Words of Radiance

by Brandon Sanderson

  She leaned down, reaching her hand through the large hole she’d opened. With some work—and with a little cutting at the front mandibles—she managed to help Kaladin wiggle out the side of the mouth. Covered in ichor and blood, face pale from apparent blood loss, he looked like death itself.

  “Storms,” she whispered, as he lay back on the rocks.

  “Bind my leg,” Kaladin said weakly. “The rest of me should be fine. Heal right up . . .”

  She looked at the mess of his leg, and shivered. It looked like . . . Like . . . Balat . . .

  Kaladin wouldn’t be walking on that leg anytime soon. Oh, Stormfather, she thought, cutting off the skirt of her dress at the knees. She wrapped his leg tightly, as he instructed. He seemed to think he didn’t need a tourniquet. She listened to him; he’d probably bound far more wounds than she had.

  She cut the sleeve off her right arm and used that to bind a second wound on his side, where the chasmfiend had started to rip him in half as it bit. Then she settled down next to him, feeling drained and cold, legs and arm now exposed to the chill air of the chasm bottom.

  Kaladin took a deep breath, resting on the rock ground, eyes closed. “Two hours until the highstorm,” he whispered.

  Shallan checked the sky. It was almost dark. “If that long,” she whispered. “We beat it, but we’re dead anyway, aren’t we?”

  “Seems unfair,” he said. Then he groaned, sitting up.

  “Shouldn’t you—”

  “Bah. I’ve had far worse wounds than this.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him as he opened his eyes. He looked dizzy.

  “I have,” he insisted. “That’s not just soldier bravado.”

  “This bad?” she asked. “How often?”

  “Twice,” he admitted. He looked over the hulking form of the chasmfiend. “We actually killed the thing.”

  “Sad, I know,” she said, feeling depressed. “It was beautiful.”

  “It would be more beautiful if it hadn’t tried to eat me.”

  “From my perspective,” Shallan noted, “it didn’t try, it succeeded.”

  “Nonsense,” Kaladin said. “It didn’t manage to swallow me. Doesn’t count.” He held his hand out to her, as if for help getting to his feet.

  “You want to try to keep going?”

  “You expect me to just lie here in the chasm until the waters come?”

  “No, but . . .” She looked up. The chasmfiend was big. Maybe twenty feet tall, as it lay on its side. “What if we climbed up that thing, then tried to scale up to the top of the plateau?” The farther westward they’d gone, the shallower the chasms had grown.

  Kaladin looked up. “That’s still a good eighty feet of climbing, Shallan. And what would we do on the top of the plateau? The storm would blow us off.”

  “We could at least try to find some kind of shelter . . .” she said. “Storms, it really is hopeless, isn’t it?”

  Oddly, he cocked his head. “Probably.”

  “Only ‘probably’?”

  “Shelter . . . You have a Shardblade.”

  “And?” she asked. “I can’t cut away a wall of water.”

  “No, but you can cut stone.” He looked up, toward the wall of the chasm.

  Shallan’s breath caught in her throat. “We can carve out a cubby! Like the scouts use.”

  “High up the wall,” he said. “You can see the water line up there. If we can get above that . . .”

  It still meant climbing. She wouldn’t have to go all the way to where the chasm got narrow at the top, but it wouldn’t be an easy climb, by any means. And she had very little time.

  But it was a chance.

  “You’re going to have to do it,” Kaladin said. “I might be able to stand, with help. But climbing while wielding a Shardblade . . .”

  “Right,” Shallan said, standing up. She took a deep breath. “Right.”

  She started by scaling the back of the chasmfiend. The smooth carapace made for slippery climbing, but she found footholds between plates. Once on its back, she looked up toward the water line. It seemed much higher than it had from below.

  “Cut handholds,” Kaladin called.

  Right. She kept forgetting about the Shardblade. She didn’t want to think about it . . .

  No. No time for that now. She summoned the Blade and cut out a series of long strips of rock, sending chunks falling to bounce off the carapace. She tucked her hair behind her ear, working in the dim light to create a ladderlike series of handholds up the side of the wall.

