Oathbringer

114. The Cost

Dalinar came to himself, gasping, in the cabin of a stormwagon. Heart pounding, he spun about, kicking aside empty bottles and lifting his fists. Outside, the riddens of a storm washed the walls with rain.

What in the Almighty’s tenth name had that been? One moment, he’d been lying in his bunk. The next, he had been … Well, he didn’t rightly remember. What was the drink doing to him now?

Someone rapped on his door.

“Yes?” Dalinar said, his voice hoarse.

“The caravan is preparing to leave, Brightlord.”

“Already? The rain hasn’t even stopped yet.”

“I think they’re, um, eager to be rid of us, sir.”

Dalinar pushed open the door. Felt stood outside, a lithe man with long, drooping mustaches and pale skin. Had to have some Shin blood in him, judging by those eyes.

Though Dalinar hadn’t expressly said what he intended to do out here in Hexi, his soldiers seemed to understand. Dalinar wasn’t sure whether he should be proud of their loyalty, or scandalized by how easily they accepted his intention to visit the Nightwatcher. Of course, one of them—Felt himself—had been this way before.

Outside, the caravan workers hitched up their chulls. They’d agreed to drop him off here, along their path, but refused to take him farther toward the Valley.

“Can you get us the rest of the way?” Dalinar asked.

“Sure,” Felt said. “We’re less than a day off.”

“Then tell the good caravan master that we will take our wagons and split from him here. Pay him what he asked, Felt, and then some on top.”

“If you say so, Brightlord. Seems that having a Shardbearer along with him should be payment enough.”

“Explain that, in part, we’re buying his silence.”

Dalinar waited until the rain had mostly stopped, then threw on his coat and stepped out to join Felt, walking at the front of the wagons. He didn’t feel like being cooped up any longer.

He’d expected this land to look like the Alethi plains. After all, the windswept flatlands of Hexi were not unlike those of his homeland. Yet strangely, there wasn’t a rockbud in sight. The ground was covered in wrinkles, like frozen ripples in a pond, perhaps two or three inches deep. They were crusty on the stormward side, covered with lichen. On the leeward side, grass spread on the ground, flattened.

The sparse trees here were scrawny, hunched-over things with thistle leaves. Their branches bent so far leeward, they almost touched the ground. It was like one of the Heralds had strolled through this place and bent everything sideways. The nearby mountainsides were bare, blasted and scoured raw.

“Not far now, sir,” Felt said. The short man barely came up to the middle of Dalinar’s chest.

“When you came before,” Dalinar said. “What … what did you see?”

“To be frank, sir, nothing. She didn’t come to me. Doesn’t visit everyone, you see.” He clapped his hands, then breathed on them. It had been winter, lately. “You’ll want to go in right after dark. Alone, sir. She avoids groups.”

“Any idea why she didn’t visit you?”

“Well, best I could figure, she doesn’t like foreigners.”

“I might have trouble too.”

“You’re a little less foreign, sir.”

Up ahead, a group of small dark creatures burst from behind a tree and shot into the air, clumped together. Dalinar gaped at their speed and agility. “Chickens?” he said. Little black ones, each the size of a man’s fist.

Felt chuckled. “Yes, wild chickens range this far east. Can’t see what they’d be doing on this side of the mountains though.”

The chickens eventually picked another bent-over tree and settled in its branches.

“Sir,” Felt said. “Forgive me for asking, but you sure you want to do this? You’ll be in her power, in there. And you don’t get to pick the cost.”

Dalinar said nothing, feet crunching on fans of weeds that trembled and rattled when he touched them. There was so much emptiness here in Hexi. In Alethkar, you couldn’t go more than a day or two without running into a farming village. They hiked for a good three hours, during which Dalinar felt both an anxiety to be finished and—at the same time—a reluctance to progress. He had enjoyed his recent sense of purpose. Simultaneously, his decision had given him excuses. If he was going to the Nightwatcher anyway, then why fight the drink?

He’d spent much of the trip intoxicated. Now, with the alcohol running out, the voices of the dead seemed to chase him. They were worst when he tried to sleep, and he felt a dull ache behind his eyes from poor rest.

“Sir?” Felt eventually asked. “Look there.” He pointed to a thin strip of green painting the windswept mountainside.

As they continued, Dalinar got a better view. The mountains split into a valley here, and since the opening pointed to the northeast, foothills shielded the interior from highstorms.

So plant life had exploded inside. Vines, ferns, flowers, and grasses grew together in a wall of underbrush. Trees stretched above them, and these weren’t the durable stumpweights of his homeland. These were gnarled, tall, and twisted, with branches that wound together. They were overgrown with draping moss and vines, lifespren bobbing about them in plenitude.

It all piled atop itself, reeds and branches sticking out in all directions, ferns so overgrown with vines that they drooped beneath the weight. It reminded Dalinar of a battlefield. A grand tapestry, depicting people locked in mortal combat, each one struggling for advantage.

“How does one enter?” Dalinar asked. “How do you pass through that?”

“There are some trails,” Felt said. “If you look hard enough. Shall we camp here, sir? You can scout out a path tomorrow, and make your final decision?”

He nodded, and they set up at the edge of the breach, close enough he could smell the humidity inside. They set up the wagons as a barrier between two trees, and the men soon had tents assembled. They were quick to get a fire going. There was a … feeling to the place. Like you could hear all of those plants growing. The valley shivered and cracked. When wind blew out, it was hot and muggy.

The sun set behind the mountains, plunging them into darkness. Soon after, Dalinar started inward. He couldn’t wait another day. The sound of it lured him. The vines rustling, moving as tiny animals scampered between them. Leaves curling. The men didn’t call after him; they understood his decision.

He stepped into the musty, damp valley, vines brushing his head. He could barely see in the darkness, but Felt had been right—trails revealed themselves as vines and branches bent away from him, allowing Dalinar entrance with the same reluctance as guards allowing an unfamiliar man into the presence of their king.

He had hoped for the Thrill to aid him here. This was a challenge, was it not? He felt nothing, not even a hint.

He trudged through the darkness, and suddenly felt stupid. What was he doing here? Chasing a pagan superstition while the rest of the highprinces gathered to punish Gavilar’s killers? He should be at the Shattered Plains. That was where he’d change himself, where he would go back to the man he’d been before. He wanted to escape the drink? He just needed to summon Oathbringer and find someone to fight.

Who knew what was out there in this forest? If he were a bandit, this was certainly where he would set up. People must flock here. Damnation! He wouldn’t be surprised to discover that someone had started all this simply to draw in unsuspecting marks.

Wait. What was that? A sound different from scurries in the underbrush or vines withdrawing. He stopped in place, listening. It was …

Weeping.

Oh, Almighty above. No.

He heard a boy weeping, pleading for his life. It sounded like Adolin. Dalinar turned from the sound, searching the darkness. Other screams and pleas joined that one, people burning as they died.

In a moment of panic, he turned to run back the way he’d come. He immediately tripped in the underbrush.

He collapsed against rotten wood, vines twisting under his fingers. People screamed and howled all around, the sounds echoing in the near-absolute darkness.

Frantic, he summoned Oathbringer and stumbled to his feet, then began slashing, trying to clear space. Those voices. All around him!

He pushed past a tree trunk, fingers digging into the hanging moss and wet bark. Was the entrance this way?

Suddenly he saw himself in the Unclaimed Hills, fighting those traitorous parshmen. He saw himself killing, and hacking, and murdering. He saw his lust, eyes wide and teeth clenched in a dreadful grin. A skull’s grin.

He saw himself strangling Elhokar, who had never possessed his father’s poise or charm. Dalinar took the throne. It should have been his anyway.

His armies poured into Herdaz, then Jah Keved. He became a king of kings, a mighty conqueror whose accomplishments far overshadowed those of his brother. Dalinar forged a unified Vorin empire that covered half of Roshar. An unparalleled feat!

And he saw them burn.

Hundreds of villages. Thousands upon thousands of people. It was the only way. If a town resisted, you burned it to the ground. You slaughtered any who fought back, and you left the corpses of their loved ones to feed the scavengers. You sent terror before you like a storm until your enemies surrendered.

The Rift would be but the first in a long line of examples. He saw himself standing upon the heaped corpses, laughing. Yes, he had escaped the drink. He had become something grand and terrible.

This was his future.

Gasping, Dalinar dropped to his knees in the dark forest and allowed the voices to swarm around him. He heard Evi among them, crying as she burned to death, unseen, unknown. Alone. He let Oathbringer slip from his fingers and shatter to mist.

The crying faded until it was distant.

Son of Honor … a new sound whispered on the winds, a voice like the rustling of the trees.

He opened his eyes to find himself in a tiny clearing, bathed in starlight. A shadow moved in the darkness beyond the trees, accompanied by the noise of twisting vines and blowing grass.

Hello, human. You smell of desperation. The feminine voice was like a hundred overlapping whispers. The elongated figure moved among the trees ringing the clearing, stalking him like a predator.

“They … they say you can change a man,” Dalinar said, weary.

The Nightwatcher seeped from the darkness. She was a dark green mist, vaguely shaped like a crawling person. Too-long arms reached out, pulling her along as she floated above the ground. Her essence, like a tail, extended far behind her, weaving among tree trunks and disappearing into the forest.

Indistinct and vaporous, she flowed like a river or an eel, and the only part of her with any specific detail was her smooth, feminine face. She glided toward him until her nose was mere inches from his own, her silken black eyes meeting his. Tiny hands sprouted from the misty sides of her head. They reached out, taking his face and touching it with a thousand cold—yet gentle—caresses.

What is it you wish of me? the Nightwatcher asked. What boon drives you, Son of Honor? Son of Odium?

She started to circle him. The tiny black hands kept touching his face, but their arms stretched out, becoming tentacles.

What would you like? she asked. Renown? Wealth? Skill? Would you like to be able to swing a sword and never tire?

“No,” Dalinar whispered.

Beauty? Followers? I can feed your dreams, make you glorious.

Her dark mists wrapped around him. The tiny tendrils tickled his skin. She brought her face right up to his again. What is your boon?

Dalinar blinked tears, listening to the sounds of the children dying in the distance, and whispered a single word.

“Forgiveness.”

The Nightwatcher’s tendrils dodged away from his face, like splayed fingers. She leaned back, pursing her lips.

Perhaps it is possessions you wish, she said. Spheres, gemstones. Shards. A Blade that bleeds darkness and cannot be defeated. I can give it to you.

“Please,” Dalinar said, drawing in a ragged breath. “Tell me. Can I … can I ever be forgiven?”

It wasn’t what he’d intended to request.

He couldn’t remember what he’d intended to request.

The Nightwatcher curled around him, agitated. Forgiveness is no boon. What should I do to you. What should I give you? Speak it, human. I—

THAT IS ENOUGH, CHILD.

This new voice startled them both. If the Nightwatcher’s voice was like whispering wind, this one was like tumbling stones. The Nightwatcher backed away from him in a sharp motion.

Hesitant, Dalinar turned and found a woman with brown skin—the color of darkwood bark—standing at the edge of the clearing. She had a matronly build and wore a sweeping brown dress.

Mother? the Nightwatcher said. Mother, he came to me. I was going to bless him.

THANK YOU, CHILD, the woman said. BUT THIS BOON IS BEYOND YOU. She focused on Dalinar. YOU MAY ATTEND ME, DALINAR KHOLIN.

Numbed by the surreal spectacle, Dalinar stood up. “Who are you?”

SOMEONE BEYOND YOUR AUTHORITY TO QUESTION. She strode into the forest, and Dalinar joined her. Moving through the underbrush seemed easier now, though the vines and branches pulled toward the strange woman. Her dress seemed to meld with it all, the brown cloth becoming bark or grass.

The Nightwatcher curled along beside them, her dark mist flowing through the holes in the underbrush. Dalinar found her distinctly unnerving.

YOU MUST FORGIVE MY DAUGHTER, the woman said. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN CENTURIES I’VE COME PERSONALLY TO SPEAK WITH ONE OF YOU.

“Then this isn’t how it happens every time?”

OF COURSE NOT. I LET HER HOLD COURT HERE. The woman brushed her fingers through the Nightwatcher’s misty hair. IT HELPS HER UNDERSTAND YOU.

Dalinar frowned, trying to make sense of all this. “What … why did you choose to come out now?”

BECAUSE OF THE ATTENTION OTHERS PAY YOU. AND WHAT DID I TELL YOU OF DEMANDING QUESTIONS?

Dalinar shut his mouth.

WHY HAVE YOU COME HERE, HUMAN? DO YOU NOT SERVE HONOR, THE ONE YOU CALL ALMIGHTY? LOOK UNTO HIM FOR FORGIVENESS.

“I asked the ardents,” Dalinar said. “I didn’t get what I wanted.”

YOU GOT WHAT YOU DESERVED. THE TRUTH YOU HAVE CRAFTED FOR YOURSELVES.

“I am doomed then,” Dalinar whispered, stopping in place. He could still hear those voices. “They weep, Mother.”

She looked back at him.

“I hear them when I close my eyes. All around me, begging me to save them. They’re driving me mad.”

She contemplated him, the Nightwatcher twining around her legs, then around Dalinar’s, then back again.

This woman … she was more than he could see. Vines from her dress curled into the earth, permeating everything. In that moment he knew that he was not seeing her, but instead a fragment with which he could interact.

This woman extended into eternity.

THIS WILL BE YOUR BOON. I WILL NOT MAKE OF YOU THE MAN YOU CAN BECOME. I WILL NOT GIVE YOU THE APTITUDE, OR THE STRENGTH, NOR WILL I TAKE FROM YOU YOUR COMPULSIONS.

BUT I WILL GIVE YOU … A PRUNING. A CAREFUL EXCISION TO LET YOU GROW. THE COST WILL BE HIGH.

“Please,” Dalinar said. “Anything.”

She stepped back to him. IN DOING THIS, I PROVIDE FOR HIM A WEAPON. DANGEROUS, VERY DANGEROUS. YET, ALL THINGS MUST BE CULTIVATED. WHAT I TAKE FROM YOU WILL GROW BACK EVENTUALLY. THIS IS PART OF THE COST.

IT WILL DO ME WELL TO HAVE A PART OF YOU, EVEN IF YOU ULTIMATELY BECOME HIS. YOU WERE ALWAYS BOUND TO COME TO ME. I CONTROL ALL THINGS THAT CAN BE GROWN, NURTURED.

THAT INCLUDES THE THORNS.

She seized him, and the trees descended, the branches, the vines. The forest curled around him and crept into the crevices around his eyes, under his fingernails, into his mouth and ears. Into his pores.

A BOON AND A CURSE, the Mother said. THAT IS HOW IT IS DONE. I WILL TAKE THESE THINGS FROM YOUR MIND. AND WITH THEM, I TAKE HER.

“I…” Dalinar tried to speak as plant life engulfed him. “Wait!”

Remarkably, the vines and branches stopped. Dalinar hung there, speared by vines that had somehow pushed through his skin. There was no pain, but he felt the tendrils writhing inside his very veins.

SPEAK.

“You’ll take…” He spoke with difficulty. “You’ll take Evi from me?”

ALL MEMORIES OF HER. THIS IS THE COST. SHOULD I FORBEAR?

Dalinar squeezed his eyes shut. Evi …

He had never deserved her.

“Do it,” he whispered.

The vines and branches surged forward and began to rip away pieces of him from the inside.

Dalinar crawled from the forest the next morning. His men rushed to him, bringing water and bandages, though strangely he needed neither.

But he was tired. Very, very tired.

They propped him in the shade of his stormwagon, exhaustionspren spinning in the air. Malli—Felt’s wife—quickly scribed a note via spanreed back to the ship.

Dalinar shook his head, memory fuzzy. What … what had happened? Had he really asked for forgiveness?

He couldn’t fathom why. Had he felt that bad for failing … He stretched for the word. For failing …

Storms. His wife. Had he felt so bad for failing her by letting assassins claim her life? He searched his mind, and found that he couldn’t recall what she looked like. No image of her face, no memories of their time together.

Nothing.

He did remember these last few years as a drunkard. The years before, spent in conquest. In fact, everything about his past seemed clear except her.

“Well?” Felt said, kneeling beside him. “I assume it … happened.”

“Yes,” Dalinar said.

“Anything we need to know about?” he asked. “I once heard of a man who visited here, and from then on, every person he touched fell upward instead of down.”

“You needn’t worry. My curse is for me alone.” How strange, to be able to remember scenes where she had been, but not remember … um … storms take him, her name.

“What was my wife’s name?” Dalinar asked.

“Shshshsh?” Felt said. It came out as a blur of sounds.

Dalinar started. She’d been taken completely? Had that … that been the cost? Yes … grief had caused him to suffer these last years. He’d suffered a breakdown at losing the woman he loved.

Well, he assumed that he’d loved her. Curious.

Nothing.

It seemed that the Nightwatcher had taken memories of his wife, and in so doing, given him the boon of peace. However, he did still feel sorrow and guilt for failing Gavilar, so he wasn’t completely healed. He still wanted a bottle to numb the grief of losing his brother.

He would break that habit. When men abused drink under his command, he’d found that the solution was to work them hard, and not let them taste strong wines. He could do the same to himself. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could manage it.

Dalinar relaxed, but felt like something else was missing inside of him. Something he couldn’t identify. He listened to his men breaking camp, telling jokes now that they could leave. Beyond that, he heard rustling leaves. And beyond that, nothing. Shouldn’t he have heard …

He shook his head. Almighty, what a foolish quest this had been. Had he really been so weak that he needed a forest spren to relieve his grief?

“I need to be in communication with the king,” Dalinar said, standing. “Tell our men at the docks to contact the armies. By the time I arrive, I want to have battle maps and plans for the Parshendi conquest.”

He’d moped long enough. He had not always been the best of brothers, or the best of lighteyes. He’d failed to follow the Codes, and that had cost Gavilar his life.

Never again.

He straightened his uniform and glanced at Malli. “Tell the sailors that while they’re in port, they’re to find me an Alethi copy of a book called The Way of Kings. I’d like to hear it read to me again. Last time, I wasn’t in my right mind.”

115. The Wrong Passion

A spry ocean wind blew in through the window, shaking Dalinar’s hair as he stood in his villa in Thaylen City. The wind was sharply chill. Crisp. It didn’t linger, but passed him by, turning the pages of his book with a quiet ruffling sound.

It fled from the Everstorm.

Crimson. Furious. Burning. The Everstorm’s clouds flowed in from the west. Like blood billowing in water, each new thunderhead spurted from the one behind it, hemorrhaging fits of lightning. And beneath the storm—within its shadow, and upon those tempestuous seas—ships dotted the waves.

“Ships?” he whispered. “They sailed during the storm?”

He controls it, the Stormfather said, his voice diminutive—like the pattering of rain. He uses it, as Honor once used me.

So much for stopping the enemy in the ocean. Dalinar’s fledgling armada had fled to take shelter from the storm, and the enemy had sailed in uncontested. The coalition had shattered anyway; they wouldn’t defend this city.

The storm slowed as it darkened the bay in front of Thaylen City—then seemed to stop. It dominated the sky to the west, but strangely did not proceed. Enemy ships landed in its shadow, many ramming right up onto the shores.

Amaram’s troops flooded out of the gates to seize the ground between bay and city; there wasn’t enough room for them to maneuver on top of the wall. The Alethi were field troops, and their best chance of victory would involve hitting the parshmen while they disembarked. Behind them, Thaylen troops mounted the wall, but they were not veterans. Their navy had always been their strength.

Dalinar could faintly hear General Khal on the street below, shouting for runners and scribes to send word to Urithiru, calling up the Alethi reinforcements. Too slow, Dalinar thought. Suitably deploying troops could take hours, and though Amaram was hustling his men, they weren’t going to get together in time for a proper assault on the ships.

And then there were the Fused, dozens of which launched into the skies from the ships. He imagined his armies bottlenecked as they left the Oathgate, assaulted from the air as they tried to fight through the streets to reach the lower portion of the city.

It came together with a frightening beauty. Their armada fleeing the storm. Their armies unprepared. The sudden evaporation of support …

“He’s planned for everything.”

It is what he does.

“You know, Cultivation warned me that my memories would return. She said she was ‘pruning’ me. Do you know why she did that? Did I have to remember?”

I do not know. Is it relevant?

“That depends upon the answer to a question,” Dalinar said. He carefully closed the book atop the dresser before the window, then felt the symbols on its cover. “What is the most important step that a man can take?”

He straightened his blue uniform, then slipped the tome off the table. With The Way of Kings a comfortable weight in his hand, he stepped out the door and into the city.

“All this way,” Shallan whispered, “and they’re already here?”

Kaladin and Adolin stood like two statues to either side of her, their faces twin stoic masks. She could see the Oathgate distinctly; that round platform at the edge of the bridge was the exact size of the control buildings.

Hundreds upon hundreds of strange spren stood in the lake of beads that marked the shore of Thaylen City. They looked vaguely humanoid, though they were twisted and odd, like shimmering dark light. More the scribbled outlines of people, like drawings she’d done in a maddened state.

On the shore, a large dark mass of living red light surged across the obsidian ground. It was something more terrible than all of these—something that made her eyes hurt to look upon. And as if that weren’t enough, a half dozen Fused passed overhead, then landed on the bridge that led to the Oathgate platform.

“They knew,” Adolin said. “They led us here with that cursed vision.”

“Be wary,” Shallan whispered, “of anyone who claims to be able to see the future.”

“No. No, that wasn’t from him!” Kaladin looked between them, frantic, and finally turned to Syl for support. “It was like when the Stormfather … I mean…”

“Azure warned us from this path,” Adolin said.

“And what else could we have done?” Kaladin said, then hushed his voice, pulling back with the rest of them into the shadowed concealment of the trees. “We couldn’t go to the Horneater Peaks, like Azure wanted. The enemy waits there too! Everyone says their ships patrol there.” Kaladin shook his head. “This was our only option.”

“We don’t have enough food to return…” Adolin said.

“Even if we did,” Syl whispered, “where would we go? They hold Celebrant. They’re watching this Oathgate, so they’re probably watching the others.…”

Shallan sank down on the obsidian ground. Pattern put his hand on her shoulder, humming softly with concern. Her body yearned for Stormlight to wash away her fatigue. Light could make an illusion, change this world into something else—at least for a few moments—so she could pretend …

“Kaladin is right,” Syl said. “We can’t back down now. Our remaining gemstones won’t last much longer.”

“We have to try,” Kaladin said with a nod.

“Try what, Kal?” Adolin said. “Take on an army of Voidbringers by ourselves?”

“I don’t know how the portal works,” Shallan added. “I don’t even know how much Stormlight it might require.”

“We’ll … we’ll try something,” Kaladin said. “We have Stormlight still. An illusion? A distraction? We could get you to the Oathgate, and you could … find out how to free us.” He shook his head. “We can make it work. We have to.”

Shallan bowed her head, listening to Pattern hum. Some problems could not be fixed with a lie.

Jasnah carefully stepped out of the way of a troop of soldiers running for the Oathgate. She had been informed via spanreed that troops were gathering in Urithiru to come help. Unfortunately, they would soon have to acknowledge what she already knew.

Thaylen City was lost.

Their adversary had played this hand too well. That angered her, but she kept that emotion in check. At the very least, she hoped that Amaram’s band of malcontents would soak up arrows and spears long enough to let the Thaylen civilians evacuate.

Lightning from the storm lit the city red.

Focus. She had to focus on what she could do, not what she had failed to do. First, she had to see that her uncle didn’t get himself killed fighting a useless battle. Second, she needed to help evacuate Thaylen City; she had already warned Urithiru to prepare for refugees.

Both these goals would wait a short time as she dealt with a matter even more pressing.

“The facts align,” Ivory said. “The truth that has always been, will now soon manifest to all.” He rode upon the high collar of her dress, tiny, holding on with one hand. “You are correct. A traitor is.”

Jasnah undid the buttons on her safehand sleeve and pinned it back, exposing the gloved hand underneath. In preparation, she’d also worn a scout’s yellow and gold havah, with shorter skirts slit at the sides and front, trousers underneath. Sturdy boots.

She turned out of the path of another group of cursing soldiers and strode up the steps to the doorway of the temple of Pailiah’Elin. True to the information she’d been given, she found Renarin Kholin kneeling on the floor inside, head bowed. Alone.

A spren rose from his back, bright red, shimmering like the heat of a mirage. A crystalline structure, like a snowflake, though it dripped light upward toward the ceiling. In her pouch, she carried a sketch of the proper spren of the Truthwatchers.

And this was something different.

Jasnah put her hand to the side, then—taking a deep breath—summoned Ivory as a Shardblade.

Venli hopped down from the ship’s improvised gangway. The city before her was yet another marvel. Built up the side of a mountain, it looked almost like it had been cut from the stone—sculpted like the winds and rain had shaped the Shattered Plains.

Hundreds of singers streamed around her. Hulking Fused walked among them, bearing carapace armor as impressive as any Shardplate. Some of the ordinary singers wore warform—but unlike their Alethi counterparts, they had not been through combat training.

Azish, Thaylen, Marati … a host of nationalities, these newly awakened singers were frightened, uncertain. Venli attuned Agony. Would they force her to march to the front line? She didn’t have much battle training either; even with a form of power, she’d be cut to ribbons.

Like my people, on the field of Narak, who were sacrificed to birth the Everstorm. Odium seemed very quick to expend the lives of both listener and singer.

Timbre pulsed to Peace in her pouch, and Venli rested her hand on it. “Hush,” she whispered to Agony. “Hush. Do you want one of them to hear you?”

Timbre reluctantly softened her pulsings, though Venli could still feel a faint vibration from her pouch. And that … that relaxed her. She almost thought that she could hear the Rhythm of Peace herself.

One of the hulking Fused called for her. “You! Listener woman! Come!”

Venli attuned the Rhythm of Destruction. She would not be intimidated by these, gods though they be. She stepped up to this one and kept her head high.

The Fused handed her a sword in a sheath. She took it, then attuned Subservience. “I’ve used an axe before, but not—”

“Carry it,” he said, eyes glowing softly red. “You may need to defend yourself.”

She did not object further. There was a fine line between respectful confidence and defiance. She belted the sword on her slender body, wishing she had some carapace.

“Now,” the Fused said to Conceit, striding forward and expecting her to keep up, “tell me what this little one is saying.”

Venli followed him to a gathering of singers in workform, holding spears. She had been speaking to the Fused in the ancient language, but these were speaking in Thaylen.

I’m an interpreter, she thought, relaxing. That’s why they wanted me on the battlefield.

“What was it,” Venli said to Derision, addressing the one the Fused had indicated, “you wished to say to the holy one?”

“We…” The singer licked his lips. “We aren’t soldiers, ma’am. We’re fishers. What are we doing here?” Though a shade of the Rhythm of Anxiety laced his words, his cringing form and face were the stronger indication. He spoke and acted like a human.

She interpreted.

“You are here to do as you are told,” the Fused told them, through Venli. “In return, you are rewarded with further opportunities to serve.” Though his rhythm was Derision, he didn’t seem angry. More … as if he were lecturing a child.

She passed that along, and the sailors looked to each other, shuffling uncomfortably.

“They wish to object,” she told the Fused. “I can read it in them.”

“They may speak,” he said.

She prompted them, and their leader looked down, then spoke to Anxiety. “It’s just that … Thaylen City? This is our home. We’re expected to attack it?”

“Yes,” the Fused said after Venli interpreted. “They enslaved you. They tore your families apart, treated you like dumb animals. Do you not thirst for vengeance?”

“Vengeance?” the sailor said, looking to his fellows for support. “We’re glad to be free. But … I mean … some of them treated us pretty nice. Can’t we just go settle somewhere, and leave the Thaylens alone?”

“No,” the Fused said. Venli interpreted, then jumped to follow him as he stalked off.

“Great one?” she asked to Subservience.

“These have the wrong Passion,” he said. “The ones who attacked Kholinar did so gladly.”

“The Alethi are a warlike people, great one. It’s not surprising they passed this on to their slaves. And perhaps these were better treated?”

“They were slaves for far too long. We need to show them a better way.”

Venli stuck close to the Fused, happy to have found one that was both sane and reasonable. He didn’t shout at the groups they visited, many of whom shared similar complaints. He merely had her repeat the same sorts of phrases.

You must seize vengeance, little ones. You must earn your Passion.

Qualify yourselves for greater service, and you will be elevated to the place of a Regal, given a form of power.

This land was yours long ago, before they stole it. You have been trained to be docile. We will teach you to be strong again.

The Fused remained calm, but fierce. Like a smoldering fire. Controlled, but ready to burst alight. He eventually walked to join some of his fellows. Around them, the singer army formed up awkwardly, coating the land just east of the bay. Alethi troops mustered across a short battlefield, banners flapping. They had archers, heavy infantry, light infantry, even some outriders on horses.

Venli hummed to Agony. This was going to be a slaughter.

She suddenly felt something odd. Like a rhythm, but oppressive, demanding. It shook the very air, and the ground beneath her feet trembled. Lightning in the clouds behind seemed to flash to this rhythm, and in a moment she saw that the area around her was filled with ghostly spren.

Those are the spirits of the dead, she realized. Fused who haven’t yet chosen a body. Most were twisted to the point that she barely recognized them as singers. Two were roughly the size of buildings.

One dominated even these: a creature of swirling violence, tall as a small hill, seemingly made up entirely of red smoke. She could see these overlaid on the real world, but somehow knew they would be invisible to most. She could see into the other world. That happened sometimes right before …

A blistering heat shone behind her.

Venli braced herself. She usually only saw him during the storms. But … this was a storm. It hovered behind, immobile, churning the seas.

Light crystallized beside her, forming an ancient parshman with a face marbled gold and white, and a regal scepter he carried like a cane. For once, his presence didn’t vaporize her immediately.

Venli released a relieved breath. This was more an impression than his true being. Still, power streamed from him like the tendrils of a vinebud waving in the wind, vanishing into infinity.

Odium had come to personally supervise this battle.

Teft hid.

He couldn’t face the others. Not after … after what he’d done.

Rock and Bisig bleeding. Eth dead. The room destroyed. The Honorblade stolen.

He had … he had on a Bridge Four … uniform.…

Teft scrambled through the rock hallways, passing shamespren in bursts, looking for a place where nobody could see him. He’d done it again, to yet another group that trusted him. Just like with his family, whom he’d sold out in a misguided attempt at righteousness. Just like with his squad in Sadeas’s army, whom he’d abandoned for his addiction. And now … and now Bridge Four?

He tripped on an uneven bit of stone in the dark hallway and fell, grunting, scraping his hand against the floor. He groaned, then lay there, knocking his head against the stone.

Would that he could find someplace hidden, and squeeze inside, never ever to be found again.

When he looked up, she was standing there. The woman made of light and air, with curls of hair that vanished into mist.

“Why are you following me?” Teft growled. “Go pick one of the others. Kelek! Pick anyone but me.”

He rose and pushed past her—she had barely any substance—and continued down the hallway. Light from ahead showed that he’d accidentally made his way to the outer ring of the tower, where windows and balconies overlooked the Oathgate platforms.

He stopped by a stone doorway, puffing, holding on with a hand that bled from the knuckles.

“Teft.”

“You don’t want me. I’m broken. Pick Lopen. Rock. Sigzil. Damnation, woman. I…”

What was that?

Drawn by faint sounds, Teft walked into the empty room. Those sounds … Shouts?

He walked out onto the balcony. Below, figures with marbled skin flooded across one of the Oathgate platforms, the one that led to Kholinar. That was supposed to be locked, unusable.

Scouts and soldiers began to shout in panic down below. Urithiru was under attack.

Puffing from her run, Navani scrambled up the last few steps onto the wall of Thaylen City. Here, she found Queen Fen’s retinue. Finally.

She checked her arm clock. If only she could find a fabrial that would manipulate exhaustion, not just pain. Wouldn’t that be something. There were exhaustionspren, after all …

Navani strode along the wall walk toward Fen. Below, Amaram’s troops flew the new Sadeas banner: the axe and the tower, white on forest green. Anticipationspren and fearspren—the eternal attendants of the battlefield—grew up around them. Sadeas’s men were still streaming through the gates, but already blocks of archers moved forward. They’d soon start pelting the disorganized parshman army.

That storm though …

“The enemy only keeps coming,” Fen said as Navani approached, her admirals making room. “I’ll soon get to judge your famed Alethi troops firsthand—as they fight an impossible battle.”

“Actually,” Navani said, “we’re better off than it looks. The new Sadeas is a renowned tactician. His soldiers are well rested and—if lacking in discipline—known for their tenacity. We can attack the enemy before it finishes deploying. Then, if they rebound and overwhelm us with numbers, we can pull back into the city until we get reinforcements.”

Kmakl, Fen’s consort, nodded. “This is winnable, Fen. We might even be able to capture some of our ships back.”

The ground shook. For a moment, Navani felt that she was on a swaying ship. She cried out, grabbing the battlement to keep from falling.

Out in the field, between the enemy troops and the Alethi ones, the ground shattered. Lines and cracks split the stone, and then an enormous stone arm pulled itself from the ground—the fractures having outlined its hand, forearm, elbow, and upper arm.

A monster easily thirty feet tall pulled itself from the stone, dropping chips and dust on the army below. Like a skeleton made of rock, it had a wedge-shaped head with deep, molten red eyes.

Venli got to watch the thunderclasts awaken.

Among the waiting spirits were two larger masses of energy—souls so warped, so mangled, they didn’t seem singer at all. One crawled into the stone ground, somehow inhabiting it like a spren taking residence in a gemheart. The stone became its form.

Then it ripped itself free of the rock. Around her, the parshmen stumbled back in awe, so surprised that they actually drew spren. The thing loomed over the human forces, while its companion climbed into the stone ground, but didn’t rip out immediately.

There was one other, mightier than even these. It was out in the water of the bay, but when she looked into the other world, she couldn’t help but glance toward it. If those two lesser souls had created such daunting stone monsters, then what was that mountain of power?

In the Physical Realm, the Fused knelt and bowed their heads toward Odium. So they could see him too. Venli knelt quickly, knocking her knees against the stone. Timbre pulsed to Anxiety, and Venli put her hand on the pouch, squeezing it. Quiet. We can’t fight him.

“Turash,” Odium said, resting fingers upon the shoulder of the Fused she had been following. “Old friend, you look well in this new body.”

“Thank you, master,” Turash said.

“Your mind holds firm, Turash. I am proud of you.” Odium waved toward Thaylen City. “I have prepared a grand army for our victory today. What do you think of our prize?”

“An excellent position of great import, even without the Oathgate,” Turash said. “But I fear for our armies, master.”

“Oh?” Odium asked.

“They are weak, untrained, and frightened. Many may refuse to fight. They don’t crave vengeance, master. Even with the thunderclast, we may be outmatched.”

“These?” Odium asked, looking over his shoulder at the gathered singers. “Oh, Turash. You think too small, my friend! These are not my army. I brought them here to watch.”

“Watch what?” Venli asked, looking up. She cringed, but Odium paid her no mind. Odium held his hands to the sides, yellow-gold power streaming behind his figure like a wind made visible. Beyond him, in the other place, that red churning power became more real. It was pulled into this realm completely, and the ocean boiled.

Something came surging out. Something primeval, something Venli had felt but never truly known. Red mist. Ephemeral, like a shadow you see on a dark day and mistake for something real. Charging red horses, angry and galloping. The forms of men, killing and dying, shedding blood and reveling in it. Bones piled atop one another, making a hill upon which men struggled.

The red mist climbed up from the surging waves, rolling out onto an empty section of rock, northward along the rim of the water. It brought to her a lust for the battlefield. A beautiful focus, a Thrill for the fight.

The largest of the spren, the roiling mass of red light, vanished from Shadesmar.

Kaladin gasped and walked closer to the outer edge of the trees, feeling that power vacate this place and … go to the other?

“Something’s happening,” he said to Adolin and Shallan, who were still discussing what to do. “We might have an opening!”

They joined him and watched as the strange army of spren began to vanish too, winking out in waves.

“The Oathgate?” Shallan asked. “Maybe they’re using it?”

In moments, only the six Fused remained, guarding the bridge.

Six, Kaladin thought. Can I defeat six?

Did he need to?

“I can challenge them as a distraction,” he said to the others. “Maybe we can use some illusions as well? We can draw them off while Shallan sneaks over and figures out how to work the Oathgate.”

“I suppose we don’t have any other choice,” Adolin said. “But…”

“What?” Kaladin said, urgent.

“Aren’t you worried about where that army went?”

