, the greatshell. “And your island would approve of such waste? Inviting traders all this way, only to send them off empty-handed?”

“Relu-na approves of boldness,” Talik said. “And, more importantly, respect. If we do not respect the one with whom we trade, then we should not do it.”

What ridiculous logic. If a merchant followed that line of reasoning, he’d never be able to trade. Except… in her months with Vstim, it seemed that he’d often sought out people who liked trading with him. People he respected. Those kinds of people certainly would be less likely to cheat you.

Perhaps it wasn’t bad logic… simply incomplete.

Think like the other trader, she recalled. One of Vstim’s lessons – which were so different from the ones she’d learned at home. What do they want? Why do they want it? Why are you the best one to provide it?

“It must be hard to live out here, in the waters,” Rysn said. “Your god is impressive, but you cannot make everything you need for yourselves.”

“Our ancestors did it just fine.”

“Without medicines,” Rysn said, “that could have saved lives. Without cloth from fibers that grow only on the mainland. Your ancestors survived without these things because they had to. You do not.”

The trademaster hunched forward.

Don’t do that! You’ll fall!

“We are not idiots,” Talik said.

Rysn frowned. Why–

“I’m so tired of explaining this,” the man continued. “We live simply. That does not make us stupid. For years the outsiders came, trying to exploit us because of our ignorance. We are tired of it, woman. Everything you say is true. Not true – obvious. Yet you say it as if we’d never stopped to consider. ‘Oh! Medicine! Of course we need medicine! Thank you for pointing that out. I was just going to sit here and die.’”

Rysn blushed. “I didn’t–”

“Yes, you did mean that,” Talik said. “The condescension dripped from your lips, young lady. We’re tired of being taken advantage of. We’re tired of foreigners who try to trade us trash for riches. We don’t have knowledge of the current economic situation on the mainland, so we can’t know for certain if we are being cheated or not. Therefore, we trade only with people we know and trust. That is that.”

Current economic situation on the mainland…? Rysn thought. “You’ve trained in Thaylenah,” she guessed.

“Of course I have,” Talik said. “You have to know a predator’s tricks before you can catch him.” He settled back, which let her relax a little. “My parents sent me to train as a child. I had one of your babsks. I made trademaster on my own before returning here.”

“Your parents being the king and queen?” Rysn guessed again.

He eyed her. “The king and king’s consort.”

“You could just call her a queen.”

“This trade is not happening,” Talik said, standing. “Go and tell your master we are sorry for his illness and hope that he recovers. If he does, he may return next year during the trading season and we will meet with him.”

“You imply you respect him,” Rysn said, scrambling to her feet – and away from that drop. “So just trade with him!”

“He is sickly,” Talik said, not looking at her. “It would not do him justice. We’d be taking advantage of him.”

Taking advantage of… Passions, these people were strange. It seemed even odder to hear such things coming from the mouth of a man who spoke such perfect Thaylen.

“You’d trade with me if you respected me,” Rysn said. “If you thought I was worthy of it.”

“That will take years,” Talik said, joining his mother at the front of the shelf. “Go away, and–”

He cut off as the king spoke to him softly in Reshi.

Talik drew his lips into a line.

“What?” Rysn asked, stepping forward.

Talik turned toward her. “You have apparently impressed the king. You argue fiercely. Though you dismiss us as primitives, you’re not as bad as some.” He ground his teeth for a moment. “The king will hear your argument for a trade.”

Rysn blinked, looked from one to the other. Hadn’t she just made her argument for a trade, with the king listening?

The woman regarded Rysn with dark eyes and a calm expression. I’ve won the first fight, Rysn realized, like the warriors on the battlefield. I’ve dueled and been judged worthy to spar with the one of greater authority.

The king spoke, and Talik interpreted. “The king says that you are talented, but that the trade cannot – of course – continue. You should return with your babsk when he comes again. In a decade or so, perhaps we will trade with you.”

Rysn searched for an argument. “And is that how Vstim gained respect, Your Majesty?” She would not fail in this. She couldn’t! “Over years, with his own babsk?”

“Yes,” Talik said.

“You didn’t interpret that,” Rysn said.

“I…” Talik sighed, then interpreted her question.

The king smiled with apparent fondness. She spoke a few words in their language, and Talik turned to his mother, looking shocked. “I… Wow.”

“What?” Rysn demanded.

“Your babsk slew a coracot with some of our hunters,” Talik said. “On his own? A foreigner? I had not heard of such a thing.”

Vstim. Slaying something? With hunters? Impossible.

Though he obviously hadn’t always been the wizened old ledgerworm that he was now, she’d imagined he’d been a wizened young ledgerworm in the past.

The king spoke again.

“I doubt you’ll be slaying any beasts, child,” Talik interpreted. “Go. Your babsk will recover from this. He is wise.”

No. He is dying, Rysn thought. It came to her mind unbidden, but the truth of it terrified her. More than the height, more than anything else she’d known. Vstim was dying. This might be his final trade.

And she was ruining it.

“My babsk trusts me,” Rysn said, stepping closer to the king, moving along the greatshell’s nose. “And you said you trust him. Can you not trust his judgment that I am worthy?”

“One cannot substitute for personal experience,” Talik translated.

The beast stepped, ground trembling, and Rysn clenched her teeth, imagining them all toppling off. Fortunately, up this high, the motion was more like a gentle sway. Trees rustled, and her stomach lurched, but it wasn’t any more dangerous than a ship surging on a wave.

Rysn stepped closer to where the king stood beside the beast’s nose. “You are king – you know the importance of trusting those beneath you. You cannot be everywhere, know everything. At times, you must accept the judgment of those you know. My babsk is such a man.”

“You make a valid point,” Talik translated, sounding surprised. “But what you do not realize is that I have already paid your babsk this respect. That is why I agreed to speak with you myself. I would not have done this for another.”

“But–”

“Return below,” the king said through Talik, her voice growing harder. She seemed to think this was the end. “Tell your babsk that you proceeded far enough to speak with me personally. Doubtless, this is more than he expected. You may leave the island, and return when he is well.”

“I…” Rysn felt as if a fist were crushing her throat, making it hard for her to speak. She couldn’t fail him, not now.

“Give him my best wishes for his recovery,” the king said, turning away.

Talik smiled in what seemed to be satisfaction. Rysn glanced at her two guards, who bore grim expressions.

Rysn stepped away. She felt numb. Turned away, like a child demanding sweets. She felt a furious blush consume her as she walked past the men and women preparing more bundles of fruit.

Rysn stopped. She looked to her left, out at the endless expanse of blue. She turned back toward the king. “I believe,” Rysn said loudly, “that I need to speak with someone with more authority.”

Talik turned toward her. “You have spoken to the king. There is nobody with more authority.”

“I beg your pardon,” Rysn said. “But I do think there is.”

One of the ropes shook from having its fruit gift consumed. This is stupid, this is stupid, this is–

Don’t think.

Rysn scrambled to the rope, causing her guards to cry out. She grabbed the length of rope and let herself over the side, climbing down beside the greatshell’s head. The god’s head.

Passions! This was hard in a skirt. The rope bit into the skin of her arms, and it vibrated as the creature below crunched on the fruit upon its end.

Talik’s head appeared above. “What in Kelek’s name are you doing, idiot woman?” he screamed. She found it amusing that he’d learned their curses while studying with them.

Rysn clung to the rope, heart rushing in a mad panic. What was she doing? “Relu-na,” she yelled back at Talik, “approves of boldness!”

“There is a difference between boldness and stupidity!”

Rysn continued to climb down. It was more of a slide. Oh, Craving, Passion of need…

“Pull her back up!” Talik ordered. “You soldiers, help.” He gave further orders in Reshi.

Rysn looked up as workers grabbed the rope to haul her back upward. A new face appeared above, however, looking down. The king. She raised a hand, halting them as she studied Rysn.

Rysn continued on down. She didn’t go terribly far, maybe fifty feet or so. Not even down to the creature’s eye. She stopped herself, with effort, her fingers burning. “O great Relu-na,” Rysn said loudly, “your people refuse to trade with me, and so I come to you to beg. Your people need what I have brought, but I need a trade even more. I cannot afford to return.”

The creature, of course, did not reply. Rysn hung in place beside its shell, which was crusted with lichen and small rockbuds.

“Please,” Rysn said. “Please.”

What am I expecting to happen? Rysn wondered. She didn’t expect the thing to make any sort of reply. But maybe she could persuade those above that she was bold enough to be worthy. It couldn’t hurt, at least.

The rope quivered in her hands, and she made the mistake of glancing down.

Actually, what she was doing could hurt. Very much.

“The king,” Talik said above, “has commanded that you return.”

“Will our negotiation continue?” Rysn asked, glancing up. The king actually looked concerned.

“That’s not important,” Talik said. “You have been issued a command.”

Rysn gritted her teeth, clinging to the rope, looking at the plates of chitin before her. “And what do you think?” she asked softly.

Down below, the thing bit down, and the rope suddenly became very tight, slapping Rysn against the side of the enormous head. Above, workers shouted. The king yelled at them in a sudden, sharp voice.

Oh no…

The rope pulled even tighter.

Then snapped.

The shouts grew frantic above, though Rysn barely noticed them as panic struck. She did not fall gracefully, but as a flurry of screaming cloth and legs, her skirt flapping, her stomach lurching. What had she done? She–

She saw an eye. The god’s eye. Only a glimpse as she passed; it was as large as a house, glassy and black, and it reflected her falling form.

She seemed to hang before it for a fraction of a second, and her scream died in her throat.

It was gone in a moment. Then rushing wind, another scream, and a crash into water hard as stone.

Blackness.

Rysn found herself floating when she awoke. She didn’t open her eyes, but she could sense that she was floating. Drifting, bobbing up and down…

“She is an idiot.” She knew that voice. Talik, the one she’d been trading with.

“Then she fits well with me,” Vstim said. He coughed. “I have to say, old friend, you were supposed to help train her, not drop her off a cliff.”

Floating… Drifting…

Wait.

Rysn forced her eyes open. She was in a bed inside a hut. It was hot. Her vision swam, and she drifted… drifted because her mind was cloudy. What had they given her? She tried to sit up. Her legs wouldn’t move. Her legs wouldn’t move.

She gasped, then began breathing quickly.

Vstim’s face appeared above her, followed by a concerned Reshi woman with ribbons in her hair. Not the queen… king… whatever. This woman spoke quickly in the barking language of the Reshi.

“Calm now,” Vstim said to Rysn, kneeling beside her. “Calm… They’ll get you something to drink, child.”

“I lived,” Rysn said. Her voice rasped as she spoke.

“Barely,” Vstim said, though with fondness. “The spren cushioned your fall. From that height… Child, what were you thinking, climbing over the side like that?”

“I needed to do something,” Rysn said. “To prove courage. I thought… I needed to be bold…”

“Oh, child. This is my fault.”

“You were his babsk,” Rysn said. “Talik, their trader. You set this up with him, so I could have a chance to trade on my own, but in a controlled setting. The trade was never in danger, and you are not as sick as you appear.” The words boiled out, tumbling over one another like a hundred men trying to leave through the same doorway at once.

“When did you figure that out?” Vstim asked, then coughed.

“I…” She didn’t know. It just all kind of fell together for her. “Right now.”

“Well, you must know that I feel a true fool,” Vstim said. “I thought this would be a perfect chance for you. A practice with real stakes. And then… Then you went and fell off the island’s head!”

Rysn squeezed her eyes shut as the Reshi woman arrived with a cup of something. “Will I walk again?” Rysn asked softly.

“Here, drink this,” Vstim said.

“Will I walk again?” She didn’t take the cup, and kept her eyes closed.

“I don’t know,” Vstim said. “But you will trade again. Passions! Daring to go above the king’s authority? Being saved by the island’s soul itself?” He chuckled. It sounded forced. “The other islands will be clamoring to trade with us.”

“Then I accomplished something,” she said, feeling a complete and utter idiot.

“Oh, you accomplished something indeed,” Vstim said.

She felt a prickling pressure on her arm and opened her eyes with a snap. Something crawled there, about as big as the palm of her hand – a creature that looked like a cremling, but with wings that folded along the back.

“What is it?” Rysn demanded.

“Why we came here,” Vstim said. “The thing we trade for, a treasure that very few know still exists. They were supposed to have died with Aimia, you see. I came here with all of these goods in tow because Talik sent to me to say they had the corpse of one to trade. Kings pay fortunes for them.”

He leaned down. “I have never seen one alive before. I was given the corpse I wanted in trade. This one has been given to you.”

“By the Reshi?” Rysn asked, mind still clouded. She didn’t know what to make of any of this.

“The Reshi could not command one of the larkin,” Vstim said, standing. “This was given you by the island itself. Now drink your medicine and sleep. You shattered both of your legs. We will be staying on this island for a long while as you recover, and as I seek forgiveness for being a foolish, foolish man.”

She accepted the drink. As she drank, the small creature flew up toward the rafters of the hut and perched there, looking down at her with eyes of solid silver.

Interlude 4: Last Legion

“So what kind of spren is it?” Thude asked to the slow Rhythm of Curiosity. He held up the gemstone, peering in at the smoky creature moving about inside.

“Stormspren, my sister says,” Eshonai replied as she leaned against the wall, arms folded.

The strands of Thude’s beard were tied with bits of raw gemstone that shook and twinkled as he rubbed his chin. He held the large cut gemstone up to Bila, who took it and tapped it with her finger.

They were a warpair of Eshonai’s own personal division. They dressed in simple garments that were tailored around the chitinous armor plates on their arms, legs, and chests. Thude also wore a long coat, but he wouldn’t take that to battle.

