Words of Radiance

Inward. Toward the center.

And destiny.

You must become king. Of Everything.

—From the Diagram, Tenets of Instruction, Back of the Footboard: paragraph 1

Shallan fought against the wind, pulling her stormcoat—stolen from a soldier—close around her as she struggled up the slick incline.

“Brightness?” Gaz asked. He grabbed his cap to keep it from blowing free. “Are you certain you want to do this?”

“Of course I am,” Shallan said. “Whether or not what I’m doing is wise . . . well, that’s another story.”

These winds were unusual for the Weeping, which was supposed to be a period of placid rainfall, a time for contemplating the Almighty, a respite from highstorms.

Maybe things were different out here in the stormlands. She pulled herself up the rocks. The Shattered Plains had grown increasingly rough as the armies traveled inward—now on their eighth day of the expedition—following Shallan’s map, created with the help of Rlain, the former bridgeman.

Shallan crested the rock formation and found the view that the scouts had described. Vathah and Gaz stomped up behind her, muttering about the cold. The heart of the Shattered Plains extended before Shallan. The inner plateaus, never explored by men.

“It’s here,” she said.

Gaz scratched at the socket beneath his eye patch. “Rocks?”

“Yes, guardsman Gaz,” Shallan said. “Rocks. Beautiful, wonderful rocks.”

In the distance, she saw shadows draped in a veil of misty rain. Seen together in a group like this, it was unmistakable. This was a city. A city covered over with centuries’ worth of crem, like children’s blocks dribbled with many coats of melted wax. To the innocent eye, it undoubtedly looked much like the rest of the Shattered Plains. But it was oh so much more.

It was proof. Even this formation Shallan stood upon had probably once been a building. Weathered on the stormward side, dribbled with crem down the leeward side to create the bulbous, uneven slope they had climbed.

“Brightness!”

She ignored the voices from down below, instead waving impatiently for the spyglass. Gaz handed it to her, and she raised it to inspect the plateaus ahead. Unfortunately, the thing had fogged up on one end. She tried to rub it clean, rain washing over her, but the fog was on the inside. Blasted device.

“Brightness?” Gaz asked. “Shouldn’t we, uh, listen to what they’re saying down below?”

“More twisted Parshendi spotted,” Shallan said, raising the spyglass again. Wouldn’t the designer of the thing have built it to be sealed on the inside, to prevent moisture from getting in?

Gaz and Vathah stepped back as several members of Bridge Four reached the top of the incline.

“Brightness,” one of the bridgemen said, “Highprince Dalinar has withdrawn the vanguard and ordered a secure perimeter on the plateau behind us.” He was a tall, handsome man whose arms seemed entirely too long for his body. Shallan looked with dissatisfaction at the inner plateaus.

“Brightness,” the bridgeman continued reluctantly, “he did say that if you wouldn’t come, he would send Adolin to . . . um . . . cart you back over his shoulder.”

“I would like to see him do that,” Shallan said. It did sound kind of romantic, the sort of thing you’d read of in a novel. “He’s that worried about the Parshendi?”

“Shen . . . er, Rlain . . . says we’re practically to their home plateau, Brightness. Too many of their patrols have been spotted. Please.”

“We need to get in there,” Shallan said, pointing. “That’s where the secrets are.”

“Brightness . . .”

“Very well,” she said, turning and hiking down the incline. She slipped, which did not help her dignity, but Vathah caught her arm before she tumbled onto her face.

Once down, they quickly crossed this smaller plateau, joining scouts who were jogging back toward the bulk of the army. Rlain claimed to know nothing himself of the Oathgate—or even really much about the city, which he called “Narak” instead of Stormseat. He said his people had only taken up permanent residence here following the Alethi invasion.

During the push inward, Dalinar’s soldiers had spotted an increasing number of Parshendi and had clashed with them in brief skirmishes. General Khal thought that the forays had been intended to draw the army off course, though how they would figure that, Shallan didn’t know—but she did know she was growing tired of feeling damp all the time. They had been out here nearly two weeks now, and some of the soldiers had begun to mutter that the army would need to return to the warcamps soon, or risk not getting back before the highstorms resumed.