  She started climbing them. Standing on one and clinging to the highest one, she summoned the Blade again and tried to cut a step even higher, but the thing was just so blasted long.

  Obligingly, it shrank in her hand to the size of a much shorter sword, really a big knife.

  Thank you, she thought, then cut out the next line of rock.

  Up she went, handhold after handhold. It was sweaty work, and she periodically had to climb back down and rest her hands from clinging. Eventually, she got about as high as she figured she could, just over the water line. She hung there awkwardly, then began hacking out sections of rock, trying to cut them so they wouldn’t tumble backward onto her head.

  Falling stone made a beating sound on the dead chasmfiend’s armor. “You’re doing great!” Kaladin called up to her. “Keep at it!”

  “When did you get so peppy?” she shouted.

  “Ever since I assumed I was dead, then I suddenly wasn’t.”

  “Then remind me to try to kill you once in a while,” she snapped. “If I succeed, it will make me feel better, and if I fail, it will make you feel better. Everyone wins!”

  She heard him chuckling as she dug deeper into the stone. It was more difficult than she’d have imagined. Yes, the Blade cut the rock easily, but she kept cutting sections that just wouldn’t fall out. She had to chop them to pieces, then dismiss the Blade and grab chunks to pull them out.

  After over an hour of frantic work, however, she managed to craft a semblance of a refuge. She didn’t get the cubby hollowed out as deeply as she wanted, but it would have to do. Drained, she crawled back down her improvised ladder one last time and flopped on the chasmfiend’s back amid the rubble. Her arms felt like she’d been lifting something heavy—and technically she probably had, since climbing meant lifting herself.

  “Done?” Kaladin called up from the chasm floor.

  “No,” Shallan said, “but close enough. I think we might fit.”

  Kaladin was silent.

  “You are coming up into the hole I just cut, Kaladin bridgeboy, chasmfiend-slayer and gloombringer.” She leaned over the side of the chasmfiend to look at him. “We are not having another stupid conversation about you dying in here while I bravely continue on. Understand?”

  “I’m not sure if I can walk, Shallan,” Kaladin said with a sigh. “Let alone climb.”

  “You’re going,” Shallan said, “if I have to carry you.”

  He looked up, then grinned, face covered in dried violet ichor that he’d wiped away as best he could. “I’d like to see that.”

  “Come on,” Shallan said, rising with some difficulty herself. Storms, she was tired. She used the Blade to hack a vine off the wall. It took two hits to get it free, amusingly. The first severed its soul. Then, dead, it could actually be cut by the sword.

  The upper part withdrew, curling like a corkscrew to get height. She tossed down one side of the length she’d cut free. Kaladin took it with one hand, and—favoring his bad leg—carefully made his way up to the top of the chasmfiend. Once up, he flopped down beside her, sweat making trails through the grime on his face. He looked up at the ladder cut into the rock. “You’re really going to make me climb that.”

  “Yes,” she said. “For perfectly selfish reasons.”

  He looked to her.

  “I’m not going to have your last sight in life be a view of me standing in half a filthy dress, covered in purple blood, my hair an utter mess. It’s und
ignified. On your feet, bridgeboy.”

  In the distance, she heard a rumbling. Not good . . .

  “Climb up,” he said.

  “I’m not—”

  “Climb up,” he said more firmly, “and lie down in the cubby, then reach your hand over the edge. Once I near the top, you can help me the last few feet.”

  She fretted for a moment, then fetched her satchel and made the climb. Storms, those handholds were slick. Once up, she crawled into the shallow cubby and perched precariously, reaching down with one hand as she braced herself with the other. He looked up at her, then set his jaw and started climbing.

  He mostly pulled himself with his hands, wounded leg dangling, the other one steadying him. Heavily muscled, his soldier’s arms slowly pulled him up slot by slot.

  Below, water trickled down the chasm. Then it started to gush.

  “Come on!” she said.

  Wind howled through the chasms, a haunting, eerie sound that called through the many rifts. Like the moaning of spirits long dead. The high sound was accompanied by a low, rumbling roar.