Eshonai, by contrast, wore her uniform – tight red cloth that stretched over her natural armor – and a cap on her skullplate. She never spoke of how that uniform imprisoned her, felt like manacles that tied her in place.

“A stormspren,” Bila said to the Rhythm of Skepticism as she turned the stone over in her fingers. “Will it help me kill humans? Otherwise, I don’t see why I should care.”

“This could change the world, Bila,” Eshonai said. “If Venli is right, and she can bond with this spren and come out with anything other than dullform… well, at the very least we will have an entirely new form to choose. At the greatest we will have power to control the storms and tap their energy.”

“So she will try this personally?” Thude asked to the Rhythm of Winds, the rhythm that they used to judge when a highstorm was near.

“If the Five give her permission.” They were to discuss it, and make their decision, today.

“That’s great,” Bila said, “but will it help me kill humans?”

Eshonai attuned Mourning. “If stormform is truly one of the ancient powers, Bila, then yes. It will help you kill humans. Many of them.”

“Good enough for me, then,” Bila said. “Why are you so worried?”

“The ancient powers are said to have come from our gods.”

“Who cares? If the gods would help us kill those armies out there, then I’d swear to them right now.”

“Don’t say that, Bila,” Eshonai said to Reprimand. “Never say anything like that.”

The woman quieted, tossing the stone onto the table. She hummed softly to Skepticism. That walked the line of insubordination. Eshonai met Bila’s eyes and found herself softly humming to Resolve.

Thude glanced from Bila to Eshonai. “Food?” he asked.

“Is that your answer to every disagreement?” Eshonai asked, breaking her song.

“It’s hard to argue with your mouth full,” Thude said.

“I’m sure I’ve seen you do just that,” Bila said. “Many times.”

“The arguments end happy, though,” Thude said. “Because everyone is full. So… food?”

“Fine,” Bila said, glancing at Eshonai.

The two withdrew. Eshonai sat down at the table, feeling drained. When had she started worrying if her friends were insubordinate? It was this horrid uniform.

She picked up the gemstone, staring into its depths. It was a large one, about a third the size of her fist, though gemstones didn’t have to be large to trap a spren inside.

She hated trapping them. The right way was to go into the highstorm with the proper attitude, singing the proper song to attract the proper spren. You bonded it in the fury of the raging storm and were reborn with a new body. People had been doing this from the arrival of the first winds.

The listeners had learned that capturing spren was possible from the humans, then had figured out the process on their own. A captive spren made the transformation much more reliable. Before, there had always been an element of chance. You could go into the storm wanting to become a soldier, and come out a mate instead.

This is progress, Eshonai thought, staring at the little smoky spren inside the stone. Progress is learning to control your world. Put up walls to stop the storms, choose when to become a mate. Progress was taking nature and putting a box around it.

Eshonai pocketed the gemstone, and checked the time. Her meeting with the rest of the Five wasn’t scheduled until the third movement of the Rhythm of Peace, and she had a good half a movement until then.

It was time to speak with her mother.

Eshonai stepped out into Narak and walked along the path, nodding to those who saluted. She passed mostly soldiers. So much of their population wore warform these days. Their small population. Once, there had been hundreds of thousands of listeners scattered across these plains. Now a fraction remained.

Even then, the listeners had been a united people. Oh, there had been divisions, conflicts, even wars among their factions. But they had been a single people – those who had rejected their gods and sought freedom in obscurity.

Bila no longer cared about their origins. There would be others like her, people who ignored the danger of the gods and focused only on the fight with the humans.

Eshonai passed dwellings – ramshackle things constructed of hardened crem over frames of shell, huddled in the leeward shadow of lumps of stone. Most of those were empty now. They’d lost thousands to war over the years.

We do have to do something, she thought, attuning the Rhythm of Peace in the back of her mind. She sought comfort in its calm, soothing beats, soft and blended. Like a caress.

Then she saw the dullforms.

They looked much like what the humans called “parshmen,” though they were a little taller and not nearly as stupid. Still, dullform was a limiting form, without the capacities and advantages of newer forms. There shouldn’t have been any here. Had these people bonded the wrong spren by mistake? It happened sometimes.

Eshonai strode up to the group of three, two femalen and one malen. They were hauling rockbuds harvested on one of the nearby plateaus, plants which had been encouraged to grow quickly by use of Stormlight-infused gems.

“What is this?” Eshonai asked. “Did you choose this form in error? Or are you new spies?”

They looked at her with insipid eyes. Eshonai attuned Anxiety. She had once tried dullform – she had wanted to know what their spies would suffer. Trying to force concepts through her brain had been like trying to think rationally while in a dream.

“Did someone ask you to adopt this form?” Eshonai said, speaking slowly and clearly.

“Nobody asked it,” the malen said to no rhythm at all. His voice sounded dead. “We did it.”

“Why?” Eshonai said. “Why would you do this?”

“Humans won’t kill us when they come,” the malen said, hefting his rockbud and continuing on his way. The others joined him without a word.

Eshonai gaped, the Rhythm of Anxiety strong in her mind. A few fearspren, like long purple worms, dove in and out of the rock nearby, collecting toward her until they crawled up out of the ground around her.

Forms could not be commanded; every person was free to choose for themselves. Transformations could be cajoled and requested, but they could not be forced. Their gods had not allowed this freedom, so the listeners would have it, no matter what. These people could choose dullform if they wished. Eshonai could do nothing about it. Not directly.

She hastened her pace. Her leg still ached from her wound, but was healing quickly. One of the benefits of warform. She could almost ignore the damage at this point.

A city full of empty buildings, and Eshonai’s mother chose a shack on the very edge of the city, almost fully exposed to the storms. Mother worked her shalebark rows outside, humming softly to herself to the Rhythm of Peace. She wore workform; she’d always preferred it. Even after nimbleform had been discovered, Mother had not changed. She had said she didn’t want to encourage people to see one form as more valuable than another, that such stratification could destroy them.

Wise words. The type Eshonai hadn’t heard out of her mother in years.

“Child!” Mother said as Eshonai approached. Solid despite her years, Mother had a neat round face and wore her hairstrands in a braid, tied with a ribbon. Eshonai had brought her that ribbon from a meeting with the Alethi years ago. “Child, have you seen your sister? It is her day of first transformation! We need to prepare her.”

“It is attended to, Mother,” Eshonai said to the Rhythm of Peace, kneeling down beside the woman. “How goes the pruning?”

“I should be finishing soon,” Mother said. “I need to leave before the people who own this house return.”

“You own it, Mother.”

“No, no. It belongs to two others. They were in the house last night, and told me I needed to leave. I’ll just finish with this shalebark before I go.” She got out her file, smoothing one side of a ridge, then painting it with sap to encourage growth in that direction.

Eshonai sat back, attuning Mourning, and Peace left her. Perhaps she should have chosen the Rhythm of the Lost instead. It changed in her head.

She forced it back. No. No, her mother was not dead.

She wasn’t fully alive, either.

“Here, take this,” Mother said to Peace, handing Eshonai a file. At least Mother recognized her today. “Work on that outcropping there. I don’t want it to keep growing downward. We need to send it up, up toward the light.”

“The storms are too strong on this side of the city.”

“Storms? Nonsense. No storms here.” Mother paused. “I wonder where we’ll be taking your sister. She’ll need a storm for her transformation.”

“Don’t worry about that, Mother,” Eshonai said, forcing herself to speak to Peace. “I will care for it.”

“You are so good, Venli,” Mother said. “So helpful. Staying home, not running off, like your sister. That girl… She’s never where she should be.”

“She is now,” Eshonai whispered. “She’s trying to be.”

Mother hummed to herself, continuing working. Once, this woman had one of the best memories in the city. She still did, in a way.

“Mother,” Eshonai said, “I need help. I think something terrible is going to happen. I can’t decide if it is less terrible than what is already happening.”

Mother filed at a section of shalebark, then blew off the dust.

“Our people are crumbling,” Eshonai said. “We’re being weathered away. We moved to Narak and chose a war of attrition. That has meant six years with steady losses. People are giving up.”

“That’s not good,” Mother said.

“But the alternative? Dabbling in things we shouldn’t, things that might bring the eyes of the Unmade upon us.”

“You’re not working,” Mother said, pointing. “Don’t be like your sister.”

Eshonai placed her hands in her lap. This wasn’t helping. Seeing Mother like this…

“Mother,” Eshonai said to Supplication, “why did we leave the dark home?”

“Ah, now that’s an old song, Eshonai,” Mother said. “A dark song, not for a child like you. Why, it’s not even your day of first transformation.”

“I’m old enough, Mother. Please?”

Mother blew on her shalebark. Had she forgotten, finally, this last part of what she had been? Eshonai’s heart sank.

“Long are the days since we knew the dark home,” Mother sang softly to one of the Rhythms of Remembrance. “The Last Legion, that was our name then. Warriors who had been set to fight in the farthest plains, this place that had once been a nation and was now rubble. Dead was the freedom of most people. The forms, unknown, were forced upon us. Forms of power, yes, but also forms of obedience. The gods commanded, and we did obey, always. Always.”

“Except for that day,” Eshonai said along with her mother, in rhythm.

“The day of the storm when the Last Legion fled,” Mother continued in song. “Difficult was the path chosen. Warriors, touched by the gods, our only choice to seek dullness of mind. A crippling that brought freedom.”

Mother’s calm, sonorous song danced with the wind. As frail as she seemed other times, when she sang the old songs, she seemed herself again. A parent who had at times conflicted with Eshonai, but a parent whom Eshonai had always respected.

“Daring was the challenge made,” Mother sang, “when the Last Legion abandoned thought and power in exchange for freedom. They risked forgetting all. And so songs they composed, a hundred stories to tell, to remember. I tell them to you, and you will tell them to your children, until the forms are again discovered.”

From there, Mother launched into one of the early songs, about how the people would make their home in the ruins of an abandoned kingdom. How they would spread out, act as simple tribes and refugees. It was their plan to remain hidden, or at least ignored.

The songs left out so much. The Last Legion hadn’t known how to transform into anything other than dullform and mateform, at least not without the help of the gods. How had they known the other forms were possible? Had these facts originally been recorded in the songs, and then lost over the years as words changed here and there?

Eshonai listened, and though her mother’s voice did help her attune Peace again, she found herself deeply troubled anyway. She had come here for answers. Once, that would have worked.

No longer.

Eshonai stood to leave her mother singing.

“I found some of your things,” Mother said, breaking the song, “when cleaning today. You should take them. They clutter the home, and I will be moving out soon.”

Eshonai hummed Mourning to herself, but went to see just what her mother had “discovered.” Another pile of rocks, in which she saw child’s playthings? Strips of cloth she imagined were clothing?

Eshonai found a small sack in front of the building. She opened it to find paper.

Paper made from local plants, not human paper. Rough paper, with varied color, made after the old listener way. Textured and full, not neat and sterile. The ink on it was beginning to fade, but Eshonai recognized the drawings.

My maps, she thought. From those early days.

Without meaning to, she attuned Remembrance. Days spent hiking across the wilderness of what the humans called Natanatan, passing through forests and jungles, drawing her own maps and expanding the world. She’d started alone, but her discoveries had excited an entire people. Soon, though still in her teenage years, she’d been leading entire expeditions to find new rivers, new ruins, new spren, new plants.

And humans. In a way, this was all her fault.

Her mother started singing again.

Looking through her old maps, Eshonai found a powerful longing within her. Once, she’d seen the world as something fresh and exciting. New, like a blossoming forest after a storm. She was dying slowly, as surely as her people were.

She packed up the maps and left her mother’s house, walking toward the center of town. Her mother’s song, still beautiful, echoed behind her. Eshonai attuned Peace. That let her know that she was nearly late for the meeting with the rest of the Five.

She did not hasten her pace. She let the steady, sweeping beats of the Rhythm of Peace carry her forward. Unless you concentrated on attuning a certain rhythm, your body would naturally choose the one that fit your mood. Therefore, it was always a conscious decision to listen to a rhythm that did not match how you felt. She did this now with Peace.

The listeners had made a decision centuries ago, a decision that set them back to primitive levels. Choosing to murder Gavilar Kholin had been an act to affirm that decision of their ancestors. Eshonai had not then been one of their leaders, but they had listened to her counsel and given her the right to vote among them.

The choice, horrible though it seemed, had been one of courage. They’d hoped that a long war would bore the Alethi.

Eshonai and the others had underestimated Alethi greed. The gemhearts had changed everything.

In the center of town, near the pool, was a tall tower that remained proudly erect in defiance of centuries’ worth of storms. Once, there had been steps within, but crem leaking in windows had filled the building up with rock. So workers had carved steps running around its outside.

Eshonai started up the steps, holding to the chain for safety. It was a long but familiar climb. Though her leg ached, warform had great endurance – though it required more food than any other form to keep it strong. She made it to the top with ease.

She found the other members of the Five waiting for her, one member wearing each known form. Eshonai for warform, Davim for workform, Abronai for mateform, Chivi for nimbleform, and the quiet Zuln for dullform. Venli waited as well, with her once-mate, though he was flushed from the difficult climb. Nimbleform, though good for many delicate activities, did not have great endurance.

Eshonai stepped up onto the flat top of the once-tower, wind blowing against her from the east. There were no chairs up here, and the Five sat on the bare rock itself.

Davim hummed to Annoyance. With the rhythms in one’s head, it was difficult to be late by accident. They rightly suspected that Eshonai had dallied.

She sat on the rock and took the spren-filled gemstone from her pocket, setting it on the ground in front of her. The violet stone glowed with Stormlight.

“I am worried about this test,” Eshonai said. “I do not think we should allow it to proceed.”

“What?” Venli said to Anxiety. “Sister, don’t be ridiculous. Our people need this.”