“Passion,” Odium said. “There is great Passion here.”

Venli felt cold.

“I’ve prepared these men for decades,” Odium said. “Men who want nothing so much as something to break, to gain vengeance against the one who killed their highprince. Let the singers watch and learn. I’ve prepared a different army to fight for us today.”

Ahead of them on the battlefield, the human ranks slumped, their banner wavering. A man in glittering Shardplate, sitting upon a white horse, led them.

Deep within his helm, something started glowing red.

The dark spren flew toward the men, finding welcoming bodies and willing flesh. The red mist made them lust, made their minds open. And the spren, then, bonded to the men, slipping into those open souls.

“Master, you have learned to inhabit humans?” Turash said to Subservience.

“Spren have always been able to bond with them, Turash,” Odium said. “It merely requires the right mindset and the right environment.”

Ten thousand Alethi in green uniforms gripped their weapons, their eyes glowing a deep, dangerous red.

“Go,” Odium whispered. “Kholin would have sacrificed you! Manifest your anger! Kill the Blackthorn, who murdered your highprince. Set your Passion free! Give me your pain, and seize this city in my name!”

The army turned and—led by a Shardbearer in gleaming Plate—attacked Thaylen City.

Shallan’s Sketchbook: Oathgate Spren

116. Alone

Kaladin thought he could hear the wind as he stepped from beneath the obsidian trees. Syl said this place had no wind. Yet was that the tinkling of glass leaves as they quivered? Was that the sigh of cool, fresh air coursing around him?

He’d come far in the last half year. He seemed a man distant from the one who carried bridges against Parshendi arrows. That man had welcomed death, but now—even on the bad days, when everything was cast in greys—he defied death. It could not have him, for while life was painful, life was also sweet.

He had Syl. He had the men of Bridge Four. And most importantly, he had purpose.

Today, Kaladin would protect Dalinar Kholin.

He strode toward the sea of souls that marked the existence of Thaylen City on the other side. Many of those souls’ flames, in ranks, had turned sharply red. He shivered to think what that meant. He stepped up onto the bridge, beads churning below, and reached the highest point in its arc before the enemy noticed him.

Six Fused turned and rose into the air, arraying to regard him. They raised long spears, then looked to the sides, seeming shocked.

One man, alone?

Kaladin set one foot back—gently scraping the tip of his boot against the white marble bridge—and fell into a combat posture. He hooked the harpoon in a one-handed underarm grip, letting out a long breath.

Then he drew in all of his Stormlight, and burst alight.

Within the power’s embrace, a lifetime’s worth of moments seemed to snap into place. Throwing Gaz to the ground in the rain. Screaming in defiance while charging at the front of a bridge. Coming awake in the practice grounds during the Weeping. Fighting the assassin on the stormwall.

The Fused leaped for him, trailing long cloaks and robes. Kaladin Lashed himself straight upward, and took to the sky for the first time in what had been far, far too long.

Dalinar stumbled as the ground shook again. A second sequence of cracks sounded outside. He was too low down in the city now to see past the city wall, but he feared he knew what that breaking stone must signify. A second thunderclast.

Violet fearspren sprouted from the streets all around as civilians shouted and screamed. Dalinar had made his way down through the central section of the city—the part called the Ancient Ward—and had just entered the Low Ward, the bottom portion nearest the city wall. The steps behind him were filling with people who fled upward, toward the Oathgate.

As the trembling subsided, Dalinar grabbed the arm of a young mother who was pounding frantically on the door of a building. He sent her running up the steps with her child in her arms. He needed these people off the streets, preferably taking shelter at Urithiru, so they wouldn’t get caught between clashing armies.

Dalinar felt his age as he jogged past the next row of buildings, still clutching The Way of Kings under his arm. He had barely any spheres on him, an oversight, but neither did he have Plate or Blade. This would be his first battle in many, many years without Shards. He’d insisted on stepping out of those boots, and would have to let Amaram and other Shardbearers command the field.

How was Amaram faring? Last Dalinar had seen, the highprince had been arranging his archers—but from this low in the city, Dalinar couldn’t see the troops outside.

A sudden feeling slammed into him.

It was focus and passion. An eager energy, a warmth, a promise of strength.

Glory.

Life.

To Dalinar, this thirst for the battle felt like the attentions of a lover you’d turned away long ago. The Thrill was here. His old, dear friend.

“No,” he whispered, sagging against a wall. The emotion struck him harder than the earthquake had. “No.”

The taste was so, so appealing. It whispered that he could save this city all on his own. Let the Thrill in, and the Blackthorn could return. He didn’t need Shards. He only needed this passion. Sweeter than any wine.

No.

He shoved the Thrill aside, scrambling to his feet. As he did, however, a shadow moved beyond the wall. A monster of stone, one of the beasts from his visions, standing some thirty feet tall—looming over the twenty-foot city wall. The thunderclast clasped its hands together, then swung them low, crashing them through the city wall, flinging out chunks of stone.

Dalinar leaped toward cover, but a falling boulder pounded into him, crushing him into a wall.

Blackness.

Falling.

Power.

He gasped, and Stormlight flooded into him—he shook awake to find his arm pinned by the boulder, rocks and dust falling on a rubble-strewn street before him. And … not just rubble. He coughed, realizing some of those lumps were bodies coated in dust, lying motionless.

He struggled to pull his arm from under the boulder. Nearby, the thunderclast kicked at the broken wall, opening a hole. Then it stepped through, footfalls shaking the ground, approaching the shelf that made up the front of the Ancient Ward.

A massive stone foot thumped to the ground by Dalinar. Storms! Dalinar hauled on his arm, heedless of the pain or the damage to his body, and finally got it free. The Stormlight healed him as he crawled away, ducking as the monster ripped the roof off a building at the front of the Ancient Ward and sent debris raining down.

The Gemstone Reserve? The monster cast the roof aside, and several Fused that he’d missed before—they were riding on its shoulders—slipped down into the building. Dalinar was torn between heading for the battlefield outside, and investigating whatever was going on here.

Any idea what they’re after? he asked the Stormfather.

No. This is odd behavior.

In a flash decision, Dalinar yanked his book out from under some rubble nearby, then went running back up the now-empty steps to the Ancient Ward, dangerously close to the thunderclast.

The monster released a sudden piercing roar, like a thunderclap. The shock wave almost knocked Dalinar off his feet again. In a fit of rage, the titanic creature attacked the Gemstone Reserve, ripping apart its walls and innards, tossing chunks backward. A million sparkling bits of glass caught the sunlight as they fell over the city, the wall, and beyond.

Spheres and gemstones, Dalinar realized. All the wealth of Thaylenah. Scattered like leaves.

The thing seemed increasingly angry as it pounded the area around the reserve. Dalinar put his back to a wall as two Fused darted past, led by what appeared to be a glowing yellow spren. These two Fused didn’t seem to be able to fly, but there was a startling grace to their motion. They slid along the stone street with no apparent effort, as if the ground were greased.

Dalinar gave chase, squeezing past a group of scribes huddled in the street, but before he could catch up, the Fused attacked one palanquin among the many trying to move through the crowds. They knocked it over, shoving aside the porters, and dug inside.

The Fused ignored Dalinar’s shouts. They soon streaked away—one tucking a large object under its arm. Dalinar drew in Stormlight from some fleeing merchants, then ran the rest of the distance to the palanquin. Amid the wreckage he found a young Thaylen woman alongside an elderly man who appeared to have been previously wounded, judging by the bandages.

Dalinar helped the dazed young woman to a sitting position. “What did they want?”

“Brightlord?” she said in Thaylen. She blinked, then seized his arm. “The King’s Drop … a ruby. They tried to steal it before, and now, now they’ve taken it!”

A ruby? A simple gemstone? The porters attended to the old man, who was barely conscious.

Dalinar looked over his shoulder at the retreating thunderclast. The enemy had ignored the wealth of the Gemstone Reserve. Why would they want a specific ruby? He was about to press for more details when something else drew his attention. From this higher vantage, he could see through the hole the thunderclast had broken in the wall.

Figures outside with glowing red eyes arrayed themselves on the battlefield—but they weren’t parshmen.

Those were Sadeas uniforms.

Jasnah moved into the temple, gripping her Shardblade, stepping on slippered feet. The red spren rising from Renarin—like a snowflake made of crystal and light—seemed to sense her and panicked, disappearing into Renarin with a puff.

A spren is, Ivory said. The wrong spren is.

Renarin Kholin was a liar. He was no Truthwatcher.

That is a spren of Odium, Ivory said. Corrupted spren. But … a human, bonded to one? This thing is not.

“It is,” Jasnah whispered. “Somehow.”

She was now close enough to hear Renarin whispering. “No … Not Father. No, please…”

Shallan wove Light.

A simple illusion, recalled from the pages of her sketchpad: some soldiers from the army, people from Urithiru, and some of the spren she’d sketched on her trip. Around twenty individuals in total.

“Taln’s nails,” Adolin said as Kaladin shot upward through the sky. “The bridgeboy is really into it.”

Kaladin drew away four of the Fused, but two remained behind. Shallan added an illusion of Azure to her group, then some of the Reachers she’d drawn. She hated using up so much Stormlight—what if she didn’t have enough left to get through the Oathgate?

“Good luck,” she whispered to Adolin. “Remember, I won’t be controlling these directly. They will make only rudimentary motions.”

“We’ll be fine.” Adolin glanced at Pattern, Syl, and the spren of his sword. “Right, guys?”

“Mmmm,” Pattern said. “I do not like being stabbed.”

“Wise words, friend. Wise words.” Adolin gave Shallan a kiss, then they took off running toward the bridge. Syl, Pattern, and the deadeye followed—as did the illusions, which were bound to Adolin.

This force drew the attention of the last two Fused. As those were distracted, Shallan slipped over to the base of the bridge, then eased herself down into the beads. She crossed silently beneath the bridge, using precious Stormlight to make herself a safe walking platform with one of the beads she’d found while on Honor’s Path.

She made her way across to the small island platform that represented the Oathgate on this side. Two enormous spren stood above it.

Judging by the shouting on the bridge, Adolin and the others were doing their job. But could Shallan do hers? She stepped up beneath the two sentinels, which stood tall as buildings, reminiscent of statues in armor.

One mother-of-pearl, the other black with a variegated oily shimmer. Did they guard the Oathgate, or did they—somehow—facilitate its workings?

At a loss for what else to do, Shallan simply waved her hand. “Um, hello?”

Steadily, two heads turned down toward her.

The air around Venli—once crowded by the spirits of the dead—was now empty save for the single black figure of swirling smoke. She’d missed that one at first, as it was the size of a normal person. It stood near Odium, and she did not know what it represented.

The second thunderclast dragged arms as long as its body, with hands like hooks. It crossed the field eastward, toward the city walls and the human army of turncoats. Just behind Venli, to the west, the common singers stood arrayed before their ships. They stayed far from the red mist of the Unmade coating the north side of the battlefield.

Odium stood beside Venli, a glowing force of burning gold. The first thunderclast left the city and placed something down on the ground: two of the Fused—gods with lithe bodies and little armor. They skirted the turncoat army, sliding along the rock with an uncanny grace.

“What is that they carry?” Venli asked. “A gemstone? Is that why we came here? A rock?”

“No,” Odium said. “That is merely a precaution, a last-minute addition I made to prevent a potential disaster. The prize I claim today is far greater—even more grand than the city itself. The conduit of my freedom. The bane of Roshar. Forward, child. To the gap in the wall. I may need you to speak for me.”

She swallowed, then started hiking toward the city. The dark spirit followed, the one of swirling mists, the last who had yet to inhabit a body.

Kaladin soared through this place of black heavens, haunted clouds, and a distant sun. Only four of the Fused had chosen to take off after him. Adolin would have to deal with the other two.

The four flew with precision. They used Lashings like Kaladin did, though they didn’t seem to be able to vary their speed as much as he could. It took them longer to build up to greater Lashings, which should have made it easy to stay ahead of them.

But storms, the way they flew! So graceful. They didn’t jerk this way or that, but flowed lithely from one motion to the next. They used their entire bodies to sculpt the wind of their passing and control their flight. Even the Assassin in White hadn’t been so fluid as these, so like the winds themselves.

Kaladin had claimed the skies, but storms, it looked like he’d moved into territory where someone had a prior entitlement.

I don’t have to fight them, he thought. I only have to keep them busy long enough for Shallan to figure out how to activate the portal.

Kaladin Lashed himself upward, toward those strange, too-flat clouds. He twisted in the air, and found one of the Fused almost upon him—a male with pale white skin swirled through with a single marbling of red, like smoke blown across the cheeks. The creature stabbed its long spear at him, but Kaladin Lashed himself to the side just in time.

Lashing wasn’t flying, and that was part of its strength. Kaladin didn’t have to be facing any specific direction to move in the air. He fell up and slightly to the north, but fought while facing downward, battering away the enemy lance with his harpoon. The Fused’s weapon was far longer, with sharpened sides rather than a single fine point. Kaladin’s harpoon was at a severe disadvantage.

Right. Time to change that.

As the Fused rammed the lance upward again, Kaladin reached out with both hands on his harpoon’s haft, holding it sideways. He let the enemy spear pass into the opening between his arms, chest, and harpoon.

He Lashed his own weapon downward with multiple Lashings. Then he dropped it.

It slid along the length of the lance and smacked into the Fused’s arms. The creature shouted in pain, letting go of his weapon. At the same moment Kaladin dove, canceling all upward Lashings and binding himself downward instead.

The sudden, jarring change made his stomach lurch and his vision go black. Even with Stormlight, this was almost too much. His ears ringing, he gritted his teeth, riding the momentary loss of sight until—blessedly—his vision returned. He spun in the air, then pulled up and snatched the falling lance as it dropped past him.

The four Fused swooped after him, more cautious. The wind of his passing chilled the sweat on his face from his near blackout.

Let’s … not try that again, Kaladin thought, hefting his new weapon. He’d practiced with things like this in pike walls, but they were normally too long to maneuver in one-on-one combat. Flying would negate that.

The Fused he’d disarmed swooped down to fetch the harpoon. Kaladin waved his hand toward the others palm upward, then took off toward some nearby dark obsidian mountains, forested on the sides—the direction he and the others had come. Down below, he could see Shallan’s illusions engaging the two Fused on the bridge.

Eyes forward, Kaladin thought as the four others chased after him. He belonged in the skies with these creatures.

Time to prove it.

Prime Aqasix Yanagawn the First, emperor of all Makabak, paced in the cabin of his ship.

He was actually starting to feel like an emperor. He wasn’t embarrassed talking to the viziers and scions any longer. He understood much of what they discussed now, and didn’t jump when someone called him “Your Majesty.” Remarkably, he was starting to forget that he’d ever been a frightened thief sneaking through the palace.

But then, even an emperor had limits to his rule.

He paced back the other way. Regal robes—of Azish patterns—weighed him down, along with the Imperial Yuanazixin: a fancy hat with sweeping sides. He’d have taken the thing off, but he felt he needed its authority when talking to his three most important advisors.

“Lift thinks we should have stayed,” he said. “War is coming to Thaylen City.”

“We’re merely protecting our fleet from the storm,” Noura said.

“Pardon, Vizier, but that’s a load of chull dung, and you know it. We left because you’re worried that Kholin is being manipulated by the enemy.”

“That is not the only reason,” Scion Unoqua said. He was an old man with a full paunch. “We have always been skeptical of the Lost Radiants. The powers that Dalinar Kholin wishes to harness are extremely dangerous, as now proven by the translations of an ancient record!”

“Lift says—” Yanagawn said.

“Lift?” Noura said. “You listen to her far too much, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“She’s smart.”

“She once tried to eat your cummerbund.”

“She … thought it sounded like a type of dessert.” Yanagawn took a deep breath. “Besides, she’s not that kind of smart. She’s the other kind.”

“What other kind, Your Imperial Majesty?” Vizier Dalksi asked. Her hair was powder white, peeking out beneath her formal headdress.

“The kind that knows when it’s wrong to betray a friend. I think we should go back. Am I emperor or not?”

“You are emperor,” Noura said. “But, Your Majesty, remember your lessons. The thing that separates us from the monarchies of the east—and the chaos they suffer—is that our emperor is held in check. Azir can, and will, withstand a change in dynasty. Your power is absolute, but you do not exercise it all. You must not.”

“You were chosen,” Unoqua said, “by Yaezir himself to lead—”

“I was chosen,” Yanagawn cut in, “because nobody would shed a tear if the Assassin in White came for me! Let’s not play games, all right?”

“You performed a miracle,” Unoqua said.

“Lift performed a miracle. Using powers you now say are too dangerous to trust!”

The three—two viziers, one scion—looked to each other. Unoqua was their religious leader, but Noura had most seniority by year of passing the tests for master office, which she’d done—remarkably—at age twelve.

Yanagawn stopped by the cabin window. Outside, waves chopped, churning, rocking their ship. His smaller ship had met up with the main fleet, then joined them in taking shelter in Vtlar Cove, along the Thaylen coast. But reports via spanreed said that the Everstorm had stopped near Thaylen City.

A knock came at the door. Yanagawn let Dalksi—least senior, despite her age—call admittance. Yanagawn settled in his regal chair as a guardsman with light brown skin entered. Yanagawn thought he recognized the man, who held a cloth to the side of his face and winced as he gave the formal bow of admittance to the emperor.

“Vono?” Noura asked. “What happened to your charge? You were to keep her busy and distracted, yes?”

“I was, Your Grace,” Vono said. “Until she kicked me in my spheres and stuffed me under the bed. Um, Your Grace. Don’t right know how she moved me. She’s not real big, that one.…”

Lift? Yanagawn thought. He almost cried out, demanding answers, but that would have shamed this man. Yanagawn held himself back with difficulty, and Noura nodded to him in appreciation of a lesson learned.

“When was this?” Noura asked.

“Right before we left,” the guard said. “Sorry, Your Grace. I’ve been down since then, only now recovered.”

Yanagawn turned toward Noura. Surely now she would see the importance of returning. The storm had yet to advance. They could go back if …

Another figure approached the door, a woman in the robes and pattern of a second-level scribe, seventh circle. She entered and quickly gave the formal bows to Yanagawn, so hasty she forgot the third gesture of subservient obedience.

“Viziers,” she said, bowing in turn to them, then to Unoqua. “News from the city!”

“Good news?” Noura asked hopefully.

“The Alethi have turned against the Thaylens, and now seek to conquer them! They’ve been allied with the parshmen all along. Your Grace, by fleeing, we have narrowly avoided a trap!”

“Quickly,” Noura said. “Separate our ships from any that bear Alethi troops. We must not be caught unaware!”

They left, abandoning Yanagawn to the care of a dozen young scribes who were next in line for basking in his presence. He settled into his seat, worried and afraid, feeling a sickness in his gut. The Alethi, traitors?

Lift had been wrong. He had been wrong.

Yaezir bless them. This really was the end of days.

* * *

We are the gatekeepers, the two enormous spren said to Shallan, speaking with voices that overlapped, as if one. Though their mouths did not move, the voices reverberated through Shallan. Lightweaver, you have no permission to use this portal.

“But I need to get through,” Shallan cried up to them. “I have Stormlight to pay!”

Your payment will be refused. We are locked by the word of the parent.

“Your parent? Who?”

The parent is dead now.

“So…”

We are locked. Travel to and from Shadesmar was prohibited during the parent’s last days. We are bound to obey.

Behind Shallan, on the bridge, Adolin had devised a clever tactic. He acted like an illusion.

Her false people had instructions to act like they were fighting—though without her direct attention, that meant they just stood around and slashed at the air. To avoid revealing himself, Adolin had chosen to do the same, slashing about with his harpoon randomly. Pattern and Syl did likewise, while the two Fused hovered overhead. One held her arm, which had been hit—but now seemed to be healing. They knew someone in that mass was real, but they couldn’t ascertain who.

Shallan’s time was short. She looked back up at the gatekeepers. “Please. The other Oathgate—the one at Kholinar—let me through.”

Impossible, they said. We are bound by Honor, by rules spren cannot break. This portal is closed.

“Then why did you let those others through? The army that stood around here earlier?”

The souls of the dead? They did not need our portal. They were called by the enemy, pulled along ancient paths to waiting hosts. You living cannot do the same. You must seek the perpendicularity to transfer. The enormous spren cocked their heads in concert. We are apologetic. We have been … alone very long. We would enjoy granting passage to men again. But we cannot do that which was forbidden.

Szeth of the Skybreakers hovered far above the battlefield.

“The Alethi have changed sides, aboshi?” Szeth asked.

“They have seen the truth,” Nin said, hovering beside him. Only the two of them watched; Szeth did not know where the rest of the Skybreakers had gone.

Nearby, the Everstorm rumbled its discontent. Red lightning rippled across the surface, passing from one cloud to the next.

“All along,” Szeth said, “this world belonged to the parshmen. My people watched not for the return of an invading enemy, but for the masters of the house.”

“Yes,” Nin said.

“And you sought to stop them.”

“I knew what must happen if they returned.” Nin turned toward him. “Who has jurisdiction over this land, Szeth-son-Neturo? A man can rule his home until the citylord demands his taxes. The citylord controls his lands until the highlord, in turn, comes to him for payment. But the highlord must answer to the highprince, when war is called in his lands. And the king? He … must answer to God.”

“You said God was dead.”

“A god is dead. Another won the war by right of conquest. The original masters of this land have returned, as you so aptly made metaphor, with the keys to the house. So tell me, Szeth-son-Neturo—he who is about to swear the Third Ideal—whose law should the Skybreakers follow? That of humans, or that of the real owners of this land?”

There seemed to be no choice. Nin’s logic was sound. No choice at all …

Don’t be stupid, the sword said. Let’s go fight those guys.

“The parshmen? They are the rightful rulers of the land,” Szeth said.

Rightful? Who has a right to land? Humans are always claiming things. But nobody asks the things, now do they? Well, nobody owns me. Vivenna told me. I’m my own sword.

“I have no choice.”

Really? Didn’t you tell me you spent a thousand years following the instructions of a rock?

“More than seven years, sword-nimi. And I didn’t follow the rock, but the words of the one who held it. I…”

… Had no choice?

But it had always been nothing more than a rock.

Kaladin swooped downward and passed above the treetops, rattling the glass leaves, sending a spray of broken shards behind himself. He turned upward with the slope of the mountain, adding another Lashing to his speed, then another.

When he passed the tree line, he Lashed himself closer to the rock, skimming with obsidian only inches from his face. He used his arms to sculpt the wind around himself, angling toward a crack through the glossy black rock where two mountains met.

Alive with Light and wind, he didn’t care if the Fused were gaining on him or not.

Let them watch.

His angle was wrong to get through the crack, so Kaladin Lashed himself back away from the mountain slope in an enormous loop, continuously changing his Lashings one after another. He made a circle in the air, then darted past the Fused and straight through the crack, close enough to the walls that he could feel them pass.

He broke out the other side, exhilarated. Should he have run out of Stormlight by now? He didn’t use it up as quickly as he had during his early months training.

Kaladin dove along the slopes as three Fused popped out of the crack to follow him. He led them around the base of the obsidian mountain, then wound back toward the Oathgate to check on Shallan and the others. As he approached, he let himself drop among the trees, still moving at incredible speed. He oriented himself as if he were diving through the chasms. Dodging these trees wasn’t so different from that.

He wove between them, using his body more than Lashings to control his direction. His wake caused a melody of breaking glass. He exploded free of the forest, and found the fourth Fused—the one with his harpoon—waiting. The creature attacked, but Kaladin dodged and tore across the ground until he was passing over the sea of beads.

A quick glance showed him Shallan on the platform, waving her hands over her head—the prearranged signal that she needed more time.

Kaladin continued out over the sea, and beads reacted to his Stormlight, rattling and surging like a wave behind him. The last Fused slowed to hover in place, and the other three slowly emerged from the forest.

Kaladin spun in another loop, beads rising in the air behind him like a column of water. He curved in an arc and came in toward the harpoon-wielding Fused. Kaladin slapped the parshman’s weapon aside, then swung the butt of his own lance up, catching the harpoon on the haft while he kicked his enemy in the chest.

The harpoon went upward. The Fused went backward.

The creature pulled himself to a stop in the air with a Lashing, then looked down at his hands, dumbfounded as Kaladin caught the harpoon in his free hand. The disarmed enemy barked something, then shook his head and took out his sword. He glided backward to join the other three, who approached with fluttering robes.

One of these—the male with the white face swirled with red—moved forward alone, then pointed at Kaladin with his lance and said something.

“I don’t speak your language,” Kaladin called back. “But if that was a challenge, you against me, I accept. Gladly.”

At that moment, his Stormlight ran out.

Navani finally got the rock unwedged, and shoved it out of the remnants of the doorway. Other stones fell around it, opening a path out onto the wall.

What was left of it.

About fifteen feet from where she stood, the wall ended in a ragged, broken gap. She coughed, then tucked back a lock of hair that had escaped her braid. They’d run for cover inside one of the stone guard towers along the wall, but one side had collapsed in the shaking.

It had fallen on the three soldiers who had come to protect the queen. The poor souls. Behind, Fen led her consort—who nursed a cut scalp—out over the rubble. Two other scribes had taken shelter with Navani and the queen, but most of the admirals had run in the other direction, taking shelter in the next guard tower along.

That tower was now missing. The monster had swept it away. Now the creature stomped across the plain outside, though Navani couldn’t see what had drawn its attention.

“The stairway,” Fen said, pointing. “Looks like it survived.”

The stairway down was fully enclosed in stone, and would lead into a small guard chamber at the bottom. Maybe they could find soldiers to help the wounded and search the rubble for survivors. Navani pulled open the door, letting Fen and Kmakl head down first. Navani moved to follow, but hesitated.

Damnation, that sight beyond the wall was mesmerizing. The red lightning storm. The two monsters of stone. And the boiling, churning red mist along the right coast. It had no distinct shape, but somehow gave the impression of charging horses with the flesh ripped away.

One of the Unmade, certainly. An ancient spren of Odium. A thing beyond time and history. Here.

A company of soldiers had just finished pouring into the city through the gap. Another formed up outside to enter next. Navani felt a growing chill as she looked at them.

Red eyes.

Gasping softly, she left the stairwell and stumbled along the wall, reaching the broken stone edge. Oh, dear Almighty, no …

The ranks outside split, making way for a single parshwoman. Navani squinted, trying to see what was so special about her. One of the Fused? Behind her, the red mist surged, sending tendrils to weave among the men—including one wearing Shardplate, riding a brilliant white stallion. Amaram had changed sides.

He joined an overwhelming force of Voidbringers in all shapes and sizes. How could they fight this?

How could anyone ever fight this?

Navani fell to her knees above the broken edge of the wall. And then she noticed something else. Something incongruous, something her mind refused—at first—to accept. A solitary figure had somehow gotten around the troops who had already entered the city. He now picked his way across the rubble, wearing a blue uniform, carrying a book tucked under his arm.

Unaided and defenseless, Dalinar Kholin stepped into the gap in the broken wall, and there faced the nightmare alone.

117. Champion with Nine Shadows

Dalinar stepped onto the rubble, boots scraping stone. The air felt too still out here near the red storm. Stagnant. How could the air be so motionless?

Amaram’s army hesitated outside the gap. Some men had already gotten in, but the bulk had been forming up to wait their turn. When you rushed a city like this, you wanted to be careful not to push your own forces too hard from behind, lest you crush them up against the enemy.

These kept uneven ranks, snarling, eyes red. More telling, they ignored the wealth at their feet. A field of spheres and gemstones—all dun—that had been thrown out onto this plain by the thunderclast that destroyed the reserve.

They wanted blood instead. Dalinar could taste their lust for the fight, the challenge. What held them back?

Twin thunderclasts stomped toward the wall. A red haze drifted among the men. Images of war and death. A deadly storm. Dalinar faced it alone. One man. All that remained of a broken dream.

“So…” a sudden voice said from his right. “What’s the plan?”

Dalinar frowned, then looked down to find a Reshi girl with long hair, dressed in a simple shirt and trousers.

“Lift?” Dalinar asked in Azish. “Didn’t you leave?”

“Sure did. What’s wrong with your army?”

“They’re his now.”

“Did you forget to feed them?”

Dalinar glanced at the soldiers, standing in ranks that felt more like packs than they did true battle formations. “Perhaps I didn’t try hard enough.”

“Were you … thinkin’ you’d fight them all on your own?” Lift said. “With a book?”

“There is someone else for me to fight here.”

“… With a book?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. “Sure, all right. Why not? What do you want me to do?”

The girl didn’t match the conventional ideal of a Knight Radiant. Not even five feet tall, thin and wiry, she looked more urchin than soldier.

She was also all he had.

“Do you have a weapon?” he asked.

“Nope. Can’t read.”

“Can’t…” Dalinar looked down at his book. “I meant a real weapon, Lift.”

“Oh! Yeah, I’ve got one a those.” She thrust her hand to the side. Mist formed into a small, glittering Shardblade.

… Or no, it was just a pole. A silver pole with a rudimentary crossguard.

Lift shrugged. “Wyndle doesn’t like hurting people.”

Doesn’t like … Dalinar blinked. What kind of world did he live in where swords didn’t like hurting people?

“A Fused escaped from this city a short time ago,” Dalinar said, “carrying an enormous ruby. I don’t know why they wanted it, and I’d rather not find out. Can you steal it back?”

“Sure. Easy.”

“You’ll find it with a Fused who can move with a power similar to your own. A woman.”

“Like I said. Easy.”

“Easy? I think you might find—”

“Relax, grandpa. Steal the rock. I can do that.” She took a deep breath, then exploded with Stormlight. Her eyes turned a pearly, glowing white. “It’s just us two, then?”

“Yes.”

“Right. Good luck with the army.”

Dalinar looked back at the soldiers, where a figure materialized, wearing gold, holding a scepter like a cane.

“It’s not the army that worries me,” Dalinar said. But Lift had already scampered away, hugging the wall and running quickly to round the outside of the army.

Odium strolled up to Dalinar, trailed by a handful of Fused—plus the woman Dalinar had sucked into his visions—and a shadowy spren that looked like it was made of twisting smoke. What was that?

Odium didn’t address Dalinar at first, but instead turned to his Fused. “Tell Yushah I want her to stay out here and guard the prison. Kai-garnis did well destroying the wall; tell her to return to the city and climb toward the Oathgate. If the Tisark can’t secure it, she is to destroy the device and recover its gemstones. We can rebuild it as long as the spren aren’t compromised.”

Two Fused left, each running toward one of the towering thunderclasts. Odium placed both hands on the top of his scepter and smiled at Dalinar. “Well, my friend. Here we are, and the time has arrived. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Dalinar said.

“Good, good. Let us begin.”

The two Fused hovered near Adolin, out of easy reach, admiring Shallan’s illusory handiwork. He did his best to blend in, waving his harpoon around crazily. He wasn’t sure where Syl had gone, but Pattern seemed to be enjoying himself, humming pleasantly and swinging a glass branch.

One of the Fused nudged the other, then pointed at Shallan, whom they’d just noticed. Neither appeared worried that she’d open the Oathgate—which was a bad sign. What did they know about the device that Adolin’s team did not?

The Fused turned from Shallan and continued a conversation in a language Adolin couldn’t understand. One pointed at each illusion in turn, then thrust with his spear. The other shook her head, and Adolin could almost interpret her answer. We tried stabbing each one. They keep mixing about, so it’s hard to keep track.

Instead, the female took out a knife and cut her hand, then flung it toward the illusions. Orange blood fell through the illusions, leaving no stain, but splattered against Adolin’s cheek. Adolin felt his heart flutter, and he tried to covertly wipe the blood off, but the female gestured toward him with a satisfied grin. The male saluted her with a finger to his head, then lowered his lance and flew straight toward Adolin.

Damnation.

Adolin scrambled away, passing through an illusion of Captain Notum and causing it to diffuse. It formed back together, then blew apart a second later as the Fused soared through it, lance pointed at Adolin’s back.

Adolin spun and flung his harpoon up to block, deflecting the lance, but the Fused still smashed into him, tossing him backward. Adolin hit the stone bridge hard, smacking his head, seeing stars.

Vision swimming, he reached for his harpoon, but the Fused slapped the weapon away with the butt of his lance. The creature then alighted softly on the bridge, billowing robes settling.

Adolin yanked out his belt knife, then forced himself to his feet, unsteady. The Fused lowered its lance to a two-handed, underarm grip, then waited.

Knife against spear. Adolin breathed in and out, worried about the other Fused—who had gone for Shallan. He tried to dredge up Zahel’s lessons, remembering days on the practice yard running this exact exchange. Jakamav had refused the training, laughing at the idea that a Shardbearer would ever fight knife to spear.

Adolin flipped the knife to grip it point down, then held it forward so he could deflect the spear thrusts. Zahel whispered to him. Wait until the enemy thrusts with the spear, deflect it or dodge it, then grab the spear with your left hand. Pull yourself close enough to ram the knife into the enemy’s neck.

Right. He could do that.

He’d “died” seven times out of ten doing it against Zahel, of course.

Winds bless you anyway, you old axehound, he thought. Adolin stepped in, testing, and waited for the thrust. When it came, Adolin shoved the lance’s point aside with his knife, then grabbed at—

The enemy floated backward in an unnatural motion, too fast—no ordinary human could have moved in such a way. Adolin stumbled, trying to reassess. The Fused idly brought the lance back around, then fluidly rammed it right through Adolin’s stomach.

Adolin gasped at the sharp spike of pain, doubling over, feeling blood on his hands. The Fused seemed almost bored as he yanked the lance out, the tip glistening red with Adolin’s blood, then dropped the weapon. The creature landed and instead unsheathed a wicked-looking sword. He advanced, slapped away Adolin’s weak attempt at a parry, and raised the sword to strike.

Someone leaped onto the Fused from behind.

A figure in tattered clothing, a scrabbling, angry woman with brown vines instead of skin and scratched-out eyes. Adolin gaped as his deadeye raked long nails across the Fused’s face, causing him to stumble backward, humming of all things. He rammed his sword into the spren’s chest, but it didn’t faze her in the least. She just let out a screech like the one she’d made at Adolin when he’d tried to summon his Blade, and kept attacking.

Adolin shook himself. Flee, idiot!

Holding his wounded gut—each step causing a shock of pain—he lurched across the bridge toward Shallan.

* * *

Employing subterfuge will not deceive us or weaken our resolve, Lightweaver, the guardians said. For indeed, this is not a matter of decision, but one of nature. The path remains closed.

Shallan let the illusion melt around her, then slumped down, exhausted. She’d tried pleading, cajoling, yelling, and even Lightweaving. It was no use. She had failed. Her illusions on the bridge were wavering and vanishing, their Stormlight running out.

Through them shot a Fused trailing dark energy, lance leveled directly toward Shallan. She dove to the side, barely getting out of the way. The creature passed in a whoosh, then slowed and turned for another pass.

Shallan leaped to her feet first. “Pattern!” she yelled, sweeping her hands forward by instinct, trying to summon the Blade. A part of her was impressed that was her reaction. Adolin would be proud.

It didn’t work, of course. Pattern shouted in apology from the bridge, panicked. And yet in that moment—facing the enemy bearing down, its lance pointed at her heart—Shallan felt something. Pattern, or something like him, just beyond her mental reach. On the other side, and if she could just tug on it, feed it …

She screamed as Stormlight flowed through her, raging in her veins, reaching toward something in her pocket.

A wall appeared in front of her.

Shallan gasped. A sickening smack from the other side of the wall indicated that the Fused had collided with it.

A wall. A storming wall of worked stones, broken at the sides. Shallan looked down and found that her pocket—she was still wearing Veil’s white trousers—was connected to the strange wall.

What on Roshar? She pulled out her small knife and sawed the pocket free, then stumbled back. In the center of the wall was a small bead, melded into the stone.

That’s the bead I used to cross the sea down below, Shallan thought. What she’d done felt like Soulcasting, yet different.

Pattern ran up to her, humming as he left the bridge. Where were Adolin and Syl?

“I took the soul of the wall,” Shallan said, “and then made its physical form appear on this side.”

“Mmm. I think these beads are more minds than souls, but you did manifest it here. Very nice. Though your touch is unpracticed. Mmm. It will not stay for long.”

The edges were already starting to unravel to smoke. A scraping sound on the other side indicated that the Fused had not been defeated, merely stunned. Shallan turned from it and scrambled over the bridge, away from the towering sentinels. She passed some of her illusions and recovered a little of their Stormlight. Now, where was—

Adolin. Bleeding!

