Words of Radiance

It was about fear.

It was about that moment when, hanging in the air, his body lurched from being pulled down to being pulled sideways. His instincts weren’t equipped to deal with this shift. A primal part of him panicked every time down stopped being down.

He ran at the wall and jumped, throwing his feet to the side. He couldn’t hesitate, couldn’t be afraid, couldn’t flinch. It was like teaching himself to dive face-first onto a stone surface without raising his hands for protection.

He shifted his perspective and used Stormlight to make the wall become downward. He positioned his feet. Even still, in that brief moment, his instincts rebelled. The body knew, it knew, that he was going to fall back to the chasm floor. He would break bones, hit his head.

He landed on the wall without stumbling.

Kaladin stood up straight, surprised, and exhaled a deep breath, puffing with Stormlight.

“Nice!” Syl said, zipping around him.

“It’s unnatural,” Kaladin said.

“No. I could never be involved in anything unnatural. It’s just . . . extranatural.”

“You mean supernatural.”

“No I don’t.” She laughed and zipped on ahead of him.

It was unnatural—as walking wasn’t natural for a child who was just learning. It became natural over time. Kaladin was learning to crawl—and unfortunately, he’d soon be required to run. Like a child dropped in a whitespine’s lair. Learn quickly or be lunch.

He ran along the wall, hopping over a shalebark outcropping, then jumped to the side and shifted to the floor of the chasm. He landed with only a slight stumble.

Better. He ran after Syl and kept at it.

* * *

Maps.

Shallan crept forward, her solitary sphere revealing a room draped with maps and strewn with papers. They were covered in glyphs that had been scribbled quickly, not made to be beautiful. She could barely read most of them.

I’ve heard of this, she thought. The stormwarden script. The way they get around the restrictions on writing.

Amaram was a stormwarden? A chart of times on one wall, listing highstorms and calculations of their next arrival—written in the same hand as the notes on the maps—seemed proof of that. Perhaps this was what the Ghostbloods were seeking: blackmail material. Stormwardens, as male scholars, made most people uncomfortable. Their use of glyphs in a way that was basically the same as writing, their secretive nature . . . Amaram was one of the most accomplished generals in all of Alethkar. He was respected even by those he fought. Exposing him as a stormwarden could seriously damage his reputation.

Why would he bother with such strange hobbies? All of these maps faintly reminded her of the ones she’d discovered in her father’s study, after his death—though those had been of Jah Keved. “Watch outside, Pattern,” she said. “Bring me word quickly when Amaram returns to the building.”

“Mmmm,” he buzzed, withdrawing.

Aware that her time was short, Shallan hurried to the wall, holding up her sphere and taking Memories of the maps. The Shattered Plains? This map was far more extensive than any she’d seen before—and that included the Prime Map that she’d studied in the king’s Gallery of Maps.

How had Amaram obtained something so extensive? She tried to work out the use of glyphs—there was no grammar to them that she could see. Glyphs weren’t meant to be used that way. They conveyed a single idea, not a string of thoughts. She read a few in a row.

Origin . . . direction . . . uncertainty. . . . The place of the center is uncertain? That was probably what it meant.

Other notes were similar, and she translated in her head. Perhaps pushing this direction will yield results. Warriors spotted watching from here. Other groupings of glyphs made no sense to her. This script was bizarre. Perhaps Pattern could translate it, but she certainly couldn’t.

Aside from the maps, the walls were covered in long sheets of paper filled with writing, figures, and diagrams. Amaram was working on something, something big—

Parshendi! she realized. That’s what those glyphs mean. Parap-shenesh-idi. The three glyphs individually meant three separate things—but together, their sounds made the word “Parshendi.” That was why some of the writings seemed like gibberish. Amaram was using some glyphs phonetically. He underlined them when he did this, and that allowed him to write in glyphs things that never should have worked. The stormwardens really were turning glyphs into a full script.

Parshendi, she translated, still distracted by the nature of the characters, must know how to return the Voidbringers.

What?

Remove secret from them.

Reach center before Alethi armies.