Davim leaned forward, arms on his knees. He was broad faced, his workform skin marbled mostly of black with tiny swirls of red here and there. “If this works, it will be an amazing advance. The first of the forms of ancient power, rediscovered.”

“Those forms are tied to the gods,” Eshonai said. “What if, in choosing this form, we invite them to return?”

Venli hummed Irritation. “In the old day, all forms came from the gods. We have found that nimbleform does not harm us. Why would stormform?”

“It is different,” Eshonai said. “Sing the song; hum it to yourself. ‘Its coming brings the gods their night.’ The ancient powers are dangerous.”

“Men have them,” Abronai said. He wore mateform, lush and plump, though he controlled its passions. Eshonai had never envied him the position; she knew, from private conversations, that he would have preferred to have another form. Unfortunately, others who held mateform either did so transiently – or did not possess the proper solemnity to join the Five.

“You yourself brought us the report, Eshonai,” Abronai continued. “You saw a warrior among the Alethi using ancient powers, and many others confirmed it to us. Surgebindings have returned to men. The spren again betray us.”

“If Surgebindings are back,” Davim said to Consideration, “then it might indicate that the gods are returning anyway. If so, we’d best be prepared to deal with them. Forms of power will help with that.”

“We don’t know they will come,” Eshonai said to Resolve. “We don’t know any of this. Who knows if men even have Surgebindings – it might be one of the Honorblades. We left one in Alethkar that night.”

Chivi hummed to Skepticism. Her nimbleform face had elongated features, her hairstrands tied back in a long tail. “We are fading as a people. I passed some today who had taken dullform, and not to remember our past. They did so because they worried that men would kill them otherwise! They prepare themselves to become slaves!”

“I saw them too,” Davim said to Resolve. “We must do something, Eshonai. Your soldiers are losing this war, beat by beat.”

“The next storm,” Venli said. She used the Rhythm of Pleading. “I can test this at the next storm.”

Eshonai closed her eyes. Pleading. It was a rhythm not often attuned. It was hard to deny her sister in this.

“We must be unified in this decision,” Davim said. “I will accept nothing else. Eshonai, do you insist on objecting? Will we need to spend hours here making this decision?”

She took a deep breath, coming to a decision that had been working its way through the back of her mind. The decision of an explorer. She glanced at the sack of maps she’d set on the floor beside her.

“I will agree to this test,” Eshonai said.

Nearby, Venli hummed to Appreciation.

“However,” Eshonai continued to Resolve, “I must be the one who tries the new form first.”

All humming stopped. The others of the Five gaped at her.

“What?” Venli said. “Sister, no! It is my right.”

“You are too valuable,” Eshonai said. “You know too much about the forms, and much of your research is held only in your head. I am simply a soldier. I can be spared if this goes wrong.”

“You are a Shardbearer,” Davim said. “Our last.”

“Thude has trained with my Blade and Plate,” Eshonai said. “I will leave both with him, just in case.”

The others of the Five hummed to Consideration.

“This is a good suggestion,” Abronai said. “Eshonai has both strength and experience.”

“It was my discovery!” Venli said to Irritation.

“And you are appreciated for it,” Davim said. “But Eshonai is right; you and your scholars are too important to our future.”

“More than that,” Abronai added. “You are too close to the project, Venli. The way you speak makes that clear. If Eshonai enters the storms and discovers that something is off about this form, she can halt the experiment and return to us.”

“This is a good compromise,” Chivi said, nodding. “Are we in agreement?”

“I believe so,” Abronai said, turning toward Zuln.

The representative of the dullforms rarely spoke. She wore the smock of a parshman, and had indicated that she considered it her duty to represent them – those with no songs – along with any dullforms among them.

Hers was as noble a sacrifice as Abronai holding to mateform. More so. Dullform was a difficult form to suffer, one that only a few ever experienced for longer than a stormpause or so.

“I agree to this,” Zuln said.

The others hummed to Appreciation. Only Venli did not join in the song. If this stormform turned out to be real, would they add another person to the Five? At first, the Five had all been dullforms, then all workers. It was only at the discovery of nimbleform that it had been decided that they would have one of each form.

A question for later. The others of the Five stood up, then began to make their way down the long flight of steps spiraling around the tower. Wind blew from the east, and Eshonai turned toward it, looking out over the broken Plains – toward the Origin of Storms.

During a coming highstorm, she would step into the winds and become something new. Something powerful. Something that would change the destiny of the listeners, and perhaps the humans, forever.

“I nearly had cause to hate you, Sister,” Venli said to Reprimand, idling beside where Eshonai sat.

“I did not forbid this test,” Eshonai said.

“Instead you take its glory.”

“If there is glory to be had,” Eshonai said to Reprimand, “it will be yours for discovering the form. That should not be a consideration. Only our future should matter.”

Venli hummed to Irritation. “They called you wise, experienced. It makes one wonder if they’ve forgotten who you were – that you went off recklessly into the wilds, ignoring your people, while I stayed home and memorized songs. When did everyone start believing you were the responsible one?”

It’s this cursed uniform, Eshonai thought, rising. “Why didn’t you tell us what you were researching? You let me believe your studies were to find artform or mediationform. Instead, you were looking for one of the forms of ancient power.”

“Does that matter?”

“Yes. It makes all the difference, Venli. I love you, but your ambition frightens me.”

“You don’t trust me,” Venli said to Betrayal.

Betrayal. That was a song rarely sung. It stung enough to make Eshonai wince.

“We’ll see what this form does,” Eshonai said, picking up her maps and the gemstone with the trapped spren. “Then we will talk further. I just want to be careful.”

“You want to do it yourself,” Venli said to Irritation. “You always want to be first. But enough. It is done. Come with me; I will need to train you in the proper mindset to help the form work. Then we will pick a highstorm for the transformation.”

Eshonai nodded. She would go through this training. In the meantime, she would consider. Perhaps there was another way. If she could get the Alethi to listen to her, find Dalinar Kholin, sue for peace…

Perhaps then, this would not be needed.

Part

Two

WINDS’ APPROACH

Shallan ♦ Kaladin ♦ Adolin ♦ Sadeas

13. The Day’s Masterpiece

Warform is worn for battle and reign,
Claimed by the gods, given to kill.
Unknown, unseen, but vital to gain.
It comes to those with the will.

From the Listener Song of Listing, 15th stanza

The wagon rattled and shook its way across the stone ground, Shallan perched on the hard seat next to Bluth, one of the slab-faced mercenaries Tvlakv employed. He guided the chull pulling the wagon, and didn’t speak much, though when he thought she wasn’t looking, he would inspect her with eyes like beads of dark glass.

It was chilly. She wished the weather would turn, and spring – or even summer – would come for a time. That wasn’t likely in a place notorious for its permanent chill. Having improvised a blanket from the lining of Jasnah’s trunk, Shallan draped it over her knees and down to her feet, as much to obscure how tattered her skirt had become as against the cold.

She tried to distract herself by studying the surroundings; the flora out here in the southern Frostlands was completely unfamiliar to her. If there was grass, it grew in patches along the leeward sides of rocks, with short spiky blades rather than long, waving ones. The rockbuds never grew larger than a fist, and they didn’t open all the way, even when she’d tried pouring water on one. Their vines were lazy and slow, as if numbed by the cold. There were also spindly little shrubs that grew in cracks and along hillsides. Their brittle branches scraped the sides of the wagon, their tiny green leaves the size of raindrops folding and pulling into the stalks.

The shrubs grew prolifically, spreading wherever they could find purchase. As the wagon rolled past a particularly tall clump, Shallan reached out and snapped off a branch. It was tubular, with an open center, and felt rough like sand.

“These are too fragile for highstorms,” Shallan said, holding it up. “How does this plant survive?”

Bluth grunted.

“It is common, Bluth,” Shallan said, “to engage one’s traveling companion in mutually diverting dialogue.”

“I’d do that,” he said darkly, “if I knew what in Damnation half those words meant.”

Shallan started. She honestly hadn’t expected a response. “Then we are even,” she said, “as you use plenty of words I don’t know. Admittedly, I think most of them are curses…”

She’d meant it lightheartedly, but his expression only darkened further. “You think I’m as dumb as that stick.”

Stop insulting my stick. The words came to her mind, and almost to her lips, unbidden. She should have been better at holding her tongue, considering her upbringing. But freedom – without the fear that her father was looming behind every closed door – had severely diminished her self-control.

She suppressed the taunt this time. “Stupidity is a function of one’s surroundings,” she said instead.

“You’re saying I’m dumb because I was raised that way?”

“No. I’m saying that everyone is stupid in some situations. After my ship was lost, I found myself ashore but unable to make a fire to warm myself. Would you say that I’m stupid?”

He shot her a glance, but did not speak. Perhaps to a darkeyes, that question sounded like a trap.

“Well I am,” Shallan said. “In many areas, I’m stupid. Perhaps when it comes to large words, you’re stupid. That’s why we need both scholars and caravan workers, guardsman Bluth. Our stupidities complement one another.”

“I can see why we need fellows who know how to light fires,” Bluth said. “But I don’t see why we need people to use fancy words.”

“Shhhh,” Shallan said. “Don’t say that so loudly. If the lighteyes hear, they might stop wasting their time making up new words, and instead start interfering with the business of honest men.”

He glanced at her again. Not even a glimmer of humor in the eyes beneath that thick brow. Shallan sighed, but turned her attention back to the plants. How did they survive highstorms? She should get out her sketchpad and–

No.

She blanked her mind and let it go. A short time later, Tvlakv called the midday halt. Shallan’s wagon slowed, and one of the others pulled up beside it.

Tag drove this one, with the two parshmen sitting in the cage behind, working quietly at weaving hats from reeds they’d gathered in the morning. People often ordered parshmen to do such menial work – something to make sure all of their time was spent earning money for those who owned them. Tvlakv would sell the hats for a few chips at his destination.

They kept working as the wagon stopped. They would have to be told to do something else, and had to be trained specifically for each job they did. But once they were trained, they would work without complaint.

Shallan had difficulty not seeing their quiet obedience as something pernicious. She shook her head, then held out her hand to Bluth, who helped her from the wagon without further prodding. On the ground, she rested her hand on the side of the vehicle and breathed in sharply through her teeth. Stormfather, what had she done to her feet? Painspren wiggled out of the wall beside her, little orange bits of sinew – like hands with the flesh removed.

“Brightness?” Tvlakv said, waddling her direction. “I’m afraid we haven’t much to offer you in the way of meals. We are poor for merchants, you see, and cannot afford delicacies.”

“Whatever you have will suffice,” Shallan said, trying to keep the pain from showing in her face, though the spren had already given her away. “Please have one of your men get down my trunk.”

Tvlakv did so without complaint, though he watched hungrily as Bluth lowered it to the ground. It seemed a particularly bad idea to let him see what was inside; the less information he had, the better off she would be.

“These cages,” Shallan said, looking over the back of her wagon, “from those clasps at top, it looks like the wooden sides can be affixed over the bars.”

“Yes, Brightness,” Tvlakv said. “For highstorms, you see.”

“You only have enough slaves to fill one of the three wagons,” Shallan said. “And the parshmen ride in another. This one is empty, and will make an excellent traveling wagon for me. Put the sides on.”

“Brightness?” he said with surprise. “You want to be put into the cage?”

“Why not?” Shallan asked, meeting his eyes. “Certainly I’m safe in your custody, tradesman Tvlakv.”

“Er… yes…”

“You and your men must be well acquainted with rough travel,” Shallan said calmly, “but I am not. Sitting day in and out in the sun on a hard bench will not suit me. A proper carriage, however, would be a welcome amelioration of this wilderness journey.”

“Carriage?” Tvlakv said. “It’s a slave wagon!”

“Mere words, tradesman Tvlakv,” Shallan said. “If you please?”

He sighed, but gave the order, and the men pulled the sides out from beneath the wagon and hooked them up on the outside. They left off the back one, where the cage door was. The result did not look especially comfortable, but it would offer some privacy. Shallan had Bluth haul her chest up and inside, to Tvlakv’s dismay. Then, she climbed in and pulled the cage door shut. She held her hand out through the bars toward Tvlakv.

“Brightness?”

“The key,” she said.

“Oh.” He pulled it out of a pocket, regarding it for a moment – too long a moment – before handing it to her.

“Thank you,” she replied. “You may send Bluth with my meal when it is ready, but I shall require a bucket of clean water immediately. You have been most accommodating. I will not forget your service.”

“Er… Thank you.” It almost sounded like a question, and as he walked away, he seemed confused. Good.

She waited for Bluth to bring the water, then crawled – to stay off her feet – through the enclosed wagon. It stank of dirt and sweat, and she grew nauseated thinking of the slaves who had been held here. She would ask Bluth to have the parshmen scrub it later.

She stopped before Jasnah’s trunk, then knelt and gingerly raised the lid. Light spilled out from the infused spheres inside. Pattern waited there as well – she had instructed him not to be seen – his shape raising the cover of a book.

Shallan had survived, so far. She certainly wasn’t safe, but at least she wasn’t going to freeze or starve immediately. That meant she finally had to face greater questions and problems. She rested her hand on the books, ignoring her throbbing feet for the moment. “These have to reach the Shattered Plains.”

Pattern vibrated with a confused sound – a questioning pitch that implied curiosity.

“Someone needs to continue Jasnah’s work,” Shallan said. “Urithiru must be found, and the Alethi must be convinced that the return of the Voidbringers is imminent.” She shivered, thinking of the marbled parshmen working just one wagon over.

“You… mmm… continue?” Pattern asked.

“Yes.” She’d made that decision the moment she’d insisted that Tvlakv head for the Shattered Plains. “That night before the sinking, when I saw Jasnah with her guard down… I know what I must do.”

