Words of Radiance

Kaladin drove his spear toward the assassin. Szeth parried deftly, Shardblade held in one hand while supporting the Blade from behind with the other, diverting Kaladin’s thrust to the side.

“The Knights Radiant,” Szeth screamed, “cannot have returned.”

“They have,” Kaladin said, yanking his spear back. “And they’re going to kill you.” He Lashed himself slightly to the side as he swung, twisting in the air and sweeping toward Szeth.

Szeth jerked upward, however, passing over Kaladin’s spear. As they continued to fall through the air, clouds just beside them, Szeth dove inward and struck. Kaladin cursed, barely Lashing himself away in time.

Szeth dove past him, disappearing into the clouds below, becoming just a shadow. Kaladin tried to trace that shadow, but failed.

Szeth burst up beside Kaladin a second later, striking with three quick blows. One took Kaladin in the arm, and he dropped Syl.

Damnation. He Lashed himself back away from Szeth, then forced Stormlight into his greying, lifeless hand. With an effort, he made the color return, but Szeth was already upon him with an airborne lunge.

Mist formed in Kaladin’s left hand as he raised it to ward, and a silvery shield appeared, glowing with a soft light. Szeth’s Blade deflected away, causing the man to grunt in surprise.

Strength returned to Kaladin’s right hand, the severing healed, but forcing that much Stormlight through it left him feeling drained. He fell away from Szeth, trying to keep his distance, but the assassin kept on him, jerking each direction that Kaladin did as he tried to escape.

“You are new at this,” Szeth called. “You cannot fight me. I will win.”

Szeth zipped forward, and Syl formed into a spear in Kaladin’s hands again. She seemed to be able to anticipate the weapon he wanted. Szeth slammed his weapon against Syl. It brought them face-to-face and they tumbled, eye to eye, their Lashings pulling them along the clouds.

“I always win,” Szeth said. He said it in a strange way, as if angry.

“You’re wrong,” Kaladin said. “About me. I’m not new to this.”

“You only just acquired your abilities.”

“No. The wind is mine. The sky is mine. They have been mine since childhood. You are the trespasser here. Not me.”

They broke apart, Kaladin throwing the assassin backward. He stopped thinking so much about his Lashings, about what he should be doing.

Instead, he let himself be.

He dove for Szeth, coat flapping, spear pointed for the man’s heart. Szeth got out of the way, but Kaladin dropped the spear and swung his hand in a great arc. Syl formed an axehead halberd. It came within inches of Szeth’s face.

The assassin cursed, but responded with his Blade. A shield was in Kaladin’s hand a split second later, and he slammed away the attack. Syl shattered even as he did so, forming back into a sword as Kaladin thrust forward with empty hands. The sword appeared, and the weapon bit deeply into Szeth’s shoulder.

The assassin’s eyes widened. Kaladin twisted his Blade, pulling it out of the assassin’s flesh, then tried a backhand to end the man permanently. Szeth was too fast. He Lashed himself backward, forcing Kaladin to follow, piling on Lashing after Lashing.

Szeth’s hand still worked. Damnation. The strike to the shoulder hadn’t fully severed the soul leading to the arm. And Kaladin’s Stormlight was running out.

Szeth’s looked even lower, fortunately. The assassin seemed to be using it up at a much faster rate than Kaladin, judging by the decreased glow around him. Indeed, he didn’t try to heal his shoulder—which would have required a lot of Light—but continued to flee, jerking back and forth, trying to outrun Kaladin.

The shadowy battle continued below, a tangle of lightning, winds, and spinning clouds. As Kaladin chased Szeth, something gargantuan moved beneath the clouds, a shadow the size of a city. A second later, the top of an entire plateau broke through the dark clouds, twisting slowly, as if it had been thrown upward from below.

Szeth almost ran into it. Instead, he Lashed upward enough to crest it, then landed on the surface. He ran along it as it turned lethargically in the air, its momentum running out.

Kaladin landed behind him, though he retained most of a Lashing upward, keeping himself light. He ran up the side of the plateau, heading almost directly upward toward the sky, dodging to the side as Szeth suddenly twisted and cut through a rock formation, sending boulders tumbling downward.

Rocks clattered along the surface of the plateau, which itself began to tumble back down toward the ground. Szeth reached the peak and threw himself off, and Kaladin followed shortly thereafter, launching from the stone surface, which sank like a dying ship into the roiling clouds.

