Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archive, The)

by Sanderson, Brandon

  They’d learn to be real soldiers. No, they were real soldiers. Now they had to learn how to act without Sadeas’s oppression to push against.

  Moash moved up beside him. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “You’re right.”

  Kaladin smiled, this time genuinely.

  “I’m not going to pretend I don’t hate them,” Moash said. “But I’ll be civil. We have a duty. We’ll do it well. Better than anyone expects. We’re Bridge Four.”

  “Good man,” Kaladin said. Moash was going to be particularly tricky to deal with, as more and more, Kaladin found himself confiding in the man. Most of the others idolized Kaladin. Not Moash, who was as close to a real friend as Kaladin had known since being branded.

  The hallway grew surprisingly decorative as they approached the king’s conference chamber. There was even a series of reliefs being carved on the walls—the Heralds, embellished with gemstones on the rock to glow at appropriate locations.

  More and more like a city, Kaladin thought to himself. This might actually be a true palace soon.

  He met Skar and his team at the door into the king’s conference chambers. “Report?” Kaladin asked softly.

  “Quiet morning,” Skar said. “And I’m fine with that.”

  “You’re relieved for the day, then,” Kaladin said. “I’ll stay here for the meeting, then let Moash take the afternoon shift. I’ll come back for the evening shift. You and your squad get some sleep; you’ll be back on duty tonight, stretching to tomorrow morning.”

  “Got it, sir,” Skar said, saluting. He collected his men and moved off.

  The chamber beyond the doors was decorated with a thick rug and large unshuttered windows on the leeward side. Kaladin had never been in this room, and the palace maps—for the protection of the king—only included the basic hallways and routes through the servants’ quarters. This room had one other door, probably out onto the balcony, but no exits other than the one Kaladin stepped through.

  Two other guards in blue and gold stood on either side of the door. The king himself paced back and forth beside the room’s desk. His nose was larger than the paintings of him showed.

  Dalinar spoke with Highlady Navani, an elegant woman with grey in her hair. The scandalous relationship between the king’s uncle and mother would have been the talk of the warcamp, if Sadeas’s betrayal hadn’t overshadowed it.

  “Moash,” Kaladin said, pointing. “See where that door goes. Mart and Eth, stand watch just outside in the hall. Nobody other than a highprince comes in until you’ve checked with us in here.”

  Moash gave the king a salute instead of a bow, and checked on the door. It indeed led to the balcony that Kaladin had spotted from below. It ran all around this upmost room.

  Dalinar studied Kaladin and Moash as they worked. Kaladin saluted, and met the man’s eyes. He wasn’t going to fail again, as he’d done the day before.

  “I don’t recognize these guards, Uncle,” the king said with annoyance.

  “They’re new,” Dalinar said. “There is no other way onto that balcony, soldier. It’s a hundred feet in the air.”

  “Good to know,” Kaladin said. “Drehy, join Moash out there on the balcony, close the door, and keep watch.”

  Drehy nodded, jumping into motion.

  “I just said there’s no way to reach that balcony from the outside,” Dalinar said.

  “Then that’s the way I’d try to get in,” Kaladin said, “if I wanted to, sir.”

  Dalinar smiled in amusement.

  The king, however, was nodding. “Good . . . good.”

  “Are there any other ways into this room, Your Majesty?” Kaladin asked. “Secret entrances, passages?”

  “If there were,” the king said, “I wouldn’t want people knowing about them.”

  “My men can’t keep this room safe if we don’t know what to guard. If there are passages nobody is supposed to know about, those are immediately suspect. If you share them with me, I’ll use only my officers in guarding them.”

  The king stared at Kaladin for a moment, then turned to Dalinar. “I like this one. Why haven’t you put him in charge of your guard before?”

  “I haven’t had the opportunity,” Dalinar said, studying Kaladin with eyes that had a depth behind them. A weight. He stepped over and rested a hand on Kaladin’s shoulder, pulling him aside.

  “Wait,” the king said from behind, “is that a captain’s insignia? On a darkeyes? When did that start happening?”