Pattern hummed, again sounding confused.

“It’s hard to explain,” Shallan said. “It’s a human thing.”

“Excellent,” Pattern said, eager.

She raised an eyebrow toward him. He’d quickly come a long way from spending hours spinning in the center of a room or climbing up and down walls.

Shallan took out some spheres for better light, then removed one of the cloths Jasnah had wrapped around her books. It was immaculately clean. Shallan dipped the cloth into the bucket of water and began to wash her feet.

“Before I saw Jasnah’s expression that night,” she explained, “before I talked to her through her fatigue and got a sense of just how worried she was, I had fallen into a trap. The trap of a scholar. Despite my initial horror at what Jasnah had described about the parshmen, I had come to see it all as an intellectual puzzle. Jasnah was so outwardly dispassionate that I assumed she did the same.”

Shallan winced as she dug a bit of rock from a crack in her foot. More painspren wiggled out of the floor of the wagon. She wouldn’t be walking great distances anytime soon, but at least she didn’t see any rotspren yet. She had better find some antiseptic.

“Our danger isn’t just theoretical, Pattern. It is real and it is terrible.”

“Yes,” Pattern said, voice sounding grave.

She looked up from her feet. He had moved up onto the inside of the chest’s lid, lit by the varied light of the differently colored spheres. “You know something about the danger? The parshmen, the Voidbringers?” Perhaps she was reading too much into his tones. He wasn’t human, and often spoke with strange inflections.

“My return…” Pattern said. “Because of this.”

“What? Why haven’t you said something!”

“Say… speaking… Thinking… All hard. Getting better.”

“You came to me because of the Voidbringers,” Shallan said, moving closer to the trunk, bloodied rag forgotten in her hand.

“Yes. Patterns… we… us… Worry. One was sent. Me.”

“Why to me?”

“Because of lies.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

He buzzed in dissatisfaction. “You. Your family.”

“You watched me with my family? That long ago?”

“Shallan. Remember…”

Again those memories. This time, not a garden seat, but a sterile white room. Her father’s lullaby. Blood on the floor.

No.

She turned away and began cleaning her feet again.

“I know… little of humans,” Pattern said. “They break. Their minds break. You did not break. Only cracked.”

She continued her washing.

“It is the lies that save you,” Pattern said. “The lies that drew me.”

She dipped her rag in the bucket. “Do you have a name? I’ve called you Pattern, but it’s more of a description.”

“Name is numbers,” Pattern said. “Many numbers. Hard to say. Pattern… Pattern is fine.”

“As long as you don’t start calling me Erratic as a contrast,” Shallan said.

“Mmmmmm…”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“I am thinking,” Pattern said. “Considering the lie.”

“The joke?”

“Yes.”

“Please don’t think too hard,” Shallan said. “It wasn’t a particularly good joke. If you want to ponder a real one, consider that stopping the return of the Voidbringers might depend on me, of all people.”

“Mmmmm…”

She finished with her feet as best she could, then wrapped them with several other cloths from the trunk. She had no slippers or shoes. Perhaps she could buy an extra pair of boots from one of the slavers? The mere thought made her stomach churn, but she didn’t have a choice.

Next, she sorted through the contents of the trunk. This was only one of Jasnah’s trunks, but Shallan recognized it as the one the woman kept in her own cabin – the one the assassins had taken. It contained Jasnah’s notes: books and books full of them. The trunk contained few primary sources, but that didn’t matter, as Jasnah had meticulously transcribed all relevant passages.

As Shallan set aside the last book, she noticed something on the bottom of the trunk. A loose piece of paper? She picked it up, curious – then nearly dropped it in surprise.

It was a picture of Jasnah, drawn by Shallan herself. Shallan had given it to the woman after being accepted as her ward. She’d assumed Jasnah had thrown it away – the woman had little fondness for visual arts, which she considered a frivolity.

Instead, she’d kept it here with her most precious things. No. Shallan didn’t want to think about that, didn’t want to face it.

“Mmm…” Pattern said. “You cannot keep all lies. Only the most important.”

Shallan reached up and found tears in her eyes. For Jasnah. She’d been avoiding the grief, had stuffed it into a little box and set it away.

As soon as she let that grief come, another piled on top of it. A grief that seemed frivolous in comparison to Jasnah’s death, but one that threatened to tow Shallan down as much, or even more.

“My sketchpads…” she whispered. “All gone.”

“Yes,” Pattern said, sounding sorrowful.

“Every drawing I’ve ever kept. My brothers, my father, Mother…” All sunk into the depths, along with her sketches of creatures and her musings on their connections, biology, and nature. Gone. Every bit of it gone.

The world didn’t depend upon Shallan’s silly pictures of skyeels. She felt as if everything was broken anyway.

“You will draw more,” Pattern whispered.

“I don’t want to.” Shallan blinked free more tears.

“I will not stop vibrating. The wind will not stop blowing. You will not stop drawing.”

Shallan brushed her fingers across the picture of Jasnah. The woman’s eyes were alight, almost alive again – it was the first picture Shallan had drawn of Jasnah, done on the day they’d met. “The broken Soulcaster was with my things. It’s now on the bottom of the ocean, lost. I won’t be able to repair it and send it to my brothers.”

Pattern buzzed in what sounded like a morose tone to her.

“Who are they?” Shallan asked. “The ones who did this, who killed her and took my art from me. Why would they do such horrible things?”

“I do not know.”

“But you are certain that Jasnah was right?” Shallan said. “The Voidbringers are going to return?”

“Yes. Spren… spren of him. They come.”

“These people,” Shallan said, “they killed Jasnah. They were probably of the same group as Kabsal, and… and as my father. Why would they kill the person closest to understanding how, and why, the Voidbringers are coming back?”

“I…” He faltered.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” Shallan said. “I already know the answer, and it is a very human one. These people seek to control the knowledge so that they can profit from it. Profit from the apocalypse itself. We’re going to see that doesn’t happen.”

She lowered the sketch of Jasnah, setting it between the pages of a book to keep it safe.

Notes

Excerpt from a longer scroll. The bottom half was eaten by an axehound as I fled the place where I’d stolen this.

14. Ironstance

Mateform meek, for love to share,
Given to life, it brings us joy.
To find this form, one must care.
True empathy one must employ.

From the Listener Song of Listing, 5th stanza

“It’s been a while,” Adolin said, kneeling and holding his Shardblade before him, point sunken a few inches into the stone ground. He was alone. Just him and the sword in one of the new preparation rooms, built alongside the dueling arena.

“I remember when I won you,” Adolin whispered, looking at his reflection in the blade. “Nobody took me seriously then, either. The fop with the nice clothing. Tinalar thought to duel me just to embarrass my father. Instead I got his Blade.” If he’d lost, he would have had to give Tinalar his Plate, which he’d inherited from his mother’s side of the family.

Adolin had never named his Shardblade. Some did, some didn’t. He’d never thought it appropriate – not because he didn’t think the Blade deserved a name, but because he figured he didn’t know the right one. This weapon had belonged to one of the Knights Radiant, long ago. That man had named the weapon, undoubtedly. To call it something else seemed presumptuous. Adolin had felt that way even before he’d started thinking of the Radiants in a good light, as his father did.

This Blade would continue after Adolin died. He didn’t own it. He was borrowing it for a time.

Its surface was austerely smooth, long, sinuous like an eel, with ridges at the back like growing crystals. Shaped like a larger version of a standard longsword, it bore some resemblance to the enormous, two-handed broadswords he’d seen Horneaters wield.

“A real duel,” Adolin whispered to the Blade. “For real stakes. Finally. No more tiptoeing around it, no more limiting myself.”

The Shardblade didn’t respond, but Adolin imagined that it listened to him. You couldn’t use a weapon like this, a weapon that seemed like an extension of the soul itself, and not feel at times that it was alive.

“I speak so confidently to everyone else,” Adolin said, “since I know they rely on me. But if I lose today, that’s it. No more duels, and a severe knot in Father’s grand plan.”

He could hear people outside. Stomping feet, a buzz of chatter. Scraping on the stone. They’d come. Come to see Adolin win or be humiliated.

“This might be our last fight together,” Adolin said softly. “I appreciate what you’ve done for me. I know you’d do it for anyone who held you, but I still appreciate it. I… I want you to know: I believe in Father. I believe he’s right, that the things he sees are real. That the world needs a united Alethkar. Fights like this one are my way to make it happen.”

Adolin and his father weren’t politicians. They were soldiers – Dalinar by choice, Adolin more by circumstance. They wouldn’t be able to just talk their way into a unified kingdom. They’d have to fight their way into one.

Adolin stood up, patting his pocket, then dismissing his Blade to mist and crossing the small chamber. The stone walls of the narrow hallway he entered were etched with reliefs depicting the ten basic stances of swordsmanship. Those had been carved elsewhere, then placed here when this room was built – a recent addition, to replace the tents that dueling preparation had once happened in.

Windstance, Stonestance, Flamestance… There was a relief, with depicted stance, for each of the Ten Essences. Adolin counted them off to himself as he passed. This small tunnel had been cut into the stone of the arena itself, and ended in a small room cut into the rock. The bright sunlight of the dueling grounds glared around the edges of the final pair of doors between him and his opponent.

With a proper preparation room for meditation, then this staging room to put on armor or retreat between bouts, the dueling arena at the warcamps was transforming into one as proper as those back in Alethkar. A welcome addition.

Adolin stepped into the staging room, where his brother and aunt were waiting. Stormfather, his hands were sweating. He hadn’t felt this nervous when riding into battle, when his life was actually in danger.

Aunt Navani had just finished a glyphward. She stepped away from the pedestal, setting aside her brushpen, and held up the ward for him to see. It was painted in bright red on a white cloth.

“Victory?” Adolin guessed.

Navani lowered it, raising an eyebrow at him.

“What?” Adolin said as his armorers entered, carrying the pieces of his Shardplate.

“It says ‘safety and glory,’” Navani said. “It wouldn’t kill you to learn some glyphs, Adolin.”

He shrugged. “Never seemed that important.”

“Yes, well,” Navani said, reverently folding the prayer and setting it in the brazier to burn. “Hopefully, you will eventually have a wife to do this for you. Both the reading of glyphs and the making of them.”

Adolin bowed his head, as was proper while the prayer burned. Pailiah knew, this wasn’t the time to offend the Almighty. Once it was done, however, he glanced at Navani. “And what of the news of the ship?”

They had expected word from Jasnah when she reached the Shallow Crypts, but none had been forthcoming. Navani had checked in with the harbormaster’s office in that distant city. They said the Wind’s Pleasure had not yet arrived. That put it a week overdue.

Navani waved a dismissive hand. “Jasnah was on that ship.”

“I know, Aunt,” Adolin said, shuffling uncomfortably. What had happened? Had the ship been caught in a highstorm? What of this woman Adolin might be marrying, if Jasnah had her way?

“If the ship is delayed, it’s because Jasnah is up to something,” Navani said. “Watch. We’ll get a communication from her in a few weeks, demanding some task or piece of information. I’ll have to pry from her why she vanished. Battah send that girl some sense to go with her intelligence.”

Adolin didn’t press the issue. Navani knew Jasnah better than anyone else. But… he was certainly concerned for Jasnah, and felt a sudden worry that he might not get to meet the girl, Shallan, when expected. Of course, the causal betrothal wasn’t likely to work out – but a piece of him wished that it would. Letting someone else choose for him had a strange appeal, considering how loudly Danlan had cursed at him when he’d broken off that particular relationship.

Danlan was still one of his father’s scribes, so he saw her on occasion. More glares. But storm it, that one was not his fault. The things she’d said to her friends…

An armorer set out his boots, and Adolin stepped into them, feeling them click into place. The armorers quickly affixed the greaves, then moved upward, covering him in too-light metal. Soon, all that remained were the gauntlets and the helm. He knelt down, placing his hands into the gauntlets at his side, fingers in their positions. In the strange manner of Shardplate, the armor constricted on its own, like a skyeel curling around its rat, pulling to comfortable tightness around his wrists.

He turned and reached for his helm from the last armorer. It was Renarin.

“You ate chicken?” Renarin asked as Adolin took the helm.

“For breakfast.”

“And you talked to the sword?”

“Had an entire conversation.”

“Mother’s chain in your pocket?”

“Checked three times.”

Navani folded her arms. “You still hold to those foolish superstitions?”

Both brothers looked at her sharply.

“They’re not superstitions,” Adolin said at the same time Renarin said, “It’s just good luck, Aunt.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I haven’t done a formal duel in a long time,” Adolin said, pulling on the helm, faceplate open. “I don’t want anything to go wrong.”

“Foolishness,” Navani repeated. “Trust in the Almighty and the Heralds, not whether or not you had the right meal before you duel. Storms. Next thing I know, you’ll be believing in the Passions.”

Adolin shared a look with Renarin. His little traditions probably didn’t help him win, but, well, why risk it? Every duelist had his own quirks. His hadn’t let him down yet.

“Our guards aren’t happy about this,” Renarin said softly. “They keep talking about how hard it’s going to be to protect you when someone else is swinging a Shardblade at you.”

Adolin slammed down his faceplate. It misted at the sides, locking into place, becoming translucent and giving him a full view of the room. Adolin grinned, knowing full well Renarin couldn’t see the expression. “I’m so sad to be denying them the chance to babysit me.”

“Why do you enjoy tormenting them?”

“I don’t like minders.”

“You’ve had guards before.”

“On the battlefield,” Adolin said. It felt different to be followed about everywhere he went.

“There’s more. Don’t lie to me, Brother. I know you too well.”

Adolin inspected his brother, whose eyes were so earnest behind his spectacles. The boy was too solemn all the time.

“I don’t like their captain,” Adolin admitted.

