Words of Radiance

“That’s not how it works . . .” she whispered, eyes wide. “I mean . . . storms . . .”

“Just sew the thing up,” he said. “Yes, I’ll stay off the battlefield today. No, I won’t stress it. Yes, I’ve heard all the lectures before.”

He shouldn’t have been out there in the first place. He’d told himself he wouldn’t ride into battle anymore. He was supposed to be a politician now, not a warlord.

But once in a while, the Blackthorn needed to come out. The men needed it. Storms, he needed it. The—

Navani thundered into the tent.

Too late. He sighed as she stalked up to him, passing this tent’s fabrial—which glowed on a little pedestal, collecting water around it in a shimmering globe. That water streamed off along two metal rods at the sides of the fabrial, spilling onto the ground, then running out of the tent and over the plateau’s edge.

He looked up at Navani grimly, expecting to be dressed down like a recruit who had forgotten his whetstone. Instead, she took him by his good side, then pulled him close.

“No reprimand?” Dalinar asked.

“We’re at war,” she whispered. “And we’re losing, aren’t we?”

Dalinar glanced at the archers, who were running low on arrows. He didn’t speak too loudly, lest they hear. “Yes.” The surgeon glanced at him, then lowered her head and kept sewing.

“You rode to battle when someone needed you,” Navani said. “You saved the lives of a highprince and his soldiers. Why would you expect anger from me?”

“Because you’re you.” He reached up with his good hand and ran his fingers through her hair.

“Adolin has won his plateau,” Navani said. “The Parshendi there are scattered and routed. Aladar holds. Roion has failed, but we’re still evenly matched. So how are we losing? I can sense that we are, from your face, but I don’t see it.”

“An even match is a loss for us,” Dalinar said. He could feel it building. Distant, to the west. “If they complete that song, then as Rlain warned, that is the end.”

The surgeon finished as best she could, wrapping the wound and giving Dalinar leave to replace his shirt and coat, which would hold the bandage tight. Once dressed, he climbed to his feet, intending to go to the command tent and get an update on the situation from General Khal. He was interrupted as Roion burst into the pavilion.

“Dalinar!” the tall, balding man rushed in, grabbing him by the arm. The bad one. Dalinar winced. “It’s a storming bloodbath out there! We’re dead. Storms, we’re dead!”

Nearby archers shuffled, their arrows spent. A sea of red eyes gathered on the plateau across the chasm, smoldering coals in the darkness.

For all that Dalinar wanted to slap Roion, that wasn’t the sort of thing you did to a highprince, even a hysterical one. Instead, he towed Roion out of the pavilion. The rain—now a full-blown storm—felt icy as it washed over his soaked uniform.

“Control yourself, Brightlord,” Dalinar said sternly. “Adolin has won his plateau. Not all is as bad as it seems.”

“It should not end this way,” the Almighty said.

Storm it! Dalinar shoved Roion away and strode out into the center of the plateau, looking up toward the sky. “Answer me! Let me know if you can hear me!”

“I can.”

Finally. Some progress. “Are you the Almighty?”

“I said I am not, child of Honor.”

“Then what are you?”

I AM THAT WHICH BRINGS LIGHT AND DARKNESS. The voice took on more of a rumbling, distant quality.

“The Stormfather,” Dalinar said. “Are you a Herald?”

NO.

“Then are you a spren or a god?”

BOTH.

“What is the point of talking to me?” Dalinar shouted at the sky. “What is happening?”

THEY CALL FOR A STORM. MY OPPOSITE. DEADLY.

“How do we stop it?”

YOU DON’T.

“There has to be a way!”

I BRING YOU A STORM OF CLEANSING. IT WILL CARRY AWAY YOUR CORPSES. THIS IS ALL I CAN DO.

“No! Don’t you dare abandon us!”

YOU MAKE DEMANDS OF ME, YOUR GOD?

“You aren’t my god. You were never my god! You are a shadow, a lie!”

Distant thunder rumbled ominously. The rain beat harder against Dalinar’s face.

I AM CALLED. I MUST GO. A DAUGHTER DISOBEYS. YOU WILL SEE NO FURTHER VISIONS, CHILD OF HONOR. THIS IS THE END.