Shallan dashed over and grabbed him by the arm, trying to keep him upright as he stumbled.

“It’s just a little cut,” he said. Blood seeped out between his fingers, which were pressed to his gut, right below the navel. The back of his uniform was bloody too.

“Just a little cut? Adolin! You—”

“No time,” he said, leaning against her. He nodded toward the Fused she’d fought, who rose into the air over Shallan’s wall. “The other one is back behind me somewhere. Could be on us at any moment.”

“Kaladin,” Shallan said. “Where—”

“Mmm…” Pattern said, pointing. “He ran out of Stormlight and fell into the beads over that way.”

Great.

“Take a deep breath,” Shallan said to Adolin, then pulled him off the bridge with her and leaped for the beads.

Lift became awesome.

Her powers manifested as the ability to slide across objects without truly touching them. She could become really, really slick—which was handy, because soldiers tried to snatch her as she rounded the Alethi army. They grabbed at her unbuttoned overshirt, her arm, her hair. They couldn’t hold her. She just slid away. It was like they were trying to grab hold of a song.

She burst from their ranks and fell to her knees, which she’d slicked up real good. That meant she kept going, sliding on her knees away from the men with the glowing red eyes. Wyndle—who she knew by now was almost certainly not a Voidbringer—was a little snaking line of green beside her. He looked like a fast-growing vine, jutting with small crystals here and there.

“Oh, I don’t like this,” he said.

“You don’t like nothin’.”

“Now, that is not true, mistress. I liked that nice town we passed back in Azir.”

“The one that was deserted?”

“So peaceful.”

There, Lift thought, picking out a real Voidbringer—the type that looked like parshmen, only big and scary. This one was a woman, and moved across the rock smoothly, like she was awesome too.

“I’ve always wondered,” Lift said. “Do you suppose they got those marble colorings on all their parts?”

“Mistress? Does it matter?”

“Maybe not now,” Lift admitted, glancing at the red storm. She kept her legs slick, but her hands not slick, which let her paddle and steer herself. Going about on your knees didn’t look as deevy as standing up—but when she tried being awesome while standing, she usually ended up crashed against a rock with her butt in the air.

That Fused did seem to be carrying something large in one hand. Like a big gemstone. Lift paddled in that direction—which was taking her dangerously close to that parshman army and their ships. Still, she got up pretty close before the Voidbringer woman turned and noticed.

Lift slid to a halt, letting her Stormlight run out. Her stomach growled, so she took a bite of some jerky she’d found in her guard’s pocket.

The Voidbringer said something in a singsong voice, hefting the enormous ruby—it didn’t have any Stormlight, which was good, since one that big would have been bright. Like, redder and brighter than Gawx’s face when Lift told him about how babies was made. He should know stuff like that already. He’d been a starvin’ thief! Hadn’t he known any whores or anything?

Anyway … how to get that ruby? The Voidbringer spoke again, and while Lift couldn’t figure out the words, she couldn’t help feeling that the Voidbringer sounded amused. The woman pushed off with one foot, then slid on the other, easy as if she were standing on oil. She coasted for a second, then looked over her shoulder and grinned before kicking off and sliding to the left, casually moving with a grace that made Lift seem super stupid.

“Well starve me,” Lift said. “She’s more awesome than I am.”

“Do you have to use that term?” Wyndle asked. “Yes, she appears to be able to access the Surge of—”

“Shut it,” Lift said. “Can you follow her?”

“I might leave you behind.”

“I’ll keep up.” Maybe. “You follow her. I’ll follow you.”

Wyndle sighed but obeyed, streaking off after the Voidbringer. Lift followed, paddling on her knees, feeling like a pig trying to imitate a professional dancer.

“You must choose, Szeth-son-Neturo,” Nin said. “The Skybreakers will swear to the Dawnsingers and their law. And you? Will you join us?”

Wind rippled Szeth’s clothing. All those years ago, he’d been correct. The Voidbringers had returned.

Now … now he was to simply accept their rule?

“I don’t trust myself, aboshi,” Szeth whispered. “I cannot see the right any longer. My own decisions are not trustworthy.”

“Yes,” Nin said, nodding, hands clasped behind his back. “Our minds are fallible. This is why we must pick something external to follow. Only in strict adherence to a code can we approximate justice.”

Szeth inspected the battlefield far below.

When are we going to actually fight someone? asked the sword on his back. You sure do like to talk. Even more than Vasher, and he could go on and on and on.…

“Aboshi,” Szeth said. “When I say the Third Ideal, can I choose a person as the thing I obey? Instead of the law?”

“Yes. Some of the Skybreakers have chosen to follow me, and I suspect that will make the transition to obeying the Dawnsingers easier for them. I would not suggest it. I feel that … I am … am getting worse.…”

A man in blue barred the way into the city below. He confronted … something else. A force that Szeth could just barely sense. A hidden fire.

“You followed men before,” Nin continued. “They caused your pain, Szeth-son-Neturo. Your agony is because you did not follow something unchanging and pure. You picked men instead of an ideal.”

“Or,” Szeth said, “perhaps I was simply forced to follow the wrong men.”

Kaladin thrashed in the beads, suffocating, coughing. He wasn’t that deep, but which way … which way was out? Which way was out?

Frantic, he tried to swim toward the surface, but the beads didn’t move like water, and he couldn’t propel himself. Beads slipped into his mouth, pushed at his skin. Pulled at him like an invisible hand. Trying to drag him farther and farther into the depths.

Away from the light. Away from the wind.

His fingers brushed something warm and soft among the beads. He thrashed, trying to find it again, and a hand seized his arm. He brought his other arm around and grabbed hold of a thin wrist. Another hand took him by the front of the coat, pulling him away from the darkness, and he stumbled, finding purchase on the bottom of the sea.

Lungs burning, he followed, step by step, eventually bursting from the beads to find Syl pulling him by the front of the coat. She led him up the bank, where he collapsed in a heap, spitting out spheres and wheezing. The Fused he’d been fighting landed on the Oathgate platform near the two they’d left behind.

As Kaladin was recovering his breath, beads nearby pulled back, revealing Shallan, Adolin, and Pattern crossing the seafloor through some kind of passage she’d made. A hallway in the depths? She was growing in her ability to manipulate the beads.

Adolin was wounded. Kaladin gritted his teeth, forcing himself to his feet and stumbling over to help Shallan get the prince up onto the shore. The prince lay on his back, cursing softly, holding his gut with bloodied hands.

“Let me see it,” Kaladin said, prying Adolin’s fingers out of the way.

“The blood—” Shallan started.

“The blood is the least of his worries,” Kaladin said, prodding at the wound. “He’s not going to bleed out from a gut wound anytime soon, but sepsis is another story. And if internal organs got cut…”

“Leave me,” Adolin said, coughing.

“Leave you to go where?” Kaladin said, moving his fingers in the wound. Storms. The intestines were cut. “I’m out of Stormlight.”

Shallan’s glow faded. “That was the last of what I had.”

Syl gripped Kaladin’s shoulder, looking toward the Fused, who launched up and flew toward them, lances held high. Pattern hummed softly. Nervously.

“What do we do then?” Shallan asked.

No … Kaladin thought.

“Give me your knife,” Adolin said, trying to sit up.

It can’t be the end.

“Adolin, no. Rest. Maybe we can surrender.”

I can’t fail him!

Kaladin looked over his shoulder toward Syl, who held him lightly by the arm.

She nodded. “The Words, Kaladin.”

Amaram’s soldiers parted around Dalinar, flooding into the city. They ignored him—and unfortunately, he had to ignore them.

“So, child…” Odium nodded toward the city, and took Dalinar by the shoulder. “You did something marvelous in forging that coalition. You should feel proud. I’m certainly proud.”

How could Dalinar fight this thing, who thought of every possibility, who planned for every outcome? How could he face something so vast, so incredible? Touching it, Dalinar could sense it stretching into infinity. Permeating the land, the people, the sky and the stone.

He would break, go insane, if he tried to comprehend this being. And somehow he had to defeat it?

Convince him that he can lose, the Almighty had said in vision. Appoint a champion. He will take that chance.… This is the best advice I can give you.

Honor had been slain resisting this thing.

Dalinar licked his lips. “A test of champions,” he said to Odium. “I demand that we clash over this world.”

“For what purpose?” Odium asked.

“Killing us won’t free you, will it?” Dalinar said. “You could rule us or destroy us, but either way, you’d still be trapped here.”

Nearby, one of the thunderclasts climbed over the wall and entered the city. The other stayed behind, stomping around near the rearguard of the army.

“A contest,” Dalinar said to Odium. “Your freedom if you win, our lives if humans win.”

“Be careful what you request, Dalinar Kholin. As Bondsmith, you can offer this deal. But is this truly what you wish of me?”

“I…”

Was it?

Wyndle followed the Voidbringer, and Lift followed him. They slipped back among the men of the human army. The front ranks were pouring into the city, but the opening wasn’t big enough for them to all go at once. Most waited out here for their turn, cursing and grumbling at the delay.

They took swipes at Lift as she tried to follow the trail of vines Wyndle left. Being little helped her avoid them, fortunately. She liked being little. Little people could squeeze into places others couldn’t, and could go unnoticed. She wasn’t supposed to get any older; the Nightwatcher had promised her she wouldn’t.

The Nightwatcher had lied. Just like a starvin’ human would have. Lift shook her head and slipped between the legs of a soldier. Being little was nice, but it was hard not to feel like every man was a mountain towering overhead. They smashed weapons about her, speaking guttural Alethi curses.

I can’t do this on my knees, she thought as a sword chopped close to her shirt. I have to be like her. I have to be free.

Lift zipped over the side of a small rise in the rock, and managed to land on her feet. She ran for a moment, then slicked the bottoms of her feet and went into a slide.

The Voidbringer woman passed ahead. She didn’t slip and fall, but performed this strange walking motion—one that let her control her smooth glide.

Lift tried to do the same. She trusted in her awesomeness—her Stormlight—to sustain her as she held her breath. Men cursed around her, but sounds slid off Lift as she coated herself in Light.

The wind itself couldn’t touch her. She’d been here before. She’d held for a beautiful moment between crashes, sliding on bare feet, moving free, untouched. Like she was gliding between worlds. She could do it. She could—

Something crashed to the ground nearby, crushing several soldiers, throwing Lift off balance and sending her into a heap. She slid to a stop and rolled over, looking up at one of the huge stone monsters. The skeletal thing raised a spiked hand and slammed it down.

Lift threw herself out of the way, but the shaking from the impact sent her sprawling again. Soldiers nearby didn’t seem to care that their fellows had been crushed. Eyes glowing, they scrambled for her, as if it were a contest to see who could kill her first.

Her only choice was to dodge toward the stone monster. Maybe she could get so close that it—

The creature pounded again, mashing three soldiers, but also slamming into Lift. The blow snapped her legs in the blink of an eye, then crushed her lower half, sending her into a screaming fit of pain. Eyes watering, she curled up on the ground.

Heal. Heal.

Just had to weather the pain. Just had to …

Stones ground against one another overhead. She blinked away tears, looking up at the creature raising its spike high in the sky, toward the sun, which was slipping behind the clouds of the deadly storm.

“Mistress!” Wyndle said. His vines climbed over her, as if trying to cradle her. “Oh, mistress. Summon me as a sword!”

The pain in her legs started to fade. Too slowly. She was growing hungry again, her Stormlight running low. She summoned Wyndle as a rod, twisting against the pain and holding him toward the monster, her eyes watering with the effort.

An explosion of light appeared overhead, a ball of expanding Radiance. Something dropped from the middle of it, trailing smoke both black and white. Glowing like a star.

“Mother!” Wyndle said. “What is—”

As the monster raised its fist to strike Lift, the spear of light hit the creature in the head and cut straight through. It divided the enormous thing in two, sending out an explosion of black smoke. The halves of the monster fell to the sides, crashing into the stone, then burned away, evaporating into blackness.

Soldiers cursed and coughed, backing up as something resolved in the center of the tempest. A figure in the smoke, glowing white and holding a jet-black Shardblade that seemed to feed on the smoke, sucking it in, then letting it pour down beneath itself as a liquid blackness.

White and black. A man with a shaved head, eyes glowing a light grey, Stormlight rising from him. He straightened and strode through the smoke, leaving an afterimage behind. Lift had seen this man before. The Assassin in White. Murderer.

And apparently savior.

He stopped beside her. “The Blackthorn assigned you a task?”

“Uh … yeah,” Lift said, wiggling her toes, which seemed to be working again. “There’s a Voidbringer who stole a large ruby. I’m supposed to get it back.”

“Then stand,” the assassin said, raising his strange Shardblade toward the enemy soldiers. “Our master has given us a task. We shall see it completed.”

Navani scrambled across the top of the wall, alone except for crushed corpses.

Dalinar, don’t you dare become a martyr, she thought, reaching the stairwell. She pulled open the door at the top and started down the dark steps. What was he thinking? Facing an entire army on his own? He wasn’t a young man in his prime, outfitted in Shardplate!

She fumbled for a sphere in her safepouch, then eventually undid the clasp on her arm fabrial instead, using its light to guide her down the steps and into the room at the base. Where had Fen and—

A hand grabbed her, pulling her to the side and slamming her against the wall. Fen and Kmakl lay here, gagged, bound tightly. A pair of men in forest green, eyes glowing red, held knives to them. A third one, wearing the knots of a captain, pressed Navani against the wall.

“What a handsome reward you’ll earn me,” the man hissed at Navani. “Two queens. Brightlord Amaram will enjoy this gift. That almost makes up for not being able to kill you personally, as justice for what your husband did to Brightlord Sadeas.”

Ash stumbled to a stop before a brazier. It bore delicate metalwork around the rim, a finer piece than one expected to find in such a common location.

This improvised camp was where the Alethi troops had bivouacked while repairing the city; it clogged multiple streets and squares of the Low Ward. The unlit brazier that had stopped Ash was in front of a tent, and had perhaps been used for warmth on cold Thaylen nights. Ten figures ringed the bowl. Her fingers itched. She couldn’t move on, no matter how desperate her task, until she’d done it.

She seized the bowl and turned it until she found the woman depicting her, marked by the iconography of the brush and the mask, symbols of creativity. Pure absurdity. She pulled out her knife and sawed at the metal until she’d managed to scratch out the face.

Good enough. Good enough.

She dropped the brazier. Keep going. What that man, Mraize, had told her had better be true. If he had lied …

The large tent near the wall was completely unguarded, though soldiers had run past her a short time ago, eyes glowing with the light of corrupted Investiture. Odium has learned to possess men. A dark, dangerous day. He’d always been able to tempt them to fight for him, but sending spren to bond with them? Terrible.

And how had he managed to start a storm of his own?

Well, this land was finally doomed. And Ash … Ash couldn’t find it inside herself to care any longer. She pushed into the tent, forcibly keeping herself from looking at the rug in case it bore depictions of the Heralds.

There she found him, sitting alone in the dim light, staring ahead sightlessly. Dark skin, even darker than hers, and a muscled physique. A king, for all the fact that he’d never worn a crown. He was the one of the ten who was never supposed to have borne their burden.

And he’d borne it the longest anyway.

“Taln,” she whispered.

Renarin Kholin knew he wasn’t actually a Knight Radiant. Glys had once been a different kind of spren, but something had changed him, corrupted him. Glys didn’t remember that very well; it had happened before they had formed their bond.

Now, neither knew what they’d become. Renarin could feel the spren trembling inside him, hiding and whispering about the danger. Jasnah had found them.

Renarin had seen that coming.

He knelt in the ancient temple of Pailiah, and to his eyes it was full of colors. A thousand panes of stained glass sprouted on the walls, combining and melting together, creating a panorama. He saw himself coming to Thaylen City earlier in the day. He saw Dalinar talking to the monarchs, and then he saw them turning against him.

She will hurt us! She will hurt us!

“I know, Glys,” he whispered, turning toward a specific section of stained glass. This showed Renarin kneeling on the floor of the temple. In the sequence of stained glass panels, Jasnah approached him from behind, sword raised.

And then … she struck him down.

Renarin couldn’t control what he saw or when he saw it. He had learned to read so he could understand the numbers and words that appeared under some of the images. They had shown him when the Everstorm would come. They had shown him how to find the hidden compartments in Urithiru. Now they showed his death.

The future. Renarin could see what was forbidden.

He wrenched his eyes away from the glass pane showing himself and Jasnah, turning toward one even worse. In it, his father knelt before a god of gold and white.

“No, Father,” Renarin whispered. “Please. Not that. Don’t do it.…”

He will not be resisted, Glys said. My sorrow, Renarin. I will give you my sorrow.

A pair of gloryspren swung down from the skies, golden spheres. They floated and spun around Dalinar, brilliant like drops of sunlight.

“Yes,” Dalinar said. “This is what I wish.”

“You wish a contest of champions?” Odium repeated. “This is your true desire, not forced upon you? You were not beguiled or tricked in any way?”

“A contest of champions. For the fate of Roshar.”

“Very well,” Odium said, then sighed softly. “I agree.”

“That easily?”

“Oh, I assure you. This won’t be easy.” Odium raised his eyebrows in an open, inviting way. A concerned expression. “I have chosen my champion already. I’ve been preparing him for a long, long time.”

“Amaram.”

“Him? A passionate man, yes, but hardly suited to this task. No, I need someone who dominates a battlefield like the sun dominates the sky.”

The Thrill suddenly returned to Dalinar. The red mist—which had been fading—roared back to life. Images filled his mind. Memories of his youth spent fighting.

“I need someone stronger than Amaram,” Odium whispered.

“No.”

“A man who will win no matter the cost.”

The Thrill overwhelmed Dalinar, choking him.

“A man who has served me all his life. A man I trust. I believe I warned you that I knew you’d make the right decision. And now here we are.”

“No.”

“Take a deep breath, my friend,” Odium whispered. “I’m afraid that this will hurt.”

118. The Weight of It All

“No,” Dalinar whispered again, voice ragged as the Thrill thrummed inside of him. “No. You are wrong.”

Odium gripped Dalinar’s shoulder. “What does she say?”

She?

He heard Evi crying. Screaming. Begging for her life as the flames took her.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Odium said as Dalinar winced. “I made you kill her, Dalinar. I caused all of this. Do you remember? I can help. Here.”

Memories flooded Dalinar’s mind, a devastating onslaught of images. He lived them all in detail, somehow squeezed into a moment, the Thrill raging inside of him.

He saw himself stab a poor soldier in the back. A young man trying to crawl to safety, crying for his mother …

“I was with you then,” Odium said.

He killed a far better man than himself, a highlord who had held Teleb’s loyalty. Dalinar knocked him to the ground, then slammed a poleaxe into his chest.

“I was with you then.”

Dalinar fought atop a strange rock formation, facing another man who knew the Thrill. Dalinar dropped him to the ground with burning eyes, and called it a mercy.

“I was with you then.”

He raged at Gavilar, anger and lust rising as twin emotions. He broke a man in a tavern, frustrated that he’d been held back from enjoying the fight. He fought on the borders of Jah Keved, laughing, corpses littering the ground. He remembered every moment of the carnage. He felt each death like a spike driven into his soul. He began to weep for the destruction.

“It’s what you needed to do, Dalinar,” Odium said. “You made a better kingdom!”

“So … much … pain.”

“Blame me, Dalinar. It wasn’t you! You saw red when you did those things! It was my fault. Accept that. You don’t have to hurt.”

Dalinar blinked, meeting Odium’s eyes.

“Let me have the pain, Dalinar,” Odium said. “Give it to me, and never feel guilty again.”

“No.” Dalinar hugged The Way of Kings close. “No. I can’t.”

“Oh, Dalinar. What does she say?”

No …

“Have you forgotten? Here, let me help.”

And he was back in that day. The day he killed Evi.

Szeth found purpose in wielding the sword.

It screamed at him to destroy evil, even if evil was obviously a concept that the sword itself could not understand. Its vision was occluded, like Szeth’s own. A metaphor.

How was a twisted soul like his to decide who should die? Impossible. And so he put his trust in someone else, someone whose light peeked through the shadow.

Dalinar Kholin. Knight Radiant. He would know.

This choice was not perfect. But … Stones Unhallowed … it was the best he could manage. It brought him some small measure of peace as he swept through the enemy army.

The sword screamed at him. DESTROY!

Anyone he so much as nicked popped into black smoke. Szeth laid waste to the red-eyed soldiers, who kept coming, showing no fear. Screaming, as if they thirsted for death.

It was a drink that Szeth was all too good at serving.

He wielded Stormlight in one hand, Lashing any men who drew too close, sending them flipping into the air or crashing backward into their fellows. With the other hand he swept the sword through their ranks. He moved on nimble feet, his own body Lashed upward just enough to lighten him. Skybreakers didn’t have access to all of the Lashings, but the most useful—and most deadly—were still his.

Remember the gemstone.

A phantom sense called to him, a desire to continue killing, to revel in the butchery. Szeth rejected it, sick. He had never enjoyed this. He could never enjoy this.

The Voidbringer with the gemstone had slipped away, moving on too-swift feet. Szeth pointed the sword—a piece of him terrified by how quickly it was chewing through his own Stormlight—and Lashed himself to follow. He plowed through soldiers, men bursting into smoke, seeking that one individual.

The Voidbringer turned at the last moment, dancing away from his sword. Szeth Lashed himself downward, then spun in a sweeping arc, towing black smoke—almost liquid—behind his sword as he destroyed men in a grand circle.

EVIL! the sword cried.

Szeth leaped for the Voidbringer woman, but she dropped to the ground and slid on the stone as if it were greased. His sword swung over her head, and she pushed herself backward toward him, sliding right past his legs. There, she swept gracefully to her feet and seized the sheath off Szeth’s back, where he’d tied it for safekeeping.

It broke free. When Szeth turned to attack, she blocked the sword with its own sheath. How had she done that? Was there something about the silvery metal that Szeth didn’t know?

She blocked his next few attacks, then ducked away from his attempts to Lash her.

The sword was growing frustrated. DESTROY, DESTROY, DESTROY! Black veins began to grow around Szeth’s hand, creeping toward his upper arm.

He struck again, but she simply slipped away, moving across the ground as if natural laws had no purchase on her. Other soldiers piled in, and the pain started up Szeth’s arm as he worked death among them.

Jasnah stopped one pace behind Renarin. She could hear his whispers clearly now. “Father. Oh, Father…” The young man whipped his head in one direction, then another, seeing things that weren’t there.

“He sees not what is, but what is to come,” Ivory said. “Odium’s power, Jasnah.”

“Taln,” Ash whispered, kneeling before him. “Oh, Taln…”

The Herald stared forward with dark eyes. “I am Talenel’Elin, Herald of War. The time of the Return, the Desolation, is near at hand.…”

“Taln?” Ash took his hand. “It’s me. It’s Ash.”

“We must prepare. You will have forgotten much.…”

“Please, Taln.”

“Kalak will teach you to cast bronze.…”

He just continued on, repeating the same words over and over and over.

Kaladin fell to his knees on the cold obsidian of Shadesmar.

Fused descended around them, six figures in brilliant, flapping clothing.

He had a single slim hope. Each Ideal he’d spoken had resulted in an outpouring of power and strength. He licked his lips and tried whispering it. “I … I will…”

He thought of friends lost. Malop. Jaks. Beld and Pedin.

Say it, storm you!

“I…”

Rod and Mart. Bridgemen he’d failed. And before them, slaves he’d tried to save. Goshel. Nalma, caught in a trap like a beast.

A windspren appeared near him, like a line of light. Then another.

A single hope.

The Words. Say the Words!

“Oh, Mother! Oh, Cultivation!” Wyndle cried as they watched the assassin murder his way across the field. “What have we done?”

“We’ve pointed him away from us,” Lift said as she perched on a boulder, her eyes wide. “You’d rather he was close by?”

Wyndle continued to whimper, and Lift kinda understood. That was a lot of killing that the assassin did. Red-eyed men who seemed to have no light left in them, true, but … storms.

She’d lost track of the woman with the gemstone, but at least the army seemed to be flowing away from Szeth, leaving him fewer people to kill. He stumbled, slowing, then dropped to his knees.

“Uh-oh.” Lift summoned Wyndle as a rod in case the assassin lost his starvin’ mind—what was left of it—and attacked her. She slipped off the rock, then ran over.

He held the strange Shardblade before himself. It continued to leak black liquid that vaporized as it streamed toward the ground. His hand had gone all black.

“I…” Szeth said. “I have lost the sheath.…”

“Drop the sword!”

“I … can’t.…” Szeth said, teeth gritted. “It holds to me, feasting upon my … my Stormlight. It will soon consume me.”

Stormsstormsstormsstorms. “Right. Right. Ummmmm…” Lift looked around. The army was flooding into the city. The second stone monster was stomping across the Ancient Ward, stepping on buildings. Dalinar Kholin still stood before the gap. Maybe … maybe he could help?

“Come on,” Lift said.

“Kill the man,” said the captain holding Navani. He swept his hand toward old Kmakl, Fen’s consort. “We don’t need him.”

Fen screamed against her gag, but she was held tightly. Navani carefully wiggled her safehand fingers out of her sleeve, then touched her other arm and the fabrial there, flipping a latch. Small knobs extended from the front of the device, just above her wrist.

Kmakl struggled to stand. He seemed to want to face his death with dignity, but the other two soldiers didn’t give him that honor. They pushed him back against the wall, one pulling out a dagger.

Navani seized the arm of the man holding her, then pressed the knobs of her pain fabrial against his skin. He screamed and dropped, writhing in agony. One of the others turned toward her, and she pressed the painrial against his uplifted hand. She’d tested the device on herself, of course, so she knew what it felt like. A thousand needles being shoved into your skin, under your nails, into your eyes.

The second man wet himself as he dropped.

The last one managed to cut a gash in her arm before she sent him to the ground, spasming. Bother. She flipped the switch on the painrial, drawing away the agony of the cut. Then she took the knife and quickly cut Fen’s bonds. As the queen freed Kmakl, Navani bound her painless wound.

“These will recover soon,” Navani said. “We may need to dispatch them before that happens.”

Kmakl kicked the man who had almost slit his throat, then cracked the door into the city. A troop of men with glowing eyes rushed past. The entire area was overrun with them.

“These are the least of our trouble, it seems,” the aging man said, shutting the door.

“Back up to the wall, then,” Fen said. “We might be able to spot friendly troops from that vantage.”

Navani nodded, and Fen led the way up. At the top, they barred the door. There were bars on both sides; you wanted to be able to lock out enemies who had seized the wall, and also ones who had broken through the gates.

Navani surveyed their options. A quick glance revealed that the streets were indeed held by Amaram’s troops. Some groups of Thaylens held ground farther up, but they were falling quickly.

“By Kelek, storms, and Passions alike,” Kmakl said. “What is that?”

He’d noticed the red mist on the north side of the battlefield, with its horrific images forming and breaking apart. Shadows of soldiers dying, of skeletal features, of charging horses. It was a grand, intimidating sight.

But Dalinar … Dalinar drew her eyes. Standing alone, surrounded by enemy soldiers, and facing something she could just barely sense. Something vast. Something unimaginable.

Something angry.

Dalinar lived in two places.

He saw himself crossing a darkened landscape, dragging his Shardblade behind him. He was on the field at Thaylen City with Odium, but he was also in the past, approaching Rathalas. Urged on by the boiling red anger of the Thrill. He returned to the camp, to the surprise of his men, like a spren of death. Coated in blood, eyes glowing.

Glowing red.

He ordered the oil brought. He turned toward a city where Evi was imprisoned, where children slept, where innocent people hid and prayed and burned glyphwards and wept.

“Please…” Dalinar whispered in Thaylen City. “Don’t make me live it again.”

“Oh, Dalinar,” Odium said. “You will live it again and again until you let go. You can’t carry this burden. Please, give it to me. I drove you to do this. It wasn’t your fault.”

Dalinar pulled The Way of Kings close against his chest, clutching it, like a child with his blanket in the night. But a sudden flash of light blasted in front of him, accompanied by a deafening crack.

Dalinar stumbled backward. Lightning. That had been lightning. Had it struck him?

No. It had somehow struck only the book. Burned pages fluttered around him, singed and smoldering. It had been blasted right from his hands.

Odium shook his head. “The words of a man long dead, long failed.”

Overhead, the sun finally passed behind the clouds of the storm, and all fell into darkness. Slowly, the flames of the burning pages went out.

Teft huddled someplace dark.

Maybe the darkness would hide his sins. But in the distance, he heard shouting. Men fighting.

Bridge Four dying.

Kaladin stuttered, the Words stumbling.

He thought of his men from Amaram’s army. Dallet and his squad, slain either by Shallan’s brother or by Amaram. Such good friends who had fallen.

And then, of course, he thought of Tien.

Dalinar fell to his knees. A few gloryspren swirled around him, but Odium batted them away, and they faded.

In the back of his mind, the Stormfather wept.

He saw himself step up to where Evi was imprisoned. That tomb in the rock. Dalinar tried to look away, but the vision was everywhere. He didn’t merely see it, he lived it. He ordered Evi’s death, and listened to her screams.

“Please…”

Odium wasn’t done with him. Dalinar had to watch the city burn, hear the children die. He gritted his teeth, groaning in agony. Before, his pains had driven him to drink. There was no drink now. Just the Thrill.

He had always craved it. The Thrill had made him live. Without it … he’d … he’d been dead.…

He slumped, bowing his head, listening to the tears of a woman who had believed in him. He’d never deserved her. The Stormfather’s weeping faded as Odium somehow shoved the spren away, separating them.

That left Dalinar alone.

“So alone…”

“You’re not alone, Dalinar,” Odium said, going down on one knee beside him. “I’m here. I’ve always been here.”

The Thrill boiled within. And Dalinar knew. He knew he’d always been a fraud. He was the same as Amaram. He had an honest reputation, but was a murderer on the inside. A destroyer. A child killer.

“Let go,” Odium whispered.

Dalinar squeezed his eyes shut, trembling, hands tense as he hunched over and clawed the ground. It hurt so badly. To know that he’d failed them. Navani, Adolin, Elhokar, Gavilar. He couldn’t live with this.

He couldn’t live with her tears!

“Give it to me,” Odium pled.

Dalinar ripped his fingernails off, but the pain of the body couldn’t distract him. It was nothing beside the agony of his soul.

Of knowing what he truly was.

Szeth tried to walk toward Dalinar. The darkness had grown up his arm, and the sword drank his last wisps of Stormlight.

There was … was a lesson in this … wasn’t there? There had to be. Nin … Nin wanted him to learn.…

He fell to the ground, still holding the sword as it screamed mindlessly.

DESTROY EVIL.

The little Radiant girl scrambled to him. She looked toward the sky as the sun vanished behind clouds. Then she took Szeth’s head in her hands.

“No…” he tried to croak. It will take you too.…

She breathed life into him somehow, and the sword drank of it freely. Her eyes went wide as the black veins began to grow up her fingers and hands.

Renarin didn’t want to die. But strangely, he found himself welcoming Jasnah’s strike.

Better to die than to live to see what was happening to his father. For he saw the future. He saw his father in black armor, a plague upon the land. He saw the Blackthorn return, a terrible scourge with nine shadows.

Odium’s champion.

“He’s going to fall,” Renarin whispered. “He’s already fallen. He belongs to the enemy now. Dalinar Kholin … is no more.”

Venli shivered on the plain, near Odium. Timbre had been pulsing to Peace, but now she quieted. Twenty or thirty yards away, a figure in white clothing collapsed to the ground, a little girl at his side.

Nearer to her, Dalinar Kholin—the man who had resisted—slumped forward, head bowed, holding one hand against his chest and trembling.

Odium stepped back, his appearance that of a parshman with golden carapace. “It is done,” he said, looking toward Venli and the gathered group of Fused. “You have a leader.”

“We must follow one of them?” Turash asked. “A human?”

Venli’s breath caught. There had been no respect in that tone.

Odium smiled. “You will follow me, Turash, or I will reclaim that which gives you persistent life. I care not for the shape of the tool. Only that it cuts.”

Turash bowed his head.

Stone crunched as a figure in glittering Shardplate walked up to them, carrying a Shardblade in one hand and—strangely—an empty sheath in the other. The human had his faceplate up, exposing red eyes. He tossed the silvery sheath to the ground. “I was told to deliver that to you.”

“Well done, Meridas,” Odium said. “Abaray, could you provide this human with an appropriate housing for Yelig-nar?”

One of the Fused stepped forward and proffered a small, uncut smokestone toward the human, Meridas.

“And what is this?” Meridas asked.

“The fulfillment of my promise to you,” Odium said. “Swallow it.”

“What?”

“If you wish for the promised power, ingest that—then try to control the one who follows. But be warned, the queen at Kholinar tried this, and the power consumed her.”

Meridas held up the gemstone, inspecting it, then glanced toward Dalinar Kholin. “So, you’ve been speaking to him all this time too?”

“Even longer than I’ve been speaking to you.”

“Can I kill him?”

“Someday, assuming I don’t let him kill you.” Odium rested his hand on the shoulder of the huddled Dalinar Kholin. “It’s done, Dalinar. The pain has passed. Stand up and claim the station you were born to obtain.”

Kaladin thought, finally, of Dalinar.

Could Kaladin do it? Could he really say these Words? Could he mean them?

The Fused swept close. Adolin bled.

“I…”

You know what you need to do.

“I … can’t,” Kaladin finally whispered, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I can’t lose him, but … oh, Almighty … I can’t save him.” Kaladin bowed his head, sagging forward, trembling.

He couldn’t say those Words.

He wasn’t strong enough.

Syl’s arms enfolded him from behind, and he felt softness as her cheek pressed against the back of his neck. She pulled him tight as he wept, sobbing, at his failure.

Jasnah raised her Blade over Renarin’s head.

Make it quick. Make it painless.

Most threats to a dynasty came from within.

Renarin was obviously corrupted. She’d known there was a problem the moment she’d read that he had predicted the Everstorm. Now, Jasnah had to be strong. She had to do what was right, even when it was so, so hard.

She prepared to swing, but then Renarin turned and looked at her. Tears streaming down his face, he met her eyes, and he nodded.

Suddenly they were young again. He was a trembling child, weeping on her shoulder for a father who didn’t seem to be able to feel love. Little Renarin, always so solemn. Always misunderstood, laughed at and condemned by people who said similar things about Jasnah behind her back.

Jasnah froze, as if standing at the edge of a cliff. Wind blew through the temple, carrying with it a pair of spren in the form of golden spheres, bobbing in the currents.

Jasnah dismissed her sword.

“Jasnah?” Ivory said, appearing back in the form of a man, clinging to her collar.

Jasnah fell to her knees, then pulled Renarin into an embrace. He broke down crying, like he had as a boy, burying his head in her shoulder.

“What’s wrong with me?” Renarin asked. “Why do I see these things? I thought I was doing something right, with Glys, but somehow it’s all wrong.…”

“Hush,” Jasnah whispered. “We’ll find a way through it, Renarin. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it. We’ll survive this, somehow.”

Storms. The things he’d said about Dalinar …

“Jasnah,” Ivory said, becoming full size as he stepped free of her collar. He leaned down. “Jasnah, this is right. Somehow it is.” He seemed completely stunned. “It is not what makes sense, yet it is still right. How. How is this thing?”

Renarin pulled back from her, his tearstained eyes going wide. “I saw you kill me.”

“It’s all right, Renarin. I’m not going to.”

“But don’t you see? Don’t you understand what that means?”

Jasnah shook her head.

“Jasnah,” Renarin said. “My vision was wrong about you. What I see … it can be wrong.”

* * *

Alone.

Dalinar held a fist to his chest.

So alone.

It hurt to breathe, to think. But something stirred inside his fist. He opened bleeding fingers.

The most … the most important …

Inside his fist, he somehow found a golden sphere. A solitary gloryspren.

The most important step a man can take. It’s not the first one, is it?

It’s the next one. Always the next step, Dalinar.

Trembling, bleeding, agonized, Dalinar forced air into his lungs and spoke a single ragged sentence.

“You cannot have my pain.”

119. Unity

Odium stepped back. “Dalinar? What is this?”

“You cannot have my pain.”

“Dalinar—”

Dalinar forced himself to his feet. “You. Cannot. Have. My. Pain.”

“Be sensible.”

“I killed those children,” Dalinar said.

“No, it—”

“I burned the people of Rathalas.”

“I was there, influencing you—”

“YOU CANNOT HAVE MY PAIN!” Dalinar bellowed, stepping toward Odium. The god frowned. His Fused companions shied back, and Amaram raised a hand before his eyes and squinted.