Shallan stalked across the bridge and passed several lines of spearmen setting up behind short, wavelike ridges in the stone—likely the footings of old walls. She found Dalinar and the other highprinces in a tent set up at the center of camp. It was one of six identical tents, and it wasn’t immediately obvious which one held the four highprinces. A safety precaution of some sort, she assumed. As Shallan stepped in out of the rain, she intruded upon their conversation.

“The current plateau does have very favorable defensible positions,” Aladar said, gesturing toward a map set out on the travel table before them. “I prefer our chances against an assault here to moving deeper.”

“And if we move deeper,” Dalinar said with a grunt, “we’ll be in danger of getting split during an attack, half on one plateau, half on the other.”

“But do they even need to attack?” Roion said. “If I were them, I’d just form up out there as if to prepare for an attack—but then I wouldn’t. I’d stall, forcing my enemy to get stuck out here waiting for an attack until the highstorms returned!”

“He makes a valid point,” Aladar admitted.

“Trust a coward,” Sebarial said, “to know the smartest way to stay out of fighting.” He sat with Palona beside the table, eating fruit and smiling pleasantly.

“I am not a coward,” Roion said, forming fists at his sides.

“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” Sebarial said. “My insults are far more pithy. That was a compliment. If I had my way, I’d hire you to run all wars, Roion. I suspect there would be far fewer casualties, and the price of undergarments would double once soldiers were told that you were in charge. I’d make a fortune.”

Shallan handed her dripping coat to a servant, then took off her cap and began drying her hair with a towel. “We need to press closer to the center of the Plains,” she said. “Roion is right. I refuse to let us bivouac. The Parshendi will just wait us out.”

The others looked to her.

“I wasn’t aware,” Dalinar said, “that you decided our tactics, Brightness Shallan.”

“It’s our own fault, Dalinar,” Sebarial said, “for giving her so much leeway. We probably should have tossed her off the Pinnacle weeks ago, the moment she arrived at that meeting.”

Shallan was stirring up a retort as the tent flaps parted and Adolin trudged in, Shardplate streaming. He pushed up his faceplate. Storms . . . he looked so good, even when you could see only half his face. She smiled.

“They are definitely agitated,” Adolin said. He saw her, and gave her a quick smile before clinking up to the table. “There are at least ten thousand of those twisted Parshendi out there, moving in groups around the plateaus.”

“Ten thousand,” Aladar said with a grunt. “We can take ten thousand. Even with them having the terrain advantage, even if we have to assault rather than defend, we should handle that many with ease. We have over thirty thousand.”

“This is what we came to do,” Dalinar said. He looked at Shallan, who blushed at her forwardness earlier. “Your portal, the one you think is out here. Where would it be?”

“Closer to the city,” Shallan said.

“What of those red eyes?” Roion asked. He looked very uncomfortable. “And the flashes of light they cause when they fight? Storms, when I spoke earlier, I didn’t mean that I wanted us to go farther. I was just worried at what the Parshendi would do. I . . . there’s no easy way to do this, is there?”

“So far as Rlain has said,” Navani said from her seated position at the side of the room, “only their soldiers can jump between plateaus, but we can assume the new form capable of it as well. They can flee us if we push forward.”

Dalinar shook his head. “They set up on the Plains, rather than fleeing all those years ago, because they knew it was their best chance for survival. On the open, unbroken rock of the stormlands, they could be hunted and destroyed. Out here they have the advantage. They won’t abandon it now. Not if they think they can fight us.”

“If we want to make them fight, then,” Aladar said, “we need to threaten their homes. I guess we really should press toward the city.”

Shallan relaxed. Each step closer to the center—by Rlain’s explanations, they were but half a day away—got her closer to the Oathgate.

Dalinar leaned forward, spreading his hands to the sides, his shadow falling on the battle maps. “Very well. I did not come all this way to timidly wait upon Parshendi whims. We’ll march inward tomorrow, threaten their city, and force them to engage.”