Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archive, The)

by Sanderson, Brandon

  He could move his fingers. His entire hand and forearm ached, but it was the most wonderful ache he’d ever felt.

  “I healed,” he whispered, then coughed. “I healed from a Shardblade wound. Why didn’t you tell me I could do that?”

  “Because I didn’t know you could do it until you did it, silly.” She said it as if it were the most obvious fact in the world. Her voice grew softer. “There are dead. Up above.”

  Kaladin nodded. Could he walk? He managed to get to his feet, and slowly made his way around the base of the Pinnacle, toward the steps on the other side. Syl flitted around him anxiously. His strength began to return a little as he found the steps and began to climb. He had to stop several times to catch his breath, and at one point he ripped off the sleeve of his coat to hide that it had been cut through with a Shardblade.

  He reached the top. Part of him feared that he’d find everyone dead. The hallways were silent. No shouts, no guards. Nothing. He continued on, feeling alone, until he saw light ahead.

  “Stop!” called a trembling voice. Mart, of Bridge Four. “You in the dark! Identify yourself!”

  Kaladin continued forward into the light, too exhausted to reply. Mart and Moash stood guard at the door to the king’s chambers, along with some of the men from the King’s Guard. They let out whoops of surprise as they recognized Kaladin. They ushered him into the warmth and light of Elhokar’s quarters.

  Here, he found Dalinar and Adolin—alive—sitting on the couches. Eth tended their wounds; Kaladin had trained a number of the men in Bridge Four in basic field medicine. Renarin slumped in a chair near the corner, his Shardblade discarded at his feet like a piece of refuse. The king paced at the back of the room, speaking softly with his mother.

  Dalinar stood up, shaking off Eth’s attention, as Kaladin entered. “By the Almighty’s tenth name,” Dalinar said, voice hushed. “You’re alive?”

  Kaladin nodded, then slumped down in one of the plush royal chairs, uncaring if he got water or blood on it. He let out a soft groan—half relief at seeing them all well, half exhaustion.

  “How?” Adolin demanded. “You fell. I was barely awake, but I know I saw you fall.”

  I am a Surgebinder, Kaladin thought as Dalinar looked over at him. I used Stormlight. He wanted to say the words, but they wouldn’t come out. Not in front of Elhokar and Adolin.

  Storms. I’m a coward.

  “I had a good grip on him,” Kaladin said. “I don’t know. We tumbled in the air, and when we hit, I wasn’t dead.”

  The king nodded. “Didn’t you say he stuck you to the ceiling?” he said to Adolin. “They probably floated all the way down.”

  “Yeah,” Adolin said. “I suppose.”

  “After you landed,” the king said, hopefully, “did you kill him?”

  “No,” Kaladin said, “He ran off, though. I think he was surprised we fought back as capably as we did.”

  “Capably?” Adolin asked. “We were like three children attacking a chasmfiend with sticks. Stormfather! I’ve never been routed so soundly in my life.”

  “At least we were alerted,” the king said, sounding shaken. “This bridgeman . . . he makes a good bodyguard. You will be commended, young man.”

  Dalinar stood and crossed the room. Eth had cleaned up his face and plugged his bleeding nose. His skin was split along the left cheekbone, his nose broken, though surely not for the first time in Dalinar’s long military career. Both were wounds that looked worse than they really were.

  “How did you know?” Dalinar asked.

  Kaladin met his eyes. Behind him, Adolin glanced over, narrowing his eyes. He looked down at Kaladin’s arm and frowned.

  That one saw something, Kaladin thought. As if he didn’t have enough trouble with Adolin as it was.

  “I saw a light moving in the air outside,” Kaladin said. “I moved by instinct.”

  Nearby, Syl zipped into the room and looked pointedly at him, frowning. But it wasn’t a lie. He had seen a light in the night. Hers.

  “All those years ago,” Dalinar said, “I dismissed the stories the witnesses told of my brother’s assassination. Men walking on walls, others falling up instead of down . . . Almighty above. What is he?”

  “Death,” Kaladin whispered.

  Dalinar nodded.

  “Why has he come back now?” Navani asked, moving up to Dalinar’s side. “After all these years?”