Were those gloryspren spinning around Dalinar?

“I did kill the people of Rathalas,” Dalinar shouted. “You might have been there, but I made the choice. I decided!” He stilled. “I killed her. It hurts so much, but I did it. I accept that. You cannot have her. You cannot take her from me again.”

“Dalinar,” Odium said. “What do you hope to gain, keeping this burden?”

Dalinar sneered at the god. “If I pretend … If I pretend I didn’t do those things, it means that I can’t have grown to become someone else.”

“A failure.”

Something stirred inside of Dalinar. A warmth that he had known once before. A warm, calming light.

Unite them.

“Journey before destination,” Dalinar said. “It cannot be a journey if it doesn’t have a beginning.”

A thunderclap sounded in his mind. Suddenly, awareness poured back into him. The Stormfather, distant, feeling frightened—but also surprised.

Dalinar?

“I will take responsibility for what I have done,” Dalinar whispered. “If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.”

Renarin ran after Jasnah through the Loft Wards of the city. People clogged the streets, but she didn’t use those. She leaped off buildings, dropping onto rooftops of the tiers below. She ran across each of these, then leaped down to the next street.

Renarin struggled to follow, afraid of his weakness, confused by the things he’d seen. He dropped to a rooftop, feeling sudden pain at the fall—though Stormlight healed that. He limped after her until the pain left.

“Jasnah!” he called. “Jasnah, I can’t keep up!”

She stopped at the edge of a rooftop. He reached her, and she took his arm. “You can keep up, Renarin. You’re a Knight Radiant.”

“I don’t think I’m a Radiant, Jasnah. I don’t know what I am.”

An entire stream of gloryspren flew past them, hundreds in a sweeping formation that curved toward the base of the city. Something was glowing down there, a beacon in the dim light of an overcast city.

“I know what you are,” Jasnah said. “You’re my cousin. Family, Renarin. Hold my hand. Run with me.”

He nodded, and she towed him after her, leaping from the rooftop, ignoring the monstrous creature that climbed up nearby. Jasnah seemed focused on only one thing.

That light.

* * *

Unite them!

Gloryspren streamed around Dalinar. Thousands of golden spheres, more spren than he’d ever seen in one place. They swirled around him in a column of golden light.

Beyond it, Odium stumbled back.

So small, Dalinar thought. Has he always looked that small?

Syl looked up.

Kaladin turned to see what had drawn her attention. She looked past the Fused who had landed to attack. She was staring toward the ocean of beads, and the trembling lights of souls above it.

“Syl?”

She pulled him tight. “Maybe you don’t have to save anyone, Kaladin. Maybe it’s time for someone to save you.”

* * *

UNITE THEM!

Dalinar thrust his left hand to the side, plunging it between realms, grabbing hold of the very fabric of existence. The world of minds, the realm of thought.

He thrust his right hand to the other side, touching something vast, something that wasn’t a place—it was all places in one. He’d seen this before, in the moment when Odium had let him glimpse the Spiritual Realm.

Today, he held it in his hand.

The Fused scrambled away. Amaram pushed down his faceplate, but that wasn’t enough. He stumbled back, arm raised. Only one person remained in place. A young parshwoman, the one that Dalinar had visited in the visions.

“What are you?” she whispered as he stood with arms outstretched, holding to the lands of mind and spirit.

He closed his eyes, breathing out, listening to a sudden stillness. And within it a simple, quiet voice. A woman’s voice, so familiar to him.

I forgive you.

Dalinar opened his eyes, and knew what the parshwoman saw in him. Swirling clouds, glowing light, thunder and lightning.

“I am Unity.”

He slammed both hands together.

And combined three realms into one.

Shadesmar exploded with light.

Fused screamed as a wind blasted them away, though Kaladin felt nothing. Beads clattered and roared.

Kaladin shaded his eyes with his hand. The light faded, leaving a brilliant, glowing pillar in the middle of the sea. Beneath it, the beads locked together, turning into a highway of glass.

Kaladin blinked, taking Shallan’s hand as she helped him to his feet. Adolin had forced himself to sit up, holding his bloodied stomach. “What … what is it?”

“Honor’s Perpendicularity,” Syl whispered. “A well of power that pierces all three realms.” She looked to Kaladin. “A pathway home.”

Taln gripped Ash’s hand.

Ash looked at his fingers, thick and callused. Thousands of years could come and pass, and she could lose lifetimes to the dream, but those hands … she’d never forget those hands.

“Ash,” he said.

She looked up at him, then gasped and raised her fingers to her lips.

“How long?” he asked.

“Taln.” She gripped his hand in both of hers. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“How long?”

“They say it’s been four millennia. I don’t always … note the passing of time.…”

“Four thousand years?”

She held his hand tighter. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He pulled his hand from hers and stood up, walking through the tent. She followed, apologizing again—but what good were words? They’d betrayed him.

Taln brushed aside the front drapes and stepped out. He looked up at the city expanding above them, at the sky, at the wall. Soldiers in breastplates and chain rushed past to join a fight farther along.

“Four thousand years?” Taln asked again. “Ash…”

“We couldn’t continue— I … we thought…”

“Ash.” He took her hand again. “What a wonderful thing.”

Wonderful? “We left you, Taln.”

“What a gift you gave them! Time to recover, for once, between Desolations. Time to progress. They never had a chance before. But this time … yes, maybe they do.”

“No, Taln. You can’t be like this.”

“A wonderful thing indeed, Ash.”

“You can’t be like this, Taln. You have to hate me! Hate me, please.”

He turned from her, but still held her hand, pulling her after him. “Come. He’s waiting.”

“Who?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

Teft gasped in the darkness.

“Can you see it, Teft?” the spren whispered. “Can you feel the Words?”

“I’m broken.”

“Who isn’t? Life breaks us, Teft. Then we fill the cracks with something stronger.”

“I make myself sick.”

“Teft,” she said, a glowing apparition in the darkness, “that’s what the Words are about.”

Oh, Kelek. The shouts. Fighting. His friends.

“I…”

Storm you! Be a man for once in your life!

Teft licked his lips, and spoke.

“I will protect those I hate. Even … even if the one I hate most … is … myself.”

Renarin fell to the last level of the city, the Low Ward. He stumbled to a stop there, his hand slipping from Jasnah’s. Soldiers marched through these streets, with eyes like embers.

“Jasnah!” he called. “Amaram’s soldiers changed sides. They serve Odium now! I saw it in vision!”

She ran right toward them.

“Jasnah!”

The first soldier swung his sword at her. Jasnah ducked the weapon, then shoved her hand against him, throwing him backward. He crystallized in the air, slamming into the next man, who caught the transformation like a disease. He slammed into another man, knocking him back, as if the full force of Jasnah’s shove had transferred to him. He crystallized a moment later.

Jasnah spun, a Shardblade forming in her gloved safehand, her skirt rippling as she sliced through six men in one sweep. The sword vanished as she slapped her hand into the wall of a building behind her, and that wall puffed away into smoke, causing the roof to crash down, blocking the alley between buildings, where other soldiers had been approaching.

She swept her hand upward, and air coalesced into stone, forming steps that she took—barely breaking her stride—to climb to the rooftop of the next building.

Renarin gaped. That— How—

It will be … great … vast … wonderful! Glys said from within Renarin’s heart. It will be beautiful, Renarin! Look!

A well blossomed inside of him. Power like he’d never before felt, an awesome, overwhelming strength. Stormlight unending. A source of it so vast, he was stunned.

“Jasnah?” he shouted, then belatedly ran up the steps she’d created, feeling so alive that he wanted to dance. Wouldn’t that be a sight? Renarin Kholin dancing on a rooftop while …

He slowed, gaping again as he looked through a gap in the wall and saw a column of light. Rising higher and higher, it stretched toward the clouds.

Fen and her consort backed away from the storm of light.

Navani exulted in it. She leaned out far over the side of the wall, laughing like a fool. Gloryspren streamed around her, brushing her hair, flowing toward the already impossible number that coursed around Dalinar in a pillar that stretched hundreds of feet into the air.

Then lights sparked to life in a wave across the field, the top of the wall, the street below. Gemstones that had been lying ignored, scattered from the broken bank, drank in Stormlight from Dalinar. They lit the ground with a thousand pinpricks of color.

“No!” Odium screamed. He stepped forward. “No, we killed you. WE KILLED YOU!”

Dalinar stood within a pillar of light and spinning gloryspren, one hand to each side, clutching the realms that made up reality.

Forgiven. The pain he’d so recently insisted that he would keep started to fade away on its own.

These Words … are accepted, the Stormfather said, sounding stunned. How? What have you done?

Odium stumbled back. “Kill him! Attack him!”

The parshwoman didn’t move, but Amaram lethargically lowered his hand from his face, then stepped forward, summoning his Shardblade.

Dalinar took his hand from the glowing pillar and held it out. “You can change,” he said. “You can become a better person. I did. Journey before destination.”

“No,” Amaram said. “No, he’ll never forgive me.”

“The bridgeman?”

“Not him.” Amaram tapped his chest. “Him. I’m sorry, Dalinar.”

He raised a familiar Shardblade. Dalinar’s Shardblade, Oathbringer. Passed from tyrant to tyrant to tyrant.

A portion of light split from Dalinar’s column.

Amaram swung Oathbringer with a shout, but the light met the Shardblade with an explosion of sparks, throwing Amaram backward—as if the strength of Shardplate were no more than that of a child. The light resolved into a man with shoulder-length wavy hair, a blue uniform, and a silvery spear in his hand.

A second glowing form split off into Shallan Davar, brilliant red hair streaming behind her, a long thin Shardblade with a slight curve forming in her hands.

And then, blessedly, Adolin appeared.

“Mistress!” Wyndle said. “Oh, mistress!”

For once, Lift didn’t have the will to tell him to shut up. She focused everything on those tendrils creeping up her arms, like deep, dark vines.

The assassin lay on the ground, staring upward, practically covered in those vines. Lift held them at bay, teeth gritted. Her will against the darkness until …

Light.

Like a sudden detonation, a force of light flashed across the field. Gemstones on the ground flared up, capturing Stormlight, and the assassin screamed, drawing in Light like glowing mist.

The vines shriveled, as the sword’s thirst was slaked by the Stormlight. Lift fell back on the stone and pried her hands off Szeth’s head.

I knew I liked you, a voice said in Lift’s mind.

The sword. So it was a spren? “You almost ate him,” Lift said. “You almost starvin’ ate me!”

Oh, I wouldn’t do that, the voice said. She seemed completely baffled, voice growing slow, like she was drowsy. But … maybe I was just really, really hungry.…

Well, Lift supposed she couldn’t blame someone for that.

The assassin climbed unsteadily to his feet. His face was crisscrossed with lines where the vines had been. That somehow left his skin grey in streaks, the color of stone. Lift’s arms bore the same. Huh.

Szeth walked toward the glowing column of light, leaving an afterimage behind him. “Come,” he said.

* * *

Elhokar? Dalinar thought. But no one else came through the column of light. And he knew. Knew, somehow, that the king was not coming.

He closed his eyes, and accepted that grief. He had failed the king in many ways.

Stand up, he thought. And do better.

He opened his eyes, and slowly his column of gloryspren faded. The power within him withdrew, leaving him exhausted. Fortunately, the field was covered in glittering gemstones. Stormlight in plenty.

A direct conduit to the Spiritual Realm, the Stormfather said. You renew spheres, Dalinar?

“We are Connected.”

I was bonded to men before. This never happened then.

“Honor was alive then. We are something different. His remnants, your soul, my will.”

Kaladin Stormblessed stepped up beside Dalinar before the rubble of the wall, and Shallan Davar stood on the other side. Jasnah emerged from the city and surveyed the scene with a critical air, while Renarin popped out behind her, then cried out and ran for Adolin. He grabbed his older brother in an embrace, then gasped. Adolin was wounded?

Good lad, Dalinar thought as Renarin immediately set to healing his brother.

Two more people crossed the battlefield. Lift he had anticipated. But the assassin? Szeth scooped the silvery sheath off the ground and slammed his black Shardblade into it, before stepping up to join Dalinar.

Skybreaker, Dalinar thought, counting them off. Edgedancer. That was seven.

He would have expected three more.

There, the Stormfather said. Behind your niece.

Two more people appeared in the shadow of the wall. A large, powerful man with an impressive physique, and a woman with long, dark hair. Their dark skin marked them as Makabaki, perhaps Azish, but their eyes were wrong.

I know them, the Stormfather said, sounding surprised. I know them from long, long ago. Memories of days when I did not fully live.

Dalinar, you are in the presence of divinities.

“I’ve grown accustomed to it,” Dalinar said, turning back toward the field. Odium had retreated into nothingness, though his Fused remained, as did most of the troops, and one strange spren—the one like black smoke. Beyond it, of course, the Thrill still encompassed the north side of the landing, near the water.

Amaram had ten thousand men, and maybe half of those had made it into the city so far. They had wilted before Dalinar’s display, but now …

Wait.

Those two only make nine, he thought to the Stormfather. Something told him there should be one more.

I don’t know. Perhaps they haven’t been found yet. Regardless, even with the bond you are just one man. Radiants are not immortal. How do you face this army?

“Dalinar?” Kaladin said. “Orders, sir?”

The enemy ranks were recovering. They lifted weapons, eyes glowing deep red. Amaram stirred as well, some twenty feet away. The Thrill had Dalinar most worried, however. He knew what it could do.

He glanced down at his arm, and noticed something. The lightning that had struck him earlier, shredding The Way of Kings, had broken his arm fabrial. The clasp was undone, and Dalinar could see the tiny gemstones Navani had placed to power it.

“Sir?” Kaladin asked again.

“The enemy is trying to crush this city, Captain,” Dalinar said, lowering his arm. “We’re going to hold it against his forces.”

“Seven Radiants?” Jasnah said, skeptical. “Uncle, that seems a tall order, even if one of us is—apparently—the storming Assassin in White.”

“I serve Dalinar Kholin,” Szeth-son-son-Vallano whispered. His face, for some reason, was streaked with grey. “I cannot know truth, so I follow one who does.”

“Whatever we do,” Shallan said, “we should do it quickly. Before those soldiers—”

“Renarin!” Dalinar barked.

“Sir!” Renarin said, scrambling forward.

“We need to hold out until troops arrive from Urithiru. Fen doesn’t have the numbers to fight alone. Get to the Oathgate, stop that thunderclast up there from destroying it, and open the portal.”

“Sir!” Renarin saluted.

“Shallan, we don’t have an army yet,” Dalinar said. “Lightweave one up for us, and keep these soldiers busy. They’re consumed by a bloodlust that I suspect will make them easier to distract. Jasnah, the city we’re defending happens to have a big storming hole in its wall. Can you hold that hole and stop anyone who tries to get through?”

She nodded, thoughtful.

“What about me?” Kaladin asked.

Dalinar pointed at Amaram, who was climbing to his feet in his Shardplate. “He’s going to try to kill me for what I do next, and I could use a bodyguard. As I recall, you have a score to settle with the highlord.”

“You could say that.”

“Lift, I believe I already gave you an order. Take the assassin and get me that ruby. Together, we hold this city until Renarin returns with troops. Any questions?”

“Um…” Lift said. “Could you maybe … tell me where to get something to eat…?”

Dalinar glanced at her. Something to eat? “There … should be a supply dump just inside the wall.”

“Thanks!”

Dalinar sighed, then started walking toward the water.

“Sir!” Kaladin called. “Where are you going?”

“The enemy brought a very big stick to this battle, Captain. I’m going to take it away.”

Map of Thaylen City

120. The Spear That Would Not Break

Kaladin rose into the sky, alive with Stormlight.

Below him, Dalinar walked toward the red mist. Though tendrils of it moved among the soldiers of Amaram’s army, the bulk of it swirled closer to the coast, to the right of the bay and the destroyed docks.

Storms, Kaladin felt good to be in the real world again. Even with the Everstorm dominating the sun, this place felt so much more bright than Shadesmar. A group of windspren dodged around him, though the air was relatively still. Perhaps they were the ones who had come to him on the other side, the ones he had failed.

Kaladin, Syl said. You don’t need another reason to berate yourself.

She was right. Storms, he could be down on himself sometimes. Was that the flaw that had prevented him from speaking the Words of the Fourth Ideal?

For some reason, Syl sighed. Oh, Kaladin.

“We’ll talk about it later,” he said.

For now, he’d been given a second chance to protect Dalinar Kholin. Stormlight raging inside of him, the Sylspear a comfortable weight in his hand, he Lashed himself downward and crashed to the stones near Amaram.

The highlord, in turn, fell to his knees.

What? Kaladin thought. Amaram was coughing. He tipped his head back, faceplate up, and groaned.

Had he just swallowed something?

Adolin prodded at his stomach. Beneath the bloodstained rip, he felt only smooth, new skin. Not even a hint of an ache.

For a time, he’d been sure he would die.

He’d been there before. Months ago, he’d felt it when Sadeas had withdrawn, leaving the Kholin troops alone and surrounded on the Shattered Plains. This had been different. Staring up at that black sky and those unnatural clouds, feeling suddenly, appallingly fragile …

And then light. His father—the great man Adolin could never match—somehow embodying the Almighty himself. Adolin couldn’t help feeling that he hadn’t been worthy to step into that light.

Here he was anyway.

The Radiants broke apart to do Dalinar’s bidding, though Shallan knelt to check on Adolin. “How do you feel?”

“Do you realize how fond I was of this jacket?”

“Oh, Adolin.”

“Really, Shallan. Surgeons should take more care with the clothing they cut open. If a man’s going to live, he’ll want that shirt. And if he dies … well, he should at least be well dressed on his deathbed.”

She smiled, then glanced over her shoulder toward the troops with red eyes.

“Go,” he said. “I’ll be fine. Save the city. Be Radiant, Shallan.”

She kissed him, then turned and stood. That white clothing seemed to glow, the red hair a striking swatch, as Stormlight rose from her. Pattern appeared as a Shardblade with a faint, almost invisible latticework running up the length. She wove her power, and an army climbed from the ground around her.

In Urithiru, she’d made an army of a score to distract the Unmade. Now, hundreds of illusions rose around her: soldiers, shopkeepers, washwomen, scribes, all drawn from her pages. They glowed brilliantly, Light streaming from them—as if each were a Knight Radiant.

Adolin climbed to his feet, and came face-to-face with an illusion of himself wearing a Kholin uniform. The illusory Adolin glowed with Stormlight and floated a few inches off the ground. She’d made him a Windrunner.

I … I can’t take that. He turned toward the city. His father had been focused on the Radiants, and had neglected to give Adolin a specific duty. So maybe he could help the defenders inside.

Adolin picked his way across the rubble and through the broken wall. Jasnah stood right inside, hands on hips, as if she were surveying a mess left by rampaging children. The gap opened into an unremarkable city square dominated by barracks and storehouses. Fallen troops wearing either Thaylen or Sadeas uniforms indicated a recent clash here, but most of the enemy seemed to have moved on. Shouts and clangs sounded from nearby streets.

Adolin reached for a discarded sword, then paused, and—feeling a fool—summoned his Shardblade. He braced himself for a scream, but none came, and the Blade fell into his hand after ten heartbeats.

“I’m sorry,” he said, lifting the glistening weapon. “And thank you.”

He headed toward one of the nearby clashes, where men were shouting for help.

Szeth of the Skybreakers envied Kaladin, the one they called Stormblessed, in the honor of protecting Dalinar Kholin. But of course, he would not complain. He had chosen his oath.

And he would do as his master demanded.

Phantoms appeared, created from Stormlight by the woman with the red hair. These were the shadows in the darkness, the ones he heard whispering of his murders. How she brought them to life, he did not know. He landed near the Reshi Surgebinder, Lift.

“So,” she said to him. “How do we find that ruby?”

Szeth pointed with his sheathed Shardblade toward the ships docked in the bay. “The creature carrying it ran back that way.” The parshmen still clustered there, deep within the shadow of the Everstorm.

“Figures,” Lift said, then glanced at him. “You aren’t gonna try to eat me again, right?”

Don’t be silly, said the sword in Szeth’s hand. You aren’t evil. You’re nice. And I don’t eat people.

“I will not draw the sword,” Szeth said, “unless you are already dead and I decide to accept death myself.”

“Greaaaaaaaaaaat,” Lift said.

You’re supposed to contradict me, Szeth, the sword said, when I say I don’t eat people. Vasher always did. I think he was joking. Anyway, as people who have carried me go, you aren’t very good at this.

“No,” Szeth said. “I am not good at being a person. It is … a failing of mine.”

It’s all right! Be happy. Looks like there’s a lot of evil to slay today! That’s greaaaaaaaaaaat, right?

Then the sword started humming.

The brands on Kaladin’s head seemed a fresh pain as he dove to strike Amaram. But Amaram recovered quickly from his fit, then slammed his faceplate down. He rebuffed Kaladin’s attack with an armored forearm.

Those red eyes cast a crimson glow through the helm’s slit. “You should thank me, boy.”

“Thank you?” Kaladin said. “For what? For showing me that a person could be even more loathsome than the petty lighteyes who ruled my hometown?”

“I created you, spearman. I forged you.” Amaram pointed at Kaladin with the wide, hook-ended Shardblade. Then he extended his left hand, summoning a second Blade. Long and curved, the back edge rippled like flowing waves.

Kaladin knew that Blade well. He’d won it—saving Amaram’s life—then refused to bear it. For when he looked at his reflection in the silvery metal, all he could see were the friends it had killed. So much death and pain, caused by that rippling Blade.

It seemed a symbol of all he’d lost, particularly held now in the hand of the man who had lied to him. The man who had taken Tien away.

Amaram presented a sword stance, holding two Blades. One taken in bloodshed, at the cost of Kaladin’s crew. The other, Oathbringer. A sword given to ransom Bridge Four.

Don’t be intimidated! Syl whispered in Kaladin’s mind. History notwithstanding, he’s only a man. And you’re a Knight Radiant.

The vambrace of Amaram’s armor pulsed suddenly on his forearm, as if something were pushing it from beneath. The red glow from the helm deepened, and Kaladin got the distinct impression of something enveloping Amaram.

A black smoke. The same that Kaladin had seen surrounding Queen Aesudan at the end, as they’d fled the palace. Other sections of Amaram’s armor began to rattle or pulse, and he suddenly moved with a violent burst of speed, swinging with one Shardblade, then the other.

Dalinar slowed as he approached the main core of the Thrill. The red mist churned and boiled here, nearly solid. He saw familiar faces reflected in it. He watched the old highprince Kalanor fall from the heights of a rock formation. He saw himself fight alone on a field of stone after a rockslide. He watched as he caught the claw of a chasmfiend on the Shattered Plains.

He could hear the Thrill. A thrumming, insistent, warming pulse. Almost like the beating of a drum.

“Hello, old friend,” Dalinar whispered, then stepped into the red mist.

Shallan stood with arms outstretched. Stormlight expanded from her on the ground, a pool of liquid light, radiant mist swirling above it. It became a gateway. From it, her collection emerged.

Every person she’d ever sketched—from the maids in her father’s house to the honorspren who had held Syl captive—grew from Stormlight. Men and women, children and grandparents. Soldiers and scribes. Mothers and scouts, kings and slaves.

Mmm, Pattern said as a sword in her hand. MMMMMMM.

“I’ve lost these,” Shallan said as Yalb the sailor climbed from the mist and waved to her. He drew a glowing Shardspear from the air. “I lost these pictures!”

You are close to them, Pattern said. Close to the realm of thought … and beyond. All the people you’ve Connected to, over the years …

Her brothers emerged. She’d buried worries about them in the back of her mind. Held by the Ghostbloods … No word from any spanreed she tried …

Her father stepped from the Light. And her mother.

The illusions immediately started to fail, melting back to Light. Then, someone seized her by the left hand.

Shallan gasped. Forming from mist was … was Veil? With long straight black hair, white clothing, brown eyes. Wiser than Shallan—and more focused. Capable of working on small pieces when Shallan grew overwhelmed by the large scale of her work.

Another hand took Shallan’s on the right. Radiant, in glowing garnet Shardplate, tall, with braided hair. Reserved and cautious. She nodded to Shallan with a steady, determined look.

Others boiled at Shallan’s feet, trying to crawl from the Stormlight, their glowing hands grabbing at her legs.

“… No,” Shallan whispered.

This was enough. She had created Veil and Radiant to be strong when she was weak. She squeezed their hands tight, then hissed out slowly. The other versions of Shallan retreated into the Stormlight.

Then, farther out, figures by the hundred surged from the ground and raised weapons at the enemy.

Adolin, now accompanied by some two dozen soldiers, charged through the streets of the Low Ward.

“There!” one of his men shouted with a thick Thaylen accent. “Brightlord!” He pointed toward a group of enemy soldiers disappearing down an alley back toward the wall.

“Damnation,” Adolin said, waving his troops to follow as he gave chase. Jasnah was alone in that direction, trying to hold the gap. He charged down the alleyway to—

A soldier with red eyes suddenly hurtled through the air overhead. Adolin ducked, worried about Fused, but it was an ordinary soldier. The unfortunate man crashed into a rooftop. What on Roshar?

As they approached the end of the alleyway, another body smashed into the wall right by the opening. Gripping his Shardblade, Adolin peeked around the corner, expecting to find another stone monster like the one that had climbed into the Ancient Ward.

Instead, he found only Jasnah Kholin, looking completely nonplussed. A glow faded around her, different from the smoke of her Stormlight. Like geometric shapes outlining her …

All right then. Jasnah didn’t need help. Adolin instead waved for his men to follow the sounds of battle to the right. There they found a small group of beleaguered Thaylen soldiers backed up against the base of the wall, facing a much larger force of men in green uniforms.

Well. This Adolin could fix.

He waved his own soldiers back, then charged the enemy in Smokestance, sweeping with his Shardblade. The enemy had packed in close to try to get at their prey, and had a hard time adjusting to the miniature storm that crashed into them from behind.

Adolin stepped through the sequence of swipes, feeling immense satisfaction at finally being able to do something. The Thaylens let out a cheer as he dropped the last group of enemies, red eyes going black as they burned out. His satisfaction lasted until, glancing down at the corpses, he was struck by how human they looked.

He’d spent years fighting Parshendi. He didn’t think he’d actually killed another Alethi since … well, he couldn’t remember.

Sadeas. Don’t forget Sadeas.

Fifty men dead at his feet, and some three dozen killed while gathering his other troops. Storms … after feeling so useless in Shadesmar, now this. How much of his reputation was him, and how much of it was—and had always been—the sword?

“Prince Adolin?” a voice called in Alethi. “Your Highness!”

“Kdralk?” Adolin said as a figure emerged from the Thaylens. The queen’s son had seen better days. His eyebrows were bloodied from a cut across his forehead. His uniform was torn, and there was a bandage on his upper arm.

“My mother and father,” Kdralk said. “They’re trapped on the wall a little farther down. We were pushing to reach them, but we got cornered.”

“Right. Let’s move, then.”

Jasnah stepped over a corpse. Her Blade vanished in a puff of Stormlight, and Ivory appeared next to her, his oily black features concerned as he regarded the sky. “This place is three, still,” he said. “Almost three.”

“Or three places are nearly one,” Jasnah replied. Another batch of gloryspren flocked past, and she could see them as they were in the Cognitive Realm: like strange avians with long wings, and a golden sphere in place of the head. Well, being able to see into the Cognitive Realm without trying was one of the least unnerving things that had happened so far today.

An incredible amount of Stormlight thrummed inside her—more than she’d ever held before. Another group of soldiers broke through Shallan’s illusions and charged over the rubble through the gap in the wall. Jasnah casually flipped her hand toward them. Once, their souls would have resisted mightily. Soulcasting living things was difficult; it usually required care and concentration—along with proper knowledge and procedure.

Today, the men puffed away to smoke at her barest thought. It was so easy that a part of her was horrified.

She felt invincible, which was a danger in itself. The human body wasn’t meant to be stuffed this full of Stormlight. It rose from her like smoke from a bonfire. Dalinar had closed his perpendicularity, however. He had been the storm, and had somehow recharged the spheres—but like a storm, his effects were passing.

“Three worlds,” Ivory said. “Slowly splitting apart again, but for now, three realms are close.”

“Then let’s make use of it before it fades, shall we?”

She stepped up before the rent portion of the wall, a gap as wide as a small city block.

Then raised her hands.

Szeth of the Skybreakers led the way toward the parshman army, the child Edgedancer following.

Szeth feared not pain, as no physical agony could rival the pain he already bore. He feared not death. That sweet reward had already been snatched from him. He feared only that he had made the wrong choice.

Szeth expunged that fear. Nin was correct. Life could not be lived making decisions at each juncture.

The parshmen standing on the shore of the bay did not have glowing eyes. They looked much like the Parshendi who had used him to assassinate King Gavilar. When he drew close, several of them ran off and boarded one of the ships.

“There,” he said. “I suspect they are going to warn the one we seek.”

“I’m after it, crazyface,” Lift said. “Sword, don’t eat anyone unless they try to eat you first.” She zipped off in her silly way—kneeling and slapping her hands on the ground. She slid among the parshmen. When she reached the ship, she somehow scrambled up its side, then squeezed through a tiny porthole.

The parshmen here didn’t seem aggressive. They shied away from Szeth, murmuring among themselves. Szeth glanced at the sky and picked out Nin—as a speck—still watching. Szeth could not fault the Herald’s decision; the law of these creatures was now the law of the land.

But … that law was the product of the many. Szeth had been exiled because of the consensus of the many. He had served master after master, most of them using him to attain terrible or at least selfish goals. You could not arrive at excellence by the average of these people. Excellence was an individual quest, not a group effort.

A flying Parshendi—“Fused” was a term Lift had used for them—shot out of the ship, carrying the large dun ruby that Dalinar sought. Lift followed the Fused out, but couldn’t fly. She clambered up onto the prow of the ship, releasing a loud string of curses.

Wow, the sword said. That’s impressive vocabulary for a child. Does she even know what that last one means?

Szeth Lashed himself into the air after the Fused.

If she does know what it means, the sword added, do you think she’d tell me?

The enemy swooped down low across the battlefield, and Szeth followed, a mere inch above the rocks. They soon passed among the fighting illusions. Some of these appeared as enemy soldiers, to further add confusion. A clever move. The enemy would be less likely to retreat if they thought most of their companions were still fighting, and it made the battle look far more real. Except that when Szeth’s quarry zipped past, her fluttering robes struck and disturbed illusory shapes.

Szeth followed close, passing through a pair of fighting men he had seen were illusions. This Fused was talented, better than the Skybreakers had been, though Szeth had not faced their best.

The chase took him in a long loop, eventually swinging back down near where Dalinar was walking through the edge of the red mist. The whispered voices grew louder, and Szeth put his hands to his ears as he flew.

The Fused was smooth and graceful, but sped up and slowed less quickly than Szeth did. He took advantage of this, anticipating the enemy’s move, then cutting to the side as they turned. Szeth collided with the enemy, and they twisted in the air. The Fused—gemstone in one hand—stabbed Szeth with a wicked knife.

Fortunately, with Stormlight, that didn’t do anything but cause pain.

Szeth Lashed them both downward, holding tight, and sent them crashing to the stone. The gemstone rolled free as the Fused groaned. Szeth Lashed himself gracefully to his feet, then slipped along the stone at a standing glide. He scooped up the ruby with his free hand, the one not carrying his sheathed sword.

Wow, the sword said.

“Thank you, sword-nimi,” Szeth said. He restored his Stormlight from nearby fallen spheres and gemstones.

I meant that. To your right.

Three more Fused were swooping down toward him. He appeared to have gotten the enemy’s attention.

Adolin and his men reached a covered stairwell leading up onto the wall. Aunt Navani waved from up above, then gestured urgently. Adolin hurried inside the stairwell, and at the top found a jumble of Sadeas troops chopping at the door with hand axes.

“I can probably get through that a little easier,” Adolin said from behind them.

A short time later, he stepped onto the wall walk, leaving five more corpses on the steps. These didn’t make him feel quite so melancholy. They’d been minutes from reaching Aunt Navani.

Navani hugged him. “Elhokar?” she asked, tense.

Adolin shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

She pulled him tight, and he dismissed his Blade, holding her as she shook, letting out quiet tears. Storms … he knew how that felt. He hadn’t really been able to take time to think since Elhokar’s death. He’d felt the oppressive hand of responsibility, but had he grieved for his cousin?

He pulled his aunt tighter, feeling her pain, mirror to his own. The stone monster crashed through the city, and soldiers shouted from all around—but in that moment, Adolin did what he could to comfort a mother who had lost her son.

Finally they broke, Navani drying her eyes with a handkerchief. She gasped as she saw his bloodied side.

“I’m fine,” he explained. “Renarin healed me.”

“I saw your betrothed and the bridgeman down below,” Navani said. “So everyone … everyone but him?”

“I’m sorry, Aunt. I just … We failed him. Elhokar and Kholinar both.”

She blotted her eyes and stiffened with determination. “Come. Our focus now has to be on keeping this city from suffering the same fate.”

They joined Queen Fen, who was surveying the battle from atop the wall. “Estnatil was on the wall with us when that thing hit,” she was saying to her son. “He got thrown down and likely died, but there’s a Shardblade in that rubble somewhere. I haven’t seen Tshadr. Perhaps at his manor? I wouldn’t be surprised to find him gathering troops at the upper tiers.”

Counting Shardbearers. Thaylenah had three sets of Plate and five Blades—a solid number of Shards for a kingdom of this size. Eight houses passed them down, father to son, each of whom served the throne as a highguard.

Adolin glanced over the city, assessing the defense. Fighting in city streets was difficult; your men got divided up, and were easily flanked or surrounded. Fortunately, the Sadeas troops seemed to have forgotten their battle training. They didn’t hold ground well; they had broken into roving bands, like axehound packs, loping through the city and looking for contests.

“You need to join your troops,” Adolin said to the Thaylens. “Block off a street below, coordinate a resistance. Then—”

A sudden whooshing sound cut him off.

He stumbled back as the wall shook, then the broken gap in it mended. Metal grew like crystals to fill the hole, springing into existence out of a tempest of rushing, howling air.

The end result was a beautiful, brilliant section of polished bronze melding with the stonework and completely sealing the gap.

“Taln’s palms,” Fen said. She and her consort stepped closer to the edge and looked down at Jasnah, who dusted off her hands, then rested them on her hips in a satisfied posture.

“So … change of tactics,” Adolin said. “With the gap filled, you can get archers in position to harry the army outside and hold the inside square. Set up a command position here, clear the street below, and then hold this wall at all costs.”

Below, Jasnah strode away from the marvel she’d created, then knelt beside some rubble and cocked her head, listening to something. She pressed her hand against the rubble and it vanished into smoke, revealing a corpse beneath—and a brilliant Shardblade beside it.

“Kdralk,” Adolin said, “how are your Shardblade stances?”

“I … I’ve practiced with them, like other officers, and—I mean—”

“Great. Take ten soldiers, go get that Blade, then rescue that cluster of troops over there at the base of the Ancient Ward. Next try to rescue that other group fighting on the steps. Station every archer you can up here on the wall, and put the rest of the soldiers to work guarding the streets.” Adolin glanced over his shoulder. Shallan’s distraction was working well, for now. “Don’t stretch too far, but as you rescue more men, make a coordinated effort to hold the entire Low Ward.”

“But Prince Adolin,” Fen said, “what will you be doing?”

Adolin summoned his Blade and pointed with it toward the back of the Ancient Ward, where the gigantic stone monstrosity swept a group of soldiers from a rooftop. Others tried—in futility—to trip it with ropes.

“Those men seem like they could use the help of a weapon designed specifically to cut through stone.”

Amaram fought with striking fury—a frenetic kind of harmony, an unending assault of weaving Shardblades and beautiful stances. Kaladin blocked one Blade with the Sylspear, and they locked for a moment.

A sharp violet crystal burst out of Amaram’s elbow, cracking the Shardplate there, glowing with a soft inner light. Storms! Kaladin flung himself backward as Amaram swung his other Blade, nearly connecting.

Kaladin danced away. His training with the sword had been short, and he’d never seen anyone use two Blades at once. He would have considered it unwieldy. Amaram made it look elegant, mesmerizing.

That deep red glow within Amaram’s helm grew darker, bloody, somehow even more sinister. Kaladin blocked another hit, but the power of the blow sent him skidding backward on the stone. He’d made himself lighter for the fight, but that had repercussions when facing someone in Plate.