  Dalinar didn’t answer, instead walking Kaladin to the side of the room. “The king,” he said softly, “is very worried about assassins. You should know this.”

  “A healthy paranoia makes the job easier for his bodyguards, sir,” Kaladin said.

  “I didn’t say it was healthy,” Dalinar said. “You call me ‘sir.’ The common address is ‘Brightlord.’”

  “I will use that term if you command, sir,” Kaladin said, meeting the man’s eyes. “But ‘sir’ is an appropriate address, even for a lighteyes, if he’s your direct superior.”

  “I’m a highprince.”

  “Speaking frankly,” Kaladin said—he wouldn’t ask for permission. This man had put him in the role, so Kaladin would assume it came with certain privileges, unless told otherwise. “Every man I’ve ever called ‘Brightlord’ has betrayed me. A few men I’ve called ‘sir’ still have my trust to this day. I use one more reverently than the other. Sir.”

  “You’re an odd one, son.”

  “The normal ones are dead in the chasms, sir,” Kaladin said softly. “Sadeas saw to that.”

  “Well, have your men on the balcony guard from farther to the side, where they can’t hear through the window.”

  “I’ll wait with the men in the hall, then,” Kaladin said, noticing that the two men of the King’s Guard had already moved through the doors.

  “I didn’t order that,” Dalinar said. “Guard the doors, but on the inside. I want you to hear what we’re planning. Just don’t repeat it outside this room.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Four more people are coming to the meeting,” Dalinar said. “My sons, General Khal, and Brightness Teshav, Khal’s wife. They may enter. Anyone else should be kept back until the meeting is over.”

  Dalinar went back to a conversation with the king’s mother. Kaladin got Moash and Drehy positioned, then explained the door protocol to Mart and Eth. He’d have to do some training later. Lighteyes never truly meant “Don’t let anyone else in” when they said “Don’t let anyone else in.” What they meant was “If you let anyone else in, I’d better agree that it was important enough, or you’re in trouble.”

  Then, Kaladin took his post inside the closed door, standing against a wall with carved paneling made of a rare type of wood he didn’t recognize. It’s probably worth more than I’ve earned in my entire lifetime, he thought idly. One wooden panel.

  The highprince’s sons arrived, Adolin and Renarin Kholin. Kaladin had seen the former on the battlefield, though he looked different without his Shardplate. Less imposing. More like a spoiled rich boy. Oh, he wore a uniform like everyone else, but the buttons were engraved, and the boots . . . those were expensive hogshide ones without a scuff on them. Brand new, likely bought at ridiculous expense.

  He did save that woman in the market, though, Kaladin thought, remembering the encounter from weeks ago. Don’t forget about that.

  Kaladin wasn’t sure what to make of Renarin. The youth—he might have been older than Kaladin, but sure didn’t look it—wore spectacles and walked after his brother like a shadow. Those slender limbs and delicate fingers had never known battle or real work.

  Syl bobbed around the room, poking into nooks, crannies, and vases. She stopped at a paperweight on the women’s writing desk beside the king’s chair, poking at the block of crystal with a strange kind of crab-thing trapped inside. Were those wings?

  “Shouldn’t that one wait outside?” Adolin asked, nodding toward Kaladin.

  “W
hat we’re doing is going to put me in direct danger,” Dalinar said, hands clasped behind his back. “I want him to know the details. That might be important to his job.” Dalinar didn’t look toward Adolin or Kaladin.

  Adolin walked up, taking Dalinar by the arm and speaking in a hushed tone that was not so soft that Kaladin couldn’t hear. “We barely know him.”

  “We have to trust some people, Adolin,” his father said in a normal voice. “If there’s one person in this army I can guarantee isn’t working for Sadeas, it’s that soldier.” He turned and glanced at Kaladin, once again studying him with those unfathomable eyes.

  He didn’t see me with the Stormlight, Kaladin told himself forcefully. He was practically unconscious. He doesn’t know.

  Does he?

  Adolin threw up his hands but walked to the other side of the room, muttering something to his brother. Kaladin remained in position, standing comfortably at parade rest. Yes, definitely spoiled.

