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 CAR
EFUL 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.”
They came from another world, using powers that we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers, of spren and Surges. They destroyed their lands and have come to us begging.
—From the Eila Stele
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 Ki
ngs 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 …
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