Puffing, Kaladin launched himself into the air to get some distance. That Plate prevented him from using Lashings against Amaram, and it blocked hits from the Sylspear. Yet, if Amaram landed a single strike, that would immobilize Kaladin. Healing the wound from a Shardblade was possible, but was slow and left him horribly weakened.

This was all complicated by the fact that, while Amaram could focus only on their duel, Kaladin had to keep watching Dalinar in case—

Damnation!

Kaladin Lashed himself to the side, streaking through the air to engage one of the Fused who had started hovering near Dalinar. She struck toward Kaladin—but that only let him change Syl to a Blade midswing, and cut her long spear in half. She hummed an angry song and floated backward, sliding her sword from its sheath. Below, Dalinar was a mere shadow against the shifting crimson cloud. Faces emerged within, screaming with rage, fury, bloodlust—like the billowing front of a thunderhead.

Being near the mist made Kaladin feel nauseous. Fortunately, the enemy didn’t seem eager to enter it either. They hovered outside, watching Dalinar. A few had ducked in closer, but Kaladin had managed to drive them back.

He pressed his advantage against his current foe, using Syl as a spear. The Fused was nimble, but Kaladin was flush with Stormlight. The field below was still littered with a fortune in glowing spheres.

After he got in close with a strike—cutting the Fused’s robes—she zipped away to join a group that was focusing on Szeth. Hopefully the assassin could stay ahead of them.

Now, where had Amaram gotten to.… Kaladin glanced over his shoulder, then yelped and Lashed himself backward, Stormlight puffing before him. A thick black arrow shot right through that, dispersing the Light.

Amaram stood near his horse, where he’d unhooked a massive Shardbow that used arrows as thick as a spear’s haft. Amaram raised it to loose again, and a line of crystals jutted out along his arm, cracking his Shardplate. Storms, what was happening to that man?

Kaladin zipped out of the way of the arrow. He could heal from a hit like that, but it would distract him—potentially let some of the Fused seize him. All the Stormlight in the world wouldn’t save him if they simply bound him, then hacked at him until he stopped healing.

Amaram launched another arrow, and Kaladin blocked it with Syl, who became a shield in his grip. Then, Kaladin Lashed himself into a dive, summoning Syl as a lance. He swooped down on Amaram, who hooked his Shardbow back onto the horse’s saddle and dodged to the side, moving with incredible speed.

Amaram grabbed the Syllance as Kaladin dove past, flinging Kaladin to the side. Kaladin was forced to dismiss Syl and slow himself, spinning and sliding across the ground until his Lashing ran out and he settled down.

Teeth gritted, Kaladin summoned Syl as a short spear, then rushed Amaram—determined to bring the highlord down before the Fused returned to attack Dalinar.

The Thrill was happy to see Dalinar.

He had imagined it as some evil force, malignant and insidious, like Odium or Sadeas. How wrong he was.

Dalinar walked through the mist, and each step was a battle he relived. Wars from his youth, to secure Alethkar. Wars during his middle years, to preserve his reputation—and to sate his lust for the fight. And … he saw times when the Thrill withdrew. Like when Dalinar had held Adolin for the first time. Or when he’d grinned with Elhokar atop a rocky spire on the Shattered Plains.

The Thrill regarded these events with a sad sense of abandonment and confusion. The Thrill didn’t hate. Though some spren could make decisions, others were like animals—primal, driven by a single overpowering directive. Live. Burn. Laugh.

Or in this case, fight.

Jasnah existed halfway in the Cognitive Realm, which made everything a blurry maze of shadows, floating souls of light, and beads of glass. A thousand varieties of spren churned and climbed over one another in Shadesmar’s ocean. Most did not manifest in the physical world.

She willed steps to Soulcast beneath her feet. Individual axi of air lined up and packed next to each other, then Soulcast into stone—though in spite of the realms being linked, this was difficult. Air was amorphous, even in concept. People thought of it as the sky, or a breath, or a gust of wind, or a storm, or just “the air.” It liked to be free, difficult to define.

Yet, with a firm command and a concept of what she wanted, Jasnah made steps form beneath her feet. She reached the top of the wall and found her mother there with Queen Fen and some soldiers. They had made a command station at one of the old guard posts. Soldiers huddled outside with pikes pointed toward two Fused in the sky.

Bother. Jasnah strode along the wall, taking in the melee of illusions and men outside. Shallan stood at the back; most of the spheres around her had been drained already. She was burning through Stormlight at a terrible rate.

“Bad?” she asked Ivory.

“It is,” he said from her collar. “It is.”

“Mother,” Jasnah called, approaching where Fen and Navani stood by the guard post. “You need to rally the troops within the city and clear the enemy inside.”

“We’re working on it,” Navani said. “But— Jasnah! In the air—”

Jasnah raised an absent hand without looking, forming a wall of black pitch. A Fused crashed through it, and Jasnah Soulcast a flick of fire, sending the thing screaming and flailing, burning with a terrible smoke.

Jasnah Soulcast the rest of the pitch on the wall to smoke, then continued forward. “We must take advantage of Radiant Shallan’s distraction and cleanse Thaylen City. Otherwise, when the assault comes from outside once more, our attention will be divided.”

“From outside?” Fen said. “But we have the wall fixed, and— Storms! Brightness!”

Jasnah stepped aside without looking as the second Fused swooped down—the reactions of spren in Shadesmar allowed her to judge where it was. She turned and swung her hand at the creature. Ivory formed and sliced through the Fused’s head as it passed, sending it curling about itself—eyes burning—and tumbling along the wall top.

“The enemy,” Jasnah said, “will not be stopped by a wall, and Brightness Shallan has feasted upon almost all of the spheres Uncle Dalinar recharged. My Stormlight is nearly gone. We have to be ready to hold this position through conventional means once the power is gone.”

“Surely there aren’t enough enemy troops to…” Fen’s consort said, but trailed off as Jasnah pointed with Ivory—who obligingly formed again—toward the waiting parshman armies. Neither the hovering red haze nor the breaking lightning of the storm was enough to drown out the red glows beginning to appear in the parshmen’s eyes.

“We must be ready to hold this wall as long as it takes for troops to arrive from Urithiru,” Jasnah said. “Where is Renarin? Wasn’t he to deal with that thunderclast?”

“One of my soldiers reported seeing him,” Fen said. “He had been slowed by the crowds. Prince Adolin expressed an intention to go help.”

“Excellent. I will trust that task to my cousins, and instead see what I can do to keep my ward from getting herself killed.”

Szeth wove and dodged between the attacks of five enemy Fused, carrying the large dun ruby in his left hand, the sheathed black sword in his right. He tried to approach Dalinar in the red mist, but the enemy cut him off, and he was forced to turn east.

He skimmed the now-repaired wall and crossed over the city, eventually soaring past the monster of stone. It flung several soldiers into the air, and for a moment they soared with Szeth.

Szeth Lashed himself downward, diving for the city streets. Behind him, Fused broke around the monster and swarmed after. He shot through a doorway and into a small home—and heard a thump above as a soldier’s body fell onto the roof—then crashed out the back door and Lashed himself upward, narrowly avoiding the next building.

“Was I supposed to save those soldiers, sword-nimi?” Szeth said. “I am a Radiant now.”

I think they would have flown like you instead of falling down, if they’d wanted to be saved.

There was a profound puzzle in the words, one which Szeth could not consider. The Fused were deft, more skilled than he was. He dodged among the streets, but they kept on him. He swung around, left the Ancient Ward, and shot for the wall—trying to get back to Dalinar. Unfortunately, a swarm of the enemies cut him off. The rest surrounded him.

Looks like we’re cornered, the sword said. Time to fight, right? Accept death, and die slaying as many as possible? I’m ready. Let’s do it. I’m ready to be a noble sacrifice.

No. He did not win by dying.

Szeth lobbed the gemstone away as hard as he could.

The Fused went after it, leaving him an avenue to escape. He dropped toward the ground, where spheres glistened like stars. He drew in a deep breath of Stormlight, then spotted Lift waiting on the field between the fighting illusions and the waiting parshmen.

Szeth settled down lightly beside her. “I have failed to carry this burden.”

“That’s okay. Your weird face is burden enough for one man.”

“Your words are wise,” he said, nodding.

Lift rolled her eyes. “You’re right, sword. He’s not very fun, is he?”

I think he’s deevy anyway.

Szeth did not know this word, but it sent Lift chortling in a fit of amusement, which the sword mimicked.

“We have not fulfilled the Blackthorn’s demands,” Szeth snapped at the two of them, Stormlight puffing from his lips. “I could not stay ahead of those Fused long enough to deliver the stone to our master.”

“Yeah, I saw,” Lift said. “But I’ve got an idea. People are always after stuff, but they don’t really like the stuff—they like having the stuff.”

“These words are … not so wise. What do you mean?”

“Simple. The best way to rob someone is leave them thinking that nothing is wrong.…”

Shallan clung to Veil’s and Radiant’s hands.

She’d long since fallen to her knees, staring ahead as tears leaked from her eyes. Taut, her teeth gritted. She’d made thousands of illusions. Each one … each one was her.

A portion of her mind.

A portion of her soul.

Odium had made a mistake in flooding these soldiers with such thirst for blood. They didn’t care that Shallan fed them illusions—they just wanted a battle. So she provided one, and somehow her illusions resisted when the enemy hit them. She thought maybe she was combining Soulcasting with her Lightweaving.

The enemy howled and sang, exulting in the fray. She painted the ground red and sprayed the enemy with blood that felt real. She serenaded them with the sounds of men screaming, dying, swords clashing and bones breaking.

She absorbed them in the false reality, and they drank it in; they feasted on it.

Each one of her illusions that died hit her with a little shock. A sliver of her dying.

Those were reborn as she pushed them out to dance again. Enemy Fused bellowed for order, trying to rally their troops, but Shallan drowned out their voices with sounds of screaming and metal on metal.

The illusion absorbed her entirely, and she lost track of everything else. Like when she was drawing. Creationspren blossomed around her by the hundred, shaped like discarded objects.

Storms. It was beautiful. She gripped Veil’s and Radiant’s hands tighter. They knelt beside her, heads bowed within her painted tapestry of violence, her—

“Hey,” a girl’s voice said. “Could you, uh, stop hugging yourself for a minute? I need some help.”

Kaladin ducked toward Amaram, thrusting with his spear one-handed. That was usually a good tactic against an armored man with a sword. His spear hit right on target, where it would have dug into the armpit of an ordinary opponent. Here, unfortunately, the spear just slid off. Shardplate didn’t have traditional weak points, other than the eye slit. You had to break it open with repeated hits, like cracking into a crab’s shell.

Amaram laughed, a startlingly genuine mirth. “You have great form, spearman! Do you remember when you first came to me? Back in that village, when you begged me to take you? You were a blubbering child who wanted so badly to be a soldier. The glory of the battle! I could see the lust in your eyes, boy.”

Kaladin glanced toward the Fused, who rounded the cloud, timid, looking for Dalinar.

Amaram chuckled. With those deep red eyes and the strange crystals growing from his body, Kaladin hadn’t expected him to sound so much like himself. Whatever hybrid monster this was, it still had the mind of Meridas Amaram.

Kaladin stepped back, reluctantly changing Syl into a Blade, which would be better for cracking Plate. He fell into Windstance, which had always seemed appropriate. Amaram laughed again and surged forward, his second Shardblade appearing in his waiting grip. Kaladin dodged to the side, ducking under one Blade and getting at Amaram’s back—where he got in a good hit on the Plate, cracking it. He raised his Blade to attack again.

Amaram slammed his foot down, and his Shardplate boot shattered, exploding outward in bits of molten metal. Beneath, his ripped sock revealed a foot overgrown with carapace and deep violet crystals.

As Kaladin came in for his attack, Amaram tapped his foot, and the stone ground became liquid for a moment. Kaladin stumbled, sinking down several inches, as if the rock were crem mud. It hardened in a moment, locking Kaladin’s boots in place.

Kaladin! Syl cried in his mind as Amaram swung with two Shardblades, parallel to one another. Syl became a halberd in Kaladin’s hands, and he blocked the blows—but their force threw him to the ground, snapping his ankles.

Teeth gritted, Kaladin hauled his pained feet out of the boots and pulled himself away. Amaram’s weapons sliced the ground behind, narrowly missing him. Then Amaram’s other armored boot exploded, crystals from inside breaking it apart. The highlord pushed with one foot and glided across the ground, incredibly quick, approaching Kaladin and swinging.

Syl became a large shield, and Kaladin barely blocked the attack. He Lashed himself backward, getting out of range as Stormlight healed his ankles. Storms. Storms!

That Fused! Syl said. She’s getting very close to Dalinar.

Kaladin cursed, then scooped up a large stone. He launched it into the air with several Lashings compounded, which sent it zipping off to slam into the head of the Fused. She shouted in pain, pulling back.

Kaladin scooped up another stone and Lashed it toward Amaram’s horse.

“Beating up the animal because you can’t defeat me?” Amaram asked. He didn’t seem to notice that the horse, in bolting away, carried off the Shardbow.

I’ve killed a man wearing that Shardplate before, Kaladin thought. I can do it again.

Only, he wasn’t merely facing a Shardbearer. Amethyst crystals broke Amaram’s armor all up the arms. How did Kaladin defeat … whatever this thing was?

Stab it in the face? Syl suggested.

It was worth a try. He and Amaram fought on the battlefield near the red mist, on the western shore but between the main body of troops and the waiting parshmen. The area was mostly flat, except for some broken building foundations. Kaladin Lashed himself up a few inches, so he wouldn’t sink into the ground if Amaram tried again to do … whatever he’d done. Then he moved backward carefully, positioning himself where Amaram would likely leap across a broken foundation to get at him.

Amaram stepped up, chuckling softly. Kaladin raised Syl as a Shardblade, but shifted his grip, preparing for the moment when she’d become a thin spear he could ram right through that faceplate—

Kaladin! Syl cried.

Something hit Kaladin with the force of a falling boulder, flinging him to the side. His body broke, and the world spun.

By instinct, Kaladin Lashed himself upward and forward, opposite the way he’d been flung. He slowed and released the Lashings right as his momentum ran out, touching down, then slid to a stop on the stone, pain fading from a healed shoulder and side.

A brawny Fused—taller even than Amaram in his Plate—dropped a shattered club that he’d used on Kaladin. His carapace was the color of stone; he must have been crouching near that foundation, and Kaladin had taken him for merely another part of the stony field.

As Kaladin watched, the creature’s brown carapace crusted up his arms, covering his face like a helm, growing to thick armor in a matter of moments. He raised his arms, and carapace spurs grew above and below the hands.

Delightful.

Adolin heaved himself up over the rim of a broken rooftop onto a small alley between two buildings. He’d made it to the Loft Wards of the city, right above the Ancient Ward. Here, buildings were constructed practically atop one another in tiers.

The building to his left had been completely flattened. Adolin crept across rubble. To his right, a main city thoroughfare led upward—toward the Royal Ward and the Oathgate—but was clogged with people fleeing from the enemy troops below. This was compounded by the local merchant guards and platoons of Thaylen military, who struggled against the tide.

Moving on the streets was extremely slow—but Adolin had found one corridor that was empty. The thunderclast had crossed the Ancient Ward, kicking down buildings, then had stepped on roofs as it climbed up to the Loft Wards. This swath of destruction made almost a roadway. Adolin had managed to follow, using rubble like stairs.

Now he was right in the thing’s shadow. The corpse of a Thaylen soldier drooped from a rooftop nearby, tangled in ropes. It hung there, eyebrows dangling to brush the ground. Adolin swept past, peeking out between buildings onto a larger street.

A handful of Thaylens fought here, trying to bring the thunderclast down. The ropes had been a great idea, but the thing was obviously too strong to be tripped that way. In the street beyond Adolin, a soldier got in close and tried to hit the monster’s leg with a hammer. The weapon bounced off. That was old hardened cremstone. The plucky soldier ended up getting stomped.

Adolin gritted his teeth, summoning his Shardblade. Without Plate, he’d be as squishy as anyone else. He had to be careful, tactical.

“This is what you were designed for, isn’t it?” Adolin said softly as his Blade dropped into his hand. “It was for fighting things like that. Shardblades are impractically long for duels, and Plate is overkill even on the battlefield. But against a monster of stone…”

He felt something. A stirring on the wind.

“You want to fight it, don’t you?” Adolin asked. “It reminds you of when you were alive.”

Something tickled his mind, very faint, like a sigh. A single word: Mayalaran. A … name?

“Right, Maya,” Adolin said. “Let’s bring that thing down.”

Adolin waited for it to turn toward the small group of defending soldiers, then he bolted out along the rubbled street, dashing straight for the thunderclast. He was barely as tall as its calf.

Adolin didn’t use any of the sword stances—he just hacked as if he were attacking a wall, slicing right along the top of the thing’s ankle.

A sudden bang sounded above, like two stones slamming against one another, as the thing cried out. A shock wave of air washed over Adolin and the monster turned, thrusting a hand down toward him. Adolin dodged to the side, but the monster’s palm smashed the ground with such force that Adolin’s boots left the ground momentarily. He dismissed Maya as he fell, then rolled.

He came up puffing on one knee with his hand out, summoning Maya again. Storms, he was like a rat gnawing on the toes of a chull.

The beast regarded him with eyespots like molten rock just beneath the surface. He’d heard the descriptions of these things from his father’s visions—but looking up at it, he was struck by the shape of its face and head.

A chasmfiend, he thought. It looks like a chasmfiend. The head, at least. The body was vaguely like a thick human skeleton.

“Prince Adolin!” one of the few living soldiers shouted. “It’s the son of the Blackthorn!”

“Protect the prince! Distract the monster from the Shardbearer. It’s our only chance to—”

Adolin lost the last part as the monster swept its hand across the ground. He barely dodged, then threw himself through the doorway of a low building. Inside, he leaped over a few bedding pallets, pushed into the next room, then attacked the brick wall with Maya, cutting in four quick strikes. He slammed his shoulder against the wall, breaking through the hole.

As he did, he heard a whimper from behind.

Adolin gritted his teeth. I could use one of those storming Radiants about now.

He ducked back into the building and flipped over a table, finding a young boy huddled underneath. That was the only person Adolin saw in the building. He hauled the boy out right as the thunderclast smashed a fist down through the roof. Dust billowing after him, Adolin shoved the child into the arms of a soldier, then pointed both toward the street to the south. Adolin took off running east, around the side of the building. Maybe he could climb up to the next level of the Loft Wards and circle the creature.

For all the troops’ calls to distract the thing, however, it obviously knew who to focus on. It stepped over the broken house and thrust a fist toward Adolin—who leaped through a window into another house, across a table, then out an open window on the other side.

Crash.

The building fell in behind him. The thing was doing damage to its own hands with the attacks, leaving the wrists and fingers scored with white scrapes. It didn’t seem to care—and why should it? It had ripped itself right from the ground to make this body.

Adolin’s only advantage, other than his Blade, was his ability to react faster than the thing. It swung for the next building beyond him, trying to smash it before he got inside—but he was already doubling back. He ran underneath the monster’s swing, sliding on the chips and dust as the fist passed narrowly overhead.

That put him in position to run between the thunderclast’s legs. He slashed at the ankle he’d already cut once, digging his Blade deep into the stone, then whipping it out the other side. Just like a chasmfiend, he thought. Legs first.

When the thing stepped again, the ankle cracked with a sharp sound, then its foot broke free.

Adolin braced himself for the pained thunderclap from above, but still winced at the shock wave. Unfortunately, the monster balanced easily on the stump of its leg. It was a little clumsier than before, but it was in no real danger of falling. The Thaylen soldiers had regrouped and gathered up their ropes, however, so maybe—

A hand in Shardplate reached out of a building nearby, grabbed Adolin, and pulled him inside.

Dalinar held his hands out to the sides, enveloped by the Thrill. It returned every memory he hated about himself. War and conflict. Times when he’d shouted Evi into submission. Anger that had driven him to the brink of madness. His shame.

Though he had once crawled before the Nightwatcher to beg for release, he no longer wished to forget. “I embrace you,” he said. “I accept what I was.”

The Thrill colored his sight red, inflicting a deep longing for the fight, the conflict, the challenge. If he rejected it, he would drive the Thrill away.

“Thank you,” Dalinar said, “for giving me strength when I needed it.”

The Thrill thrummed with a pleased sound. It drew in closer to him, the faces of red mist grinning with excitement and glee. Charging horses screamed and died. Men laughed as they were cut down.

Dalinar was once again walking on the stone toward the Rift, intent on murdering everyone inside. He felt the heat of anger. The yearning so powerful, it made him ache.

“I was that man,” Dalinar said. “I understand you.”

Venli crept away from the battlefield. She left the humans to struggle against shadows in a mess of anger and lust. She walked deeper into the darkness beneath Odium’s storm, feeling strangely sick.

The rhythms were going crazy inside her, merging and fighting. A fragment from Craving blended into Fury, into Ridicule.

She passed Fused arguing about what to do, now that Odium had withdrawn. Did they send the parshmen in to fight? They couldn’t control the humans, consumed by one of the Unmade as they were.

Rhythms piled over rhythms.

Agony. Conceit. Destruction. Lost—

There! Venli thought. Grab that!

She attuned the Rhythm of the Lost. She clung to the solemn beat, desperate—a rhythm one attuned to remember those you missed. Those who had gone before.

Timbre thrummed to the same rhythm. Why did that feel different from before? Timbre vibrated through Venli’s entire being.

Lost. What had Venli lost?

Venli missed being someone who cared about something other than power. Knowledge, favoritism, forms, wealth—it was all the same to her. Where had she gone wrong?

Timbre pulsed. Venli dropped to her knees. Cold stone reflected lightning from above, red and garish.

But her own eyes … she could see her own eyes in the polished wet rock.

There wasn’t a hint of red in them.

“Life…” she whispered.

The king of the Alethi had reached out toward her. Dalinar Kholin, the man whose brother they’d killed. But he’d reached from the pillar of gloryspren all the same, and spoken to her.

You can change.

“Life before death.”

You can become a better person.

“Strength before … before weakness…”

I did.

“Jou—”

Someone grabbed Venli roughly and spun her over, slamming her to the ground. A Fused with the form that grew carapace armor like Shardplate. He looked Venli up and down, and for a panicked moment she was sure he’d kill her.

The Fused seized her pouch, the one that hid Timbre. She screamed and clawed at his hands, but he shoved her back, then ripped open the pouch.

Then he turned it inside out.

“I could have sworn…” he said in their language. He tossed the pouch aside. “You failed to obey the Word of Passion. You did not attack the enemy when commanded.”

“I … I was frightened,” Venli said. “And weak.”

“You cannot be weak in his service. You must choose who you will serve.”

“I choose,” she said, then shouted, “I choose!”

He nodded, evidently impressed by her Passion, then stalked back toward the battlefield.

Venli climbed to her feet and made her way to one of the ships. She stumbled up the gangway—yet felt crisper, more awake, than she’d been in a long, long time.

In her mind played the Rhythm of Joy. One of the old rhythms her people had learned long ago—after casting out their gods.

Timbre pulsed from within her. Inside her gemheart.

“I’m still wearing one of their forms,” Venli said. “There was a Voidspren in my gemheart. How?”

Timbre pulsed to Resolve.

“You’ve done what?” Venli hissed, stopping on the deck.

Resolve again.

“But how can you…” She trailed off, then hunched over, speaking more softly. “How can you keep a Voidspren captive?”

Timbre pulsed to Victory within her. Venli rushed toward the ship’s cabin. A parshman tried to forbid her, but she glared him to submission, then took the ruby sphere from his lantern and went inside, slamming the door and locking it.

She held up the sphere, and then—heart fluttering—she drank it in. Her skin started glowing with a soft white light.

“Journey before destination.”

Adolin was confronted by a figure in glistening black Shardplate, a large hammer strapped to its back. The helm had stylized eyebrows like knives sweeping backward, and the Plate was skirted with a triangular pattern of interlocking scales. Cvaderln, he thought, remembering his lists of Thaylen Shards. It meant, roughly, “shell of Cva.”

“Are you Tshadr?” Adolin guessed.

“No, Hrdalm,” the Shardbearer said in a thick Thaylen accent. “Tshadr holds Court Square. I come, stop monster.”

Adolin nodded. Outside, the thing sounded its angry call, confronting the remaining Thaylen troops.

“We need to get out and help those men,” Adolin said. “Can you distract the monster? My Blade can cut, while you can take hits.”

“Yes,” Hrdalm said. “Yes, good.”

Adolin quickly helped Hrdalm get the hammer untied. Hrdalm hefted it, then pointed at the window. “Go there.”

Adolin nodded, waiting by the window as Hrdalm charged out the doorway and went running straight for the thunderclast, shouting a Thaylen battle cry. When the thing turned toward Hrdalm, Adolin leaped out the window and charged around the other side.

Two flying Fused swooped in behind Hrdalm, slamming spears into his back, tossing him forward. Plate ground against stone as he fell, face-first. Adolin ran for the thunderclast’s leg—but the creature ignored Hrdalm and fixated on Adolin. It crashed a palm down on the ground nearby, forcing Adolin to dance backward.

Hrdalm stood up, but a Fused swooped down and kicked him over. The other landed on his chest and began pounding on his helm with a hammer, cracking it. As Hrdalm tried to grab her and throw her free, the other one swooped down and used a spear to pin the hand down. Damnation!

“All right, Maya,” Adolin said. “We’ve practiced this.”

He wound up, then hurled the Shardblade, which spun in a gleaming arc before slamming into the Fused on Hrdalm’s chest, piercing her straight through. Dark smoke trailed from her eyes as they burned away.

Hrdalm sat up, sweeping away the other Fused with a Shard-enhanced punch. He turned toward the dead one, then looked back at Adolin with a posture that somehow expressed amazement.

The thunderclast called, sending a wave of sound across the street, rattling chips of stone. Adolin swallowed, then started counting heartbeats as he dashed away. The monster crashed along the street behind—but Adolin soon pulled to a stop in front of a large section of rubble, which blocked the street. Storms, he’d run the wrong way.

He shouted, spinning around. He hit a count of ten, and Maya returned to him.

The thunderclast loomed overhead. It thrust its palm down, and Adolin managed to judge the shadow and dodge between two fingers. As its palm crashed to the ground, Adolin leaped, trying to avoid being knocked over. He grabbed a massive finger with his left arm, desperately holding Maya to the side in his right.

As before, the thunderclast began to rub its palm across the ground, an attempt to grind Adolin to the stones. He hung from the finger, feet lifted a few inches off the ground. The sound was terrible, like Adolin was trapped in a rockslide.

As soon as the thunderclast ended its sweep of the hand, Adolin dropped off, then raised Maya in a double-handed grip and chopped straight through the finger. The beast released a thunderclap of anger and pulled its hand back. The tip of an unbroken finger connected with Adolin and flung him backward.

Pain.

It hit him like a flash of lightning. He struck the ground and rolled, but the agony was so sharp, he barely noticed. As he came to a rest, he coughed and trembled, his body seizing up.

Storms. Stormsstormsstorms … He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. He’d … he’d gotten too accustomed to the invincibility of Plate. But his suit was back in Urithiru—or hopefully coming here soon on Gaval, his Plate standby.

Adolin somehow crawled to his feet, each move causing a spear of agony from his chest. Broken rib? Well, at least his arms and legs were working.

Move. That thing was still behind him.

One.

The roadway in front of him was piled with rubble from a broken building.

Two.

He limped to the right—toward the ledge down to the next tier of homes.

Three. Four.

The thunderclast trumped and followed, its steps shaking the ground.

Five. Six.

He could hear stone grinding just behind.

He fell to his knees.

Seven.

Maya! he thought, truly desperate. Please!

Blessedly, as he raised his hands, the Blade materialized. He slammed it into the rock wall—the edge pointed to the side, not down—then rolled off the ledge, holding on to the hilt. The thunderclast’s fist came down again, crashing to the rock. Adolin dangled from Maya’s hilt over the edge, a drop of some ten feet to the rooftop below.

Adolin gritted his teeth—his elbow was hurting badly enough to make his eyes water. But, once the thunderclast had rubbed its hand to the side, Adolin grabbed the cliff edge with one hand and swept Maya out to the side, freeing her from the stone. He reached down and rammed her into the stone below, then let go and swung from this new handhold a moment before releasing the Blade and dropping the rest of the way to the rooftop.

His leg screamed in pain. He collapsed to the rooftop, eyes watering. As he lay there in agony, he felt something—a faint panic on the wind. He forced himself to roll to the side, and a Fused swept past, its lance barely missing him.

Need … a weapon …

He started counting again and climbed, shakily, to his knees. But the thunderclast loomed on the tier overhead, then rammed its stump leg down into the center of the stone roof Adolin was on.

Adolin fell in a jumble of broken stone and dust, then hit hard on the floor inside, chunks of rock clattering around him.

Everything went black. He tried to gasp, but his muscles couldn’t make the motions. He could only lie there, straining, groaning softly. A part of him was aware of the sounds made as the thunderclast pulled its stump out of the broken home. He waited for it to smash him, but as his vision slowly returned, he saw it stepping down from that upper tier onto the street outside.

At least … at least it wasn’t continuing on toward the Oathgate.

Adolin shifted. Chips from the shattered roof streamed off him. His face and hands bled from a hundred scrapes. He recovered his breath, gasping in pain, and tried to move, but his leg … Damnation, that hurt.

Maya brushed his mind.

“I’m trying to get up,” he said through gritted teeth. “Give me a sec. Storming sword.” He had another coughing fit, then finally rolled off the rubble. He crawled out onto the street, half expecting Skar and Drehy to be there to pull him to his feet. Storms, he missed those bridgemen.

The street was empty around him, though maybe twenty feet away people crowded, trying to get up the thoroughfare to safety. They called and shouted in fear and urgency. If Adolin ran that way, the thunderclast would follow. It had proven determined to bring him down.

He sneered at the looming monster and—leaning against the wall of the small home he’d fallen into—pulled himself to his feet. Maya dropped into his hand. Though he was covered in dust, she still shone bright.

He steadied himself, then held Maya in two hands—his grip wetted by blood—and fell into Stonestance. The immovable stance.

“Come and get me, you bastard,” he whispered.

“Adolin?” a familiar voice called from behind. “Storms, Adolin! What are you doing!”

Adolin started, then glanced over his shoulder. A glowing figure pushed through the crowd onto his street. Renarin carried a Shardblade, and his blue Bridge Four uniform was unstained.

Took you long enough.

As Renarin approached, the thunderclast actually took a step back, as if afraid. Well, that might help. Adolin clenched his teeth, trying to hold in his agony. He wobbled, then steadied himself. “All right, let’s—”

“Adolin, don’t be foolhardy!” Renarin grabbed his arm. A burst of healing moved through Adolin like cold water in his veins, causing his pains to retreat.

“But—”

“Get away,” Renarin said. “You’re unarmored. You’ll get yourself killed fighting this thing!”

“But—”

“I can handle it, Adolin. Just go! Please.”

Adolin stumbled back. He’d never heard such forceful talk from Renarin—that was almost more amazing than the monster. Renarin, shockingly, charged at the thing.

A clatter announced Hrdalm climbing down from above, his Plate’s helm cracked, but otherwise in good shape. He had lost his hammer, but carried one of the lances from the Fused, and his Plate fist was covered in blood.

Renarin! He didn’t have Plate. How—

The thunderclast’s palm crashed down on Renarin, smashing him. Adolin screamed, but his brother’s Shardblade cut up through the palm, then separated the hand from the wrist.

The thunderclast trumpeted in anger as Renarin climbed from the rubble of the hand. He seemed to heal more quickly than Kaladin or Shallan did, as if being crushed wasn’t even a bother.

“Excellent!” Hrdalm said, laughing inside his helm. “You, rest. Okay?”

Adolin nodded, stifling a groan of pain. Renarin’s healing had stopped his insides from aching, and it was no longer painful to put weight on his leg, but his arms still ached, and some of his cuts hadn’t closed.

As Hrdalm stepped toward the fight, Adolin took the man by the arm, then lifted Maya.

Go with him for now, Maya, Adolin thought.

He almost wished she’d object, but the vague sensation he received was a resigned agreement.

Hrdalm dropped his lance and took the Blade reverently. “Great Honor in you, Prince Adolin,” he said. “Great Passion in me at this aid.”

“Go,” Adolin said. “I’ll go see if I can help hold the streets.”

Hrdalm charged off. Adolin chose an infantry spear from the rubble, then made toward the roadway behind.

Szeth of the Skybreakers had, fortunately, trained with all ten Surges.

The Fused transferred the enormous ruby to one of their number who could manipulate Abrasion—a woman who slid across the ground like Lift did. She infused the ruby, making it glow with her version of a Lashing. That would make the thing impossibly slick and difficult to carry for anyone but the Fused woman herself.

She seemed to think her enemies would have no experience with such a thing. Unfortunately for them, Szeth had not only carried an Honorblade that granted this power, he had practiced with skates on ice, a training exercise that somewhat mimicked an Edgedancer’s movements.

And so, as he chased down the gemstone, he gave the Fused woman plenty of opportunities to underestimate him. He let her dodge, and was slow to reorient, acting surprised when she slipped this way, then that.

Once the Fused was confident she controlled this race, Szeth struck. When she leaped off a ledge of stone—soaring a short time in the air—Szeth swooped in with a sudden set of Lashings. He collided with her right as she landed. As his face touched her carapace, he Lashed her upward.

That sent her flying into the air with a scream. Szeth landed and prepared to follow, then cursed as the Fused fumbled with the gemstone. He whipped his jacket off as she dropped it. Though one of the flying Fused swept in to grab it, the ruby slipped out of his fingers.

Szeth caught it in the jacket, held like a pouch. A lucky turn; he had assumed he would need to attack her again to get it out of her hands.

Now, the real test. He Lashed himself eastward, toward the city. Here, a chaotic mix of soldiers fought on a painted battlefield. The Lightweaver was good; even the corpses looked authentic.

A Fused had begun gathering glowing-eyed soldiers who were real, then putting them with their backs to the city wall. They’d made ranks with spears bristling outward and yelled for soldiers to join them, but touched each one who approached. Illusions that tried to get in were disrupted. Soon the enemy would be able to ignore this distraction, regroup, and focus on getting through that wall.

Do what Dalinar told you. Get him this gemstone.

The ruby had finally stopped glowing, making it no longer slick. Above, many Fused swooped to intercept Szeth; they seemed happy to play this game, for as long as the gemstone was changing hands, it was not being delivered to Dalinar.

As the first Fused came for him, Szeth ducked into a roll and canceled his Lashing upward. He collided with a rock, acting dazed. He then shook his head, took up his pouch with the ruby, and launched into the air again.

Eight Fused gave chase, and though Szeth dodged between them, one eventually got close enough to seize his pouch and rip it out of his fingers. They swept away as a flock, and Szeth slowly floated down and landed beside Lift, who stepped out of the illusory rock. She held a bundle wrapped in clothing: the real gemstone, which she’d taken from his pouch during his feigned collision. The Fused now had a false ruby—a rock cut into roughly the same shape with a Shardblade, then covered in an illusion.

“Come,” Szeth said, grabbing the girl and Lashing her upward, then towing her after him as he swept toward the northern edge of the plain. This place nearest the red mist had fallen into darkness—the Windrunner had consumed all of the Stormlight in gemstones on the ground. He fought against several enemies nearby.

Shadowed darkness. Whispered words. Szeth slowed to a halt.

“What?” Lift asked. “Crazyface?”

“I…” Szeth trembled, fearspren bubbling from the ground below. “I cannot go into that mist. I must be away from this place.”

The whispers.

“I got it,” she said. “Go back and help the redhead.”

He dropped Lift to the ground and backed away. That churning red mist, those faces breaking and re-forming and screaming. Dalinar was still in there, somewhere?

The little girl with the long hair stopped at the border of the mist, then stepped inside.

Amaram was screaming in pain.

Kaladin sparred with the Fused who had the strange overgrown carapace, and couldn’t spare a glance. He used the screaming to judge that he was staying far enough from Amaram to not be immediately attacked.

But storms, it was distracting.

Kaladin swept with the Sylblade, cutting through the Fused’s forearms. That sheared the spurs completely free and disabled the hands. The creature backed up, growling a soft but angry rhythm.

Amaram’s screaming voice approached. Syl became a shield—anticipating Kaladin’s need—as he raised her toward his side, blocking a set of sweeping blows from the screaming highlord.