  The general who arrived soon after was a limber, bald man with a straight back and pale yellow eyes. His wife, Teshav, had a pinched face and hair streaked blond. She took up position by the writing desk, which Navani had made no move to occupy.

  “Reports,” Dalinar said from the window as the door clicked shut behind the two newcomers.

  “I suspect you know what you’ll hear, Brightlord,” said Teshav. “They’re irate. They sincerely hoped you would reconsider the command—and sending it out to the public has provoked them. Highprince Hatham was the only one to make a public announcement. He plans to—and I quote—‘see that the king is dissuaded from this reckless and ill-advised course.’”

  The king sighed, settling into his seat. Renarin sat down immediately, as did the general. Adolin found his seat more reluctantly.

  Dalinar remained standing, looking out the window.

  “Uncle?” the king asked. “Did you hear that reaction? It’s a good thing you didn’t go so far as you had considered: to proclaim that they must follow the Codes or face seizure of assets. We’d be in the middle of a rebellion.”

  “That will come,” Dalinar said. “I still wonder if I should have announced it all at once. When you’ve got an arrow stuck in you, it’s sometimes best to just yank it out in one pull.”

  Actually, when you had an arrow in you, the best thing to do was leave it there until you could find a surgeon. Often it would plug the blood flow and keep you alive. It was probably best not to speak up and undermine the highprince’s metaphor, however.

  “Storms, what a ghastly image,” the king said, wiping his face with a handkerchief. “Do you have to say such things, Uncle? I already fear we’ll be dead before the week is out.”

  “Your father and I survived worse than this,” Dalinar said.

  “You had allies, then! Three highprinces for you, only six against, and you never fought them all at the same time.”

  “If the highprinces unite against us,” General Khal said, “we will not be able to stand firm. We’ll have no choice but to rescind this proclamation, which will weaken the Throne considerably.”

  The king leaned back, hand to his forehead. “Jezerezeh, this is going to be a disaster. . . .”

  Kaladin raised an eyebrow.

  “You disagree?” Syl asked, moving over toward him as a cluster of fluttering leaves. It was disconcerting to hear her voice coming from such shapes. The others in the room, of course, couldn’t see or hear her.

  “No,” Kaladin whispered. “This proclamation sounds like a real tempest. I just expected the king to be less . . . well, whiny.”

  “We need to secure allies,” Adolin said. “Form a coalition. Sadeas will gather one, and so we counter him with our own.”

  “Dividing the kingdom into two?” Teshav said, shaking her head. “I don’t see how a civil war would serve the Throne. Particularly one we’re unlikely to win.”

  “This could be the end of Alethkar as a kingdom,” the general agreed.

  “Alethkar ended as a kingdom centuries ago,” Dalinar said softly, staring out that window. “This thing we have created is not Alethkar. Alethkar was justice. We are children wearing our father’s cloak.”

  “But Uncle,” the king said, “at least the kingdom is something. More than it has been in centuries! If we fail here, and fracture to ten warring princedoms, it will negate everything my father worked for!”

  “This isn’t what your father worked for, son,” Dalinar said. “This game on the Shattered Plains, this nauseating political farce. This isn’t what Gavilar envisioned. The Everstorm comes. . . .”

  “What?” the king asked.

  Dalinar turned from the window finally, walking to the others, and rested his hand on Navani’s shoulder. “We’re going to find a way to do this, or we’re going to destroy the kingdom in the process. I won’t suffer this charade any longer.”

  Kaladin, arms folded, tapped one finger against his elbow. “Dalinar acts like he’s the king,” he mouthed, whispering so softly only Syl could hear. “And everyone else does as well.” Troubling. It was like what Amaram had done. Seizing the power he saw before him, even if it wasn’t his.

  Navani looked up at Dalinar, raising her hand to rest on his. She was in on whatever he was planning, judging by that expression.

  The king wasn’t. He sighed lightly. “You’ve obviously got a plan, Uncle. Well? Out with it. This drama is tiring.”