“Why? He saved Father’s life.”

“He just bothers me.” Adolin shrugged. “There’s something about him that is off, Renarin. That makes me suspicious.”

“I think you don’t like that he ordered you around, on the battlefield.”

“I barely even remember that,” Adolin said lightly, stepping toward the door out.

“Well, all right then. Off with you. And Brother?”

“Yes?”

“Try not to lose.”

Adolin pushed open the doors and stepped out onto the sand. He’d been in this arena before, using the argument that though the Alethi Codes of War proscribed duels between officers, he still needed to maintain his skills.

To placate his father, Adolin had stayed away from important bouts – bouts for championships or for Shards. He hadn’t dared risk his Blade and Plate. Now everything was different.

The air was still chill with winter, but the sun was bright overhead. His breath sounded against the plate of his helm, and his feet crunched in sand. He checked to see that his father was watching. He was. As was the king.

Sadeas hadn’t come. Just as well. That might have distracted Adolin with memories of one of the last times that Sadeas and Dalinar had been amiable, sitting together up on those stone steps, watching Adolin duel. Had Sadeas been planning a betrayal even then, while laughing with his father and chatting like an old friend?

Focus. His foe today wasn’t Sadeas, though someday… Someday soon he’d get that man in the arena. It was the goal of everything he was doing here.

For now, he’d have to settle for Salinor, one of Thanadal’s Shardbearers. The man had only the Blade, though he’d been able to borrow a set of the King’s Plate for a bout with a full Shardbearer.

Salinor stood on the other side of the arena, wearing the unornamented slate-grey Plate and waiting for the highjudge – Brightlady Istow – to signal the start of the bout. This fight was, in a way, an insult to Adolin. In order to get Salinor to agree to the duel, Adolin had been forced to bet both his Plate and his Blade against just Salinor’s Blade. As if Adolin weren’t worthy, and had to offer more potential spoils to justify bothering Salinor.

As expected, the arena was overflowing with lighteyes. Even if it was speculated that Adolin had lost his former edge, bouts for Shards were very, very rare. This would be the first in over a year’s time.

“Summon Blades!” Istow ordered.

Adolin thrust his hand to the side. The Blade fell into his waiting hand ten heartbeats later – a moment before his opponent’s appeared. Adolin’s heart was beating more quickly than Salinor’s. Perhaps that meant his opponent wasn’t frightened, and underestimated him.

Adolin fell into Windstance, elbows bent, turned to the side, sword’s tip pointing up and backward. His opponent fell into Flamestance, sword held one-handed, other hand touching the blade, standing with a square posture of the feet. The stances were more a philosophy than a predefined set of moves. Windstance: flowing, sweeping, majestic. Flamestance: quick and flexible, better for shorter Shardblades.

Windstance was familiar to Adolin. It had served him well throughout his career.

But it didn’t feel right today.

We’re at war, Adolin thought as Salinor edged forward, looking to test him. And every lighteyes in this army is a raw recruit.

It wasn’t time for a show.

It was time for a beating.

As Salinor drew close for a cautious strike to feel out his opponent, Adolin twisted and fell into Ironstance, with his sword held two-handed up beside his head. He slapped away Salinor’s first strike, then stepped in and slammed his Blade down into the man’s helm. Once, twice, three times. Salinor tried to parry, but he was obviously surprised by Adolin’s attack, and two of the blows landed.

Cracks crawled across Salinor’s helm. Adolin heard grunts accompanying curses as Salinor tried to bring his weapon back to strike. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. Where were the test blows, the art, the dance?

Adolin growled, feeling the old Thrill of battle as he shoved aside Salinor’s attack – careless of the hit it scored on his side – then brought his Blade in two-handed and crashed it into his opponent’s breastplate, like he was chopping wood. Salinor grunted again and Adolin raised his foot and kicked the man backward, throwing him to the ground.

Salinor dropped his Blade – a weakness of Flamestance’s one-handed posture – and it vanished to mist. Adolin stepped over the man and dismissed his own Blade, then kicked down with a booted heel into Salinor’s helm. The piece of Plate exploded into molten bits, exposing a dazed, panicked face.

Adolin slammed the heel of his foot against the breastplate next. Though Salinor tried to grab his foot, Adolin kicked relentlessly until the breastplate, too, shattered.

“Stop! Stop!”

Adolin halted, lowering his foot beside Salinor’s head, looking up at the highjudge. The woman stood in her box, face red, voice furious.

“Adolin Kholin!” she shouted. “This is a duel, not a wrestling match!”

“Did I break any rules?” he shouted back.

Silence. It struck him, through the rush in his ears, that the entire crowd had gone quiet. He could hear their breathing.

“Did I break any rules?” Adolin demanded again.

“This is not how a duel–”

“So I win,” Adolin said.

The woman sputtered. “This duel was to three broken pieces of Plate. You broke only two.”

Adolin looked down at the dazed Salinor. Then he reached down, ripped off the man’s pauldron, and smashed it between two fists. “Done.”

Stunned silence.

Adolin knelt beside his opponent. “Your Blade.”

Salinor tried to stand, but with the breastplate missing, doing so was more difficult. His armor wouldn’t work properly, and he’d need to roll onto his side and work his way to his feet. Doable, but he obviously didn’t have the experience with Plate to perform the maneuver. Adolin slammed him back down to the sand by his shoulder.

“You’ve lost,” Adolin growled.

“You cheated!” Salinor sputtered.

“How?”

“I don’t know how! It just– It’s not supposed to…”

He trailed off as Adolin carefully placed a gauntleted hand against his neck. Salinor’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t.”

Fearspren crawled out of the sand around him.

“My prize,” Adolin said, suddenly feeling drained. The Thrill faded from him. Storms, he’d never before felt like this in a duel.

Salinor’s Blade appeared in his hand.

“Judgment,” the highjudge said, sounding reluctant, “goes to Adolin Kholin, the victor. Salinor Eved forfeits his Shard.”

Salinor let the Blade slip from his fingers. Adolin took it and knelt beside Salinor, holding the weapon with pommel toward the man. “Break the bond.”

Salinor hesitated, then touched the ruby at the weapon’s pommel. The gemstone flashed with light. The bond had been broken.

Adolin stood, ripping the ruby free, then crushing it in a gauntleted hand. That wouldn’t be needed, but it was a nice symbol. Sound finally rose in the crowd, frantic chattering. They’d come for a spectacle and had instead been given brutality. Well, that was how things often went in war. Good for them to see it, he supposed, though as he ducked back into the waiting room he was uncertain of himself. What he’d done was reckless. Dismissing his Blade? Putting himself in a position where the enemy could have gotten at his feet?

Adolin entered the staging room, where Renarin looked at him wide-eyed. “That,” his younger brother said, “was incredible. It has to be the shortest Shard bout on record! You were amazing, Adolin!”

“I… Thanks.” He handed Salinor’s Shardblade toward Renarin. “A present.”

“Adolin, are you sure? I mean, I’m not exactly the best with the Plate I already have.”

“Might as well have the full set,” Adolin said. “Take it.”

Renarin seemed hesitant.

“Take it,” Adolin said again.

Reluctantly, Renarin did so. He grimaced as he took it. Adolin shook his head, sitting down on one of the reinforced benches intended to hold a Shardbearer. Navani stepped into the room, having come down from the seats above.

“What you did,” she noted, “would not have worked on a more skillful opponent.”

“I know,” Adolin said.

“It was wise, then,” Navani said. “You mask your true skill. People can assume this was won by trickery, pit-fighting instead of proper dueling. They might continue to underestimate you. I can work with this to get you more duels.”

Adolin nodded, pretending that was why he’d done it.

15. A Hand with the Tower

Workform worn for strength and care.
Whispering spren breathe at your ear.
Seek first this form, its mysteries to bear.
Found here is freedom from fear.

From the Listener Song of Listing, 19th stanza

“Tradesman Tvlakv,” Shallan said, “I believe that you are wearing a different pair of shoes today than you were on the first day of our trip.”

Tvlakv stopped on his way to the evening fire, but adapted smoothly to her challenge. He turned toward her with a smile, shaking his head. “I fear you must be mistaken, Brightness! Just after leaving on this trip, I lost one of my clothing trunks to a storm. I have but this one pair of shoes to my name.”

It was a flat-out lie. However, after six days of traveling together, she had discovered that Tvlakv didn’t much mind being caught in a lie.

Shallan perched on her wagon’s front seat in the dim light, feet bandaged, staring Tvlakv down. She’d spent most of the day milking knobweed stems for their sap, then rubbing it on her feet to keep away the rotspren. She felt extremely satisfied to have noticed the plants – it showed that though she lacked much practical knowledge, some of her studies could be useful in the wild.

Did she confront him about his lie? What would it accomplish? He didn’t seem to get embarrassed by such things. He watched her in the darkness, eyes beady, shadowed.

“Well,” Shallan said to him, “that is unfortunate. Perhaps in our travels we will meet another merchant group with whom I can trade for proper footwear.”

“I will be certain to look for such an opportunity, Brightness.” Tvlakv gave her a bow and a fake smile, then continued toward the evening cook fire, which was burning fitfully – they were out of wood, and the parshmen had gone out into the evening to search for more.

“Lies,” Pattern said softly, his shape nearly invisible on the seat beside her.

“He knows if I can’t walk, I’m more dependent upon him.”

Tvlakv settled down beside the struggling fire. Nearby, the chulls – unhooked from their wagons – lumbered around, crunching tiny rockbuds beneath their gargantuan feet. They never strayed far.

Tvlakv started whispering quietly with Tag, the mercenary. He kept a smile on his face, but she didn’t trust those dark eyes of his, glittering in the firelight.

“Go see what he’s saying,” Shallan told Pattern.

“See…?”

“Listen to his words, then come back and repeat them to me. Don’t get too close to the light.”

Pattern moved down the side of the wagon. Shallan leaned back against the hard seat, then took a small mirror she’d found in Jasnah’s trunk out of her safepouch along with a single sapphire sphere for light. Just a mark, nothing too bright, and it was failing at that. When is that next highstorm due? Tomorrow?

It was nearing the start of a new year – and that meant the Weeping was coming, though not for a number of weeks. It was a Light Year, wasn’t it? Well, she could endure highstorms out here. She’d already been forced to suffer that indignity once, locked within her wagon.

In the mirror, she could see that she looked awful. Red eyes with bags under them, her hair a frazzled mess, her dress frayed and soiled. She looked like a beggar who had found a once-nice dress in a trash heap.

It didn’t bother her overly much. Was she worried about looking pretty for slavers? Hardly. However, Jasnah hadn’t cared what people thought of her, yet had always kept her appearance immaculate. Not that Jasnah had acted alluringly – never for a moment. In fact, she’d disparaged such behavior in no uncertain terms. Using a fetching face to make men do as you wish is no different from a man using muscle to force a woman to his will, she’d said. Both are base, and both will fail a person as they age.

No, Jasnah had not approved of seduction as a tool. However, people responded differently to those who looked in control of themselves.

But what can I do? Shallan thought. I have no makeup; I don’t even have shoes to wear.

“… she could be someone important,” Tvlakv’s voice said abruptly nearby. Shallan jumped, then looked to the side, where Pattern now rested on the seat beside her. The voice came from there.

“She is trouble,” Tag’s voice said. Pattern’s vibrations produced a perfect imitation. “I still think we should just leave her and go.”

“It is fortunate for us,” Tvlakv’s voice said, “that the decision is not yours. You worry about making dinner. I shall worry about our little lighteyed companion. Someone is missing her, someone rich. If we can sell her back to them, Tag, it could be what finally digs us out.”

Pattern imitated the sounds of a crackling fire for a short time, then fell silent.

The precise reproduction of the conversation was marvelous. This, Shallan thought, could be very useful.

Unfortunately, something needed to be done about Tvlakv. She couldn’t have him regarding her as something to be sold back to those missing her – that was discomfortingly close to viewing her as a slave. If she let him continue in such a mindset, she’d spend the entire trip worrying about him and his thugs.

So what would Jasnah do, in this situation?

Gritting her teeth, Shallan slipped down off the wagon, stepping gingerly on her wounded feet. She could walk, barely. She waited for the painspren to retreat, then – covering up her agony – she approached the meager fire and sat down. “Tag, you are excused.”

He looked to Tvlakv, who nodded. Tag retreated to check on the parshmen. Bluth had gone to scout the area, as he often did at night, checking for signs of others passing this way.

“It is time to discuss your payment,” Shallan said.

“Service to one so illustrious is payment in itself, of course.”

“Of course,” she said, meeting his eyes. Don’t back down. You can do this. “But a merchant must make a living. I am not blind, Tvlakv. Your men do not agree with your decision to help me. They think it a waste.”

Tvlakv glanced at Tag, looking unsettled. Hopefully, he wondered what else she had guessed.

“Upon arriving at the Shattered Plains,” Shallan said, “I will acquire a grand fortune. I do not have it yet.”

“That is… unfortunate.”

“Not in the slightest,” Shallan said. “It is an opportunity, tradesman Tvlakv. The fortune I will acquire is the result of a betrothal. If I arrive safely, those who rescued me – saved me from pirates, sacrificed greatly to see me brought to my new family – will undoubtedly be well rewarded.”

“I am but a humble servant,” Tvlakv said with a broad, false smile. “Rewards are the farthest thing from my mind.”

He thinks I’m lying about the fortune. Shallan ground her teeth in frustration, anger beginning to burn inside of her. This was just what Kabsal had done! Treating her like a plaything, a means to an end, not a real person.

She leaned closer to Tvlakv into the firelight. “Do not toy with me, slaver.”