Stormfather. Amaram’s helm was cracked from the wicked, sharp amethysts growing out of the sides of his face. The eyes still glowed deeply within, and the stone ground somehow burned beneath his crystal-covered feet, leaving flaming tracks behind.

The highprince battered against the Sylshield with two Shardblades. She, in turn, grew a latticework on the outside—with parts sticking out like the tines of a trident.

“What are you doing?” Kaladin asked.

Improvising.

Amaram struck again, and Helaran’s sword got tangled in the tines. Kaladin spun the shield, wrenching the sword out of Amaram’s grip. It vanished to smoke.

Now, press the advantage.

Kaladin!

The hulking Fused charged him. The creature’s cut arms had regrown, and—even as it swung its hands—a large club formed there from carapace. Kaladin barely got Syl in place to block.

It didn’t do much good.

The force of the club’s sideways blow flung Kaladin against the remnants of a wall. He growled, then Lashed himself upward into the sky, Stormlight reknitting him. Damnation. The area around where they were fighting had grown dark and shadowed, the gemstones drained. Had he really used so much?

Uh-oh, Syl said, flying around him as a ribbon of light. Dalinar!

The red mist billowed, ominous in the gloom. Red on black. Within it Dalinar was a shadow, with two flying Fused besetting him.

Kaladin growled again. Amaram had gone hiking for his bow, which had fallen from the horse’s saddle some ways off. Damnation. He couldn’t defeat them all.

He shot down toward the ground. The hulking Fused came for him, and instead of dodging, Kaladin let the creature ram a knifelike spur into his stomach.

He grunted, tasting blood, but didn’t flinch. He grabbed the creature’s hand and Lashed him upward and toward the mist. The Fused flipped past his companions in the air, shouting something that sounded like a plea for help. They zipped after him.

Kaladin stumbled after Amaram, but his footsteps steadied as he healed. He got a little more Stormlight from some gemstones he’d missed earlier, then took to the sky. Syl became a lance, and Kaladin swooped down, causing Amaram to turn away from the bow—still a short distance from him—and track Kaladin. Crystals had broken through his armor all along his arms and back.

Kaladin made a charging pass. He wasn’t accustomed to flying with a lance though, and Amaram batted the Syllance aside with a Shardblade. Kaladin rose up on the other side, considering his next move.

Amaram launched himself into the air.

He soared in an incredible leap, far higher and farther than even Shardplate would have allowed. And he hung for a time, sweeping close to Kaladin, who dodged backward.

“Syl,” he hissed as Amaram landed. “Syl, that was a Lashing. What is he?”

I don’t know. But we don’t have much time before those Fused return.

Kaladin swept down and landed, shortening Syl to a halberd. Amaram spun on him, eyes within the helm trailing red light. “Can you feel it?” he demanded of Kaladin. “The beauty of the fight?”

Kaladin ducked in and rammed Syl at Amaram’s cracked breastplate.

“It could have been so glorious,” Amaram said, swatting aside the attack. “You, me, Dalinar. Together on the same side.”

“The wrong side.”

“Is it wrong to want to help the ones who truly own this land? Is it not honorable?”

“It’s not Amaram I speak to anymore, is it? Who, or what, are you?”

“Oh, it’s me,” Amaram said. He dismissed one of his Blades, grabbed his helm. With a tug of the hand, it finally shattered, exploding away and revealing the face of Meridas Amaram—surrounded by amethyst crystals, glowing with a soft and somehow dark light.

He grinned. “Odium promised me something grand, and that promise has been kept. With honor.”

“You still pretend to speak of honor?”

“Everything I do is for honor.” Amaram swept with a single Blade, making Kaladin dodge. “It was honor that drove me to seek the return of the Heralds, of powers, and of our god.”

“So you could join the other side?”

Lightning flashed behind Amaram, casting red light and long shadows as he resummoned his second Blade. “Odium showed me what the Heralds have become. We spent years trying to get them to return. But they were here all along. They abandoned us, spearman.”

Amaram carefully circled Kaladin with his two Shardblades.

He’s waiting for the Fused to come help, Kaladin thought. That’s why he’s being cautious now.

“I hurt, once,” Amaram said. “Did you know that? After I was forced to kill your squad, I … hurt. Until I realized. It wasn’t my fault.” The color of his glowing eyes intensified to a simmering crimson. “None of this is my fault.”

Kaladin attacked—unfortunately, he barely knew what he was facing. The ground rippled and became liquid, almost catching him again. Fire trailed behind Amaram’s arms as he swung with both Shardblades. Somehow, he briefly ignited the very air.

Kaladin blocked one Blade, then the other, but couldn’t get in an attack. Amaram was fast and brutal, and Kaladin didn’t dare touch the ground, lest his feet freeze to the liquefied stone. After a few more exchanges, Kaladin was forced to retreat.

“You’re outclassed, spearman,” Amaram said. “Give in, and convince the city to surrender. That is for the best. No more need die today. Let me be merciful.”

“Like you were merciful to my friends? Like you were merciful to me, when you gave me these brands?”

“I left you alive. I spared you.”

“An attempt to assuage your conscience.” Kaladin clashed with the highprince. “A failed attempt.”

“I made you, Kaladin!” Amaram’s red eyes lit the crystals that rimmed his face. “I gave you that granite will, that warrior’s poise. This, the person you’ve become, was my gift!”

“A gift at the expense of everyone I loved?”

“What do you care? It made you strong! Your men died in the name of battle, so that the strongest man would have the weapon. Anyone would have done what I did, even Dalinar himself.”

“Didn’t you tell me you’d given up that grief?”

“Yes! I’m beyond guilt!”

“Then why do you still hurt?”

Amaram flinched.

“Murderer,” Kaladin said. “You’ve switched sides to find peace, Amaram. But you won’t ever have it. He’ll never give it to you.”

Amaram roared, sweeping in with his Shardblades. Kaladin Lashed himself upward, then—as Amaram passed underneath—twisted and came back down, swinging in a powerful, two-handed grip. In response to an unspoken command, Syl became a hammer, which crashed against the back of Amaram’s Plate.

The cuirass-style breastplate—which was all one piece—exploded with an unexpected force, pushing Kaladin backward across the stone. Overhead, the lightning rumbled. They were fully in the Everstorm’s shadow, which made it even more ghastly as he saw what had happened to Amaram.

The highprince’s entire chest had collapsed inward. There was no sign of ribs or internal organs. Instead, a large violet crystal pulsed inside his chest cavity, overgrown with dark veins. If he’d been wearing a uniform or padding beneath the armor, it had been consumed.

He turned toward Kaladin, heart and lungs replaced by a gemstone that glowed with Odium’s dark light.

“Everything I’ve done,” Amaram said, blinking red eyes, “I’ve done for Alethkar. I’m a patriot!”

“If that is true,” Kaladin whispered, “why do you still hurt?”

Amaram screamed, charging him.

Kaladin raised Syl, who became a Shardblade. “Today, what I do, I do for the men you killed. I am the man I’ve become because of them.”

“I made you! I forged you!” He leaped at Kaladin, propelling himself off the ground, hanging in the air.

And in so doing, he entered Kaladin’s domain.

Kaladin launched at Amaram. The highprince swung, but the winds themselves curled around Kaladin, and he anticipated the attack. He Lashed himself to the side, narrowly avoiding one Blade. Windspren streaked past him as he dodged the other by a hair’s width.

Syl became a spear in his grip, matching his motions perfectly. He spun and slammed her against the gemstone at Amaram’s heart. The amethyst cracked, and Amaram faltered in the air—then dropped.

Two Shardblades vanished to mist as the highprince fell some twenty feet to crash into the ground.

Kaladin floated downward toward him. “Ten spears go to battle,” he whispered, “and nine shatter. Did that war forge the one that remained? No, Amaram. All the war did was identify the spear that would not break.”

Amaram climbed to his knees, howling with a bestial sound and clutching the flickering gemstone at his chest, which went out, plunging the area into darkness.

Kaladin! Syl shouted in Kaladin’s mind.

He barely dodged as two Fused swooped past, their lances narrowly missing his chest. Two more came in from the left, one from the right. A sixth carried the hulking Fused back, rescued from Kaladin’s Lashing.

They’d gone to fetch friends. It seemed the Fused had realized that their best path to stopping Dalinar was to first remove Kaladin from the battlefield.

Renarin puffed in and out as the thunderclast collapsed—crushing houses in its fall, but also breaking off its arm. It reached upward with its remaining arm, bleating a plaintive cry. Renarin and his companion—the Thaylen Shardbearer—had cut off both legs at the knees.

The Thaylen tromped up and slapped him—carefully—on the back with a Plated hand. “Very good fighting.”

“I just distracted it while you cut chunks of its legs off.”

“You did good,” the Thaylen said. He nodded toward the thunderclast, which got to its knees, then slipped. “How to end?”

It will fear you! Glys said from within Renarin. It will go. Make it so that it will go.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Renarin said to the Thaylen, then carefully picked his way over to the street and up a level to get a better view of the thunderclast’s head.

“So … Glys?” he asked. “What do I do?”

Light. You will make it go with light.

The thing pulled itself up across the rubble of a destroyed building. Stone rubbed stone as its enormous, wedge-shaped head turned to Renarin. Recessed molten eyes fluttered, like a sputtering fire.

It was in pain. It could hurt.

It will go! Glys promised, excitable as ever.

Renarin raised his fist and summoned Stormlight. It glowed as a powerful beacon. And …

The red molten eyes faded before that light, and the thing settled down with a last extinguishing sigh.

His Thaylen companion approached with a soft clinking of Plate. “Good. Excellent!”

“Go help with the fighting,” Renarin said. “I need to open the Oathgate in person.” The man obeyed without question, running for the main thoroughfare leading down to the Ancient Ward.

Renarin lingered with that stone corpse, troubled. I was supposed to have died. I saw myself die.…

He shook his head, then hiked toward the upper reaches of the city.

Shallan, Veil, and Radiant held hands in a ring. The three flowed, faces changing, identities melding. Together, they had raised an army.

It was dying now.

A hulking variety of Fused had organized the enemy. These refused to be distracted. Though Veil, Shallan, and Radiant had made copies of themselves—to keep the real ones from being attacked—those died as well.

Wavering. Stormlight running out.

We’ve strained ourselves too far, they thought.

Three Fused approached, cutting through the dying illusions, marching through evaporating Stormlight. People fell to their knees and puffed away.

“Mmmm…” Pattern said.

“Tired,” Shallan said, her eyes drowsy.

“Satisfied,” Radiant said, proud.

“Worried,” Veil said, eyeing the Fused.

They wanted to move. Needed to move. But it hurt to watch their army die and puff into nothing.

One figure didn’t melt like the others. A woman with jet-black hair that had escaped its usual braids. It blew free as she stepped between the enemy and Shallan, Radiant, and Veil. The ground turned glossy, the surface of the stone Soulcast into oil. Veil, Shallan, and Radiant were able to glimpse it in the Cognitive Realm. It changed so easily. How did Jasnah manage that?

Jasnah Soulcast a spark from the air, igniting the oil and casting up a field of flames. The Fused raised hands before their faces, stumbling back.

“That should buy us a few moments.” Jasnah turned toward Radiant, Veil, and Shallan. She took Shallan by the arm—but Shallan wavered, then puffed away. Jasnah froze, then turned to Veil.

“Here,” Radiant said, tired, stumbling to her feet. She was the one Jasnah could feel. She blinked away tears. “Are you … real?”

“Yes, Shallan. You did well out here.” She touched Radiant’s arm, then glanced toward the Fused, who were venturing into the fires despite the heat. “Damnation. Perhaps I should have opened a pit beneath them instead.”

Shallan winced as the last of her army—like the shredded light of a setting sun—vanished. Jasnah proffered a gemstone, which Radiant drank eagerly.

Amaram’s troops had begun to form ranks again.

“Come,” Jasnah said, pulling Veil back to the wall, where steps grew from the stone itself.

“Soulcast?” Shallan asked.

“Yes.” Jasnah stepped onto the first, but Shallan didn’t follow.

“We shouldn’t have ignored this,” Radiant said. “We should have practiced this.” She slipped—for a moment—into viewing Shadesmar. Beads rolled and surged beneath her.

“Not too far,” Jasnah warned. “You can’t bring your physical self into the realm, as I once assumed you could, but there are things here that can feast upon your mind.”

“If I want to Soulcast the air. How?”

“Avoid air until you practice further,” Jasnah said. “It is convenient, but difficult to control. Why don’t you try to turn some stone into oil, as I did? We can fire it as we climb the steps, and further impede the enemy.”

“I…” So many beads, so many spren, churning in the lake that marked Thaylen City. So overwhelming.

“That rubble near the wall will be easier than the ground itself,” Jasnah said, “as you’ll be able to treat those stones as distinct units, while the ground views itself all as one.”

“It’s too much,” Shallan said, exhaustionspren spinning around her. “I can’t, Jasnah. I’m sorry.”

“It is well, Shallan,” Jasnah said. “I merely wanted to see, as it seemed you were Soulcasting to give your illusions weight. But then, concentrated Stormlight has a faint mass to it. Either way, up the steps, child.”

Radiant started up the stone steps. Behind, Jasnah waved her hand toward the approaching Fused—and stone formed from air, completely encasing them.

It was brilliant. Any who saw it in only the Physical Realm would be impressed, but Radiant saw so much more. Jasnah’s absolute command and confidence. The Stormlight rushing to do her will. The air itself responding as if to the voice of God himself.

Shallan gasped in wonder. “It obeyed. The air obeyed your call to transform. When I tried to make a single little stick change, it refused.”

“Soulcasting is a practiced art,” Jasnah said. “Up, up. Keep walking.” She sliced the steps off as they walked. “Remember, you mustn’t order stones, as they are more stubborn than men. Use coercion. Speak of freedom and of movement. But for a gas becoming a solid, you must impose discipline and will. Each Essence is different, and each offers advantages and disadvantages when used as a substrate for Soulcasting.”

Jasnah glanced over her shoulder at the gathering army. “And perhaps … this is one time when a lecture isn’t advisable. With all my complaints about not wanting wards, you’d think I would be able to resist instructing people at inopportune times. Keep moving.”

Feeling exhausted, Veil, Shallan, and Radiant trudged up and finally reached the top of the wall.

After how hard it had been for Renarin to get up to fight the thunderclast—he’d spent what seemed like an eternity caught in the press of people—he’d expected to have to work to cover the last distance to the Oathgate. However, people were moving more quickly now. The ones up above must have cleared off the streets, hiding in the many temples and buildings in the Royal Ward.

He was able to move with the flow of people. Near the top tier, he ducked into a building and walked to the back, past some huddled merchants. Most of the buildings here were a single story, so he used Glys to cut a hole in the roof. He then hollowed out some handholds in the rock wall and climbed up on top.

Beyond, he was able to get onto the street leading to the Oathgate platform. He was … unaccustomed to being able to do things like this. Not only using the Shardblade, but being physical. He’d always been afraid of his fits, always worried that a moment of strength would instantly become a moment of invalidity.

Living like that, you learned to stay back. Just in case. He hadn’t suffered a fit in a while. He didn’t know if that was just a coincidence—they could be irregular—or if they had been healed, like his bad eyesight. Indeed, he still saw the world differently from everyone else. He was still nervous talking to people, and didn’t like being touched. Everyone else saw in each other things he never could understand. So much noise and destruction and people talking and cries for help and sniffles and muttering and whispering all like buzzing, buzzings.

At least here, on this street near the Oathgate, the crowds had diminished. Why was that? Wouldn’t they have pressed up here, hoping for escape? Why …

Oh.

A dozen Fused hovered in the sky above the Oathgate, lances held formally before themselves, clothing draping beneath them and fluttering.

Twelve. Twelve.

This, Glys said, would be bad.

Motion caught his attention: a young girl standing in a doorway and waving at him. He walked over, worried the Fused would attack him. Hopefully his Stormlight—which he’d mostly used up fighting the thunderclast—wasn’t bright enough to draw their ire.

He entered the building, another single-story structure with a large open room at the front. It was occupied by dozens of scribes and ardents, many of whom huddled around a spanreed. Children that he couldn’t see crowded the back rooms, but he could hear their whimpers. And he heard the scratching, scratching, scratching of reeds on paper.

“Oh, bless the Almighty,” Brightness Teshav said, appearing from the mass of people. She pulled Renarin deeper into the room. “Have you any news?”

“My father sent me up here to help,” Renarin said. “Brightness, where are General Khal and your son?”

“In Urithiru,” she said. “They transferred back to gather forces, but then … Brightlord, there’s been an attack at Urithiru. We’ve been trying to get information via spanreed. It appears that a strike force of some kind arrived at the advent of the Everstorm.”

“Brightness!” Kadash called. “Spanreed to Sebarial’s scribes is responding again. They apologize for the long delay. Sebarial pulled back, following Aladar’s command, to the upper levels. He confirms that the attackers are parshmen.”

“The Oathgates?” Renarin asked, hopeful. “Can they reach those, and open the way here?”

“Not likely. The enemy is holding the plateau.”

“Our armies have the advantage at Urithiru, Prince Renarin,” Teshav said. “Reports agree that the enemy strike force isn’t nearly large enough to defeat us there. This is obviously a delaying tactic to keep us from activating the Oathgate and bringing help to Thaylen City.”

Kadash nodded. “Those Fused above the Oathgate held even when the stone monster outside was falling. They know their orders—keep that device from being activated.”

“Radiant Malata is the only way for our armies to reach us through the Oathgate,” Teshav said. “But we can’t contact her, or any of the Kharbranth contingent. The enemy struck them first. They knew exactly what they had to do to cripple us.”

Renarin took a deep breath, drawing in Stormlight that Teshav was carrying. His glow lit the room, and eyes all through the chamber looked up from spanreeds, turning toward him.

“The portal has to be opened,” Renarin said.

“Your Highness…” Teshav said. “You can’t fight them all.”

“There’s nobody else.” He turned to go.

Shockingly, nobody called for him to stop.

All his life they’d done that. No, Renarin. That’s not for you. You can’t do that. You’re not well, Renarin. Be reasonable, Renarin.

He’d always been reasonable. He’d always listened. It felt wonderful and terrifying at once to know that nobody did that today. The spanreeds continued their scratching, moving on their own, oblivious to the moment.

Renarin stepped outside.

Terrified, he strode down the street, summoning Glys as a Shardblade. As he approached the ramp up to the Oathgate, the Fused descended. Four landed on the ramp before him, then gave him a gesture not unlike a salute, humming to a frantic tune he did not know.

Renarin was so frightened, he worried he’d wet himself. Not very noble or brave, now was he?

Ah … what will come now? Glys said, voice thrumming through Renarin. What emerges?

One of his fits struck him.

Not the old fits, where he grew weak. He had new ones now, that neither he nor Glys could control. To his eyes, glass grew across the ground. It spread out like crystals, forming lattices, images, meanings and pathways. Stained-glass pictures, panel after panel.

These had always been right. Until today—until they had proclaimed that Jasnah Kholin’s love would fail.

He read this latest set of stained-glass images, then felt his fear drain away. He smiled. This seemed to confuse the Fused as they lowered their salutes.

“You’re wondering why I’m smiling,” Renarin said.

They didn’t respond.

“Don’t worry,” Renarin said. “You didn’t miss something funny. I … well, I doubt you’ll find it amusing.”

Light exploded from the Oathgate platform in a wave. The Fused cried out in a strange tongue, zipping into the air. A luminous wall expanded from the Oathgate platform in a ring, trailing a glowing afterimage.

It faded to reveal an entire division of Alethi troops in Kholin blue standing upon the Oathgate platform.

Then, like a Herald from lore, a man rose into the air above them. Glowing white with Stormlight, the bearded man carried a long silver Shardspear with a strange crossguard shape behind the tip.

Teft.

Knight Radiant.

Shallan sat with her back against the battlement, listening to soldiers shout orders. Navani had given her Stormlight and water, but was currently distracted by reports from Urithiru.

Pattern hummed from the side of Veil’s jacket. “Shallan? You did well, Shallan. Very well.”

“An honorable stand,” Radiant agreed. “One against many, and we held our ground.”

“Longer than we should have,” Veil said. “We were already exhausted.”

“We’re still ignoring too much,” Shallan said. “We’re getting too good at pretending.” She had decided to stay with Jasnah in the first place to learn. But when the woman returned from the dead, Shallan had—instead of accepting training—immediately fled. What had she been thinking?

Nothing. She’d been trying to hide away things she didn’t want to face. Like always.

“Mmm…” Pattern said, a concerned hum.

“I’m tired,” Shallan whispered. “You don’t have to worry. After I rest, I’ll recover and settle down to being just one. I actually … actually don’t think I’m quite as lost as I was before.”

Jasnah, Navani, and Queen Fen whispered together farther along the wall. Thaylen generals joined them, and fearspren gathered around. The defense, in their opinion, was going poorly. Reluctantly, Veil pushed herself to her feet and surveyed the battlefield. Amaram’s forces were gathering beyond bow range.

“We delayed the enemy,” Radiant said, “but didn’t defeat them. We still have an overwhelming army to face.…”

“Mmmm…” Pattern said, high pitched, worried. “Shallan, look. Beyond.”

Out nearer the bay, thousands upon thousands of fresh parshman troops had begun to carry ladders off their ships to use in a full-on assault.

“Tell the men not to give chase to those Fused,” Renarin said to Lopen. “We need to hold the Oathgate, first and foremost.”

“Good enough, sure,” Lopen said, launching into the sky and going to relay the order to Teft.

The Fused clashed with Bridge Four in the air over the city. This group of enemies seemed more skilled than the ones Renarin had seen below, but they didn’t fight so much as defend themselves. They were progressively moving the clash farther out over the city, and Renarin worried they were deliberately drawing Bridge Four away from the Oathgate.

The Alethi division marched into the city with shouts of praise and joy from the surrounding people. Two thousand men wasn’t going to do much if those parshmen outside joined the battle, but it was a start—plus, General Khal had brought not one, but three Shardbearers. Renarin did his best to explain the city situation, but was embarrassed to tell the Khals that he didn’t know his father’s status.

As they reunited with Teshav—turning her scribe station into a command post—Rock and Lyn landed next to Renarin.

“Ha!” Rock said. “What happened to uniform? Is needing my needle.”

Renarin looked down at his tattered clothing. “I got hit by a large block of stone. Twenty times … You’re not one to complain, anyway. Is that your blood on your uniform?”

“Is nothing!”

“We had to carry him all the way down to the Oathgate,” Lyn said. “We were trying to get him to you, but he started drawing in Stormlight as soon as he got here.”

“Kaladin is close,” Rock agreed. “Ha! I feed him. But here, today, he fed me. With light!”

Lyn eyed Rock. “Storming Horneater weighs as much as a chull.…” She shook her head. “Kara will fight with the others—don’t tell anyone, but she’s been practicing with a spear since childhood, the little cheater. But Rock won’t fight, and I’ve only been handling a spear for a few weeks now. Any idea where you want us?”

“I’m … um … not really in command or anything.…”

“Really?” Lyn said. “That’s your best Knight Radiant voice?”

“Ha!” Rock said.

“I think I used up all my Radianting for the day,” Renarin said. “Um, I’ll work the Oathgate and get more troops here. Maybe you two could go down and help on the city wall, pull wounded out of the front lines?”

“Is good idea,” Rock said. Lyn nodded and flew off, but Rock lingered, then grabbed Renarin in a very warm, suffocating, and unexpected embrace.

Renarin did his best not to squirm. It wasn’t the first hug he’d endured from Rock. But … storms. You weren’t supposed to just grab someone like that.

“Why?” Renarin said after the embrace.

“You looked like person who needed hug.”

“I assure you, I never look like that. But, um, I am glad you guys came. Really, really glad.”

“Bridge Four,” Rock said, then launched into the air.

Renarin settled down nearby on some steps, trembling from it all, but grinning anyway.

Dalinar drifted in the Thrill’s embrace.

He’d once believed he had been four men in his life, but he now saw he’d grossly underestimated. He hadn’t lived as two, or four, or six men—he had lived as thousands, for each day he became someone slightly different.

He hadn’t changed in one giant leap, but across a million little steps.

The most important always being the next, he thought as he drifted in the red mist. The Thrill threatened to take him, control him, rip him apart and shred his soul in its eagerness to please him—to give him something it could never understand was dangerous.

A small hand gripped Dalinar’s.

He started, looking down. “L-Lift? You shouldn’t have come in here.”

“But I’m the best at going places I’m not supposed to.” She pressed something into his hand.

The large ruby.

Bless you.

“What is it?” she said. “Why do you need that rock?”

Dalinar squinted into the mists. Do you know how we capture spren, Dalinar? Taravangian had said. You lure the spren with something it loves. You give it something familiar to draw it in …

Something it knows deeply.

“Shallan saw one of the Unmade in the tower,” he whispered. “When she got close, it was afraid, but I don’t think the Thrill comprehends like it did. You see, it can only be bested by someone who deeply, sincerely, understands it.”

He lifted the gemstone above his head, and—one last time—embraced the Thrill.

War.

Victory.

The contest.

Dalinar’s entire life had been a competition: a struggle from one conquest to the next. He accepted what he had done. It would always be part of him. And though he was determined to resist, he would not cast aside what he had learned. That very thirst for the struggle—the fight, the victory—had also prepared him to refuse Odium.

“Thank you,” he whispered again to the Thrill, “for giving me strength when I needed it.”

The Thrill churned close around him, cooing and exulting in his praise.

“Now, old friend, it is time to rest.”

* * *

Keep moving.

Kaladin dodged and wove, avoiding some strikes, healing from others.

Keep them distracted.

He tried to take to the skies, but the eight Fused swarmed about him, knocking him back down. He hit the stone ground, then Lashed himself laterally, away from the stabbing lances or crushing clubs.

Can’t actually escape.

He had to keep their attention. If he managed to slip away, all of these would turn against Dalinar.

You don’t have to beat them. You simply have to last long enough.

He dodged to the right, skimming a few inches above the ground. But one of the hulking Fused—there were four fighting him now—grabbed him by the foot. She slammed him down, then carapace grew down along her arms, threatening to bind Kaladin to the ground.

He kicked her off, but another grabbed him by the arm and flung him to the side. Flying ones descended, and while he warded away their lances with the Sylshield, his side throbbed with pain. The healing was coming more slowly now.

Two other Fused swept along, scooping up nearby gemstones, leaving Kaladin in an ever-expanding ring of darkness.

Just buy time. Dalinar needs time.

Syl sang in his mind as he spun, forming a spear and ramming it through the chest of one of the hulking ones. Those could heal unless you stabbed them in exactly the right spot in the sternum, and he’d missed. So, he made Syl into a sword and—the weapon still embedded in the Fused woman’s chest—swept upward through the head, burning her eyes. Another hulking Fused swung, but as it hit—the club being part of the thing’s actual body—Kaladin used much of his remaining Stormlight to Lash this man upward, crashing him into a Fused above.

Another clobbered him from the side, sending him rolling. Red lightning pulsed overhead as he came to a rest on his back. He immediately summoned Syl as a spear, pointing straight up. That impaled the Fused dropping down to attack him, cracking its sternum within, causing its eyes to burn.

Another grabbed him by the foot and lifted him, then slammed him face-first into the ground. That knocked Kaladin’s breath out. The monstrous Fused stomped a carapace-encrusted foot onto his back, shattering ribs. Kaladin screamed, and though the Stormlight healed what it could, the last of it fluttered inside.

Then went out.

A sudden sound rose behind Kaladin, like that of rushing air—accompanied by wails of pain. The Fused stumbled backward, muttering to a quick, worried rhythm. Then, remarkably, it turned and ran.

Kaladin twisted, looking behind himself. He couldn’t make out Dalinar anymore, but the mist itself had begun to thrash. Surging and pulsing, it whipped about like it was caught in a powerful wind.

More Fused fled. That wailing grew louder, and the mist seemed to roar—a thousand faces stretching from it, mouths opened in agony. They were sucked back together, like rats pulled by their tails.

The red mist imploded, vanishing. All went dark, with the storm overhead growing still.

Kaladin found himself lying broken on the ground. Stormlight had healed his vital functions; his organs would probably be intact, though his cracked bones left him gasping with pain when he tried to sit up. The spheres around the area were dun, and the darkness prevented him from spotting whether Dalinar lived.

The mist was entirely gone. That seemed a good sign. And in the darkness, Kaladin could see something streaking from the city. Brilliant white lights flying in the air.

A scraping sound came from nearby, and then a violet light flickered in the darkness. A shadow stumbled to its feet, dark purple light pulsing alive in its chest cavity, which was empty save for that gemstone.

Amaram’s glowing red eyes illuminated a distorted face: his jaw had broken as he’d fallen, and gemstones had pushed out the sides of his face at awkward angles, making the jaw hang limp from his mouth, drool leaking out the side. He stumbled toward Kaladin, gemstone heart pulsing with light. A Shardblade formed in his hand. The one that had killed Kaladin’s friends so long ago.

“Amaram,” Kaladin whispered. “I can see what you are. What you’ve always been.”

Amaram tried to speak, but his drooping jaw only let out spittle and grunts. Kaladin was struck by a memory of the first time he’d seen the highlord at Hearthstone. So tall and brave. Seemingly perfect.

“I saw it in your eyes, Amaram,” Kaladin whispered as the husk of a man stumbled up to him. “When you killed Coreb and Hab and my other friends. I saw the guilt you felt.” He licked his lips. “You tried to break me as a slave. But you failed. They rescued me.”

Maybe it’s time for someone to save you, Syl had said in Shadesmar. But someone already had.

Amaram raised the Shardblade high.

“Bridge Four,” Kaladin whispered.

An arrow slammed into Amaram’s head from behind, going right through the skull, coming out his inhuman mouth. Amaram stumbled forward, dropping his Shardblade, the arrow stuck in his head. He made a choking sound, then turned about just in time to catch another arrow straight in the chest—right through the flickering gemstone heart.

The amethyst exploded, and Amaram dropped in a crumbled wreck beside Kaladin.

A glowing figure stood on some rubble beyond, holding Amaram’s enormous Shardbow. The weapon seemed to match Rock, tall and brilliant, a beacon in the darkness.

Amaram’s red eyes faded as he died, and Kaladin had the distinct impression of a dark smoke escaping his corpse. Two Shardblades formed beside him and clanged to the stone.

The soldiers made a space for Radiant on the wall as they prepared for the enemy assault. Amaram’s army formed assault ranks while parshmen carried ladders, ready to charge.

It was hard to step atop the wall without squishing a fearspren. Thaylens whispered of Alethi prowess in battle, recalling stories like when Hamadin and his fifty had withstood ten thousand Vedens. This was the first battle the Thaylens had seen in a generation, but Amaram’s troops had been hardened by constant war on the Shattered Plains.

They looked to Shallan as if she could save them. The Knights Radiant were the only edge this city had. Their best hope of survival.

That terrified her.

The armies started charging the wall. No pause, no breather. Odium would keep pushing forces at this wall as long as it took to crack Thaylen City. Bloodlusty men, controlled by …

The lights in their eyes started to go out.

That clouded sky made it unmistakable. All across the field, red faded from the eyes of Amaram’s soldiers. Many immediately fell to their knees, retching on the ground. Others stumbled, holding themselves upright by sagging against spears. It was like the very life had been sucked out of them—and it was so abrupt and unexpected that Shallan had to blink several times before her mind admitted that—yes—this was happening.

Cheers erupted along the wall as the Fused inexplicably retreated back toward the ships. The parshmen rushed to follow, as did many of Amaram’s troops—though some just lay on the broken stones.

Lethargically, the black storm faded until it was a mere overcast stain, rippling with drowsy red lightning. It finally rolled across the island—impotent, bereft of wind—and vanished to the east.

Kaladin drank Stormlight from Lopen’s gemstones.

“Be lucky the Horneater was looking for you, gon,” Lopen said. “The rest of us thought we’d just fight, you know?”

Kaladin glanced toward Rock, who stood over Amaram’s body, looking down, the enormous bow held limply in one hand. How had he drawn it? Stormlight granted great endurance, but it didn’t vastly improve strength.

“Whoa,” Lopen said. “Gancho! Look!”

The clouds had thinned, and sunlight peeked through, illuminating the field of stone. Dalinar Kholin knelt not far away, clutching a large ruby that glowed with the same strange phantom light as the Fused. The Reshi girl stood with her diminutive hand resting on his shoulder.

The Blackthorn was crying as he cradled the gemstone.

“Dalinar?” Kaladin asked, worried, jogging over. “What happened?”

“It is over, Captain,” Dalinar said. Then he smiled. So were they tears of joy? Why had he seemed so grieved? “It’s over.”

121. Ideals

Moash found it easy to transition from killing men to breaking apart rubble.

He used a pick to hack at pieces of fallen stone in the former east wing of the Kholinar palace, smashing fallen columns so they could be carried off by other workers. Nearby, the floor was still red with dried blood. That was where he’d killed Elhokar, and his new masters had ordered the blood to not be cleaned. They claimed that the death of a king was a thing to regard with reverence.

Shouldn’t Moash have felt pleasure? Or at least satisfaction? Instead, killing Elhokar had only made him feel … cold. Like a man who had hiked across half of Roshar with a caravan of stubborn chulls. At the top of the last hill, you didn’t feel satisfaction. You just felt tired. Maybe a sliver of relief at being done.

He slammed his pick into a fallen pillar. Near the end of the battle for Kholinar, the thunderclast had knocked down a large portion of the palace’s eastern gallery. Now, human slaves worked to clear out the rubble. The others would often break down crying, or work with hunched shoulders.

Moash shook his head, enjoying the peaceful rhythm of pick on stone.

A Fused strode past, covered in carapace armor as brilliant and wicked as Shardplate. There were nine orders of them. Why not ten?

“Over there,” the Fused said through an interpreter. He pointed at a section of wall. “Break this down.”

Moash wiped his brow, frowning as other slaves began work there. Why break down that wall? Wouldn’t it be needed to rebuild this portion of the palace?

“Curious, human?”

Moash jumped, startled to find a figure hovering down through the broken ceiling, swathed in black. Lady Leshwi still visited Moash, the man who had killed her. She was important among the singers, but not in a highprince sort of way. More like a field captain.

“I guess I am curious, Ancient Singer,” Moash said. “Is there a reason you’re ripping apart this section of the palace? More than just to clear away the rubble?”

“Yes. But you do not yet need to know why.”

He nodded, then returned to his work.

She hummed to a rhythm he associated with being pleased. “Your passion does you credit.”

“I have no passion. Just numbness.”

“You have given him your pain. He will return it, human, when you need it.”

That would be fine, so long as he could forget the look of betrayal he’d seen in Kaladin’s eyes.

“Hnanan wishes to speak with you,” the ancient one said. The name wasn’t fully a word. It was more a hummed sound, with specific beats. “Join us above.”

She flew off. Moash set aside his pick and followed in a more mundane manner, rounding to the front of the palace. Once away from the picks and the clatter of rocks, he could hear sobs and whimpers. Only the most destitute humans sheltered here, in the broken buildings near the palace.

Eventually, these would be rounded up and sent to work farms. For now, however, the grand city was a place of wails and heartache. The people thought the world had ended, but they were only half right. Their world had.

He entered the palace uncontested, and started up the stairwell. Fused didn’t need guards. Killing them was difficult, and even if you succeeded, they would simply be reborn at the next Everstorm, assuming a willing parshman could be found to take the burden.

Near the king’s chambers, Moash passed two Fused reading books in a library. They’d removed their lengthy coats, floating with bare feet peeking from loose, rippling trousers, toes pointed downward. He eventually found Hnanan out beyond the king’s balcony, hovering in the air, her train blowing and rippling in the wind beneath.

“Ancient Singer,” he said from the balcony. Though Hnanan was the equivalent of a highprince, they did not demand that Moash bow even to her. Apparently, by having killed one of their better fighters, he had obtained a level of respect.

“You did well,” she said, speaking Alethi, her voice thickly accented. “You felled a king in this palace.”

“King or slave, he was an enemy to me and mine.”

“I have called myself wise,” she said, “and felt pride for Leshwi at picking you out. For years, my brother, sister, and I will boast of having chosen you.” She looked to him. “Odium has a command for you. This is rare for a human.”

“Speak it.”

“You have killed a king,” she said, removing something from a sheath within her robes. A strange knife, with a sapphire set into the pommel. The weapon was of a bright golden metal, so light it was almost white. “Would you do the same to a god?”

Navani left through the sally port in the Thaylen City wall, and ran across the broken field, heedless of the calls of soldiers who scrambled after her. She’d waited as long as was reasonable to let the enemy army withdraw.

