Oathbringer

I-1. Puuli

Puuli the lighthouse keeper tried not to let everyone know how excited he was for this new storm.

It was truly tragic. Truly tragic. He told Sakin this as she wept. She had thought herself quite high and blessed when she’d landed her new husband. She’d moved into the man’s fine stone hut in a prime spot for growing a garden, behind the northern cliffs of the town.

Puuli gathered scraps of wood blown eastward by the strange storm, and piled them in his little cart. He pulled it with two hands, leaving Sakin to weep for her husband. Up to three now, she was, all lost at sea. Truly tragic.

Still, he was excited for the storm.

He pulled his cart past other broken homes here, where they should have been sheltered west of the cliffs. Puuli’s grandfather had been able to remember when those cliffs hadn’t been there. Kelek himself had broken apart the land in the middle of a storm, making a new prime spot for homes.

Where would the rich people put their houses now?

And they did have rich people here in town, never mind what the travelers on the ocean said. Those would stop at this little port, on the crumbling eastern edge of Roshar, and shelter from storms in their cove alongside the cliffs.

Puuli pulled his cart past the cove. Here, one of the foreigner captains—with long eyebrows and tan skin, rather than the proper blue skin—was trying to make sense of her ruined ship. It had been rocked in the cove, struck by lightning, then smashed back against the stones. Now only the mast was visible.

Truly tragic, Puuli said. He complimented the captain on the mast though. It was a very nice mast.

Puuli picked up a few planks from the broken ship that had washed onto the shore of the cove, then threw them into his cart. Even if it had destroyed many a ship, Puuli was happy for this new storm. Secretly happy.

Had the time finally come, that his grandfather had warned of? The time of changes, when the men from the hidden island of the Origin at last came to reclaim Natanatan?

Even if not, this new storm brought him so much wood. Scraps of rockbuds, branches from trees. He gathered it all eagerly, piling his cart high, then pulled it past fishers in huddles, trying to decide how they’d survive in a world with storms from both directions. Fishers didn’t sleep away the Weeping, like lazy farmers. They worked it, for there were no winds. Lots of bailing, but no winds. Until now.

A tragedy, he told Au-lam while helping him clear the refuse of his barn. Many of the boards ended up in Puuli’s cart.

A tragedy, he agreed with Hema-Dak as he watched her children so she could run a broth to her sister, who was sick with the fever.

A tragedy, he told the Drummer brothers as he helped them pull a tattered sail from the surf and stretch it out on the rocks.

At last, Puuli finished his rounds and pulled his little cart up the long, twisting road toward Defiance. That was his name for the lighthouse. Nobody else called it that, because to them it was just the lighthouse.

At the top, he left out an offering of fruit for Kelek, the Herald who lived in the storm. Then he pulled his wagon into the room on the bottom floor. Defiance wasn’t a tall lighthouse. He’d seen paintings of the sleek, fashionable ones down along Longbrow’s Straits. Lighthouses for rich folks who sailed ships that didn’t catch fish. Defiance was only two stories tall, and built squat like a bunker. But she had good stonework, and a buffer of crem on the outside kept her from leaking.

She’d stood for over a hundred years, and Kelek hadn’t decided to knock her down. The Stormfather knew how important she was. Puuli carried a load of wet stormwood and broken boards up to the top of the lighthouse, where he set them out beside the fire—which burned low during the day—to dry. He dusted off his hands, then stepped up to the rim of the lighthouse. At night, the mirrors would shine the light right out through this hole.

He looked over the cliffs, to the east. His family was a lot like the lighthouse themselves. Squat, short, but powerful. And enduring.

They’ll come with Light in their pockets, Grandfather had said. They’ll come to destroy, but you should watch for them anyway. Because they’ll come from the Origin. The sailors lost on an infinite sea. You keep that fire high at night, Puuli. You burn it bright until the day they come.

They’ll arrive when the night is darkest.

Surely that was now, with a new storm. Darkest nights. A tragedy.

And a sign.

I-2. Ellista

The Jokasha Monastery was ordinarily a very quiet place. Nestled in the forests on the western slopes of the Horneater Peaks, the monastery felt only rain at the passing of a highstorm. Furious rain, yes, but none of the terrible violence known in most parts of the world.

Ellista reminded herself every passing storm how lucky she was. Some ardents had fought half their lives to be transferred to Jokasha. Away from politics, storms, and other annoyances, at Jokasha you could simply think.

Usually.

“Are you looking at these numbers? Are your eyes disconnected from your brain?”

“We can’t judge yet. Three instances are not enough!”