“I wouldn’t dare–”

“You have no idea the storm you have wandered into,” Shallan hissed, holding his eyes. “You have no idea what stakes have been wagered upon my arrival. Take your petty schemes and stuff them in a crevice. Do as I say, and I will see your debts canceled. You will be a free man again.”

“What? How… how did you–”

Shallan stood up, cutting him off. She felt somehow stronger than she had before. More determined. Her insecurities fluttered in the pit of her stomach, but she paid them no heed.

Tvlakv didn’t know she was timid. He didn’t know she had been raised in rural isolation. To him, she was a woman of the court, accomplished at argument and accustomed to being obeyed.

Standing before him, feeling radiant in the glow of the flames – towering above him and his grubby machinations – she saw. Expectation wasn’t just about what people expected of you.

It was about what you expected of yourself.

Tvlakv leaned away from her like a man before a raging bonfire. He shrank back, eyes wide, raising an arm. Shallan realized that she was glowing faintly with the light of spheres. Her dress no longer bore the tears and smudges it had before. It was majestic.

Instinctively, she let the glow from her skin fade, hoping Tvlakv would think it a trick of the firelight. She spun and left him shaking beside the fire as she walked back to the wagon. Darkness was fully upon them, the first moon having yet to rise. As she walked, her feet didn’t hurt nearly as much as they had. Was the knobweed sap doing that much good?

She reached the wagon and began climbing back into the seat, but Bluth chose that moment to crash into camp.

“Put out the fire!” he cried.

Tvlakv looked at him dumbfounded.

Bluth dashed ahead, passing Shallan and reaching the fire, where he grabbed the pot of steaming broth. He turned it over onto the flames, splashing out ashes and steam with a hiss, scattering flamespren, which faded away.

Tvlakv jumped up, looking down as filthy broth – faintly lit by the dying embers – ran past his feet. Shallan, gritting her teeth against the pain, got off the wagon and approached. Tag ran up from the other direction.

“… seem to be several dozen of them,” Bluth was saying in a low voice. “They are well armed, but have no horses or chulls, so they are not rich.”

“What is this?” Shallan demanded.

“Bandits,” Bluth said. “Or mercenaries. Or whatever you want to call them.”

“Nobody polices this area, Brightness,” Tvlakv said. He glanced at her, then looked away quickly, obviously still shaken. “It is truly a wilderness, you see. The presence of the Alethi on the Shattered Plains means many like to come and go. Trading caravans like ours, craftsmen seeking work, lowborn lighteyed sellswords with an eye toward enlisting. Those two conditions – no laws, but plenty of travelers – attract a certain kind of ruffian.”

“Dangerous,” Tag agreed. “These types take what they want. Leave only corpses.”

“Did they see our fire?” Tvlakv asked, wringing his cap in his hands.

“Don’t know,” Bluth said, glancing over his shoulder. Shallan could barely make out his expression in the darkness. “Didn’t want to get close. I snuck up to get a count, then ran back here fast.”

“How can you be sure they’re bandits?” Shallan asked. “They might just be soldiers on their way to the Shattered Plains, as Tvlakv said.”

“They fly no banners, display no sigils,” Bluth said. “But they have good equipment and keep a tight guard. They’re deserters. I’d bet the chulls on it.”

“Bah,” Tvlakv said. “You’d bet my chulls on a hand with the tower, Bluth. But Brightness, for all his terrible gambling sense, I believe the fool is right. We must harness the chulls and depart immediately. The night’s darkness is our ally, and we must make the most of it.”

She nodded. The men moved quickly, even the portly Tvlakv, breaking down camp and hooking up the chulls. The slaves grumbled at not getting their food for the night. Shallan stopped beside their cage, feeling ashamed. Her family had owned slaves – and not just parshmen and ardents. Ordinary slaves. In most cases, they were nothing worse than darkeyes without the right of travel.

These poor souls, however, were sickly and half-starved.

You’re only one step from being in one of those pens yourself, Shallan, she thought with a shiver as Tvlakv passed, hissing curses at the captives. No. He wouldn’t dare put you in there. He’d just kill you.

Bluth had to be reminded again to give her a hand up into the wagon. Tag ushered the parshmen into their wagon, cursing at them for moving so slowly, then climbed into his seat and took up the tail position.

The first moon began to rise, making it lighter than Shallan would have liked. It seemed to her that each crunching footstep of the chulls was as loud as a highstorm’s thunder. They brushed the plants she’d named crustspines, with their branches like tubes of sandstone. Those cracked and shook.

Progress was not quick – chulls never were. As they moved, she picked out lights on a hillside, frighteningly close. Campfires not a ten-minute walk away. A shifting of winds brought the sound of distant voices, of metal on metal, perhaps men sparring.

Tvlakv turned the wagons eastward. Shallan frowned in the night. “Why this way?” she whispered.

“Remember that gully we saw?” Bluth whispered. “Putting it between us and them, in case they hear and come looking.”

Shallan nodded. “What can we do if they catch us?”

“It won’t be good.”

“Couldn’t we bribe our way past them?”

“Deserters ain’t like common bandits,” Bluth said. “These men, they’ve given up everything. Oaths. Families. When you desert, it breaks you. It leaves you willing to do anything, because you’ve already given away everything you could have cared about losing.”

“Wow,” Shallan said, looking over her shoulder.

“I… Yeah, you spend your whole life with a decision like that, you do. You wish any honor were left for you, but know you’ve already given it away.”

He fell silent, and Shallan was too nervous to prod him further. She continued watching those lights on the hillside as the wagons – blessedly – rolled farther and farther into the night, eventually escaping into the darkness.

16. Swordmaster

Nimbleform has a delicate touch.
Gave the gods this form to many,
Tho’ once defied, by the gods they were
crushed.
This form craves precision and plenty.

From the Listener Song of Listing, 27th stanza

“You know,” Moash said from Kaladin’s side, “I always thought this place would be…”

“Bigger?” Drehy offered in his lightly accented voice.

“Better,” Moash said, looking around the practice grounds. “It looks just like where darkeyed soldiers practice.”

These sparring grounds were reserved for Dalinar’s lighteyes. In the center, the large open courtyard was filled with a thick layer of sand. A raised wooden walkway ran around the perimeter, stretching between the sand and the narrow surrounding building, which was just one room deep. That narrow building wrapped around the courtyard except at the front, which had a wall with an archway for the entrance, and had a wide roof that extended, giving shade to the wooden walkway. Lighteyed officers stood chatting in the shade or watching men sparring in the sunlight of the yard, and ardents moved this way and that, delivering weapons or drinks.

It was a common layout for training grounds. Kaladin had been in several buildings like this. Mostly back when he’d first been training in Amaram’s army.

Kaladin set his jaw, resting his fingers on the archway leading into the training grounds. It had been seven days since Amaram’s arrival in the warcamps. Seven days of dealing with the fact that Amaram and Dalinar were friends.

He’d decided to be storming happy about Amaram’s arrival. After all, it meant that Kaladin would be able to find a chance to finally stick a spear in that man.

No, he thought, entering the training grounds, not a spear. A knife. I want to be up close to him, face-to-face, so I can watch him panic as he dies. I want to feel that knife going in.

Kaladin waved to his men and entered through the archway, forcing himself to focus on his surroundings instead of Amaram. That archway was good stone, quarried nearby, built into a structure with the traditional eastward reinforcement. Judging by the modest crem deposits, these walls hadn’t been here long. It was another sign that Dalinar was starting to think of the warcamps as permanent – he was taking down simple, temporary buildings and replacing them with sturdy structures.

“I don’t know what you expected,” Drehy said to Moash as he inspected the grounds. “How would you make sparring grounds different for the lighteyes? Use diamond dust instead of sand?”

“Ouch,” Kaladin said.

“I don’t know how,” Moash said. “It’s just that they make such a big deal of it. No darkeyes on the ‘special’ sparring grounds. I don’t see what makes them special.”

“That’s because you don’t think like lighteyes,” Kaladin said. “This place is special for one simple reason.”

“Why’s that?” Moash asked.

“Because we’re not here,” Kaladin said, leading the way in. “Not normally, at least.”

He had with him Drehy and Moash, along with five other men, a mix of Bridge Four members and a few survivors of the old Cobalt Guard. Dalinar had assigned those to Kaladin, and to Kaladin’s surprise and pleasure, they had accepted him as their leader without a word of complaint. To a man, he’d been impressed with them. The old Guard had deserved its reputation.

A few, all darkeyed, had started eating with Bridge Four. They’d asked for Bridge Four patches, and Kaladin had gotten them some – but ordered them to put their Cobalt Guard patches on the other shoulder, and continue to wear them as a mark of pride.

Spear in hand, Kaladin led his team toward a group of ardents who bustled in their direction. The ardents wore Vorin religious garb – loose trousers and tunics, tied at the waist with simple ropes. Pauper’s clothing. They were slaves, and then they also weren’t. Kaladin had never given much thought to them. His mother would probably lament how little Kaladin cared for religious observance. The way Kaladin figured it, the Almighty didn’t show much concern for him, so why care back?

“This is the lighteyes’ training ground,” said the lead ardent sternly. She was a willowy woman, though you weren’t supposed to think of ardents as male or female. She had her head shaven, like all ardents. Her male companions wore square beards with clean upper lips.

“Captain Kaladin, Bridge Four,” Kaladin said, scanning the practice grounds and shouldering his spear. It would be very easy for an accident to happen here, during sparring. He’d have to watch for that. “Here to guard the Kholin boys while they practice today.”

“Captain?” one of the ardents scoffed. “You–”

Another ardent silenced him by whispering something. News about Kaladin had traveled quickly through camp, but ardents could be an isolated lot, sometimes.

“Drehy,” Kaladin said, pointing. “See those rockbuds growing up on the top of the wall there?”

“Yup.”

“They’re cultivated. That means there’s a way up.”

“Of course there is,” the lead ardent said. “The stairwell is at the northwestern corner. I have the key.”

“Good, you can let him in,” Kaladin said. “Drehy, keep an eye on things from up there.”

“On it,” Drehy said, trotting in the direction of the stairwell.

“And what kinds of danger do you expect them to be in here?” the ardent said, folding her arms.

“I see lots of weapons,” Kaladin said, “lots of people moving in and out, and… are those Shardblades I see? I wonder what could possibly go wrong.” He gave her a pointed look. The woman sighed, then handed her key to an assistant, who jogged off after Drehy.

Kaladin pointed to positions for his other men to watch from. They moved off, leaving only him and Moash. The lean man had turned immediately at the mention of Shardblades, and now watched them hungrily. A pair of lighteyed men bearing them had moved out into the center of the sands. One Blade was long and thin, with a large crossguard, while the other was wide and enormous, with wicked spikes – slightly flamelike – jutting out of both sides along the lower third. Both weapons had protective strips on the edges, like a partial sheath.

“Huh,” Moash said, “I don’t recognize either of those men. I thought I knew all the Shardbearers in camp.”

“They aren’t Shardbearers,” the ardent said. “They’re using the King’s Blades.”

“Elhokar lets people use his Shardblade?” Kaladin asked.

“It is a grand tradition,” the ardent said, seeming annoyed that she had to explain. “The highprinces used to do it in their own princedoms, before the reunification, and now it is the king’s obligation and honor. Men may use the King’s Blade and Plate to practice. The lighteyes of our armies must be trained with Shards, for the good of all. Blade and Plate are difficult to master, and if a Shardbearer falls in battle, it is important that others be capable of their immediate use.”

That made sense, Kaladin supposed, though he found it hard to imagine any lighteyes letting someone else touch his Blade. “The king has two Shardblades?”

“One is that of his father, kept for the tradition of training Shardbearers.” The ardent glanced at the sparring men. “Alethkar has always had the finest Shardbearers in the world. This tradition is part of it. The king has hinted that someday, he might bestow his father’s Blade upon a worthy warrior.”

Kaladin nodded in appreciation. “Not bad,” he said. “I’ll bet that a lot of men come to practice with them, each hoping to prove he’s the most skilled and most deserving. A good way for Elhokar to trick a bunch of men into training.”

The ardent huffed and walked away. Kaladin watched the Shardblades flash in the air. The men using them barely knew what they were doing. The real Shardbearers he’d seen, the real Shardbearers he’d fought, hadn’t lurched about swinging the oversized swords like polearms. Even Adolin’s duel the other day had–

“Storms, Kaladin,” Moash said, watching the ardent stalk away. “And you were telling me to be respectful?”

“Hmm?”

“You didn’t use an honorific for the king,” Moash said. “Then you implied that the lighteyes coming to practice were lazy and needed to be tricked into it. I thought we were supposed to avoid antagonizing the lighteyes?”

Kaladin looked away from the Shardbearers. Distracted, he’d spoken thoughtlessly. “You’re right,” he said. “Thanks for the reminder.”

Moash nodded.

“I want you by the gate,” Kaladin said, pointing. A group of parshmen came in, bearing boxes, probably foodstuffs. Those wouldn’t be dangerous. Would they? “Pay particularly close attention to servants, sword runners, or anyone else seemingly innocuous who approaches Highprince Dalinar’s sons. A knife to the side from someone like that would be one of the best ways to pull off an assassination.”

“Fine. But tell me something, Kal. Who is this Amaram fellow?”

Kaladin turned sharply toward Moash.

“I see how you look at him,” Moash said. “I see how your face gets when the other bridgemen mention him. What did he do to you?”

“I was in his army,” Kaladin said. “The last place I fought, before…”

Moash gestured to Kaladin’s forehead. “That’s his work, then?”

“Yeah.”

“So he’s not the hero people say he is,” Moash said. He seemed pleased by that fact.

“His soul is as dark as any I’ve ever known.”

Moash took Kaladin by the arm. “We are going to get back at them somehow. Sadeas, Amaram. The ones who have done these things to us?” Angerspren boiled up around him, like pools of blood in the sand.

