Words of Radiance

“I’m not leaving.”

“You will, and it’s not subject to—”

“What they’re doing is right, Kal!”

Kaladin frowned. “Have you still been meeting with them?”

Moash looked away. “Only once. To assure them that you’d come around.”

“You still disobeyed an order!” Kaladin said. “Storm it, Moash!”

The noise inside the arena was building.

“Almost time for the match,” Moash said, pulling his arm free of Kaladin’s grip. “We can talk about this later.”

Kaladin ground his teeth, but unfortunately, Moash was right. This wasn’t the time.

Should have grabbed him this morning, Kaladin thought. No, what I should have done was make a decision on this days ago.

It was his own fault. “You will go on that patrol, Moash,” he said. “You don’t get to be insubordinate just because you’re my friend. Go on.”

The man jogged ahead, collecting his squad.

* * *

Adolin knelt beside his sword in the preparation room and found he didn’t know what to say.

He looked at his reflection in the Blade. Two Shardbearers at once. He’d never even tried that outside of the practice grounds.

Fighting multiple opponents was tough. In the histories, if you heard of a man fighting six men at once or whatnot, the truth was probably that he managed to take them one at a time somehow. Two at once was hard, if they were prepared and careful. Not impossible, but really hard.

“It comes down to this,” Adolin said. He had to say something to the sword. It was tradition. “Let’s go be spectacular. Then let’s wipe that smile off Sadeas’s face.”

He stood up, dismissing his Blade. He left the small preparation room, walking down the tunnel with carved, painted duelists. In the room beyond, Renarin sat in his Kholin uniform—he wore that to official functions like this, instead of the blasted Bridge Four uniform—waiting anxiously. Aunt Navani was screwing the lid off a jar of paint to do a glyphward.

“No need,” Adolin said, taking one from his pocket. Painted in Kholin blue, it read “excellence.”

Navani cocked an eyebrow. “The girl?”

“Yeah,” Adolin said.

“The calligraphy isn’t bad,” Navani said, grudgingly.

“She’s quite wonderful, Aunt,” Adolin said. “I wish you’d give her more of a chance. And she does want to share her scholarship with you.”

“We’ll see,” Navani said. She sounded more thoughtful than she had before, regarding Shallan. A good sign.

Adolin placed the glyphward in the brazier, then bowed his head as it burned. A prayer to the Almighty for aid. His combatants for the day would probably be burning their own prayers. How did the Almighty decide whom to help?

I can’t believe, Adolin thought, raising his head from the prayer, that he’d want those who serve Sadeas, even indirectly, to succeed.

“I’m worried,” Navani said.

“Father thinks the plan could work, and Elhokar really likes it.”

“Elhokar can be impulsive,” Navani said, folding her arms and watching the remnants of the glyphward burn. “The terms change things.”

The terms—agreed upon with Relis and spoken in front of the highjudge just earlier—indicated that this duel would go until surrender, not until a certain number of Plate sections were broken. That meant if Adolin did manage to beat one of his foes, making the man give in, the other could keep fighting.

It also meant that Adolin didn’t have to stop fighting until he was convinced he was bested.

Or until he was incapacitated.

Renarin walked over, resting a hand on Adolin’s shoulder. “I think the plan is a good one,” he said. “You can do this.”

“They’re going to try to break you,” Navani said. “That’s why they insisted this be a match until the surrender. They’ll leave you crippled if they can, Adolin.”

“No different from the battlefield,” he said. “Actually, in this case, they will want to leave me alive. I’ll work better as an object lesson with Blade-dead legs than I would as ashes.”

Navani closed her eyes, drawing in a breath. She looked pale. It was a little like having his mother back. A little.

“Make sure you don’t give Sadeas any outs,” Renarin said to him as the armorers entered with Adolin’s Shardplate. “When you corner him with a challenge, he will look for a way to escape. Don’t let him. Bring him down on those sands and beat him bloody, Brother.”

“With pleasure.”

“Now, you ate chicken?” Renarin asked.

“Two plates of the stuff, with curry.”

“Mother’s chain?”