“Two data points to make a coincidence, three to make a sequence. The Everstorm travels at a consistent speed, unlike the highstorm.”

“You can’t possibly say that! One of your data points, so highly touted, is from the original passing of the storm, which happened as an uncommon event.”

Ellista slammed her book closed and stuffed it into her satchel. She burst from her reading nook and gave a glare to the two ardents arguing in the hall outside, both wearing the caps of master scholars. They were so involved in their shouting match that they didn’t even respond to the glare, though it had been one of her best.

She bustled from the library, entering a long hallway with sides open to the elements. Peaceful trees. A quiet brook. Humid air and mossy vines that popped and stretched as they lay out for the evening. Well, yes, a large swath of trees out there had been flattened by the new storm. But that was no reason for everyone to get upset! The rest of the world could worry. Here, at the central home of the Devotary of the Mind, she was supposed to be able to just read.

She set her things out at a reading desk near an open window. The humidity wasn’t good for books, but weak storms went hand-in-hand with fecundity. You simply had to accept that. Hopefully those new fabrials to draw water from the air would—

“… Telling you, we’re going to have to move!” a new voice echoed through the hallway. “Look, the storm is going to ravage those woods. Before long, this slope will be barren, and the storm will be hitting us full force.”

“The new storm doesn’t have that strong a wind factor, Bettam. It’s not going to blow down the trees. Have you looked at my measurements?”

“I’ve disputed those measurements.”

“But—”

Ellista rubbed her temples. She wore her head shaved, like the other ardents. Her parents still joked that she’d joined the ardentia simply because she hated bothering with her hair. She tried earplugs, but could hear the arguing through them, so she packed up her things again.

Maybe the low building? She took the long set of steps outside, traveling down the slope along a forested path. Before arriving at the monastery for the first time, she’d had illusions about what it would be like to live among scholars. No bickering. No politicking. She hadn’t found that to be true—but generally people left her alone. And so she was lucky to be here. She told herself that again as she entered the lower building.

It was basically a zoo. Dozens of people gathering information from spanreeds, talking to one another, buzzing with talk of this or that highprince or king. She stopped in the doorway, took it all in for a moment, then turned on her heel and stalked back out.

Now what? She started back up the steps, but slowed. It’s probably the only route to peace … she thought, looking out into the forest.

Trying not to think about the dirt, the cremlings, and the fact that something might drip on her head, she strode off into the forest. She didn’t want to go too far, as who knew what might be out here? She chose a stump without too much moss on it and settled down among bobbing lifespren, book across her lap.

She could still hear ardents arguing, but they were distant. She opened her book, intent on finally getting something done today.

Wema spun away from Brightlord Sterling’s forward advances, tucking her safehand to her breast and lowering her gaze from his comely locks. Such affection as to excite the unsavory mind could surely not satisfy her for an extended period, as though his attentions had at one time been fanciful delights to entertain her leisure hours, they now seemed to manifest his utmost impudence and greatest faults of character.

“What!” Ellista exclaimed, reading. “No, you silly girl! He’s finally pronounced his affection for you. Don’t you dare turn away now.”

How could she accept this wanton justification of her once single-minded desires? Should she not, instead, select the more prudent choice, as advocated by the undeviating will of her uncle? Brightlord Vadam had an endowment of land upon the highprince’s grace, and would have means to provide far beyond the satisfactions available to a simple officer, no matter how well regarded or what winds had graced his temperament, features, and gentle touch.

Ellista gasped. “Brightlord Vadam? You little whore! Have you forgotten how he locked away your father?”

“Wema,” Brightlord Sterling intoned, “it seems I have gravely misjudged your attentions. In this, I find myself deposited deep within an embarrassment of folly. I shall be away, to the Shattered Plains, and you shall not again suffer the torment of my presence.”

He bowed a true gentleman’s bow, possessed of all proper refinement and deference. It was a supplication beyond what even a monarch could rightly demand, and in it Wema ascertained the true nature of Brightlord Sterling’s regard. Simple, yet passionate. Respectful in deed. It lent great context to his earlier advance, which now appeared all at once to be a righteous division in otherwise sure armor, a window of vulnerability, rather than a model of avarice.

As he lifted the door’s latch to forever make his exodus from her life, Wema surged with unrivaled shame and longing, twisted together not unlike two threads winding in a loom to construct a grand tapestry of desire.

“Wait!” Wema cried. “Dear Sterling, wait upon my words.”

“Storms right you’d better wait, Sterling.” Ellista leaned closer to the book, flipping the page.

Decorum seemed a vain thing to her now, lost upon the sea that was her need to feel Sterling’s touch. She rushed to him, and upon his arm pressed her ensleeved hand, which then she lifted to caress his sturdy jaw.