Kaladin met Moash’s eyes, then nodded.

“Good enough for me,” Moash said, shouldering his spear and jogging off toward the position Kaladin had indicated, the spren vanishing.

“He’s another who needs to learn to smile more,” Syl whispered. Kaladin hadn’t noticed her flitting nearby, and now she settled down on his shoulder.

Kaladin turned to walk around the perimeter of the practice grounds, noting each entrance. Perhaps he was being overly cautious. He just liked doing jobs well, and it had been a lifetime since he’d had a job other than saving Bridge Four.

Sometimes, though, it seemed like his job was impossible to do well. During the highstorm last week, someone had again sneaked into Dalinar’s rooms, scrawling a second number on the wall. Counting it down, it pointed at the same date a little over a month away.

The highprince didn’t seem worried, and wanted the event kept quiet. Storms… was he writing the glyphs himself while he had fits? Or was it some kind of spren? Kaladin was sure nobody could have gotten past him this time to get in.

“Do you want to talk about the thing that is bothering you?” Syl asked from her perch.

“I’m worried about what’s happening during the highstorms with Dalinar,” Kaladin said. “Those numbers… something is wrong. You still seeing those spren about?”

“Red lightning?” she asked. “I think so. They’re hard to spot. You haven’t seen them?”

Kaladin shook his head, hefting his spear and walking over onto the walkway around the sands. Here, he peeked into a storage room. Wooden practice swords, some the size of Shardblades, and sparring leathers lined the wall.

“Is that all that’s bothering you?” Syl asked.

“What else would be?”

“Amaram and Dalinar.”

“It’s not a big deal. Dalinar Kholin is friends with one of the worst murderers I’ve ever met. So? Dalinar is lighteyed. He’s probably friends with a lot of murderers.”

“Kaladin…” Syl said.

“Amaram’s worse than Sadeas, you know,” Kaladin said, walking around the storage room, checking for doorways. “Everyone knows that Sadeas is a rat. He’s straight with you. ‘You’re a bridgeman,’ he told me, ‘and I’m going to use you up until you die.’ Amaram, though… He promised to be more, a brightlord like those in the stories. He told me he’d protect Tien. He feigned honor. That’s worse than any depth Sadeas could ever reach.”

“Dalinar’s not like Amaram,” Syl said. “You know he’s not.”

“People say the same things about him that they did of Amaram. That they still do of Amaram.” Kaladin stepped back out into the sunlight and continued his circuit of the grounds, passing dueling lighteyes who kicked up sand as they grunted, sweated, and clacked wooden swords against one another.

Each pair was attended by a half-dozen darkeyed servants carrying towels and canteens – and many had a parshman or two bring them chairs to sit on when they rested. Stormfather. Even in something routine like this, the lighteyes had to be pampered.

Syl zipped out into the air in front of Kaladin, coming down like a storm. Literally like a storm. She stopped in the air right in front of him, a cloud boiling from beneath her feet, flashing with lightning. “You can honestly say,” she demanded, “that you think Dalinar Kholin is only pretending to be honorable?”

“I–”

“Don’t you lie to me, Kaladin,” she said, stepping forward, pointing. Diminutive though she was, in that moment, she seemed as vast as a highstorm. “No lies. Ever.”

He took a deep breath. “No,” he finally said. “No, Dalinar gave up his Blade for us. He’s a good man. I accept that. Amaram has him fooled. He had me fooled too, so I suppose I can’t blame Kholin too much.”

Syl nodded curtly, the cloud dissipating. “You should talk to him about Amaram,” she said, walking in the air beside Kaladin’s head as he continued scouting the structure. Her steps were small, and she should have fallen behind, but she didn’t.

“And what should I say?” Kaladin asked. “Should I go to him and accuse a lighteyes of the third dahn of murdering his own troops? Of stealing my Shardblade? I’ll sound like either a fool or a madman.”

“But–”

“He won’t listen, Syl,” Kaladin said. “Dalinar Kholin might be a good man, but he won’t let me speak ill of a powerful lighteyes. It’s the way of the world. And that is truth.”

He continued his inspection, wanting to know what was in the rooms where people could watch people spar. Some were for storage, others for bathing and resting. Several of those were locked, with lighteyes inside recovering from their daily sparring. Lighteyes liked baths.

The back side of the structure, opposite the entrance gate, held the living quarters for the ardents. Kaladin had never seen so many shaved heads and robed bodies scurrying about. Back in Hearthstone, the citylord had kept only a few wizened old ardents for tutoring his son. Those had also come down to the town periodically to burn prayers and elevate darkeyes’ Callings.

These ardents didn’t seem to be the same type. They had the physiques of warriors, and would often step in to practice with lighteyes who needed a sparring partner. Some of the ardents had dark eyes, but still used the sword – they weren’t considered lighteyed or darkeyed. They were just ardents.

And what do I do if one of them decides to try killing the princelings? Storms, but he hated some aspects of bodyguard duty. If nothing happened, then you were never sure if it was because nothing was wrong, or because you had deterred potential assassins.

Adolin and his brother finally arrived, both fully armored in their Shardplate, helms under their arms. They were accompanied by Skar and a handful of former members of the Cobalt Guard. Those saluted Kaladin as he walked up and gestured that they were dismissed, the shift officially changed. Skar would be off to join Teft and the group protecting Dalinar and Navani.

“The area is as secure as I can make it without disrupting training, Brightlord,” Kaladin said, walking up to Adolin. “My men and I will keep an eye out while you spar, but don’t hesitate to give a holler if something seems amiss.”

Adolin grunted, surveying the place, barely paying Kaladin any heed. He was a tall man, his few black Alethi hairs overwhelmed by quite a bit of golden blond. His father didn’t have that. Adolin’s mother had been from Rira, perhaps?

Kaladin turned to walk toward the northern side of the courtyard, where he’d have a different view from Moash.

“Bridgeman,” Adolin called. “You’ve decided to start using proper titles for people? Didn’t you call my father ‘sir’?”

“He’s in my chain of command,” Kaladin said, turning back. The simple answer seemed the best.

“And I’m not?” Adolin asked, frowning.

“No.”

“And if I give you an order?”

“I’ll comply with any reasonable requests, Brightlord. But if you wish for someone to fetch you tea between bouts, you’ll have to send someone else. There should be plenty here willing to lick your heels.”

Adolin stepped up to him. Though the deep blue Shardplate added only a few inches to his height, he seemed to tower because of it. Perhaps that line about licking heels had been brash.

Adolin represented something, though. The privilege of the lighteyes. He wasn’t like Amaram or Sadeas, who brought out Kaladin’s hatred. Men like Adolin just annoyed him, reminding him that in this world, some sipped wine and wore fancy clothing while others were made slaves almost on a whim.

“I owe you my life,” Adolin growled, as if it hurt to say the words. “That’s the only reason I haven’t yet thrown you through a window.” He reached up with a gauntleted finger and tapped at Kaladin’s chest. “But my patience with you won’t extend as far as my father’s, little bridgeman. There’s something off about you, something I can’t put my finger on. I’m watching you. Remember your place.”

Great. “I’ll keep you alive, Brightlord,” Kaladin said, pushing aside the finger. “That’s my place.”

“I can keep myself alive,” Adolin said, turning away and tromping across the sand with a clink of Plate. “Your job is to watch over my brother.”

Kaladin was more than happy to let him leave. “Spoiled child,” he muttered. Kaladin supposed that Adolin was a few years older than him. Just recently, Kaladin had realized that he’d passed his twentieth birthday while a bridgeman, and never known it. Adolin was in his early twenties. But being a child had little to do with age.

Renarin still stood awkwardly near the front gate, wearing Dalinar’s former Shardplate, carrying his newly won Shardblade. Adolin’s quick duel from yesterday was the talk of the warcamps, and it would take Renarin five days to fully bond his Blade before he could dismiss it.

The young man’s Shardplate was the color of dark steel, unpainted. That was how Dalinar had preferred it. By giving his Plate away, Dalinar suggested that he felt he needed to win his next victories as a politician. It was a laudable move; you couldn’t always have men following you because they feared you could beat them up – or even because you were the best soldier among them. You needed more, far more, to be a true leader.

Yet Kaladin did wish Dalinar had kept the Plate. Anything that helped the man stay alive would have been a boon for Bridge Four.

Kaladin leaned back against a column, folding his arms, spear in the crook of his arm, watching the area for trouble and inspecting everyone that got too close to the princelings. Adolin walked over and grabbed his brother by the shoulder, towing him across the courtyard. Various people sparring in the square stopped and bowed – if not in uniform – or saluted the princelings as they passed. A group of grey-clothed ardents had gathered at the back of the courtyard, and the woman from earlier stepped forward to chat with the brothers. Adolin and Renarin both bowed formally to her.

It had been three weeks now since Renarin had been given his Plate. Why had Adolin waited so long to bring him here for training? Had he been waiting until the duel, so he could win the lad a Blade too?

Syl landed on Kaladin’s shoulder. “Adolin and Renarin are both bowing to her.”

“Yeah,” Kaladin said.

“But isn’t the ardent a slave? One their father owns?”

Kaladin nodded.

“Humans don’t make sense.”

“If you’re only now learning that,” Kaladin said, “then you haven’t been paying attention.”

Syl tossed her hair, which moved realistically. The gesture itself was very human. Perhaps she’d been paying attention after all. “I don’t like them,” she said airily. “Either one. Adolin or Renarin.”

“You don’t like anyone who carries Shards.”

“Exactly.”

“You called the Blades abominations before,” Kaladin said. “But the Radiants carried them. So were the Radiants wrong to do so?”

“Of course not,” she said, sounding like he was saying something completely stupid. “The Shards weren’t abominations back then.”

“What changed?”

“The knights,” Syl said, growing quiet. “The knights changed.”

“So it’s not that the weapons are abominations specifically,” Kaladin said. “It’s that the wrong people are carrying them.”

“There are no right people anymore,” Syl whispered. “Maybe there never were…”

“And where did they come from in the first place?” Kaladin asked. “Shardblades. Shardplate. Even modern fabrials are nowhere near as good. So where did the ancients get weapons so amazing?”

Syl fell silent. She had a frustrating habit of doing that when his questions got too specific.

“Well?” he prompted.

“I wish I could tell you.”

“Then do.”

“I wish it worked that way. It doesn’t.”

Kaladin sighed, turning his attention back to Adolin and Renarin, where it was supposed to be. The senior ardent had led them to the very back of the courtyard, where another group of people sat on the ground. They were ardents too, but something was different about them. Teachers of some sort?

As Adolin spoke to them, Kaladin did another quick scan around the courtyard, then frowned.

“Kaladin?” Syl asked.

“Man in the shadows over there,” Kaladin said, gesturing with his spear toward a place under the eaves. A man stood there, leaning cross-armed against a waist-high wooden railing. “He’s watching the princelings.”

“Um, so is everyone else.”

“He’s different,” Kaladin said. “Come on.”

Kaladin wandered over casually, unthreatening. The man was probably just a servant. Long-haired, with a short but scruffy black beard, he wore loose tan clothing tied with ropes. He looked out of place in the sparring yard, and that itself was probably enough to indicate he wasn’t an assassin. The best assassins never stood out.

Still, the man had a robust build and a scar on his cheek. So he’d seen fighting. Best to check on him. The man watched Renarin and Adolin intently and, from this angle, Kaladin couldn’t see if his eyes were light or dark.

As Kaladin got close, his foot audibly scraped the sand. The man spun immediately, and Kaladin leveled his spear by instinct. He could see the man’s eyes now – they were brown – but Kaladin had trouble placing his age. Those eyes seemed old somehow, but the man’s skin didn’t seem wrinkled enough to match them. He could have been thirty-five. Or he could have been seventy.

Too young, Kaladin thought, though he couldn’t say why.

Kaladin lowered his spear. “Sorry, I’m a little jumpy. First few weeks on the job.” He tried to say it disarmingly.

It didn’t work. The man looked him up and down, still showing the chained menace of a warrior deciding whether or not to strike. Finally, he turned away from Kaladin and relaxed, watching Adolin and Renarin.

“Who are you?” Kaladin asked, stepping up beside the man. “I’m new, as I said. I’m trying to learn everyone’s names.”

“You’re the bridgeman. The one who saved the highprince.”

“I am,” Kaladin said.

“You don’t need to keep prying,” the man said. “I’m not going to hurt your Damnation prince.” He had a low, grinding voice. Scratchy. Strange accent too.

“He’s not my prince,” Kaladin said. “Just my responsibility.” He looked the man over again, noticing something. The light clothing, tied with ropes, was very similar to what some of the ardents were wearing. The full head of hair had thrown Kaladin off.

“You’re a soldier,” Kaladin guessed. “Ex-soldier, I mean.”

“Yeah,” the man said. “They call me Zahel.”

Kaladin nodded, the irregularities clicking into place. Occasionally, a soldier retired to the ardentia, if he had no other life to return to. Kaladin would have expected them to require the man to at least shave his head.

I wonder if Hav is in one of these monasteries somewhere, Kaladin thought idly. What would he think of me now? He’d probably be proud. He always had seen guard duty as the most respectable of a soldier’s assignments.

“What are they doing?” Kaladin asked Zahel, nodding toward Renarin and Adolin – who, despite the encumbrance of their Shardplate, had seated themselves on the ground before the elder ardents.

Zahel grunted. “The younger Kholin has to be chosen by a master. For training.”

“Can’t they just pick whichever one they want?”

“Doesn’t work that way. It’s kind of an awkward situation, though. Prince Renarin, he’s never practiced much with a sword.” Zahel paused. “Being chosen by a master is a step that most lighteyed boys of suitable rank take by the time they’re ten.”