FAREWELL.

“Stormfather!” Dalinar yelled. “There has to be a way! I will not die here!”

Silence. Not even thunder. People had gathered around Dalinar: soldiers, scribes, messengers, Roion and Navani. Frightened people.

“Don’t abandon us,” Dalinar said, voice trailing off. “Please . . .”

* * *

Moash stepped forward, his faceplate up, his face pained. “Kaladin?”

“I had to make the choice that would let me sleep at night, Moash,” Kaladin said wearily, standing before the unconscious form of the king. Blood pooled around Kaladin’s boot from the wounds he’d reopened. Light-headed, he had to lean on his spear to keep on his feet.

“You said he was trustworthy,” Graves said, turning toward Moash, his voice ringing inside his Shardplate helm. “You promised me, Moash!”

“Kaladin is trustworthy,” Moash said. It was just the three of them—four, if you counted the king—standing in a lonely hallway of the palace.

This would be a sad place to die. A place away from the wind.

“He’s just a little confused,” Moash said, stepping forward. “This will still work. You didn’t tell anyone, right, Kal?”

I recognize this hallway, Kaladin realized. It’s the very place we fought the Assassin in White. To his left, windows lined the wall, though shutters kept out the light rainfall. Yes . . . there. He spotted where planks had been installed over the hole that the assassin had cut through the wall. The place where Kaladin had fallen into blackness.

Back here again. He took a deep breath and steadied himself as best he could on his good leg, then raised the spear, point toward Moash.

Storms, his leg hurt.

“Kal, the king is obviously wounded,” Moash said. “We followed your trail of blood here. He’s practically dead already.”

Trail of blood. Kaladin blinked bleary eyes. Of course. His thoughts were coming slowly. He should have caught that.

Moash stopped a few feet from Kaladin, just out of easy striking range with the spear. “What are you going to do, Kal?” Moash demanded, looking at the spear pointed toward him. “Would you really attack a member of Bridge Four?”

“You left Bridge Four the moment you turned against our duty,” Kaladin whispered.

“And you’re different?”

“No, I’m not,” Kaladin said, feeling a hollowness in his stomach. “But I’m trying to change that.”

Moash took another step forward, but Kaladin pushed the spear point upward, toward Moash’s face. His friend hesitated, raising his gauntleted hands in a warding gesture.

Graves moved forward, but Moash shooed him away, then turned to Kaladin. “What do you think this will accomplish, Kal? If you get in our way, you’ll just get yourself killed, and the king will still be dead. You want me to know you don’t agree with this? Fine. You tried. Now you’re overmatched, and there is no point in fighting. Put down the spear.”

Kaladin glanced over his shoulder. The king was still breathing.

Moash’s armor clinked. Kaladin turned back, raising the spear again. Storms . . . his head was really throbbing now.

“I mean it, Kal,” Moash said.

“You’d attack me?” Kaladin said. “Your captain? Your friend?”

“Don’t turn this around on me.”

“Why not? Which is more important to you? Me or petty vengeance?”

“He murdered them, Kaladin,” Moash snapped. “That sorry excuse for a king killed the only family I ever had.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you protecting him?”

“It wasn’t his fault.”

“That’s a load of—”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Kaladin said. “But I’d be here even if it had been, Moash! We have to be better than this, you and I. It’s . . . I can’t explain it, not perfectly. You have to trust me. Back down. The king hasn’t yet seen you or Graves. We’ll go to Dalinar, and I’ll see that you get justice against the right man, Roshone, the one truly behind your grandparents’ deaths.

“But Moash, we’re not going to be this kind of men. Murders in dark corridors, killing a drunk man because we find him distasteful, telling ourselves it’s for the good of the kingdom. If I kill a man, I’m going to do it in the sunlight, and I’m going to do it only because there is no other way.”

Moash hesitated. Graves clinked up beside him, but again Moash raised a hand, stopping him. Moash met Kaladin’s eyes, then shook his head. “Sorry, Kal. It’s too late.”

“You won’t have him. I won’t back down.”

“I guess I wouldn’t want you to.” Moash slammed his faceplate down, the sides misting as it sealed.