They continued their chase, but Szeth did it falling backward along the stormtop, his eyes on Kaladin. Wild eyes. “You’re trying to convince me!” he shouted. “You can’t be one of them!”

“You’ve seen that I am,” Kaladin shouted back.

“The Voidbringers!”

“Are back,” Kaladin shouted.

“THEY CAN’T BE. I AM TRUTHLESS!” The assassin panted. “I need not fight you. You are not my target. I have . . . I have work to do. I obey!”

He turned and Lashed himself downward.

Into the clouds, down toward the plateau where Dalinar had gone.

* * *

Shallan rushed into the room as the storms crashed together outside.

What was she doing? There wasn’t time. Even if she could open a portal, those storms were here. She wouldn’t have time to get people through.

They were dead. All of them. Thousands had probably already been swept to their deaths by the stormwall.

She ran to the last lamp anyway, infusing its spheres.

The floor started to glow.

Ardents jumped to their feet in surprise and Inadara yelped. Adolin stumbled in through the doorway, a crashing wind and a spray of angry rain trailing him.

Beneath them, the intricate design shone from within. It looked almost like stained glass. Gesturing frantically for Adolin to join her, Shallan ran across to the lock on the wall.

“Sword,” she shouted at Adolin over the sounds of storms outside. “In there!” Renarin had long since dismissed his.

Adolin obeyed, scrambling forward, summoning his Shardblade. He rammed it into the slot, which again flowed to fit the weapon.

Nothing happened.

“It’s not working,” Adolin shouted.

Only one answer.

Shallan grabbed the hilt of his sword and whipped it out—ignoring the scream in her mind that came from touching it—then tossed it aside. Adolin’s sword vanished to mist.

A deep truth.

“There is something wrong with your Blade, and with all Blades.” She hesitated for just a second. “All but mine. Pattern!”

He formed in her hands, the Blade she’d used to kill. The hidden soul. Shallan rammed it into the slot, and the weapon vibrated in her hands and glowed. Something deep within the plateau unlocked.

Outside, lightning fell and men screamed.

Now the mechanism’s operation became clear to her. Shallan threw her weight against the sword, pushing it before her like the spoke on a mill. The inner wall of the building was like a ring inside a tube—it could rotate, while the outer wall remained in place. The sword moved the inner wall as she pushed on it, though it stuck at first, the fallen blocks of the cut doorway getting in the way. Adolin threw his weight against the sword with her, and together they pushed it around the circle until they were above the picture of Urithiru, half the circumference from Natanatan where she’d begun. She pulled her Blade free.

The ten lamps faded like closing eyes.

* * *

Kaladin followed Szeth into the storm, diving into the blackness, falling amid the churning winds and the blasting lightning. Wind attacked him, tossing him about, and no Lashings could prevent this. He might be master of the winds, but storms were another thing.

Take care, Syl sent. My father hates you. This is his domain. And it is mixed with something even more terrible, another storm. Their storm.

Nevertheless, the highstorms were the source of Stormlight—and being in here energized Kaladin. His reserves of Stormlight burst alight, as they obviously did for Szeth. The assassin suddenly reappeared as a stark white explosion that zoomed through the maelstrom toward the plateaus.

Kaladin growled, Lashing himself after Szeth. Lightning of a dozen colors flashed around him, red, violet, white, yellow. Rain soaked him. Rocks spun past him, some colliding, but the Stormlight healed him as quickly as the debris did damage.

Szeth moved along the plateaus, coursing just above them, and Kaladin followed with difficulty. This churning wind was tough to navigate, and the darkness was near absolute. Flashes lit the Plains in fitful bursts. Fortunately, Szeth’s glow could not be hidden, and Kaladin kept his attention on that blazing beacon.

Faster.

Just as Zahel had taught weeks ago, Szeth didn’t need to defeat Kaladin to win. He just had to get to those Kaladin protected.

Faster.

A burst of lightning illuminated the battle plateaus. And beyond them, Kaladin caught a glimpse of the army. Thousands of men huddled on the large circular plateau. Many hunkered down. Others panicked.

The lightning was gone in a moment, and the land became dark again, though Kaladin had seen enough to know this was a disaster. A cataclysm. Men being blown off the edge, others crushed by falling rocks. In minutes, the army would be gone. Storms, Kaladin wasn’t even certain if he could survive this nexus of destruction.