Kaladin frowned. “Why didn’t he ever train?”

“Health problems of some sort.”

“And they’d really turn him down?” Kaladin asked. “The highprince’s own son?”

“They could, but they probably won’t. Not brave enough.” The man narrowed his eyes as Adolin stood up and gestured. “Damnation. I knew it was suspicious that he waited for this until I got back.”

“Swordmaster Zahel!” Adolin called. “You aren’t sitting with the others!”

Zahel sighed, then gave Kaladin a resigned glance. “I’m probably not brave enough either. I’ll try not to hurt him too much.” He walked around the railing and jogged over. Adolin clasped Zahel’s hand eagerly, then pointed to Renarin. Zahel looked distinctly out of place among the other ardents with their bald heads, neatly trimmed beards, and cleaner clothing.

“Huh,” Kaladin said. “Did he seem odd to you?”

“You all seem odd to me,” Syl said lightly. “Everyone but Rock, who is a complete gentleman.”

“He thinks you’re a god. You shouldn’t encourage him.”

“Why not? I am a god.”

He turned his head, looking at her flatly as she sat on his shoulder. “Syl…”

“What? I am!” She grinned and held up her fingers, as if pinching something very small. “A little piece of one. Very, very little. You have permission to bow to me now.”

“Kind of hard to do when you’re sitting on my shoulder,” he mumbled. He noticed Lopen and Shen arriving at the gate, likely bearing the daily reports from Teft. “Come on. Let’s see if Teft has anything he needs from me, then we’ll do a circuit and check on Drehy and Moash.”

Notes

The Pattern is changing shape almost constantly.

It shifts pace often changing slowly at some times and very quickly at others.

I cannot yet tell what might cause these changes in timing.

It appears to be made up of lines? They’re not exactly tendrils or tentacles, they don’t grasp or teach… keep dividing and multiplying… combining into different…

The lines always… be connected, either… the central root… Pattern or by… from a root… shapes mix… reduce by multi…

It almost… in and out bet… three-dimens… it prefers a surf… with, but… through the…

It certainly… of depth, but… appear to p… dimensions in terms of…

It seems to have an infinite variety of permutations!

The lines that make up the Pattern sweep and curl and straighten and twist, smoothly dividing and combining together and moving apart again in a constant tangle of lines. It never looks chaotic, there is always a pattern to the shapes.

The divisions of the Pattern vary, but appear to be consistently even.

I am almost cert… have seen this… somewhere befo…

It shares some resemblance… I observed in… that the…

In other handwriting:

You have no idea what I went through to recover this from the bottom of the Rosharan ocean. You owe me a new coat. – Nazh

17. A Pattern

Dullform dread, with the mind most lost.
The lowest, and one not bright.
To find this form, one need banish the cost.
It finds you and brings you to blight.

From the Listener Song of Listing, final stanza

Riding on her wagon, Shallan covered her anxiety with scholarship. There was no way to tell if the deserters had spotted the trails of crushed rockbuds made by the caravan. They might be following. They might not be.

No use dwelling on it, she told herself. And so she found a distraction. “The leaves can start their own shoots,” she said, holding up one of the small, round leaves on the tip of her finger. She turned it toward the sunlight.

Bluth sat beside her, hulking like a boulder. Today, he wore a hat that was entirely too stylish for him – dusty white, with a brim that folded upward at the sides. He would occasionally flick his guiding reed – it was at least as long as Shallan was tall – on the shell of the chull ahead.

Shallan had made a small list of the beats he used in the back of her book. Bluth hit twice, paused, and hit again. That made the animal slow as the wagon in front of them – driven by Tvlakv – began moving up a hillside covered in tiny rockbuds.

“You see?” Shallan said, showing him the leaf. “That’s why the plant’s limbs are so fragile. When the storm comes, it will shatter these branches and break off the leaves. They will blow away and start new shoots, building their own shell. They grow so quickly. Faster than I’d have expected out here, in these infertile lands.”

Bluth grunted.

Shallan sighed, lowering her finger and putting the tiny plant back in the cup she’d been using to nurture it. She glanced over her shoulder.

No sign of pursuit. She really should just stop worrying.

She turned back to her new sketchbook – one of Jasnah’s notebooks that didn’t have many pages filled – then began a quick sketch of the small leaf. She didn’t have very good materials, only a single charcoal pencil, some pens, and a little ink, but Pattern had been right. She could not stop.

She had begun with a replacement sketch of the santhid as she remembered it from her dip in the sea. The picture wasn’t equal to the one she’d crafted right after the event, but having it again – in any form – had started healing the wounds inside.

She finished the leaf, then turned the page and began a sketch of Bluth. She didn’t particularly want to restart her collection of people with him, but her options were limited. Unfortunately, that hat really did look silly – it was far too small for his head. The image of him huddled forward like a crab, back to the sky and hat on his head… well, at least it would be an interesting composition.

“Where did you get the hat?” she asked as she sketched.

“Traded for it,” Bluth mumbled, not looking at her.

“Did it cost much?”

He shrugged. Shallan had lost her own hats in the sinking, but had persuaded Tvlakv to give her one of the ones woven by the parshmen. It wasn’t particularly attractive, but it kept the sun off her face.

Despite the bumping wagon, Shallan eventually managed to finish her sketch of Bluth. She inspected it, dissatisfied. It was a poor way to start her collection, particularly as she felt she’d caricatured him somewhat. She pursed her lips. What would Bluth look like if he weren’t always scowling at her? If his clothing were neater, if he carried a proper weapon instead of that old cudgel?

She flipped the page and started again. A different composition – idealized, perhaps, but somehow also right. He could actually look dashing, once you dressed him up properly. A uniform. A spear, planted to his side. Eyes toward the horizon. By the time she’d finished, she was feeling much better about the day. She smiled at the product, then held it up to Bluth as Tvlakv called the midday halt.

Bluth glanced at the picture, but said nothing. He gave the chull a few whacks to stop it alongside the one pulling Tvlakv’s wagon. Tag rolled up his wagon – he carried the slaves, this time.

“Knobweed!” Shallan said, lowering her sketch and pointing at a patch of thin reeds growing behind a nearby rock.

Bluth groaned. “More of that plant?”

“Yes. Would you kindly fetch them for me?”

“Can’t the parshmen do it? I’m supposed to feed the chulls…”

“Which would you rather make wait, guardsman Bluth? The chulls, or the lighteyed woman?”

Bluth scratched his head underneath the hat, then sullenly climbed down from the wagon and walked toward the reeds. Nearby, Tvlakv stood on his wagon, watching the horizon to the south.

A thin trail of smoke rose in that direction.

Shallan felt an immediate chill. She scrambled from the wagon and hurried to Tvlakv. “Storms!” Shallan said. “Is it the deserters? They are following us?”

“Yes. They have stopped to cook for midday, it seems,” Tvlakv said from his perch atop his wagon. “They do not care about us seeing their fire.” He forced out a laugh. “That is a good sign. They probably know we are only three wagons, and are barely worth chasing. So long as we keep moving and don’t stop often, they will give up the chase. Yes. I’m certain.”

He hopped down from his wagon, then hurriedly began to water the slaves. He didn’t bother to make the parshmen do it – he did the work himself. That, more than anything, testified to his nervousness. He wanted to be moving again quickly.

That left the parshmen to continue weaving in their cage behind Tvlakv’s wagon. Anxious, Shallan stood there watching. The deserters had spotted the wagons’ trail of broken rockbuds.

She found herself sweating, but what could she do? She couldn’t hurry the caravan. She had to simply hope, as Tvlakv said, that they could stay ahead of pursuit.

That didn’t seem likely. The chull wagons couldn’t be faster than marching men.

Distract yourself, Shallan thought as she started to panic. Find something to take your mind off the pursuit.

What about Tvlakv’s parshmen? Shallan eyed them. Perhaps a drawing of the two of them in their cage?

No. She was too nervous for drawing, but perhaps she could find something out. She walked to the parshmen. Her feet complained, but the pain was manageable. In fact, in contrast to how she’d covered it up on previous days, now she exaggerated her winces. Better to make Tvlakv think she was less well than she was.

She stopped at the cage’s bars. The back was unlocked – parshmen never ran. Buying these two must have been quite an investment for Tvlakv. Parshmen weren’t cheap, and many monarchs and powerful lighteyes hoarded them.

One of the two glanced at Shallan, then turned back to his work. Her work? It was difficult to tell the males from the females without undressing them. Both of these two had red on white marbled skin. They had squat bodies, perhaps five feet tall, and were bald.

It was so difficult to see these two humble workers as a threat. “What are your names?” Shallan asked.

One looked up. The other kept working.

“Your name,” Shallan prodded.

“One,” the parshman said. He pointed at his companion. “Two.” He put his head down and kept working.

“Are you happy with your life?” Shallan asked. “Would you rather be free, given the chance?”

The parshman looked up at her and frowned. He scrunched up his brow, mouthing a few of the words, then shook his head. He didn’t understand.

“Freedom?” Shallan prodded.

He hunched down to work.

He actually looks uncomfortable, Shallan thought. Embarrassed for not understanding. His posture seemed to say, “Please stop asking me questions.” Shallan tucked her sketchbook under her arm and took a Memory of the two of them working there.

These are evil monsters, she told herself forcefully, creatures of legend who will soon be bent on destroying everyone and everything around them. Standing here, looking in at them, she found it difficult to believe, even though she had accepted the evidence.

Storms. Jasnah was right. Persuading the lighteyes to rid themselves of their parshmen was going to be nearly impossible. She would need very, very solid proof. Troubled, she walked back to her seat and climbed up, making sure to wince. Bluth had left her a bundle of knobweed, and was now caring for the chulls. Tvlakv was digging out some food for a quick lunch, which they’d probably eat while moving.

She quieted her nerves and forced herself to do some sketches of nearby plants. She soon moved on to a sketch of the horizon and the rock formations nearby. The air didn’t feel as cold as it had during her first days with the slavers, though her breath still steamed before her in the mornings.

As Tvlakv passed by, he gave her an uncomfortable glance. He had treated her differently since their confrontation at the fire last night.

Shallan continued sketching. It was certainly a lot flatter out here than back home. And there were far fewer plants, though they were more robust. And… … And was that another column of smoke up ahead? She stood up and raised a hand to shade her eyes. Yes. More smoke. She looked southward, toward the pursuing mercenaries.

Nearby, Tag stopped, noticing what she had. He hustled over to Tvlakv, and the two started arguing softly.

“Tradesman Tvlakv” – Shallan refused to call him “Trademaster,” as would be his proper title as a full merchant – “I would hear your discussion.”

“Of course, Brightness, of course.” He waddled over, wringing his hands. “You have seen the smoke ahead. We have entered a corridor running between the Shattered Plains and the Shallow Crypts and its sister villages. There is more traffic here than in other parts of the Frostlands, you see. So it is not unexpected that we should encounter others…”

“Those ahead?”

“Another caravan, if we are lucky.”

And if we’re unlucky… She didn’t need to ask. It would mean more deserters or bandits.

“We can avoid them,” Tvlakv said. “Only a large group would dare make smoke for midday meals, as it is an invitation – or a warning. The small caravans, like ourselves, do not risk it.”

“If it’s a large caravan,” Tag said, rubbing his brow with a thick finger, “they’ll have guards. Good protection.” He looked southward.

“Yes,” Tvlakv said. “But we could also be placing ourselves between two enemies. Danger on all sides…”

“Those behind will catch us, Tvlakv,” Shallan said.

“I–”

“A man hunting game will return with a mink if there are no telm to be found,” she said. “Those deserters have to kill to survive out here. Didn’t you say there was probably going to be a highstorm tonight?”

“Yes,” Tvlakv said, reluctant. “Two hours after sunset, if the list I bought is correct.”

“I don’t know how bandits normally weather the storms,” Shallan said, “but they’ve obviously committed to chasing us down. I’d bet they plan to use the wagons as shelter after killing us. They’re not going to let us go.”

“Perhaps,” Tvlakv said. “Yes, perhaps. But Brightness, if we see that second column of smoke ahead, so might the deserters…”

“Yeah,” Tag said, nodding, as if he’d only just realized it. “We cut east. The killers might go after the group ahead.”

“We let them attack someone else instead of us?” Shallan said, folding her arms.

“What else would you expect us to do, Brightness?” Tvlakv said, exasperated. “We are small cremlings, you see. Our only choice is to keep away from larger creatures and hope for them to hunt one another.”

Shallan narrowed her eyes, inspecting that small column of smoke ahead. Was it her eyes, or was it growing thicker? She looked backward. Actually, the columns looked to be about the same size.

They won’t hunt prey their own size, Shallan thought. They left the army, ran away. They’re cowards.

Nearby, she could see Bluth looking backward as well, watching that smoke with an expression she couldn’t read. Disgust? Longing? Fear? No spren to give her a clue.

Cowards, she thought again, or just men disillusioned? Rocks who started rolling down a hillside, only to start going so quickly they don’t know how to stop?

It didn’t matter. Those rocks would crush Shallan and the others, if given the chance. Cutting eastward wouldn’t work. The deserters would take the easy kill – slow-moving wagons – instead of the potentially harder kill straight ahead.

“We make for the second column of smoke,” Shallan said, sitting down.

Tvlakv looked at her. “You don’t get to–” He broke off as she met his eyes.

“You…” Tvlakv said, licking his lips. “You won’t get… to the Shattered Plains as quickly, Brightness, if we get tied up with a larger caravan, you see. It could be bad.”

“I will deal with that if the problem arises, tradesman Tvlakv.”

“Those ahead will keep moving,” Tvlakv warned. “We may arrive at that camp and find them gone.”