It was so warm out here in the forest. Practically sweltering. Ellista put her hand to her lips, reading with wide eyes, trembling.

Would that the window through that statuesque armor could still be located, and that a similar wound within herself might be found, to press against his own and offer passage deep within her soul. If only—

“Ellista?” a voice asked.

“Yip!” she said, bolting upright, snapping the book closed, and spun toward the sound. “Um. Oh! Ardent Urv.” The young Siln ardent was tall, gangly, and obnoxiously loud at times. Except, apparently, when sneaking up on colleagues in the forest.

“What was that you were studying?” he asked.

“Important works,” Ellista said, then sat on the book. “Nothing to mind yourself with. What is it you want?”

“Um…” He looked down at her satchel. “You were the last one to check out the transcriptions from Bendthel’s collected Dawnchant? The old versions? I just wanted to check on your progress.”

Dawnchant. Right. They’d been working on that before this storm came, and everyone got distracted. Old Navani Kholin, in Alethkar, had somehow cracked the Dawnchant. Her story about visions was nonsense—the Kholin family was known for opaque politics—but her key was authentic, and had let them slowly work through the old texts.

Ellista started digging in her satchel. She came up with three musty codices and a sheaf of papers, the latter being the work she’d done so far.

Annoyingly, Urv settled on the ground beside her stump, taking the papers as she offered them. He laid his satchel across his lap and began reading.

“Incredible,” he said a few moments later. “You’ve made more progress than I have.”

“Everyone else is too busy worrying about that storm.”

“Well, it is threatening to wipe out civilization.”

“An overreaction. Everyone always overreacts to every little gust of wind.”

He flipped through her pages. “What’s this section? Why take such care for where each text was found? Fiksin concluded that these Dawnchant books had all spread from a central location, and so there’s nothing to learn by where they ended up.”

“Fiksin was a boot-licker, not a scholar,” Ellista said. “Look, there’s easy proof here that the same writing system was once used all across Roshar. I have references in Makabakam, Sela Tales, Alethela … Not a diaspora of texts, but real evidence they wrote naturally in the Dawnchant.”

“Do you suppose they all spoke the same language?”

“Hardly.”

“But Jasnah Kholin’s Relic and Monument?”

“Doesn’t claim everyone spoke the same language, only that they wrote it. It’s foolish to assume that everyone used the same language across hundreds of years and dozens of nations. It makes more sense that there was a codified written language, the language of scholarship, just like you’ll find many undertexts written in Alethi now.”

“Ah…” he said. “And then a Desolation hit.…”

Ellista nodded, showing him a later page in her sheaf of notes. “This in-between, weird language is where people started using the Dawnchant script to phonetically transcribe their language. It didn’t work so well.” She flipped two more pages. “In this scrap we have one of the earliest emergences of the proto-Thaylo-Vorin glyphic radicals, and here is one showing a more intermediate Thaylen form.

“We’ve always wondered what happened to the Dawnchant. How could people forget how to read their own language? Well, it seems clear now. By the point this happened, the language had been moribund for millennia. They weren’t speaking it, and hadn’t been for generations.”

“Brilliant,” Urv said. He wasn’t so bad, for a Siln. “I’ve been translating what I can, but got stuck on the Covad Fragment. If what you’ve been doing here is correct, it might be because Covad isn’t true Dawnchant, but a phonetic transcription of another ancient language.…”

He glanced to the side, then cocked his head. Was he looking at her—

Oh, no. It was just the book, which she was still sitting on.

“An Accountability of Virtue.” He grunted. “Good book.”

“You’ve read it?”

“I have a fondness for Alethi epics,” he said absently, flipping through her pages. “She really should have picked Vadam though. Sterling was a flatterer and a cadger.”

“Sterling is a noble and upright officer!” She narrowed her eyes. “And you are just trying to get a rise out of me, Ardent Urv.”

“Maybe.” He flipped through her pages, studying a diagram she’d made of various Dawnchant grammars. “I have a copy of the sequel.”

“There’s a sequel?”

“About her sister.”

“The mousy one?”

“She is elevated to courtly attention and has to choose between a strapping naval officer, a Thaylen banker, and the King’s Wit.”

“Wait. There are three different men this time?”

“Sequels always have to be bigger,” he said, then offered her the stack of pages back. “I’ll lend it to you.”

“Oh you will, will you? And what is the cost for this magnanimous gesture, Brightlord Urv?”

“Your help translating a stubborn section of Dawnchant. A particular patron of mine has a strict deadline upon its delivery.”