Adolin felt in his pocket.

Then he felt in his other one.

“What?” Renarin asked, fingers tightening on Adolin’s shoulder.

“I could have sworn I slipped it in.”

Renarin cursed.

“Might be back in my rooms,” Adolin said. “In the warcamps. On my end table.” Assuming he hadn’t grabbed it, then lost it on the way. Storms.

It was just a good luck charm. It didn’t mean anything. He started sweating anyway as Renarin scrambled to send a runner off to search. They wouldn’t get back in time. Already he could hear the crowd outside, the growing roar that came before a duel. Adolin reluctantly allowed his armorers to begin putting on his Plate.

By the time they gave him his helm, he had recovered most of his rhythm—the anticipation that was an odd blend of anxiety in his stomach and relaxation in his muscles. You couldn’t fight while tense. You could fight while nervous, but not while tense.

He nodded to the servants, and they pushed open the doors, letting him stride out onto the sand. He could tell from their cheering where the darkeyes sat. In contrast, the lighteyes grew softer, instead of louder, when he emerged. It was good that Elhokar reserved space for the darkeyes. Adolin liked the noise. It reminded him of a battlefield.

There was a time, he thought, when I didn’t like the battlefield because it wasn’t quiet, like a duel. Despite his original reluctance, he had become a soldier.

He strode out into the center of the arena. The others hadn’t left their preparation room yet. Take Relis first, Adolin told himself. You know his dueling style. The man preferred Vinestance, slow and steady, but with sudden, quick lunges. Adolin wasn’t sure whom he’d bring along to fight with him, though he’d borrowed a full set of the King’s Blade and Plate. Perhaps his cousin wanted to try again, for vengeance?

Shallan was there, on the opposite side of the arena, her red hair standing out like blood on stone. She had two bridgeman guards. Adolin found himself nodding in appreciation of that, and raised a fist to her. She waved back.

Adolin danced from one foot to the other, letting the power of the Plate flow through him. He could win, even without Mother’s chain. The problem was, he intended to challenge Sadeas after this. So he had to retain enough strength for that duel.

He checked, anxious. Was Sadeas there? Yes; he sat only a little ways from Father and the king. Adolin narrowed his eyes, remembering the crushing moment of realization when he’d seen Sadeas’s armies retreating from the Tower.

That steadied him. He’d stewed long about that betrayal. It was time, finally, to do something.

The doors across from him opened.

Four men in Shardplate strode out.

* * *

“Four?” Dalinar said, leaping to his feet.

Kaladin took a step downward toward the arena floor. Yes, those were all Shardbearers, entering the sands of the dueling arena below. One wore a set of the King’s Plate; the other three wore their own, ornamented and painted.

Down below, the highjudge for the bout turned and cocked her head toward the king.

“What is this?” Dalinar bellowed toward Sadeas, who sat only a short distance away. The lighteyes on the benchlike rows of seats between them hunched down or fled, leaving a direct line of sight between the highprinces.

Sadeas and his wife turned about, lazily. “Why do you ask me?” Sadeas called back. “None of those men are mine. I’m just an observer today.”

“Oh, don’t be tiresome, Sadeas,” Elhokar called. “You know full well what is happening. Why are there four? Is Adolin supposed to pick the two he wants to duel?”

“Two?” Sadeas asked. “When was it said that he would fight two?”

“That’s what he said when he set up the duel!” Dalinar shouted. “Paired disadvantaged duel, two against one, as per the dueling conventions!”

“Actually,” Sadeas replied, “that is not what young Adolin agreed to. Why, I have it on very good authority that he told Prince Relis: ‘I’ll fight you and whomever you bring.’ I don’t hear a specification of a number in there—which subjects Adolin to a full disadvantaged duel, not a paired duel. Relis may bring as many as he wishes. I know several scribes who recorded Adolin’s precise words, and I hear the highjudge asked him specifically if he understood what he was doing, and he said that he did.”

Dalinar growled softly. It was a sound Kaladin had never heard from him, the growl of a beast on a chain. It surprised him. The highprince contained himself, however, sitting down with a curt motion.