  “He wants to claim me,” Elhokar said. His back was to them, and Kaladin could make out a cup in his hand. He downed the contents, then immediately refilled it from a jug. Deep violet wine. Elhokar’s hand was trembling as he poured.

  Kaladin met Dalinar’s eyes. The highprince had heard. This Szeth had not come for the king, but Dalinar.

  Dalinar didn’t say anything to correct the king, so Kaladin didn’t either.

  “What do we do if he comes back?” Adolin asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dalinar said, sitting back down on the couch beside his son. “I don’t know . . .”

  Tend his wounds. It was the voice of Kaladin’s father, whispering inside him. The surgeon. Stitch that cheek. Reset the nose.

  He had a more important duty. Kaladin forced himself to his feet, though he felt like he was carrying lead weights, and took a spear from one of the men at the door. “Why are the hallways silent?” he asked Moash. “Do you know where the servants are?”

  “The highprince,” Moash said, nodding to Dalinar. “Brightlord Dalinar sent a couple of the men to the servants’ quarters to move everyone out. He thought that if the assassin came back, he might start killing indiscriminately. Figured the more people who left the palace, the fewer casualties there would be.”

  Kaladin nodded, taking a sphere lamp and moving out into the hallway. “Hold here. I need to do something.”

  * * *

  Adolin slumped in his seat as the bridgeboy left. Kaladin gave no explanation, of course, and didn’t ask the king for permission to withdraw. Storming man seemed to consider himself above lighteyes. No, the storming man seemed to consider himself above the king.

  He did fight alongside you, part of him said. How many men, lighteyed or dark, would stand so firm against a Shardbearer?

  Troubled, Adolin stared up at the ceiling. He couldn’t have seen what he thought he had. He’d been dazed from his fall from the ceiling. Surely the assassin hadn’t actually cut Kaladin through the arm with his Shardblade. The arm seemed perfectly fine now, after all.

  But why was the sleeve missing?

  He fell with the assassin, Adolin thought. He fought, and looked like he was wounded, but it turns out he wasn’t. Could this all be part of some ruse?

  Stop it, Adolin thought at himself. You’ll get as paranoid as Elhokar. He glanced at the king, who was staring—face pale—at his empty wine cup. Had he really gone through everything in the pitcher? Elhokar walked toward his bedroom, where there would be more waiting for him, and pulled open the door.

  Navani gasped, causing the king to freeze in place. He turned toward the door. The back side of the wood had been scratched with a knife, jagged lines forming a series of glyphs.

  Adolin stood up. Several of those were numbers, weren’t they?

  “Thirty-eight days,” Renarin read. “The end of all nations.”

  * * *

  Kaladin moved tiredly through the palace hallways, retracing the route he’d led them along only a short time before. Down toward the kitchens, into the hallway with the hole cut out into the air. Past the place where Dalinar’s blood spotted the floor, to the intersection.

  Where Beld’s corpse lay. Kaladin knelt down, rolling the body over. The eyes were burned out. Above those dead eyes remained the tattoos of freedom that Kaladin had designed.

  Kaladin closed his own eyes. I’ve failed you, he thought. The balding, square-faced man had survived Bridge Four and the rescue of Dalinar’s armies. He’d survived Damnation itself, only to fall here, to an assassin with powers he should not have.

&
nbsp; Kaladin groaned.

  “He died protecting.” Syl’s voice.

  “I should be able to keep them alive,” Kaladin said. “Why didn’t I just let them go free? Why did I bring them to this duty, and more death?”

  “Someone has to fight. Someone has to protect.”

  “They’ve done enough! They’ve bled their share. I should banish them all. Dalinar can find different bodyguards.”

  “They made the choice,” Syl said. “You can’t take that from them.”

  Kaladin knelt, struggling with his grief.

  You have to learn when to care, son. His father’s voice. And when to let go. You’ll grow calluses.

  He never had. Storm him, he never had. It was why he’d never made a good surgeon. He couldn’t lose patients.

  And now, now he killed? Now he was a soldier? How did that make any sense? He hated how good he was at killing.