Dalinar walked with help from Lopen and Captain Kaladin, one under each arm. He towed jets of exhaustionspren like a swarm. Navani took him in a powerful embrace anyway. He was the Blackthorn. He’d survive a forceful hug.

Kaladin and Lopen hovered nearby. “He’s mine,” she said to them.

They nodded, and didn’t move.

“People need your help inside,” she said. “I can handle him, boys.”

Finally they flew off, and Navani tried to get under Dalinar’s arm. He shook his head, still holding her in the embrace, a large stone—wrapped in his coat—held in one hand and pressing against her back. What was that?

“I think I know why the memories came back,” he whispered. “Odium was going to make me remember once I faced him. I needed to learn to stand up again. All my pain these last two months was a blessing.”

She held to him on that open field of rock, broken by the thunderclasts, littered with men who wailed toward the empty sky, screaming for what they’d done, demanding to know why they’d been abandoned.

Dalinar resisted Navani’s attempts to tug him toward the wall. Instead, teary eyed, he kissed her. “Thank you for inspiring me.”

“Inspiring you?”

He released her and held up his arm, which was strapped with the clock and painrial she’d given him. It had cracked open, exposing the gemstones. “It reminded me,” he said. “Of how we make fabrials.”

He lethargically unwrapped his uniform jacket from around a large ruby. It glowed with a bizarre light, deep and dark. Somehow, it seemed to be trying to pull the light around it in.

“I want you to keep this safe for me,” Dalinar said. “Study it. Find out why this gemstone specifically was capable of holding one of the Unmade. Don’t break it though. We dare not let it out again.”

She bit her lip. “Dalinar, I’ve seen something like this before. Much smaller, like a sphere.” She looked up at him. “Gavilar made it.”

Dalinar touched the stone with his bare finger. Deep within it, something seemed to stir. Had he really trapped an entire Unmade inside this thing?

“Study it,” he repeated. “And in the meantime, there’s something else I want you to do, dearest. Something unconventional, perhaps uncomfortable.”

“Anything,” she said. “What is it?”

Dalinar met her eyes. “I want you to teach me how to read.”

Everyone started celebrating. Shallan, Radiant, and Veil just settled down on the wall walk, back to the stone.

Radiant worried they’d leave the city undefended in their reverie. And what had become of the enemy that had been fighting in the streets? The defenders had to make certain this wasn’t an elaborate feint.

Veil worried about looting. A city in chaos often proved how feral it could become. Veil wanted to be out on the streets, looking for people likely to be robbed, and making sure they were cared for.

Shallan wanted to sleep. She felt … weaker … more tired than the other two.

Jasnah approached along the wall walk, then leaned down beside her. “Shallan? Are you well?”

“Just tired,” Veil lied. “You have no idea how draining that was, Brightness. I could use a stiff drink.”

“I suspect that would help very little,” Jasnah said, rising. “Rest here a while yet. I want to make absolutely certain the enemy is not returning.”

“I swear to do better, Brightness,” Radiant said, taking Jasnah’s hand. “I wish to fulfill my wardship—to study and learn until you determine I am ready. I will not flee again. I’ve realized I have very far to go yet.”

“That is well, Shallan.” Jasnah moved off.

Shallan. Which … which am I…? She’d insisted she would be better soon, but that didn’t seem to be happening. She grasped for an answer, staring into the nothingness until Navani approached and knelt down beside her. Behind, Dalinar accepted a respectful bow from Queen Fen, then bowed back.

“Storms, Shallan,” Navani said. “You look like you can barely keep your eyes open. I’ll get you a palanquin to the upper reaches of the city.”

“The Oathgate is likely clogged,” Radiant said. “I would not take a place from others who might be in greater need.”

“Don’t be foolish, child,” Navani said, then gave her an embrace. “You must have been through so much. Devmrh, would you get a palanquin for Brightness Davar?”

“My own feet are good enough,” Veil said, glaring at the scribe who jumped to obey Navani. “I’m stronger than you think—no offense, Brightness.”

Navani pursed her lips, but then was pulled away by Dalinar and Fen’s conversation; they were planning to write the Azish and explain what had happened. Veil figured he was rightly worried that today’s events would spread as rumors of Alethi betrayal. Storms, if she hadn’t been here herself, she’d have been tempted to believe them. It wasn’t every day that an entire army went rogue.

Radiant decided they could rest for ten minutes. Shallan accepted that, leaning her head back against the wall. Floating …

“Shallan?”

That voice. She opened her eyes to find Adolin scrambling across the wall to her. He skidded a little as he fell to his knees beside her, then raised his hands—only to hesitate, as if confronted by something very fragile.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Veil said. “I’m not some delicate piece of crystal.”

Adolin narrowed his eyes.

“Truly,” Radiant said. “I’m a soldier as much as the men atop this wall. Treat me—other than in obvious respects—as you would treat them.”

“Shallan…” Adolin said, taking her hand.

“What?” Veil asked.

“Something’s wrong.”

“Of course it is,” Radiant said. “This fighting has left us all thoroughly worn out.”

Adolin searched her eyes. She bled from one, to the other, and back. A moment of Veil. A moment of Radiant. Shallan peeking through—

Adolin’s hand tightened around her own.

Shallan’s breath caught. There, she thought. That’s the one. That’s the one I am.

He knows.

Adolin relaxed, and for the first time she noticed how ragged his clothing was. She raised her safehand to her lips. “Adolin, are you all right?”

“Oh!” He looked down at his ripped uniform and scraped hands. “It’s not as bad as it looks, Shallan. Most of the blood isn’t mine. Well, I mean, I guess it is. But I’m feeling better.”

She cupped his face with her freehand. “You’d better not have gotten too many scars. I’m expecting you to remain pretty, I’ll have you know.”

“I’m barely hurt, Shallan. Renarin got to me.”

“Then it’s all right if I do this?” Shallan asked, hugging him. He responded, pulling her tight. He smelled of sweat and blood—not the gentlest of scents, but this was him and she was Shallan.

“How are you?” he asked. “Really?”

“Tired,” she whispered.

“You want a palanquin…”

“Everyone keeps asking that.”

“I could carry you up,” he said, then pulled back and grinned. “Course, you’re a Radiant. So maybe you could carry me instead? I’ve already been all the way up to the top of the city and back down once.…”

Shallan smiled, until farther down the wall a glowing figure in blue landed on the battlements. Kaladin settled down, blue eyes shining, flanked by Rock and Lopen. Soldiers all along the walk turned toward him. Even in a battle with multiple Knights Radiant, there was something about the way Kaladin flew, the way he moved.

Veil immediately took over. She pulled herself to her feet as Kaladin strode along the wall to meet with Dalinar. What happened to his boots?

“Shallan?” Adolin asked.

“A palanquin sounds great,” Veil said. “Thanks.”

Adolin blushed, then nodded and strode toward one of the stairwells down into the city.

“Mmm…” Pattern said. “I’m confused.”

“We need to approach this from a logical position,” Radiant said. “We’ve been dancing around a decision for months, ever since those days we spent in the chasms with Stormblessed. I’ve begun to consider that a relationship between two Knights Radiant is likely to accomplish a more equitable union.”

“Also,” Veil added, “look at those eyes. Simmering with barely bridled emotion.” She walked toward him, grinning.

Then slowed.

Adolin knows me.

What was she doing?

She shoved Radiant and Veil aside, and when they resisted, she stuffed them into the back part of her brain. They were not her. She was occasionally them. But they were not her.

Kaladin hesitated on the wall walk, but Shallan just gave him a wave, then went the other way, tired—but determined.

Venli stood by the railing of a fleeing ship.

The Fused boasted from within the captain’s cabin. They talked about next time, promising what they’d do and how they’d win. They spoke of past victories, and subtly hinted at why they’d failed. Too few of them had awakened so far, and those who had awakened were unaccustomed to having physical bodies.

What a strange way to treat a failure. She attuned Appreciation anyway. An old rhythm. She loved being able to hear those again at will—she could attune either old or new, and could make her eyes red, except when she drew in Stormlight. Timbre had granted this by capturing the Voidspren within her.

This meant she could hide it from the Fused. From Odium. She stepped away from the cabin door and walked along the side of the ship, which surged through the water, heading back toward Marat.

“This bond was supposed to be impossible,” she whispered to Timbre.

Timbre pulsed to Peace.

“I’m happy too,” Venli whispered. “But why me? Why not one of the humans?”

Timbre pulsed to Irritation, then the Lost.

“That many? I had no idea the human betrayal had cost so many of your people’s lives. And your own grandfather?”

Irritation again.

“I’m not sure how much I trust the humans either. Eshonai did though.”

Nearby, sailors worked on the rigging, speaking softly in Thaylen. Parshmen, yes, but also Thaylens. “I don’t know, Vldgen,” one said. “Yeah, some of them weren’t so bad. But what they did to us…”

“Does that mean we have to kill them?” his companion asked. She caught a tossed rope. “It doesn’t seem right.”

“They took our culture, Vldgen,” the malen said. “They blustering took our entire identity. And they’ll never let a bunch of parshmen remain free. Watch. They’ll come for us.”

“I’ll fight if they do,” Vldgen said. “But … I don’t know. Can’t we simply enjoy being able to think? Being able to exist?” She shook her head, lashing a rope tight. “I just wish I knew who we were.”

Timbre pulsed to Praise.

“The listeners?” Venli whispered to the spren. “We didn’t do that good a job of resisting Odium. As soon as we got a hint of power, we came running back to him.” That had been her fault. She had driven them toward new information, new powers. She’d always hungered for it. Something new.

Timbre pulsed to Consolation, but then it blended, changing once again to Resolve.

Venli hummed the same transformation.

Something new.

But also something old.

She walked to the two sailors. They immediately stood at attention, saluting her as the only Regal on the ship, holding a form of power. “I know who you were,” she said to the two of them.

“You … you do?” the femalen asked.

“Yes.” Venli pointed. “Keep working, and let me tell you of the listeners.”

* * *

I think you did a great job, Szeth, the sword said from Szeth’s hand as they rose above Thaylen City. You didn’t destroy many of them, yes, but you just need some more practice!

“Thank you, sword-nimi,” he said, reaching Nin. The Herald floated with toes pointed downward, hands clasped behind his back, watching the disappearing ships of the parshmen in the distance.

“I am sorry, master,” Szeth finally said. “I have angered you.”

“I am not your master,” Nin said. “And you have not angered me. Why would I be displeased?”

“You have determined that the parshmen are the true owners of this land, and that the Skybreakers should follow their laws.”

“The very reason that we swear to something external is because we acknowledge that our own judgment is flawed. My judgment is flawed.” He narrowed his eyes. “I used to be able to feel, Szeth-son-Neturo. I used to have compassion. I can remember those days, before…”

“The torture?” Szeth asked.

He nodded. “Centuries spent on Braize—the place you call Damnation—stole my ability to feel. We each cope somehow, but only Ishar survived with his mind intact. Regardless, you are certain you wish to follow a man with your oath?”

“It is not as perfect as the law, I know,” Szeth said. “But it feels right.”

“The law is made by men, so it is not perfect either. It is not perfection we seek, for perfection is impossible. It is instead consistency. You have said the Words?”

“Not yet. I swear to follow the will of Dalinar Kholin. This is my oath.” At the Words, snow crystallized around him in the air, then fluttered down. He felt a surge of something. Approval? From the hidden spren who only rarely showed itself to him, even still.

“I believe that your Words have been accepted. Have you chosen your quest for the next Ideal?”

“I will cleanse the Shin of their false leaders, so long as Dalinar Kholin agrees.”

“We shall see. You may find him a harsh master.”

“He is a good man, Nin-son-God.”

“That is precisely why.” Nin saluted him quietly, then began to move away through the air. He shook his head when Szeth followed, and then he pointed. “You must protect the man you once tried to kill, Szeth-son-Neturo.”

“What if we meet on the battlefield?”

“Then we will both fight with confidence, knowing that we obey the precepts of our oaths. Farewell, Szeth-son-Neturo. I will visit you again to oversee your training in our second art, the Surge of Division. You may access that now, but take care. It is dangerous.”

He left Szeth alone in the sky, holding a sword that hummed happily to itself, then confided that it had never really liked Nin in the first place.

Shallan had found that no matter how bad things got, someone would be making tea.

Today it was Teshav, and Shallan gratefully took a cup, then peeked through the command post at the top of the city, still looking for Adolin. Now that she was moving, she found she could ignore her fatigue. Momentum could be a powerful thing.

Adolin wasn’t here, though one of the runner girls had seen him a short time ago, so Shallan was on the right track. She walked back to the main thoroughfare, passing men carrying stretchers full of the wounded. Otherwise, the streets were mostly empty. People had been sent to stormshelters or homes as Queen Fen’s soldiers gathered gemstones from the reserve, rounded up Amaram’s troops, and made certain there was no looting.

Shallan idled in the mouth of an alleyway. The tea was bitter, but good. Knowing Teshav, it probably had something in it to keep her on her feet and alert—scribes always knew the best teas for that.

She watched the people for a time, then glanced upward as Kaladin landed on a rooftop nearby. He was next up for working the Oathgate, taking over from Renarin.

The Windrunner stood like a sentinel, surveying the city. Was that going to become a thing for him? Always standing around up high somewhere? She’d seen how envious he’d been as he’d watched those Fused, with their flowing robes, moving like the winds.

Shallan glanced toward the thoroughfare as she heard a familiar voice. Adolin hiked down the street, led by the messenger girl, who pointed him toward Shallan. Finally. The messenger girl bowed, then scampered off back toward the command post.

Adolin stepped over and ran his hand through his mop of hair, blond and black. It looked fantastic, despite his ripped uniform and scraped face. Perhaps that was the advantage to persistently messy hair—he managed to make it go with anything. Though she had no idea how he’d gotten so much dust on his uniform. Had he fought a bag of sand?

She pulled him against her in the mouth of the alleyway, then twisted and put his arm around her shoulders. “Where did you get off to?”

“Father asked me to check on each of the Thaylen Shardbearers and report. I left you a palanquin.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ve been surveying the aftermath of the fight. I think we did a good job. Only half the city destroyed—which is quite the step up from our work in Kholinar. If we keep this up, some people might actually live through the end of the world.”

He grunted. “You seem in higher spirits than earlier.”

“Teshav fed me tea,” she said. “I’ll probably be bouncing off the clouds soon. Don’t get me laughing. I sound like an axehound puppy when I’m hyper.”

“Shallan…” he said.

She twisted up to look at his eyes, then followed his gaze. Above, Kaladin rose into the air to inspect something that they couldn’t see.

“I didn’t mean to abandon you earlier,” Shallan said. “I’m sorry. I should never have let you run off.”

He took a deep breath, then removed his arm from her shoulders.

I’ve screwed it up! Shallan thought immediately. Stormfather. I’ve gone and ruined it.

“I’ve decided,” Adolin said, “to step back.”

“Adolin, I didn’t mean to—”

“I have to say this, Shallan. Please.” He stood up tall, stiff. “I’m going to let him have you.”

She blinked. “Let him have me.”

“I’m holding you back,” Adolin said. “I see the way you two look at each other. I don’t want you to keep forcing yourself to spend time with me because you feel sorry for me.”

Storms. Now he’s trying to ruin it! “No,” Shallan said. “First off, you don’t get to treat me like some kind of prize. You don’t decide who gets me.”

“I’m not trying to…” He took another deep breath. “Look, this is hard for me, Shallan. I’m trying to do the right thing. Don’t make it harder.”

“I don’t get a choice?”

“You’ve made your choice. I see how you look at him.”

“I’m an artist, Adolin. I appreciate a nice picture when I see one. Doesn’t mean I want to pull it off the hook and go get intimate.”

Kaladin landed on a roof in the distance, still looking the other way. Adolin waved toward him. “Shallan. He can literally fly.”

“Oh? And is that what women are supposed to seek in a mate? Is it in the Polite Lady’s Handbook to Courtship and Family? The Bekenah edition, maybe? ‘Ladies, you can’t possibly marry a man if he can’t fly.’ Never mind if the other option is as handsome as sin, kind to everyone he meets regardless of their station, passionate about his art, and genuinely humble in the weirdest, most confident way. Never mind if he actually seems to get you, and remarkably listens to your problems, encouraging you to be you—not to hide yourself away. Never mind if being near him makes you want to rip his shirt off and push him into the nearest alleyway, then kiss him until he can’t breathe anymore. If he can’t fly, then well, you just have to call it off!”

She paused for breath, gasping.

“And…” Adolin said. “That guy is … me?”

“You are such a fool.” She grabbed his ripped coat and pulled him into a kiss, passionspren crystallizing in the air around them. The warmth of the kiss did more for her than the tea ever could. It made her bubble and boil inside. Stormlight was nice, but this … this was an energy that made it dun by comparison.

Storms, she loved this man.

When she let him out of the kiss, he grabbed her and pulled her close, breathing heavily.

“Are you … are you sure?” he asked. “I just … Don’t glare at me, Shallan. I have to say this. The world is full of gods and Heralds now, and you’re one of them. I’m practically a nobody. I’m not used to that feeling.”

“Then it’s probably the best thing that’s ever happened to you, Adolin Kholin. Well. Except for me.” She snuggled against him. “I will admit to you, in the interest of full honesty, that Veil did have a tendency to fawn over Kaladin Stormblessed. She has terrible taste in men, and I’ve convinced her to fall in line.”

“That’s worrisome, Shallan.”

“I won’t let her act on it. I promise.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Adolin said. “I meant … you, Shallan. Becoming other people.”

“We’re all different people at different times. Remember?”

“Not the same way as you.”

“I know,” she said. “But I … I think I’ve stopped leaking into new personas. Three for now.” She turned around, smiling at him, his hands still around her waist. “How do you like that, though? Three betrotheds instead of one. Some men drool over the idea of such debauchery. If you wanted, I could be practically anyone.”

“But that’s the thing, Shallan. I don’t want anyone. I want you.”

“That might be the hardest one. But I think I can do it, Adolin. With some help, maybe?”

He grinned that goofy grin of his. Storms, how could his hair look so good with gravel in it? “So…” he said. “You mentioned something about kissing me until I can’t breathe. But here I am, not even winded—”

He cut off as she kissed him again.

Kaladin settled down on the edge of a roof, high at the top of Thaylen City.

This poor city. First the Everstorm, and its subsequent returns. The Thaylens had only just started figuring out how to rebuild, and now had to deal with more smashed buildings leading up to the corpse of the thunderclast, which lay like a toppled statue.

We can win, he thought. But each victory scars us a little more.

In his hand he rubbed a small stone with his thumb. Down below, in an alleyway off the main thoroughfare, a woman with flowing red hair kissed a man in a ragged and ripped uniform. Some people could celebrate despite the scars. Kaladin accepted that. He merely wished he knew how they did it.

“Kaladin?” Syl said. She wove around him as a ribbon of light. “Don’t feel bad. The Words have to come in their own time. You’ll be all right.”

“I always am.”

He squinted down at Shallan and Adolin, and found that he couldn’t be bitter. He didn’t feel resignation either. Instead he felt … agreement?

“Oh, them,” Syl said. “Well, I know that you don’t back down from fights. You’ve lost the round, but—”

“No,” he said. “Her choice is made. You can see it.”

“I can?”

“You should be able to.” He rubbed his finger on the rock. “I don’t think I loved her, Syl. I felt … something. A lightening of my burdens when I was near her. She reminds me of someone.”

“Who?”

He opened his palm, and she landed on it, forming into the shape of a young woman with flowing hair and dress. She bent down, inspecting the rock in his palm, cooing over it. Syl could still be shockingly innocent—wide-eyed and excited about the world.

“That’s a nice rock,” she said, completely serious.

“Thank you.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I found it on the battlefield below. If you get it wet it changes colors. It looks brown, but with a little water, you can see the white, black, and grey.”

“Oooooh.”

He let her inspect it for a moment more. “It’s true, then?” he finally said. “About the parshmen. That this was their land, their world, before we arrived? That … that we were the Voidbringers?”

She nodded. “Odium is the void, Kaladin. He draws in emotion, and doesn’t let it go. You … you brought him with you. I wasn’t alive then, but I know this truth. He was your first god, before you turned to Honor.”

Kaladin exhaled slowly, closing his eyes.

The men of Bridge Four were having trouble with this idea. As well they should. Others in the military didn’t care, but his men … they knew.

You could protect your home. You could kill to defend the people inside. But what if you’d stolen that house in the first place? What if the people you killed were only trying to get back what was rightfully theirs?

Reports from Alethkar said that the parshman armies were pushing north, that Alethi armies in the area had moved into Herdaz. What would happen to Hearthstone? His family? Surely in the face of the invasion, he could convince his father to move to Urithiru. But what then?

It got so complicated. Humans had lived upon this land for thousands of years. Could anyone really be expected to let go because of what ancient people had done, no matter how dishonorable their actions?

Who did he fight? Who did he protect?

Defender? Invader?

Honorable knight? Hired thug?

“The Recreance,” he said to Syl. “I always imagined it as a single event. A day the knights all gave up their Shards, like in Dalinar’s vision. But I don’t think it actually happened like that.”

“Then … how?” Syl asked.

“Like this,” Kaladin said. He squinted, watching the light of a setting sun play on the ocean. “They found out something they couldn’t ignore. Eventually they had to face it.”

“They made the wrong choice.”

Kaladin pocketed the stone. “The oaths are about perception, Syl. You confirmed that. The only thing that matters is whether or not we are confident that we’re obeying our principles. If we lose that confidence, then dropping the armor and weapons is only a formality.”

“Kal—”

“I’m not going to do the same,” he said. “I’d like to think that the past of Bridge Four will make us a little more pragmatic than those ancient Radiants. We won’t abandon you. But finding out what we will do might end up being messy.”

Kaladin stepped off the building, then Lashed himself so he soared in a wide arc over the city. He landed on a rooftop where most of Bridge Four was sharing a meal of flatbread with kuma—crushed lavis and spices. They could have demanded something far better than travel rations, but they didn’t seem to realize it.

Teft stood apart, glowing softly. Kaladin waved to the other men, then walked up to join Teft at the edge of the rooftop, staring out over the ocean beyond.

“Almost time to get the men back to work,” Teft noted. “King Taravangian wants us to fly wounded up from the triage stations to the Oathgate. The men wanted a break for food, not that they storming did much. You’d already won this battle when we got here, Kal.”

“I’d be dead if you hadn’t activated the Oathgate,” Kaladin said softly. “Somehow I knew that you would, Teft. I knew you’d come for me.”

“Knew better than I did, then.” Teft heaved a breath.

Kaladin rested his hand on Teft’s shoulder. “I know how it feels.”

“Aye,” Teft said. “I suppose you do. But isn’t it supposed to feel better? The longing for my moss is still storming there.”

“It doesn’t change us, Teft. We’re still who we are.”

“Damnation.”

Kaladin looked back at the others. Lopen was currently trying to impress Lyn and Laran with a story about how he lost his arm. It was the seventh rendition Kaladin had heard, each a little different.

Beard … Kaladin thought, feeling the loss like a stab to his side. He and Lopen would have gotten along well.

“It doesn’t get easier, Teft,” he said. “It gets harder, I think, the more you learn about the Words. Fortunately, you do get help. You were mine when I needed it. I’ll be yours.”

Teft nodded, but then pointed. “What about him?”

For the first time, Kaladin realized that Rock wasn’t with the rest of the team. The large Horneater was sitting—Stormlight extinguished—on the steps of one of the temples down below. Shardbow across his lap. Head bowed. He obviously considered what he’d done to be an oath broken, despite it having saved Kaladin’s life.

“We lift the bridge together, Teft,” Kaladin said. “And we carry it.”

Dalinar refused to leave Thaylen City immediately—but in compromise with Navani, he agreed to return to his villa in the Royal Ward and rest. On his way, he stopped in the temple of Talenelat—which had been cleared of people to make space for the generals to meet.

Those hadn’t arrived yet, so he had a short time to himself, looking at the reliefs dedicated to the Herald. He knew that he should go up and sleep, at least until the Azish ambassador arrived. But something about those images of Talenelat’Elin, standing tall against overwhelming forces …

Did he ever have to fight humans in one of these last stands? Dalinar thought. Worse, did he ever wonder about what he had done? What we all had done, in taking this world?

Dalinar was still standing there when a frail figure darkened the doorway to the temple. “I brought my surgeons,” Taravangian said, voice echoing in the large stone chamber. “They have already begun helping with the city’s wounded.”

“Thank you,” Dalinar said.

Taravangian didn’t enter. He stood, waiting, until Dalinar sighed softly. “You abandoned me,” he said. “You abandoned this city.”

“I assumed that you were going to fall,” Taravangian said, “and so positioned myself in a way that I could seize control of the coalition.”

Dalinar started. He turned toward the old man, who stood silhouetted in the doorway. “You what?”

“I assumed that the only way for the coalition to recover from your mistakes was for me to take command. I could not stand with you, my friend. For the good of Roshar, I stepped away.”

Even after their discussions together—even knowing how Taravangian viewed his obligations—Dalinar was shocked. This was brutal, utilitarian politics.

Taravangian finally stepped into the chamber, trailing a wizened hand along one of the wall reliefs. He joined Dalinar, and together they studied a carving of a powerful man, standing tall between two pillars of stone—barring the way between monsters and men.

“You … didn’t become king of Jah Keved by accident, did you?” Dalinar asked.

Taravangian shook his head. It seemed obvious to Dalinar now. Taravangian was easy to dismiss when you assumed he was slow of thought. But once you knew the truth, other mysteries began to fit into place.

“How?” Dalinar asked.

“There’s a woman at Kharbranth,” he said. “She goes by the name Dova, but we think she is Battah’Elin. A Herald. She told us the Desolation was approaching.” He looked to Dalinar. “I had nothing to do with the death of your brother. But once I heard of what incredible things the assassin did, I sought him out. Years later, I located him, and gave him specific instructions.…”

Moash stepped down out of the Kholinar palace into the shadows of a night that had seemed far too long in coming.

People clogged the palace gardens—humans who had been cast out of homes to make way for parshmen. Some of these refugees had strung tarps between benches of shalebark, creating very low tents only a couple of feet tall. Lifespren bobbed among them and the garden plants.

Moash’s target was a particular man who sat giggling in the darkness near the back of the gardens. A madman with eye color lost to the night.

“Have you seen me?” the man asked as Moash knelt.

“No,” Moash said, then rammed the strange golden knife into the man’s stomach. The man took it with a quiet grunt, smiled a silly smile, then closed his eyes.

“Were you really one of them?” Moash asked. “Herald of the Almighty?”

“Was, was, was…” The man started to tremble violently, his eyes opening wide. “Was … no. No, what is this death? What is this death!”

Huddled forms stirred, and some of the wiser ones scuttled away.

“It’s taking me!” the man screamed, then looked down at the knife in Moash’s hand. “What is that?”

The man trembled for a moment more, then jerked once, going motionless. When Moash pulled the yellow-white knife free, it trailed dark smoke and left a blackened wound. The large sapphire at the pommel took on a subdued glow.

Moash glanced over his shoulder toward the Fused hanging in the night sky behind the palace. This murder seemed a thing that they dared not do themselves. Why? What did they fear?

Moash held the knife aloft toward them, but there were no cheers. Nothing accompanied the act but a few muttered words from people trying to sleep. These broken slaves were the only other witnesses to this moment.

The final death of Jezrien. Yaezir. Jezerezeh’Elin, king of Heralds. A figure known in myth and lore as the greatest human who had ever lived.

Lopen leaped behind a rock, then grinned, spotting the little spren in the shape of a leaf tucked there. “Found you, naco.”

Rua transformed into the shape of a petulant young boy, maybe nine or ten years old. Rua was his name, but “naco” was—of course—what Lopen called him.

Rua zipped into the air as a ribbon of light. Bridge Four stood near some tents at the bottom of Thaylen City, in the Low Ward, right in the shadow of the walls. Here, a massive surgeons’ station was caring for the wounded.

“Lopen!” Teft called. “Stop being crazy and get over here to help.”

“I’m not crazy,” Lopen yelled back. “Sure, I’m the least crazy of this whole lot! And you all know it!”

Teft sighed, then waved to Peet and Leyten. Together, they carefully Lashed a large platform—easily twenty feet square—into the air. It was filled with recuperating wounded. The three bridgemen flew with it toward the upper part of the city.

Rua zipped onto Lopen’s shoulder and formed into the shape of a young man, then thrust a hand toward the bridgemen and tried the gesture that Lopen had taught him.

“Nice,” Lopen said. “But wrong finger. Nope! Not that one either. Naco, that’s your foot.”

The spren turned the gesture toward Lopen.

“That’s it,” Lopen said. “You can thank me, naco, for inspiring this great advance in your learning. People—and little things made out of nothing too, sure—are often inspired near the Lopen.”

He turned and strolled into a tent of wounded, the far wall of which was tied right onto a nice, shiny bronze portion of wall. Lopen hoped the Thaylens would appreciate how nice it was. Who had a metal wall? Lopen would put one on his palace when he built it. Thaylens were strange though. What else could you say about a people who liked it so far south, in the cold? The local language was practically chattering teeth.

This tent of wounded was filled with the people who had been deemed too healthy to deserve Renarin’s or Lift’s healing, but still needed a surgeon’s care. They weren’t dying, sure, right now. Maybe later. But everyone was dying maybe later, so it was probably all right to ignore them for someone whose guts got misplaced.

The moans and whimpers indicated that they found not dying immediately to be a small comfort. The ardents did what they could, but most of the real surgeons were set up higher in the city. Taravangian’s forces had finally decided to join the battle, now that all the easy stuff—like dying, which really didn’t take much skill—was through.

Lopen fetched his pack, then passed Dru—who was folding freshly boiled bandages. Even after all these centuries, sure, they did what the Heralds had told them. Boiling stuff killed rotspren.

Lopen patted Dru on the shoulder. The slender Alethi man looked up and nodded toward Lopen, showing reddened eyes. Loving a soldier was not easy, and now that Kaladin had returned from Alethkar alone …

Lopen moved on, and eventually settled down beside a wounded man in a cot. Thaylen, with drooping eyebrows and a bandage around his head. He stared straight ahead, not blinking.

“Want to see a trick?” Lopen asked the soldier.

The man shrugged.

Lopen lifted his foot up and put the boot on the man’s cot. The laces had come undone, and Lopen—one hand behind his back—deftly grabbed the strings and looped them around his hand, twisted them, then pulled them tight, using his other foot to hold one end. He wound up with an excellent knot with a nice bow. It was even symmetrical. Maybe he could get an ardent to write a poem about it.

The soldier gave no reaction. Lopen settled back, pulling over his pack, which clinked softly. “Don’t look like that. It’s not the end of the world.”

The soldier cocked his head.

“Well, sure. Technically it might be. But for the end of the world, it’s not so bad, right? I figured that when everything ended, we’d sink into a noxious bath of pus and doom, breathing in agony as the air around us—sure—became molten, and we screamed a final burning scream, relishing the memories of the last time a woman loved us.” Lopen tapped the man’s cot. “Don’t know about you, moolie, but my lungs aren’t burning. The air doesn’t seem very molten. Considering how bad this could have gone, you’ve got a lot to be thankful for. Remember that.”

“I…” The man blinked.

“I meant, remember those exact words. That’s the phrase to tell the woman you’re seeing. Helps a ton.” He fished in his pack and pulled out a bottle of Thaylen lavis beer he’d salvaged. Rua stopped zipping around the top of the tent long enough to float down and inspect it.

“Want to see a trick?” Lopen asked.

“A … another?” the man asked.

“Normally, I’d pop the cap off with one of my fingernails. I have great Herdazian ones, extra hard. You have weaker ones like most people. So here’s the trick.”

Lopen rolled up his trouser leg with one hand. He pressed the bottle—top first—to his leg and then, with a quick flick, twisted off the cap. He raised the bottle toward the man.

The man reached for it with the bandaged stump of his right arm, which ended above the elbow. He looked at it, grimaced, then reached with the left hand instead.

“If you need any jokes,” Lopen said, “I’ve got a few I can’t use anymore.”

The soldier drank quietly, eyes flicking to the front of the tent, where Kaladin had entered, glowing softly, speaking with some of the surgeons. Knowing Kaladin, he was probably telling them how to do their jobs.

“You’re one of them,” the soldier said. “Radiant.”

“Sure,” Lopen said. “But not really one of them. I’m trying to figure out the next step.”

“Next step?”

“I’ve got the flying,” Lopen said, “and the spren. But I don’t know if I’m good at saving people yet.”

The man looked at his drink. “I … think you might be doing just fine.”

“That’s a beer, not a person. Don’t get those mixed up. Very embarrassing, but I won’t tell.”

“How…” the man said. “How does one join up? They say … they say it heals you.…”

“Sure, it heals everything except what’s in the rockbud on the end of your neck. Which is great for me. I’m the only sane one in this group. That might be a problem.”

“Why?”

“They say you have to be broken,” Lopen said, glancing toward his spren, who made a few loops of excitement, then shot off to hide again. Lopen would need to go looking for the little guy—he did enjoy the game. “You know that tall woman, the king’s sister? The chortana with the glare that could break a Shardblade? She says that the power has to get into your soul somehow. So I’ve been trying to cry a lot, and moan about my life being so terrible, but I think the Stormfather knows I’m lying. Hard to act sad when you’re the Lopen.”

“I might be broken,” the man said softly.

“Good, good! We don’t have a Thaylen yet, and lately it looks like we’re trying to collect one of everything. We even have a parshman!”

“I just ask?” the man said, then took a drink.

“Sure. Ask. Follow us around. Worked for Lyn. But you have to say the Words.”

“Words?”

“ ‘Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before pancakes.’ That’s the easy one. The hard one is, ‘I will protect those who cannot protect themselves,’ and—”

A sudden flash of coldness struck Lopen, and the gemstones in the room flickered, then went out. A symbol crystallized in frost on the stones around Lopen, vanishing under the cots. The ancient symbol of the Windrunners.

“What?” Lopen stood up. “What? Now?”

He heard a far-off rumbling, like thunder.

“NOW?” Lopen said, shaking a fist at the sky. “I was saving that for a dramatic moment, you penhito! Why didn’t you listen earlier? We were, sure, all about to die and things!”

He got a distinct, very distant impression.

YOU WEREN’T QUITE READY.

“Storm you!” Lopen made a double obscene gesture toward the sky—something he’d been waiting a long time to use properly for the first time. Rua joined him, making the same gesture, then grew two extra arms to give it more weight.

“Nice,” Lopen said. “Hey gancho! I’m a full Knight Radiant now, so you can start complimenting me.” Kaladin didn’t seem to have even noticed. “Just a moment,” Lopen said to the one-armed soldier, then stalked over to where Kaladin was speaking with a runner.

“You’re sure?” Kaladin said to the scribe. “Does Dalinar know about this?”

“He sent me, sir,” the woman said. “Here’s a map with the location the spanreed listed.”

“Gancho,” Lopen said. “Hey, did you—”

“Congratulations, Lopen, good job. You’re second-in-command after Teft until I return.”

Kaladin burst from the tent and Lashed himself to the sky, streaking away, the tent’s front flaps rustling in the wind of his passing.

Lopen put his hands on his hips. Rua landed on his head, then made a little squeal of angry delight while proffering toward Kaladin a double rude gesture.

“Don’t wear it out, naco,” Lopen said.

“Come on,” Ash said, holding Taln’s hand, pulling him up the last few steps.

He stared at her dully.

“Taln,” she whispered. “Please.”

The last glimmers of his lucidity had faded. Once, nothing would have kept him from the battlefield when other men died. Today, he had hidden and whimpered during the fighting. Now he followed her like a simpleton.

Talenel’Elin had broken like the rest of them.

Ishar, she thought. Ishar will know what to do. She fought down the tears—watching him fade had been like watching the sun go out. All these years, she’d hoped that maybe … maybe …

What? That he’d be able to redeem them?

Someone nearby cursed by her name, and she wanted to slap him. Don’t swear by us. Don’t paint pictures of us. Don’t worship at our statues. She’d stamp it all out. She would ruin every depiction. She …

Ash breathed in and out, then pulled Taln by the hand again, getting him into line with the other refugees fleeing the city. Only foreigners were allowed out right now, to prevent the Oathgate from being overworked. She’d get back to Azir, where their skin tones wouldn’t stand out.