  “What I really want to do,” Dalinar said frankly, “is beat the lot of them senseless. That’s what I’d do to new recruits who weren’t willing to obey orders.”

  “I think you’ll have a hard time spanking obedience into the highprinces, Uncle,” the king said dryly. For some reason, he absently rubbed at his chest.

  “You need to disarm them,” Kaladin found himself saying.

  All eyes in the room turned toward him. Brightness Teshav gave him a frown, as if speaking were not Kaladin’s right. It probably wasn’t.

  Dalinar, however, nodded toward him. “Soldier? You have a suggestion?”

  “Your pardon, sir,” Kaladin said. “And your pardon, Your Majesty. But if a squad is giving you trouble, the first thing you do is separate its members. Split them up, stick them in better squads. I don’t think you can do that here.”

  “I don’t know how we’d break apart the highprinces,” Dalinar said. “I doubt I could stop them from associating with one another. Perhaps if this war were won, I could assign different highprinces different duties, send them off, then work on them individually. But for the time being, we are trapped here.”

  “Well, the second thing you do to troublemakers,” Kaladin said, “is you disarm them. They’re easier to control if you make them turn in their spears. It’s embarrassing, makes them feel like recruits again. So . . . can you take their troops away from them, maybe?”

  “We can’t, I’m afraid,” Dalinar said. “The soldiers swore allegiance to their lighteyes, not to the Crown specifically—it’s only the highprinces who have sworn to the Crown. However, you are thinking along the right lines.”

  He squeezed Navani’s shoulder. “For the last two weeks,” he said, “I’ve been trying to decide how to approach this problem. My gut tells me that I need to treat the highprinces—the entire lighteyed population of Alethkar—like new recruits, in need of discipline.”

  “He came to me, and we talked,” Navani said. “We can’t actually bust the highprinces down to a manageable rank, as much as Dalinar would like to do just that. Instead, we need to lead them to believe that we’re going to take it all from them, if they don’t shape up.”

  “This proclamation will make them mad,” Dalinar said. “I want them mad. I want them to think about the war, their place here, and I want to remind them of Gavilar’s assassination. If I can push them to act more like soldiers, even if it starts with them taking up arms against me, then I might be able to persuade them. I can reason with soldiers. Regardless, a big part of this will involve the threat that I’m going to take away their authori
ty and power if they don’t use it correctly. And that begins, as Captain Kaladin suggested, with disarming them.”

  “Disarm the highprinces?” the king asked. “What foolishness is this?”

  “It’s not foolishness,” Dalinar said, smiling. “We can’t take their armies from them, but we can do something else. Adolin, I intend to take the lock off your scabbard.”

  Adolin frowned, considering that for a moment. Then a wide grin split his face. “You mean, letting me duel again? For real?”

  “Yes,” Dalinar said. He turned to the king. “For the longest time, I’ve forbidden him from important bouts, as the Codes prohibit duels of honor between officers at war. More and more, however, I’ve come to realize that the others don’t see themselves as being at war. They’re playing a game. It’s time to allow Adolin to duel the camp’s other Shardbearers in official bouts.”

  “So he can humiliate them?” the king asked.

  “It wouldn’t be about humiliation; it would be about depriving them of their Shards.” Dalinar stepped into the middle of the group of chairs. “The highprinces would have a hard time fighting against us if we controlled all of the Shardblades and Shardplate in the army. Adolin, I want you to challenge the Shardbearers of other highprinces in duels of honor, the prizes being the Shards themselves.”

  “They won’t agree to it,” General Khal said. “They’ll refuse the bouts.”

  “We’ll have to make sure they agree,” Dalinar said. “Find a way to force them, or shame them, into the fights. I’ve considered that this would probably be easier if we could ever track down where Wit ran off to.”

  “What happens if the lad loses?” General Khal asked. “This plan seems too unpredictable.”

  “We’ll see,” Dalinar said. “This is only one part of what we will do, the smaller part—but also the most visible part. Adolin, everyone tells me how good you are at dueling, and you have pestered me incessantly to relax my prohibition. There are thirty Shardbearers in the army, not counting our own. Can you defeat that many men?”