Some of the writings were lists of references. Though they’d been translated to glyphs, she recognized some of the quotes from Jasnah’s work. They referred to the Voidbringers. Others were purported sketches of Voidbringers and other creatures of mythology.

This was it, full proof that the Ghostbloods were interested in the same things Jasnah was. As was Amaram, apparently. Heart beating with excitement, Shallan turned around, looking over the room. Was the secret to Urithiru here? Had he found it?

There was too much for Shallan to translate fully at the moment. The script was too difficult, and her thumping heart made her too nervous. Besides, Amaram would likely return very soon. She took Memories so she could sketch this all out later.

As she did, the writings she translated in passing caused a new species of dread to rise within her. It seemed . . . it seemed that Highlord Amaram—paragon of Alethi honor—was actively trying to bring about the return of the Voidbringers.

I have to stay a part of this, Shallan thought. I can’t afford to have the Ghostbloods cast me out for making a mess of this incursion. I need to discover what else they know. And I have to know why Amaram is doing what he does.

She couldn’t just run tonight. She couldn’t risk leaving Amaram alerted that someone had infiltrated his secret room. She couldn’t botch this assignment.

Shallan had to craft better lies.

She pulled a sheet of paper from her pocket and slapped it onto the desk, then began to frantically draw.

* * *

Kaladin jumped off the wall at a careful speed, twisting to the side and landing back on the ground without breaking step. He wasn’t going very quickly, but at least he didn’t stumble anymore.

With each jump, he shoved the visceral panic farther down. Up, back onto the wall. Down again. Again and again, sucking in Stormlight.

Yes, this was natural. Yes, this was him.

He continued running along the chasm bottom, feeling a surge of excitement. Shadows waved him on as he dodged between piles of bone and moss. He leaped over a large pool of water, but misjudged its size. He came down—about to splash into the shallow water.

But by reflex, he looked upward and Lashed himself toward the sky.

For a brief moment, Kaladin stopped falling down and fell up instead. His momentum continued forward, and he cleared the pool, then Lashed himself downward again. He landed in a trot, sweating.

I could Lash myself upward, he thought, and fall into the sky forever.

But no, that was how an ordinary person thought. A skyeel didn’t fear falling, did it? A fish didn’t fear drowning.

Until he began thinking in a new way, he wouldn’t control this gift he had been given. And it was a gift. He would embrace this.

The sky was now his.

Kaladin shouted, dashing forward. He leaped and Lashed himself to the wall. No pausing, no hesitance, no fear. He hit at a dead run, and nearby, Syl laughed for joy.

But that, that was simple. Kaladin jumped off the wall and looked directly above him at the opposite wall. He Lashed himself in that direction, and flung his body into a flip. He landed, going down on one knee upon what had been the ceiling to him a moment before.

“You did it!” Syl said, flitting around him. “What changed?”

“I did.”

“Well, yeah, but what about you?” Syl asked.

“Everything.”

She frowned at him. He grinned back, then took off at a run along the side of the chasm.

* * *

Shallan strode down the mansion’s back steps to the kitchen, thumping each foot down harder than it would normally fall, trying to imitate being heavier than she was. The cook looked up from her novel and dropped it in a wide-eyed panic, moving to stand. “Brightlord!”

“Remain seated,” Shallan mouthed, scratching at her face to mask her lips. Pattern spoke the words she’d told him to say in a perfect imitation of Amaram’s voice.

The cook remained seated, as ordered. Hopefully, from that position, she wouldn’t notice that Amaram was shorter than he should be. Even walking on her tiptoes—which was masked by the illusion—she was much shorter than the highprince.

“You spoke to the maid Telesh earlier,” Pattern said as Shallan mouthed the words.

“Yes, Brightlord,” the cook said, speaking softly to match Pattern’s tone of voice. “I sent her off to work with Stine for the evening. I thought the girl needed a little direction.”

“No,” Pattern said. “Her return was at my command. I have sent her out again, and told her not to speak of what happened tonight.”

The cook frowned. “What . . . happened tonight?”

“You are not to speak of this event. You interfered with something that is not of your concern. Pretend you did not see Telesh. Never speak of this event to me. If you do, I will pretend none of this happened. Do you understand?”