What a gift you gave them! he’d said. Time to recover, for once, between Desolations. Time to progress …

Oh, Taln. Couldn’t he have just hated her? Couldn’t he have let her—

Ash stopped in place as something ripped inside of her.

Oh God. Oh, Adonalsium!

What was that? What was that?

Taln whimpered and collapsed, a puppet with cut strings. Ash stumbled, then sank to her knees. She wrapped her arms around herself, trembling. It wasn’t pain. It was something far, far worse. A loss, a hole inside of her, a piece of her soul being excised.

“Miss?” a soldier asked, jogging up. “Miss, are you all right? Hey, someone get one of the healers! Miss, what’s wrong?”

“They … they killed him somehow.…”

“Who?”

She looked up at the man, tears blurring her vision. This wasn’t like their other deaths. This was something horrible. She couldn’t feel him at all.

They’d done something to Jezrien’s soul.

“My father,” she said, “is dead.”

They caused a stir in the refugees, and someone detached themselves from the group of scribes up ahead. A woman in deep violet. The Blackthorn’s niece. She looked at Ash, then at Taln, then at a piece of paper she’d been carrying. It contained shockingly accurate sketches of the two of them. Not as they were presented in iconography, but real sketches. Who … why?

That’s his drawing style, a part of Ash noted. Why has Midius been giving away pictures of us?

The ripping sensation finally ended. So abruptly that—for the first time in thousands of years—Ash fell unconscious.

122. A Debt Repaid

Kaladin flew across the churning ocean. Dalinar had been able to summon the strength to overcharge him with Stormlight, though it was obviously exhausting to do so.

Kaladin had used up that charge getting to Kharbranth, where he’d stopped for a night’s sleep. Even Stormlight could only push the body so far. After a long flight the next day, he’d reached the Tarat Sea.

He flew now using gemstones requisitioned from the royal treasury in Kharbranth. Smoke rose from several places along the coast of Alethkar, where cities still resisted the parshman invasion. Kaladin’s map fluttered in his fingers, and he watched the coast for the rock formation the scribe had sketched for him.

By the time he spotted it, he worried he wouldn’t have enough Stormlight left to make it back to safety. He dropped there and continued on foot, per the instructions, crossing a cold and rocky land that reminded him of the Shattered Plains.

Along a dried-out river, he found a little group of refugees huddled by a cavern in the stone. A very small fire laced the air with smoke, and lit ten people in brown cloaks. Nondescript, like many others he’d passed during his search. The only distinctive feature was a small symbol they’d painted on an old tarp pinned up between two poles at the front of the camp.

The symbol of Bridge Four.

Two of the figures rose from the fire, pulling back hoods. Two men: one tall and lanky, the other short and scrappy, silver-haired at the temples.

Drehy and Skar.

They gave Kaladin a pair of sharp salutes. Drehy had old cuts on his face and Skar looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. They’d had to cover their foreheads in ash to hide their tattoos, an act that wouldn’t have worked in simpler times. It basically marked them as runaway slaves.

Syl let out a laugh of pure delight, zipping over to them—and from the way they reacted, it seemed she’d let them see her. Behind them, Shallan’s three servants emerged from their cloaks. Kaladin didn’t know the other people, but one of them would be the merchant they’d found—a man who still possessed a spanreed.

“Kal,” Skar said as Kaladin slapped him on the back. “There’s something we didn’t mention by spanreed.”

Kaladin frowned as Drehy returned to the fire and picked up one of the figures there. A child? In rags. Yes, a frightened little boy, maybe three or four years old, lips chapped, eyes haunted.

Elhokar’s son.

“We protect those,” Drehy said, “who cannot protect themselves.”

Taravangian was unable to solve the first page of the day’s puzzles.

Dukar, the stormwarden, took the paper and looked it over. He shook his head. Stupid today.

Taravangian rested back against his seat in Urithiru. He seemed to be stupid more and more often. Perhaps it was his perception.

Eight days had passed since the Battle of Thaylen Field. He wasn’t certain Dalinar would ever trust him again, but giving him some truth had been a calculated risk. For now, Taravangian was still part of the coalition. It was good, even if … It …

Storms. Trying to think through the fuzz in his brain was … bothersome.

“He is weak of mind today,” Dukar announced to Mrall, Taravangian’s thick-armed bodyguard. “He can interact, but should not make important policy decisions. We cannot trust his interpretation of the Diagram.”

“Vargo?” Adrotagia asked. “How would you like to spend the day? In the Veden gardens, perhaps?”

Taravangian opened his eyes and looked to his faithful friends. Dukar and Mrall. Adrotagia, who looked so old now. Did she feel as he did, shocked every time she looked in the mirror, wondering where the days had gone? When they’d been young, they’d wanted to conquer the world.

Or save it.

“Your Majesty?” Adrotagia asked.

Oh. Right. His mind did wander sometimes. “We cannot do anything until the Everstorm passes. Correct?”

Adrotagia nodded, proffering her calculations. “It is nearly here.” People had spent the eight days since the battle vainly hoping that the Everstorm had blown itself out for good. “It’s not as strong as it was during its previous cycle, but it is coming. It has already reached Azir, and should hit Urithiru within the hour.”

“Then let us wait.”

Adrotagia gave him a few letters that had come from his grandchildren in Kharbranth. He could read, even when he was stupid, though it took him longer to make out some of the words. Gvori had been accepted to study at the School of Storms, which had legacy access to the Palanaeum for all scholars. Karavaniga, the middle granddaughter, had been accepted for wardship, and had sketched him a picture of the three of them. Little Ruli grinned a gap-toothed smile in the center. She had drawn him a picture of flowers.

Taravangian touched the tears on his cheek as he finished reading. None of the three knew anything of the Diagram, and he was determined to keep it that way.

Adrotagia and Dukar conversed quietly in the corner of the room, confused by portions of the Diagram. They ignored Maben, the room servant, who felt Taravangian’s forehead, as he’d been coughing lately.

What fools we can be, Taravangian said, resting fingers on the picture of flowers. We never know as much as we think. Perhaps in that, the smart me has always been the more stupid one.

He knew the Everstorm’s arrival only by a ding from Adrotagia’s clock—a magnificently small piece, gifted by Navani Kholin.

“The Diagram has been wrong too often,” Mrall said to Adrotagia and Dukar. “It predicted Dalinar Kholin would fall, if pressured, and become the enemy’s champion.”

“Perhaps Graves was right,” Dukar said, rubbing his hands together nervously. He glanced toward the window, shuttered despite the fact that the Everstorm didn’t reach this high. “The Blackthorn could have been made an ally. This is what the Diagram meant.”

“No,” Taravangian said. “That is not what it meant.”

They looked to him. “Vargo?” Adrotagia asked.

He tried to find the argument to explain himself, but it was like trying to hold a cupful of oil in his fist.

“We’re in a dangerous position,” Dukar said. “His Majesty revealed too much to Dalinar. We will be watched now.”

… the … window …

“Dalinar doesn’t know of the Diagram,” Adrotagia countered. “Or that we brought the singers to Urithiru. He only knows that Kharbranth controlled the assassin—and thinks that the Herald’s insanity prompted us. We’re still well positioned.”

Open … the … window.… None of the others heard the voice.

“The Diagram is growing too flawed,” Mrall insisted. Though he was no scholar, he was a full participant in their scheme. “We’ve deviated too much from its promises. Our plans need to change.”

“It’s too late,” Adrotagia said. “The confrontation will happen soon.”

OPEN IT.

Taravangian rose from his seat, trembling. Adrotagia was right. The confrontation predicted by the Diagram would happen soon.

Sooner, even, than she thought.

“We must trust in the Diagram,” Taravangian whispered, as he passed by them. “We must trust the version of myself that knew what to do. We must have faith.”

Adrotagia shook her head. She didn’t like it when any of them used words like “faith.” He tried to remember that, and did remember it when he was smart.

Storms take you, Nightwatcher, he thought. Odium’s victory will kill you too. Couldn’t you have just gifted me, and not cursed me?

He’d asked for the capacity to save his people. He’d begged for compassion and acumen—and he’d gotten them. Just never at the same time.

He touched the window shutters.

“Vargo?” Adrotagia asked. “Letting in fresh air?”

“No, unfortunately. Something else.”

He opened the shutters.

And was suddenly in a place of infinite light.

The ground beneath him glowed, and nearby, rivers flowed past, made of something molten colored gold and orange. Odium appeared to Taravangian as a twenty-foot-tall human with Shin eyes and a scepter. His beard was not wispy, like Taravangian’s had been, but neither was it bushy. It almost looked like an ardent’s beard.

“Now,” Odium said. “Taravangian, is it?” He squinted, as if seeing Taravangian for the first time. “Little man. Why did you write to us? Why did you have your Surgebinder unlock the Oathgate, and allow our armies to attack Urithiru?”

“I wish only to serve you, Great God,” Taravangian said, getting down onto his knees.

“Do not prostrate yourself,” the god said, laughing. “I can see that you are no sycophant, and I will not be fooled by your attempts to seem one.”

Taravangian drew in a deep breath, but remained on his knees. Today of all days, Odium finally contacted him in person? “I am not well today, Great God. I … um … am frail and of ill health. Might I meet with you again, when I am well?”

“Poor man!” Odium said.

A chair sprouted from the golden ground behind Taravangian, and Odium stepped over to him, suddenly smaller, more human sized. He gently pushed Taravangian up and into the chair. “There. Isn’t that better?”

“Yes … thank you.” Taravangian scrunched up his brow. This was not how he’d imagined this conversation.

“Now,” Odium said, lightly resting his scepter on Taravangian’s shoulder. “Do you think I will ever meet with you when you are feeling well?”

“I…”

“Do you not realize that I chose this day specifically because of your ailment, Taravangian? Do you really think you will ever be able to negotiate with me from a position of power?”

Taravangian licked his lips. “No.”

“Good, good. We understand one another. Now, what is it you have been doing.…” He stepped to the side, and a golden pedestal appeared with a book on top of it. The Diagram. Odium began leafing through it, and the golden landscape changed, shifting to a bedroom with fine wooden furniture. Taravangian recognized it from the scribbled writing on every surface—from floor to ceiling, to the headboard of the bed.

“Taravangian!” Odium said. “This is remarkable.” The walls and furniture faded, leaving behind the words, which hung in the air and started glowing with a golden light. “You did this without access to Fortune, or the Spiritual Realm? Truly incredible.”

“Th-thank you?”

“Allow me to show you how far I see.”

Golden words exploded outward from the ones Taravangian had written in the Diagram. Millions upon millions of golden letters burned into the air, extending into infinity. Each took one small element that Taravangian had written, and expanded upon it in volumes and volumes’ worth of information.

Taravangian gasped as, for a moment, he saw into eternity.

Odium inspected words that Taravangian had once written on the side of a dresser. “I see. Take over Alethkar? Bold plan, bold plan. But why invite me to attack Urithiru?”

“We—”

“No need! I see. Give up Thaylen City to ensure that the Blackthorn fell, removing your opposition. An overture toward me, which worked, obviously.” Odium turned to him and smiled. A knowing, confident smile.

Do you really think you will ever be able to negotiate with me from a position of power?

All that writing loomed over Taravangian, blocking off the landscape with millions of words. A smarter him would have tried to read it, but this dumber version was simply intimidated. And … could that be for his … his good? Reading that would consume him. Lose him.

My grandchildren, he thought. The people of Kharbranth. The good people of the world. He trembled to think of what might happen to them all.

Somebody had to make the difficult decisions. He slipped off his golden seat as Odium studied another portion of the Diagram. There. Behind where the bed had stood. A section of words that had faded from golden to black. What was that? As he drew near, Taravangian saw that the words were blacked out into eternity starting from this point on his wall. As if something had happened here. A ripple in what Odium could see …

At its root, a name. Renarin Kholin.

“Dalinar was not supposed to Ascend,” Odium said, stepping up behind Taravangian.

“You need me,” Taravangian whispered.

“I need nobody.”

Taravangian looked up and there, glowing in front of him, was a set of words. A message from himself, in the past. Incredible! Had he somehow seen even this?

Thank you.

He read them out loud. “You have agreed to a battle of champions. You must withdraw to prevent this contest from occurring, and so must not meet with Dalinar Kholin again. Otherwise, he can force you to fight. This means you must let your agents do your work. You need me.”

Odium stepped up, noting the words that Taravangian had read. Then he frowned at the tears on Taravangian’s cheeks.

“Your Passion,” Odium said, “does you credit. What is it you ask in barter?”

“Protect the people I rule.”

“Dear Taravangian, do you not think I can see what you are planning?” Odium gestured toward writing where the ceiling had once stood. “You would seek to become king of all humans—and then I would need to preserve them all. No. If you help me, I will save your family. Anyone within two generations of you.”

“Not enough.”

“Then we have no deal.”

The words started to fade all around them. Leaving him alone. Alone and stupid. He blinked tears from the corners of his eyes. “Kharbranth,” he said. “Preserve only Kharbranth. You may destroy all other nations. Just leave my city. It is what I beg of you.”

The world was lost, humankind doomed.

They had planned to protect so much more. But … he saw now how little they knew. One city before the storms. One land protected, even if the rest had to be sacrificed.

“Kharbranth,” Odium said. “The city itself, and any humans who have been born into it, along with their spouses. This is whom I will spare. Do you agree to this?”

“Should we write … a contract?”

“Our word is the contract. I am not some spren of Honor, who seeks to obey only the strictest letter of a promise. If you have an agreement from me, I will keep it in spirit, not merely in word.”

What else could he do? “I will take this deal,” Taravangian whispered. “The Diagram will serve you, in exchange for the preservation of my people. But I warn you, the assassin has joined Dalinar Kholin. I was forced to reveal my association with him.”

“I know,” Odium said. “You are still of use. First, I will require that Honorblade which you have so cleverly stolen. And then you will find out for me what the Alethi have discovered about this tower.…”

Shallan breathed out Stormlight, shaping an illusion possible only when she and Dalinar met. Spinning curls of mist swept out to form oceans and peaks—the entire continent of Roshar, a mass of vibrant colors.

Highprinces Aladar and Hatham waved for their generals and scribes to walk around the map, which filled the large room, hovering at about waist height. Dalinar stood in the very center of the thing, among the mountains near Urithiru, the illusion rippling and dissolving where it touched his uniform.

Adolin wrapped his arms around Shallan from behind. “It looks beautiful.”

“You look beautiful,” she replied.

“You are beautiful.”

“Only because you’re here. Without you, I fade.”

Brightness Teshav stood near them, and though the woman normally maintained a stoic professionalism, Shallan thought she caught a hint of an eye roll. Well, Teshav was so old she probably forgot what it was like to breathe most days, let alone what it was like to love.

Adolin made Shallan giddy. With his warmth so close, she had trouble maintaining the illusion of the map. She felt silly—they’d been betrothed for months now, and she’d grown so comfortable with him. Yet something had still changed. Something incredible.

It was finally time. The wedding date had been set for only one week away—once the Alethi put their minds to something, they made it happen. Well, that was good. Shallan wouldn’t want to go too far in a relationship without oaths, and storms, even one week was starting to sound like an eternity.

She still needed to explain some things to Adolin. Most notably, the entire mess with the Ghostbloods. She’d done too good a job of ignoring that one lately, but it would be a relief to finally have someone she could talk to about it. Veil could explain—Adolin was growing accustomed to her, though he wouldn’t be intimate with her. He treated her like a drinking buddy, which was actually kind of working for both of them.

Dalinar walked through the illusion, holding his hand over Iri, Rira, and Babatharnam. “Change this part of the land to a burning gold.”

It took her a moment to realize he was talking to her. Stupid Adolin and his stupid arms. Stupid strong yet gentle arms pressing against her, right beneath her breasts …

Right. Right. Illusion.

She did as Dalinar commanded, amused by how the scribes and generals pointedly did not look at her and Adolin. Some whispered about Adolin’s Westerner heritage, which made him too public with his affection. His mixed parentage didn’t seem to concern the Alethi in most cases—they were a pragmatic people, and saw his hair as a sign of other peoples conquered and brought into their superior culture. But they would look for excuses for why he didn’t always act like they thought he should.

By reports via spanreed, most of the lesser kingdoms surrounding the Purelake had been captured by Iri—which had moved, accompanied by Fused, to secure land they’d eyed for generations. This secured for them three total Oathgates. Shallan painted those kingdoms on the map a vivid gold at Dalinar’s request.

Azir and its protectorates she painted a pattern of blue and maroon, the symbol the Azish scribes had chosen for the coalition between their kingdoms. The emperor of Azir had agreed to continue negotiations; they weren’t fully in the coalition. They wanted assurances that Dalinar could control his troops.

She continued shading the landscape colors at Dalinar’s request. Marat and those around it went gold, as did—unfortunately—Alethkar. Lands that hadn’t yet committed, like Shinovar and Tukar, she turned green. The result was a depressing view of a continent, with far too little of it colored the shades of their coalition.

The generals began discussing tactics. They wanted to invade Tu Bayla—the large land that stretched between Jah Keved and the Purelake. The argument was that if the enemy took that, they’d divide the coalition in two. The Oathgates allowed quick access to the capitals, but many cities were far from the centers of power.

Dalinar crossed the room, forming a ripple that followed in his wake. He stopped near where Adolin and Shallan stood by Herdaz. And Alethkar.

“Show me Kholinar,” he said softly.

“That’s not how it works, Brightlord,” she said. “I have to sketch something first, and…”

He touched her on the shoulder, and a thought entered her mind. Another pattern.

“This is what the Stormfather sees,” Dalinar said. “It is not specific, so we won’t be able to rely on the details, but it should give us an impression. If you please.”

Shallan turned and waved her hand toward the wall, painting it with Stormlight. When the illusion took, the side of the room seemed to vanish—letting them look out, as if from a balcony in the sky, toward Kholinar.

The gate nearest them still hung broken, exposing ruined buildings inside—but some progress had been made toward cleaning those up. Parshmen walked the streets and patrolled the unbroken sections of wall. Fused coursed overhead, trailing long clothing. A flag flew from the tops of buildings, red lines on black. A foreign symbol.

“Kaladin said they weren’t here to destroy,” Adolin said, “but to occupy.”

“They want their world back,” Shallan said, pushing against him, wanting to feel his body against hers. “Could we … just let them have what they’ve taken?”

“No,” Dalinar said. “So long as Odium leads the enemy, they will try to sweep us off this land, and make the world so it has no need of another Desolation. Because we’ll be gone.”

The three of them stood as if on a precipice, overlooking the city. The humans toiling outside, preparing for a planting. The lines of smoke curling from inside, where lighteyed keeps had tried to hold out against the invasion. The sights haunted Shallan, and she could only imagine how Adolin and Dalinar felt. They had protected Thaylenah, but had lost their homeland.

“There’s a traitor among us,” Dalinar said softly. “Someone attacked Bridge Four specifically to get the Honorblade—because they needed it to unlock the Oathgates and let the enemy in.”

“That,” Shallan said softly, “or it was unlocked by a Radiant who has changed sides.”

Inexplicably, the Assassin in White had joined them. He sat outside the room, guarding the door as Dalinar’s new bodyguard. He’d explained, frankly and without concern, that the majority of the Order of the Skybreakers had chosen to serve Odium. Shallan wouldn’t have thought that possible, but that—and Renarin’s bonding of a corrupted spren—indicated that they couldn’t trust someone simply because they’d spoken Ideals.

“You think,” Adolin said, “Taravangian might have done it?”

“No,” Dalinar said. “Why would he work with the enemy? Everything he’s done so far has been to secure a safe Roshar—if through brutal means. Still, I have to wonder. I can’t afford to be too trusting. Hopefully that’s one thing Sadeas cured in me.”

The Blackthorn shook his head, then looked to Shallan and Adolin. “Either way, Alethkar needs a king. More so now than ever.”

“The heir—” Adolin began.

“Too young. This isn’t the time for a regency. Gavinor can be named your heir, Adolin, but we must see you two married and the monarchy secured. For the good of Alethkar, but also the world.” He narrowed his eyes. “The coalition needs more than I can provide. I will continue to lead it, but I have never been good at diplomacy. I need someone on the throne who can inspire Alethkar and command the respect of the monarchs.”

Adolin grew tense, and Shallan took his hand, holding tight. You can be this man, if you want, she thought to him. But you don’t have to be what he makes of you.

“I’ll prepare the coalition for your coronation,” Dalinar said. “Perhaps the day before the wedding.” He turned to walk away. Dalinar Kholin was a force like a storm. He simply blew you over, and assumed you’d always wanted to lie down in the first place.

Adolin looked to Shallan, then set his jaw and seized his father by the arm. “I killed Sadeas, Father,” Adolin whispered.

Dalinar froze.

“It was me,” Adolin continued. “I broke the Codes of War and killed him in the corridor. For speaking against our family. For betraying us time and time again. I stopped him because it needed to be done, and because I knew you would never be able to do it.”

Dalinar turned, speaking in a harsh whisper. “What? Son, why did you hide this from me?”

“Because you’re you.”

Dalinar took a deep breath. “We can fix this,” he said. “We can see that atonement is made. It will hurt our reputation. Storms, this is not what I needed now. Nonetheless, we will fix it.”

“It’s already fixed. I’m not sorry for what I did—and I’d do it again, right now.”

“We’ll talk about this further once the coronation—”

“I’m not going to be king, Father,” Adolin said. He glanced at Shallan, and she nodded to him, then squeezed his hand again. “Didn’t you listen to what I just said? I broke the Codes.”

“Everyone in this storming country breaks the Codes,” Dalinar said, loudly, then looked over his shoulder. He continued, more softly. “I broke the Codes hundreds of times. You don’t have to be perfect, you only have to do your duty.”

“No. I’ll be highprince, but not king. I just … no. I don’t want that burden. And before you complain that none of us want it, I’d also be terrible at the job. You think the monarchs would listen to me?”

“I can’t be king of Alethkar,” Dalinar said softly. “I have to lead the Radiants—and need to divest myself of that power in Alethkar, to move away from that highking nonsense. We need a ruler in Alethkar who won’t be pushed over, but who can also deal with diplomats in diplomatic ways.”

“Well, that’s not me,” Adolin repeated.

“Who, then?” Dalinar demanded.

Shallan cocked her head. “Hey. Have you boys ever considered…”

Palona skimmed through the latest gossip reports out of Tashikk, looking for the juicy stuff.

Around her in the grand conference room of Urithiru, kings and princes squabbled with one another. Some complained that they weren’t allowed to join whatever meeting Dalinar was having on the floor above, with his generals. The Natans still complained that they should be given control of the Oathgate at the Shattered Plains, while the Azish were talking—again—about how God himself had apparently prophesied that Surgebinders would destroy the world.

Everyone was quite persistent, and quite loud—even those who didn’t speak Alethi. You had to be very dedicated to your grousing to wait for interpretation.

Sebarial—Turi—snored softly beside Palona. That was an act. He did the same fake snore when she tried to tell him about the latest novel she’d read. Then when she quit, he got annoyed. He seemed to like hearing the stories, but only as long as he could comment on how trite and feminine they were.

She nudged him, and he cracked an eye as she turned one of her gossip reports toward him, pointing at a drawing it included. “Yezier and Emul,” she whispered. “The prince and princess were seen together in Thaylen City, speaking intimately while their guards worked on the rubble.”

Turi grunted.

“Everyone thinks their romance is back on, though they can’t talk about it, as head monarchs in Azir are forbidden marriage without the emperor’s consent. But the rumors are wrong. I think she’s been courting Halam Khal, the Shardbearer.”

“You could just go talk to her,” Turi said, pointing a lazy finger toward the princess of Yezier, whose translators were complaining forcefully about the dangers of Surgebinding.

“Oh, Turi,” Palona said. “You can’t just ask people about gossip. This is why you’re hopeless.”

“And here I thought I was hopeless because of my terrible taste in women.”

The doors to the room slammed open, the noise of it sending a shock through the room, complaints falling silent. Even Turi sat up to note Jasnah Kholin standing in the doorway.

She wore a small but unmistakable crown on her head. The Kholin family, it seemed, had chosen their new monarch.

Turi grinned at the looks of worry on the faces of many of the others in the room. “Oh my,” he whispered to Palona. “Now this should be interesting.”

Moash pounded the pickaxe down again.

Two weeks of work, and he was still here clearing out rubble. Kill a god. Get back to work.

Well, he didn’t mind. It would take months, maybe years, to clear all the rubble from this city. All of it out of Alethkar.

Most days this week, he was the only one here working at the palace. The city was slowly being reversed, humans shipped out, singers moved in—but they left him alone to break stones, with no overseer or guard in sight.

So he was surprised when he heard another pick fall beside him. He spun, shocked. “Khen?”

The beefy parshwoman started breaking rocks.

“Khen, you were freed from your slavery,” Moash said. “Your assault on the palace earned you the Passion of Mercy.”

Khen kept working. Nam and Pal stepped in, wearing warform—two others who had survived with him during the assault. Only a handful had.

They lifted picks and started breaking stones too.

“Pal,” Moash said. “You—”

“They want us to farm,” she said. “I’m tired of farming.”

“And I’m no house servant,” Khen said. “Running drinks.” They were starting to speak to rhythms, like proper singers.

“So you’ll break rocks?” Moash asked.

“We heard something. Made us want to be near you.”

Moash hesitated, but then the numbness drove him to keep working, to hear that steady beat of metal on stone that let him pass between times.

It was maybe an hour later when they came for him. Nine flying Fused, rippling clothing pooling beneath them as they descended around Moash.

“Leshwi?” he asked. “Ancient One?”

She held something before herself in two hands. A long, slender weapon. A Shardblade with a gentle curve, its metal largely unornamented. Elegant, yet somehow humble, as Shardblades went. Moash had known it as the sword of the Assassin in White. Now he recognized it as something else. The Blade of Jezerezeh. Honorblade.

Moash reached for it, hesitant, and Leshwi hummed a warning rhythm. “If you take it, you die. Moash will be no more.”

“Moash’s world is no more,” he said, taking the Blade by the hilt. “He might as well join it in the tomb.”

“Vyre,” she said. “Join us in the sky. You have a work.” She and the others Lashed themselves upward.

Join us in the sky. The Honorblades, Graves had told him, gave their powers to any who held them.

Hesitant, Moash took the sphere that Khen offered. “What was that she said? Vyre?” She had said it in a way that rhymed with “fire.”

“It’s one of their names,” Khen said. “I’ve been told it means He Who Quiets.”

Vyre, He Who Quiets, sucked in the light of the sphere.

It was sweet and beautiful, and—as he’d been promised—brought Passion with it. He held to it, then Lashed himself upward into the sky.

Though Shallan had been given months to grow accustomed to the idea of getting married, on the actual day, she didn’t feel ready.

It was such an ordeal and a hassle.

Everyone was determined that, after Dalinar and Navani’s rushed wedding, they’d do this one right. So Shallan had to sit here and be fussed over, primped, her hair braided and her face painted by the royal Alethi makeup artists. Who’d known there even was such a thing?

She suffered it, then was deposited on a throne while scribes lined up and gave her piles of keteks and glyphwards. Noura delivered a box of incense from the Azish emperor, along with a dried fish from Lift. A Marati rug came from Queen Fen. Dried fruit. Perfumes.

A pair of boots. Ka seemed embarrassed as she opened the box and revealed them as a gift from Kaladin and Bridge Four, but Shallan just laughed. It was a much-needed moment of relief in the stress of the day.

She got gifts from professional organizations, family members, and one from each highprince except for Ialai—who had left Urithiru in disgrace. Though Shallan was grateful, she found herself trying to vanish into her dress. So many things that she didn’t want—most of all, this attention.

Well, you’re marrying an Alethi highprince, she thought as she squirmed on her wedding throne. What did you expect? At least she wasn’t going to end up as queen.

Finally—after ardents arrived and pronounced blessings, anointings, and prayers—she was shuffled off into a little room by herself with a brazier, a window, and a mirror. The table held implements for her to paint a last prayer, so that she could meditate. Somewhere, Adolin was suffering gifts from the men. Probably swords. Lots and lots of swords.

The door closed, and Shallan stood facing herself in the mirror. Her sapphire gown was of an ancient style, with twin drooping sleeves that went far beyond her hands. Small rubies woven into the embroidery glowed with a complementary light. A golden vest draped over the shoulders, matched by the ornate headdress woven into her braids.

She wanted to shrink from it.

“Mmm…” Pattern said. “This is a good you, Shallan.”

A good me. She breathed out. Veil formed on one side of the room, lounging against the wall. Radiant appeared near the table, tapping it with one finger, reminding her that she really should write a prayer—for tradition’s sake, if nothing else.

“We’re decided upon this,” Shallan said.

“A worthy union,” Radiant said.

“He’s good for you, I suppose,” Veil said. “Plus he knows his wine. We could do far worse.”

“But not much better,” Radiant said, giving Veil a pointed look. “This is good, Shallan.”

“A celebration,” Veil said. “A celebration of you.”

“It’s okay for me to enjoy this,” Shallan said, as if discovering something precious. “It’s all right to celebrate. Even if things are terrible in the world, it’s all right.” She smiled. “I … I deserve this.”

Veil and Radiant faded. When Shallan looked back into the mirror, she didn’t feel embarrassed by the attention any longer. It was all right.

It was all right to be happy.

She painted her glyphward, but a knock at the door interrupted burning it. What? The time wasn’t up.

She turned with a grin. “Come in.” Adolin had probably found an excuse to come steal a kiss.…

The door opened.

Revealing three young men in worn clothing. Balat, tallest and round faced. Wikim, still gaunt, with skin as pale as Shallan’s. Jushu, thinner than she recalled, but still plump. All three were somehow younger than she pictured them in her head, even though it had been over a year since she’d seen them.

Her brothers.

Shallan cried out in delight, throwing herself toward them, passing through a burst of joyspren like blue petals. She tried to embrace all three at once, heedless of what it might do to her carefully arranged dress. “How? When? What happened?”

“It was a long trek across Jah Keved,” Nan Balat said. “Shallan … we didn’t hear anything until we were transported here through that device. You’re getting married? The son of the Blackthorn?”

So much to tell them. Storms, these tears were going to ruin her makeup. She’d have to go through it all again.

She found herself too overwhelmed to talk, to explain. She pulled them tight again, and Wikim even complained about the affection, as he always had. She hadn’t seen them in how long, and he still complained? That made her even more giddy, for some reason.

Navani appeared behind them, looking over Balat’s shoulder. “I will call for a delay of the festivities.”

“No!” Shallan said.

No. She was going to enjoy this. She pulled her brothers tight, one after another. “I’ll explain after the wedding. So much to explain…”

Balat, as she hugged him, handed her a slip of paper. “He said to give you this.”

“Who?”

“He said you’d know.” Balat still had the haunted look that had always shadowed him. “What is going on? How do you know people like that?”

She unfolded the letter.

It was from Mraize.

“Brightness,” Shallan said to Navani, “will you provide my brothers with seats of honor?”

“Of course.”

Navani drew the three boys away, joining Eylita, who had been waiting. Storms. Her brothers were back. They were alive.

A wedding gift, Mraize’s note read.

In payment for work done. You will find that I do keep my promises. I apologize for the delay.

I congratulate you on your upcoming nuptials, little knife. You have done well. You have frightened away the Unmade who was in this tower, and in payment, we forgive a part of your debt owed from the destruction of our Soulcaster.

Your next mission is equally important. One of the Unmade seems willing to break from Odium. Our good and that of your Radiant friends align. You will find this Unmade, and you will persuade it to serve the Ghostbloods. Barring that, you will capture it and deliver it to us.

Details will be forthcoming.

She lowered the note, then burned it in the brazier meant for her prayer. So Mraize knew about Sja-anat, did he? Did he know about Renarin accidentally bonding one of her spren? Or was that a secret Shallan actually had over the Ghostbloods?

Well, she could worry about him later. Today, she had a wedding to attend. She pulled open the door and strode out. Toward a celebration.

Of being herself.

Dalinar entered his rooms, full of food from the wedding feast, glad to finally get some peace after the celebrations. The assassin settled down outside his door to wait, as was becoming his custom. Szeth was the only guard Dalinar had for the moment, as Rial and his other bodyguards were all in Bridge Thirteen—and that whole crew had gone up as squires to Teft.

Dalinar smiled to himself, then walked to his desk and settled down. A Shardblade hung on the wall before him. A temporary place; he’d find it a home. For now, he wanted it near. It was time.

He picked up the pen and started writing.

Three weeks had seen him progress far, though he still felt uncertain as he scratched out each letter. He worked at it a good hour before Navani returned, slipping into their rooms. She bustled over, opening the balcony doors, letting in the light of a setting sun.

A son married. Adolin was not the man Dalinar had thought he was—but then, couldn’t he forgive someone for that? He dipped his pen and continued writing. Navani walked up and placed hands on his shoulders, looking at his paper.

“Here,” Dalinar said, handing it to her. “Tell me what you think. I’ve run into a problem.”

As she read, he resisted the urge to shift nervously. This was as bad as his first day with the swordmasters. Navani nodded to herself, then smiled at him, dipping her pen and making a few notes on his page to explain mistakes. “What’s the problem?”

“I don’t know how to write ‘I.’ ”

“I showed you. Here, did you forget?” She wrote out a few letters. “No, wait. You used this several times in this piece, so you obviously know how to write it.”

“You said pronouns have a gender in the women’s formal script, and I realized that the one you taught me says ‘I, being female.’ ”

Navani hesitated, pen in her fingers. “Oh. Right. I guess … I mean … Huh. I don’t think there is a masculine ‘I.’ You can use the neuter, like an ardent. Or … no, here. I’m an idiot.” She wrote some letters. “This is what you use when writing a quote by a man in the first person.”

Dalinar rubbed his chin. Most words in the script were the same as the ones from spoken conversation, but small additions—that you wouldn’t read out loud—changed the context. And that didn’t even count the undertext—the writer’s hidden commentary. Navani had explained, with some embarrassment, that that was never read to a man requesting a reading.

We took Shardblades from the women, he thought, glancing at the one hung on the wall above his desk. And they seized literacy from us. Who got the better deal, I wonder?

“Have you thought,” Navani said, “about how Kadash and the ardents will respond to you learning to read?”

“I’ve been excommunicated already. There’s not much more they could do.”

“They could leave.”

“No,” Dalinar said. “I don’t think they will. I actually think … I think I might be getting through to Kadash. Did you see him at the wedding? He’s been reading what the ancient theologians wrote, trying to find justification for modern Vorinism. He doesn’t want to believe me, but soon he won’t be able to help it.”

Navani seemed skeptical.

“Here,” Dalinar said. “How do I emphasize a word?”

“These marks here, above and below a word you want to stress.”

He nodded in thanks, dipped his pen, then rewrote what he’d given to Navani, substituting the proper changes.

The most important words a man can say are, “I will do better.” These are not the most important words any man can say. I am a man, and they are what I needed to say.

The ancient code of the Knights Radiant says “journey before destination.” Some may call it a simple platitude, but it is far more. A journey will have pain and failure. It is not only the steps forward that we must accept. It is the stumbles. The trials. The knowledge that we will fail. That we will hurt those around us.

But if we stop, if we accept the person we are when we fall, the journey ends. That failure becomes our destination.

To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one.

I’m certain some will feel threatened by this record. Some few may feel liberated. Most will simply feel that it should not exist.

I needed to write it anyway.

He sat back, pleased. It seemed that in opening this doorway, he had entered a new world. He could read The Way of Kings. He could read his niece’s biography of Gavilar. He could write down his own orders for men to follow.

Most importantly, he could write this. His thoughts. His pains. His life. He looked to the side, where Navani had placed the handful of blank pages he’d asked her to bring. Too few. Far, far too few.

He dipped his pen again. “Would you close the balcony doors again, gemheart?” he asked her. “The sunlight is distracting me from the other light.”

“Other light?”

He nodded absently. What next? He looked up again at the familiar Shardblade. Wide like him—and thick, also like him, at times—with a hook shape at the end. This was the best mark of both his honor and his disgrace. It should have belonged to Rock, the Horneater bridgeman. He’d killed Amaram and won it, along with two other Shards.

Rock had insisted that Dalinar take Oathbringer back. A debt repaid, the Windrunner had explained. Reluctantly, Dalinar had accepted, handling the Shardblade only through cloth.

As Navani shut the balcony doors, he closed his eyes and felt the warmth of a distant, unseen light. Then he smiled, and—with a hand still unsteady, like the legs of a child taking his first steps—he took another page and wrote a title for the book.

Oathbringer, My Glory and My Shame.

Written by the hand of Dalinar Kholin.