  All around, plants withdrew, vines twisting and pulling tight, rockbuds closing, frillblooms folding away. The chasm hid.

  Kaladin grunted, sweating, his face tense with pain and exertion, his fingers trembling. He pulled himself up another rung, then reached his hand up toward hers.

  The stormwall hit.

  ONE YEAR AGO

  Shallan slipped into Balat’s room, holding a short note between her fingers.

  Balat spun, standing. He relaxed. “Shallan! You nearly killed me with fright.”

  The small room, like many in the manor house, had open windows with simple reed shutters—those were closed and latched today, as a highstorm was approaching. The last one before the Weeping. Servants outside pounded on the walls as they affixed sturdy stormshutters over the reed ones.

  Shallan wore one of her new dresses, the expensive kind that Father bought for her, after the Vorin style, straight and slim-waisted with a pocket on the sleeve. A woman’s dress. She also wore the necklace he had given her. He liked it when she did that.

  Jushu lounged on a chair nearby, rubbing some kind of plant between his fingers, his face distant. He had lost weight during the two years since his creditors had dragged him from the house, though with those sunken eyes and the scars on his wrists, he still didn’t look much like his twin.

  Shallan eyed the bundles Balat had been preparing. “Good thing Father never checks in on you, Balat. Those bundles look so fishy, we could make a stew out of them.”

  Jushu chuckled, rubbing the scar on one wrist with the other hand. “Doesn’t help that he jumps every time a servant so much as sneezes out in the hallway.”

  “Quiet, both of you,” Balat said, eyeing the window where workers locked a stormshutter in place. “This is not a time for levity. Damnation. If he discovers that I’m planning to leave . . .”

  “He won’t,” Shallan said, unfolding the letter. “He’s too busy getting ready to parade himself in front of the highprince.”

  “Does it feel odd to anyone else,” Jushu said, “to be this rich? How many deposits of valuable stone are there on our lands?”

  Balat turned back to packing his bundles. “So long as it keeps Father happy, I don’t care.”

  The problem was, it hadn’t made Father happy. Yes, House Davar was now wealthy—the new quarries provided a fantastic income. Yet, the better off they were, the darker Father grew. Walking the hallways grumbling. Lashing out at servants.

  Shallan scanned the letter’s contents.

  “That’s not a pleased face,” Balat said. “They still haven’t been able to find him?”

  Shallan shook her head. Helaran had vanished. Really vanished. No more contact, no more letters; even the people he’d been in touch with earlier had no idea where he’d gone.

  Balat sat down on one of his bundles. “So what do we do?”

  “You will need to decide,” Shallan said.

  “I have to get out. I have to.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Eylita is ready to go with me. Her parents are away for the month, visiting Alethkar. It’s the perfect time.”

  “If you can’t find Helaran, then what?”

  “I’ll go to the highprince. His bastard said that he’d listen to anyone willing to speak against Father.”

  “That was years ago,” Jushu said, leaning back. “Father’s in favor now. Besides, the highprince is nearly dead; everyone knows it.”

  “It’s our only chance,” Balat said. He stood up. “I’m going to leave. Tonight, after the storm.”

  “But Father—” Shallan began.

  “Father wants me to ride out and check on some of the villages along the eastern valley. I’ll tell him I’m doing that, but instead I’ll pick up Eylita and we’ll ride for Vedenar and go straight to the highprince. By the time Father arrives a week later, I’ll have had my say. It might be enough.”

  “And Malise?” Shallan asked. The plan was still for him to take their stepmother to safety.

  “I don’t know,” Balat said. “He’s not going to let her go. Maybe once he leaves to visit the highprince, you can send her away someplace safe? I don’t know. Either way, I have to go. Tonight.”

  Shallan stepped forward, laying a hand on his arm.

  “I’m tired of the fear,” Balat said to her. “I’m tired of being a coward. If Helaran has vanished, then I really am eldest. Time to show it. I won’t just run, spending my life wondering if Father’s minions are hunting us. This way . . . this way it will be over. Decided.”

  The door slammed open.