I-3. The Rhythm of the Lost

Venli attuned the Rhythm of Craving as she climbed down into the chasm. This wondrous new form, stormform, gave her hands a powerful grip, allowing her to hang hundreds of feet in the air, yet never fear that she would fall.

The chitin plating under her skin was far less bulky than that of the old warform, but at the same time nearly as effective. During the summoning of the Everstorm, a human soldier had struck her directly across the face. His spear had cut her cheek and across the bridge of her nose, but the mask of chitin armor underneath had deflected the weapon.

She continued to climb down the wall of stone, followed by Demid, her once-mate, and a group of her loyal friends. In her mind she attuned the Rhythm of Command—a similar, yet more powerful version of the Rhythm of Appreciation. Every one of her people could hear the rhythms—beats with some tones attached—yet she no longer heard the old, common ones. Only these new, superior rhythms.

Beneath her the chasm opened, where water from highstorms had carved a bulge. She eventually reached the bottom, and the others dropped around her, each landing with a thumping crunch. Ulim moved down the stone wall; the spren usually took the form of rolling lightning, moving across surfaces.

At the bottom, he formed from lightning into a human shape with odd eyes. Ulim settled on a patch of broken branches, arms folded, his long hair rippling in an unseen wind. She wasn’t certain why a spren sent by Odium himself would look human.

“Around here somewhere,” Ulim said, pointing. “Spread out and search.”

Venli set her jaw, humming to the Rhythm of Fury. Lines of power rippled up her arms. “Why should I continue to obey your orders, spren? You should obey me.”

The spren ignored her, which further stoked her anger. Demid, however, placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed, humming to the Rhythm of Satisfaction. “Come, look with me this way.”

She curtailed her humming and turned south, joining Demid, picking her way through debris. Crem buildup had smoothed the floor of the chasm, but the storm had left a great deal of refuse.

She attuned the Rhythm of Craving. A quick, violent rhythm. “I should be in charge, Demid. Not that spren.”

“You are in charge.”

“Then why haven’t we been told anything? Our gods have returned, yet we’ve barely seen them. We sacrificed greatly for these forms, and to create the glorious true storm. We … we lost how many?”

Sometimes she thought about that, in strange moments when the new rhythms seemed to retreat. All of her work, meeting with Ulim in secret, guiding her people toward stormform. It had been about saving her people, hadn’t it? Yet of the tens of thousands of listeners who had fought to summon the storm, only a fraction remained.

Demid and she had been scholars. Yet even scholars had gone to battle. She felt at the wound on her face.

“Our sacrifice was worthwhile,” Demid told her to the Rhythm of Derision. “Yes, we have lost many, but humans sought our extinction. At least this way some of our people survived, and now we have great power!”

He was right. And, if she was being honest, a form of power was what she had always wanted. And she’d achieved one, capturing a spren in the storm within herself. That hadn’t been one of Ulim’s species, of course—lesser spren were used for changing forms. She could occasionally feel the pulsing, deep within, of the one she’d bonded.

In any case, this transformation had given her great power. The good of her people had always been secondary to Venli; now was a late time to be having a bout of conscience.

She resumed humming to Craving. Demid smiled and gripped her shoulder again. They’d shared something once, during their days in mateform. Those silly, distracting passions were not ones they currently felt, nor were they something that any sane listener would desire. But the memories of them did create a bond.

They picked through the refuse, passing several fresh human corpses, smashed into a cleft in the rock. Good to see those. Good to remember that her people had killed many, despite their losses.

“Venli!” Demid said. “Look!” He scrambled over a log from a large wooden bridge that was wedged in the center of the chasm. She followed, pleased by her strength. She would probably always remember Demid as the gangly scholar he had been before this change, but she doubted either of them would ever willingly return. Forms of power were simply too intoxicating.

Once across the log, she could see what Demid had spotted: a figure slumped by the wall of the chasm, helmeted head bowed. A Shardblade—shaped like frozen flames—rose from the ground beside her, rammed into the stone floor.

“Eshonai! Finally!” Venli leaped from the top of the log, landing near Demid.

Eshonai looked exhausted. In fact, she wasn’t moving.

“Eshonai?” Venli said, kneeling beside her sister. “Are you well? Eshonai?” She gripped the Plated figure by the shoulders and lightly shook it.

The head rolled on its neck, limp.

Venli felt cold. Demid solemnly lifted Eshonai’s faceplate, revealing dead eyes set in an ashen face.

Eshonai … no …

“Ah,” Ulim’s voice said. “Excellent.” The spren approached across the stone wall, like crackling lightning moving through the stone. “Demid, your hand.”