  He took a deep breath, regaining control, with effort. “He can do things I can’t,” he finally said, opening his eyes and looking toward Syl, who stood in the air near him. “The assassin. Is it because I have more Words to speak?”

  “There are more,” Syl said. “You’re not ready for them yet, I don’t think. Regardless, I think you could already do what he does. With practice.”

  “But how is he Surgebinding? You said that the assassin had no spren.”

  “No honorspren would give that creature the means to slaughter as he does.”

  “Perspectives can be different among humans,” Kaladin said, trying to keep the emotion from his voice as he turned Beld facedown so he wouldn’t have to see those shriveled, burned-out eyes. “What if the honorspren thought this assassin was doing the right thing? You gave me the means to slaughter Parshendi.”

  “To protect.”

  “In their eyes, the Parshendi are protecting their kind,” Kaladin said. “To them, I’m the aggressor.”

  Syl sat down, wrapping her arms around her knees. “I don’t know. Maybe. But no other honorspren are doing what I do. I am the only one who disobeyed. But his Shardblade . . .”

  “What of it?” Kaladin asked.

  “It was different. Very different.”

  “It looked ordinary to me. Well, as ordinary as a Shardblade can.”

  “It was different,” she repeated. “I feel I should know why. Something about the amount of Light he was consuming . . .”

  Kaladin rose, then walked down the side corridor, holding up his lamp. It bore sapphires, turning the walls blue. The assassin had cut that hole with his Blade, entered the corridor, and killed Beld. But Kaladin had sent two men on ahead.

  Yes, another body. Hobber, one of the first men Kaladin had saved in Bridge Four. Storms take that assassin! Kaladin remembered saving this man after he had been left by everyone else to die on the plateau.

  Kaladin knelt beside the corpse, rolled it over.

  And found it weeping.

  “I . . . I’m . . . sorry,” Hobber said, overcome with emotion and barely able to speak. “I’m sorry, Kaladin.”

  “Hobber!” Kaladin said. “You’re alive!” Then he noticed that the legs of Hobber’s uniform had been sliced through at midthigh. Beneath the fabric, Hobber’s legs were darkened and grey, dead, as Kaladin’s arm had been.

  “I didn’t even see him,” Hobber said. “He cut me down, then stabbed Beld straight through. I listened to you fighting. I thought you’d all died.”

  “It’s all right,” Kaladin said. “You’re all right.”

  “I can’t feel my legs,” Hobber said. “They’re gone. I’m no soldier anymore, sir. I’m useless now. I—”

  “No,” Kaladin said firmly. “You’re still Bridge Four. You’re always Bridge Four.” He forced himself to smile. “We’ll just have Rock teach you how to cook. How are you with stew?”

  “Awful, sir,” Hobber said. “I can burn broth.”

  “Then you’ll fit right in with most military cooks. Come on, let’s get you back to the others.” Kaladin strained, getting his arms under Hobber, trying to lift him.

  His body would have none of it. He let out an involuntary groan, putting Hobber back down.

  “It’s all right, sir,” Hobber said.

  “No,” Kaladin said, sucking in the Light of one of the spheres in the lamp. “It’s not.” He heaved again, lifting Hobber, then carried him back toward the others.

  Our gods were born splinters of a soul,

  Of one who seeks to take control,

  Destroys all lands that he beholds, with spite.

  They are his spren, his gift, his price.

  But the nightforms speak of future life,

  A challenged champion. A strife even he must requite.

  —From the Listener Song of Secrets, final stanza

  Highprince Valam might be dead, Brightness Tyn, the spanreed wrote. Our informants are uncertain. He was never in the best of health, and now there are rumors that his illness finally overcame him. His forces are gearing up to seize Vedenar, however, so if he’s dead, his bastard son is likely pretending he is not.

  Shallan sat back, though the reed continued writing. It moved seemingly of its own volition, paired to an identical reed used by Tyn’s associate somewhere in Tashikk. They’d set up regular camp following the highstorm, Shallan joining Tyn in her magnificent tent. The air still smelled of rain, and the floor of the tent let some water leak through, wetting Tyn’s rug. Shallan wished she’d worn her oversized boots instead of slippers.