  For all her complaints that Balat was acting suspicious, Shallan jumped just as high as he did, letting out a squeak of surprise. It was only Wikim.

  “Storms, Wikim!” Balat said. “You could at least knock or—”

  “Eylita is here,” Wikim said.

  “What?” Balat leaped forward, grabbing his brother. “She wasn’t to come! I was going to pick her up.”

  “Father summoned her,” Wikim said. “She arrived with her handmaid just now. He’s speaking with her in the feast hall.”

  “Oh no,” Balat said, shoving Wikim aside, barreling through the door.

  Shallan followed, but stopped in the doorway. “Don’t do anything foolish!” she called after him. “Balat, the plan!”

  He didn’t appear to have heard her.

  “This could be bad,” Wikim said.

  “Or it could be wonderful,” Jushu said from behind them, still lounging. “If Father pushes Balat too far, maybe he’ll stop whining and do something.”

  Shallan felt cold as she stepped into the hallway. That coldness . . . was that panic? Overwhelming panic, so sharp and strong it washed away everything else.

  This had been coming. She’d known this had been coming. They tried to hide, they tried to flee. Of course that wouldn’t work.

  It hadn’t worked with Mother either.

  Wikim passed her, running. She stepped slowly. Not because she was calm, but because she felt pulled forward. A slow pace resisted the inevitability.

  She turned up the steps instead of going down to the feast hall. She needed to fetch something.

  It took only a minute. She soon returned, the pouch given to her long ago tucked into the safepouch in her sleeve. She walked down the steps and to the doorway of the feast hall. Jushu and Wikim waited just outside of it, watching tensely.

  They made way for her.

  Inside the feast hall, there was shouting, of course.

  “You shouldn’t have done this without talking to me!” Balat said. He stood before the high table, Eylita at his side, holding to his arm.

  Father stood on the other side of the table, half-eaten meal before him. “Talking to you is useless, Balat. You don’t hear.”

  “I love her!”

  “You’re a child,” Father said. “A foolish child without regard for your house.”

  Bad, bad, bad, Shallan thought.
Father’s voice was soft. He was most dangerous when his voice was soft.

  “You think,” Father continued, leaning forward, palms on the tabletop, “I don’t know about your plan to leave?”

  Balat stumbled back. “How?”

  Shallan stepped into the room. What is that on the floor? she thought, walking along the wall toward the door into the kitchens. Something blocked the door from closing.

  Rain began to pelt the rooftop outside. The storm had come. The guards were in their guardhouse, the servants in their quarters to wait the storm’s passing. The family was alone.

  With the windows closed, the only light in the room was the cool illumination of spheres. Father did not have a fire burning in the hearth.

  “Helaran is dead,” Father said. “Did you know that? You can’t find him because he’s been killed. I didn’t even have to do it. He found his own death on a battlefield in Alethkar. Idiot.”

  The words threatened Shallan’s cold calm.

  “How did you find out I was leaving?” Balat demanded. He stepped forward, but Eylita held him back. “Who told you?”

  Shallan knelt by the obstruction in the kitchen doorway. Thunder rumbled, making the building vibrate. The obstruction was a body.

  Malise. Dead from several blows to the head. Fresh blood. Warm corpse. He had killed her recently. Storms. He’d found out about the plan, had sent for Eylita and waited for her to arrive, then killed his wife.

  Not a crime of the moment. He’d murdered her as punishment.

  So it has come to this, Shallan thought, feeling a strange, detached calm. The lie becomes the truth.

  This was Shallan’s fault. She stood up and rounded the room toward where servants had left a pitcher of wine, with cups, for Father.

  “Malise,” Balat said. He hadn’t looked toward Shallan; he was just guessing. “She broke down and told you, didn’t she? Damnation. We shouldn’t have trusted her.”

  “Yes,” Father said. “She talked. Eventually.”

  Balat’s sword made a whispering rasp as he pulled it from its leather sheath. Father’s sword followed.

  “Finally,” Father said. “You show hints of a backbone.”

  “Balat, no,” Eylita said, clinging to him.