Demid obediently raised his hand, palm up, and Ulim shot across from the wall to the hand, then formed into his human shape, standing on the perch. “Hmmm. Plate looks completely drained. Broken along the back, I see. Well, it’s said to regrow on its own, even now that it is separated from its master from so long ago.”

“The … Plate,” Venli said softly, numb. “You wanted the Plate.”

“Well, the Blade too, of course. Why else would we be hunting a corpse? You … Oh, you thought she was alive?”

“When you said we needed to find my sister,” Venli said, “I thought…”

“Yes, looks like she drowned in the storm’s floodwaters,” Ulim said, making a sound like a tongue clicking. “Rammed the sword into the stone, held on to it to stay in place, but couldn’t breathe.”

Venli attuned the Rhythm of the Lost.

It was one of the old, inferior rhythms. She hadn’t been able to find those since transforming, and she had no idea how she happened upon this one. The mournful, solemn tone felt distant to her.

“Eshonai…?” she whispered, and nudged the corpse again. Demid gasped. Touching the bodies of the fallen was taboo. The old songs spoke of days when humans had hacked apart listener corpses, searching for gemhearts. Leave the dead to peace instead; it was their way.

Venli stared into Eshonai’s dead eyes. You were the voice of reason, Venli thought. You were the one who argued with me. You … you were supposed to keep me grounded.

What do I do without you?

“Well, let’s get that Plate off, kids,” Ulim said.

“Show respect!” Venli snapped.

“Respect for what? It’s for the best that this one died.”

“For the best?” Venli said. “For the best?” She stood, confronting the little spren on Demid’s outstretched palm. “That is my sister. She is one of our greatest warriors. An inspiration, and a martyr.”

Ulim rolled his head in an exaggerated way, as if perturbed—and bored—by the chastisement. How dare he! He was merely a spren. He was to be her servant.

“Your sister,” Ulim said, “didn’t undergo the transformation properly. She resisted, and we’d have eventually lost her. She was never dedicated to our cause.”

Venli attuned the Rhythm of Fury, speaking in a loud, punctuating sequence. “You will not say such things. You are spren! You are to serve.”

“And I do.”

“Then you must obey me!”

“You?” Ulim laughed. “Child, how long have you been fighting your little war against the humans? Three, four years?”

“Six years, spren,” Demid said. “Six long, bloody years.”

“Well, do you want to guess how long we’ve been fighting this war?” Ulim asked. “Go ahead. Guess. I’m waiting.”

Venli seethed. “It doesn’t matter—”

“Oh, but it does,” Ulim said, his red figure electrifying. “Do you know how to lead armies, Venli? True armies? Supply troops across a battlefront that spans hundreds of miles? Do you have memories and experiences that span eons?”

She glared at him.

“Our leaders,” Ulim said, “know exactly what they’re doing. Them I obey. But I am the one who escaped, the spren of redemption. I don’t have to listen to you.”

“I will be a queen,” Venli said to Spite.

“If you survive? Maybe. But your sister? She and the others sent that assassin to kill the human king specifically to keep us from returning. Your people are traitors—though your personal efforts do you justice, Venli. You may be blessed further, if you are wise. Regardless, get that armor off your sister, shed your tears, and get ready to climb back up. These plateaus are crawling with men who stink of Honor. We must be away and see what your ancestors need us to do.”

“Our ancestors?” Demid said. “What do the dead have to do with this?”

“Everything,” Ulim replied, “seeing as they’re the ones in charge. Armor. Now.” He zipped to the wall as a tiny streak of lightning, then moved off.

Venli attuned Derision at the way she’d been treated, then—defying taboos—helped Demid remove the Shardplate. Ulim returned with the others and ordered them to gather up the armor.

They hiked off, leaving Venli to bring the Blade. She lifted it from the stone, then lingered, regarding her sister’s corpse—which lay there in only padded underclothing.

Venli felt something stir inside her. Again, distantly, she was able to hear the Rhythm of the Lost. Mournful, slow, with separated beats.

“I…” Venli said. “Finally, I don’t have to listen to you call me a fool. I don’t have to worry about you getting in the way. I can do what I want.”

That terrified her.

She turned to go, but paused as she saw something. What was that small spren that had crept out from beneath Eshonai’s corpse? It looked like a small ball of white fire; it gave off little rings of light and trailed a streak behind it. Like a comet.

“What are you?” Venli demanded to Spite. “Shoo.”

She hiked off, leaving her sister’s corpse there at the bottom of the chasm, stripped and alone. Food for either a chasmfiend or a storm.