  What would it mean for her family if the highprince was dead? He had been one of her father’s main problems in the latter days of his life, and her house had gone into debt securing allies to win the highprince’s ear or perhaps—instead—to try to unseat him. A succession war could pressure the people who held her family’s debts, and that might make them come to her brothers demanding payments. Or, instead, the chaos could cause the creditors to forget about Shallan’s brothers and their insignificant house. And what of the Ghostbloods? Would the succession war make them more or less likely to come, demanding their Soulcaster?

  Stormfather! She needed more information.

  The reed continued to move, listing the names of those who were making a play for the throne of Jah Keved. “Do you know any of these people personally?” Tyn asked, arms crossed contemplatively as she stood beside the writing table. “What’s happening might offer us some opportunities.”

  “I wasn’t important enough for those types,” Shallan said with a grimace. It was true.

  “We might want to make our way to Jah Keved, regardless,” Tyn said. “You know the culture, the people. That’ll be useful.”

  “It’s a war zone!”

  “War means desperation, and desperation is our mother’s milk, kid. Once we follow your lead at the Shattered Plains—maybe pick up another member or two for our team—we probably will want to go visit your homeland.”

  Shallan felt an immediate stab of guilt. From what Tyn said, the stories she told, it had become clear that she often chose to have someone like Shallan under her wing. An acolyte, someone to nurture. Shallan suspected that was at least partly because Tyn liked having someone around to impress.

  Her life must be so lonely, Shallan thought. Always moving, always taking whatever she can get, but never giving. Except once in a while, to a young thief she can foster . . .

  A strange shadow moved across the wall of the tent. Pattern, though Shallan only noticed him because she knew what to look for. He could be practically invisible when he wanted to be, though unlike some spren he could not vanish completely.

  The spanreed continued to write, giving Tyn a longer rundown of conditions in various countries. After that, it produced a curious statement.

  I have checked with informants at the Shattered Plains, the pen wrote. The ones you asked after are, indeed, wanted men. Most are former members of the army of Highprince Sadeas. He is not forgiving of deserters.

  “What’s this?” Shallan asked, rising from her stool and
going to look more closely at what the pen wrote.

  “I implied earlier we’d have to discuss this,” Tyn said, changing the paper for the spanreed. “As I keep explaining, the life we lead requires doing some harsh things.”

  The leader, whom you call Vathah, is worth a bounty of four emerald broams, the pen wrote. The rest, two broams each.

  “Bounty?” Shallan demanded. “I gave promises to these men!”

  “Hush!” Tyn said. “We’re not alone in this camp, fool child. If you want us dead, all you need to do is let them overhear this conversation.”

  “We’re not turning them in for money,” Shallan said more softly. “Tyn, I gave my word.”

  “Your word?” Tyn said, laughing. “Kid, what do you think we are? Your word?”

  Shallan blushed. On the table, the spanreed continued to write, oblivious to the fact they weren’t paying attention. It was saying something about a job Tyn had done before.

  “Tyn,” Shallan said, “Vathah and his men can be useful.”

  Tyn shook her head, walking over to the side of the tent, pouring herself a cup of wine. “You should be proud of what you did here. You have barely any experience, yet you took over three separate groups, convincing them to put you—practically sphereless and completely without authority—in charge. Brilliant!

  “But here’s the thing. The lies we tell, the dreams we create, they’re not real. We can’t let them be real. This might be the hardest lesson you have to learn.” She turned to Shallan, her expression having gone hard, all sense of relaxed playfulness gone. “When a good con woman dies, it’s usually because she starts believing her own lies. She finds something good and wants it to continue. She keeps it going, thinking she can juggle it. One day more, she tells herself. One day more, and then . . .”

  Tyn dropped the cup. It hit the ground, the wine splashing bloodred across the tent floor and Tyn’s rug.

  Red carpet . . . once it was white . . .

  “Your rug,” Shallan said, feeling numb.

  “You think I can afford to haul a rug with me when I leave the Shattered Plains?” Tyn asked softly, stepping across the spilled wine, taking Shallan by the arm. “You think we can take any of this? It’s meaningless. You’ve lied to these men. You’ve built yourself up, and tomorrow—when we enter that warcamp—the truth will hit you like a slap in the face.