Words of Radiance

“You told me the city wasn’t there!”

“It isn’t. But the path to it may be.” Her lips tightened. “According to legend, only a Knight Radiant could open the way.”

“Fortunately, we know two of those.”

“Again, you are not a Radiant, and neither am I. Being able to replicate some of the things they could do may not matter. We don’t have their traditions or knowledge.”

“We’re talking about the potential end of civilization itself, aren’t we?” Shallan asked softly.

Jasnah hesitated.

“The Desolations,” Shallan said. “I know very little, but the legends . . .”

“In the aftermath of each one, mankind was broken. Great cities in ashes, industry smashed. Each time, knowledge and growth were reduced to an almost prehistoric state—it took centuries of rebuilding to restore civilization to what it had been before.” She hesitated. “I keep hoping that I’m wrong.”

“Urithiru,” Shallan said. She tried to refrain from just asking questions, trying instead to reason her way to the answer. “You said the city was a kind of base or home to the Knights Radiant. I hadn’t heard of it before speaking with you, and so can guess that it’s not commonly referred to in the literature. Perhaps, then, it is one of the things that the Hierocracy suppressed knowledge of?”

“Very good,” Jasnah said. “Although I think that it had begun to fade into legend even before then, the Hierocracy did not help.”

“So if it existed before the Hierocracy, and if the pathway to it was locked at the fall of the Radiants . . . then it might contain records that have not been touched by modern scholars. Unaltered, unchanged lore about the Voidbringers and Surgebinding.” Shallan shivered. “That’s why we’re really going to the Shattered Plains.”

Jasnah smiled through her fatigue. “Very good indeed. My time in the Palanaeum was very useful, but also in some ways disappointing. While I confirmed my suspicions about the parshmen, I also found that many of the great library’s records bore the same signs of tampering as others I’d read. This ‘cleansing’ of history, removing direct references to Urithiru or the Radiants because they were embarrassments to Vorinism—it’s infuriating. And people ask me why I am hostile to the church! I need primary sources. And then, there are stories—ones I dare to believe—claiming that Urithiru was holy and protected from the Voidbringers. Maybe that was wishful fancy, but I am not too much a scholar to hope that something like that might be true.”

“And the parshmen?”

“We will try to persuade the Alethi to rid themselves of those.”

“Not an easy task.”

“A nearly impossible one,” Jasnah said, standing. She began to pack her books away for the night, putting them in her waterproofed trunk. “Parshmen are such perfect slaves. Docile, obedient. Our society has become far too reliant upon them. The parshmen wouldn’t need to turn violent to throw us into chaos—though I’m certain that is what’s coming—they could simply walk away. It would cause an economic crisis.”

She closed the trunk after removing one volume, then turned back to Shallan. “Convincing everyone of what I say is beyond us without more evidence. Even if my brother listens, he doesn’t have the authority to force the highprinces to get rid of their parshmen. And, in all honesty, I fear my brother won’t be brave enough to risk the collapse expelling the parshmen might cause.”

“But if they turn on us, the collapse will come anyway.”

“Yes,” Jasnah said. “You know this, and I know it. My mother might believe it. But the risk of being wrong is so immense that . . . well, we will need evidence—overwhelming and irrefutable evidence. So we find the city. At all costs, we find that city.”

Shallan nodded.

“I did not want to lay all of this upon your shoulders, child,” Jasnah said, sitting back down. “However, I will admit that it is a relief to speak of these things to someone who doesn’t challenge me on every other point.”

“We’ll do it, Jasnah,” Shallan said. “We’ll travel to the Shattered Plains and we’ll find Urithiru. We’ll get the evidence and convince everyone to listen.”

“Ah, the optimism of youth,” Jasnah said. “That is nice to hear on occasion too.” She handed the book to Shallan. “Among the Knights Radiant, there was an order known as the Lightweavers. I know precious little about them, but of all the sources I’ve read, this one has the most information.”

Shallan took the volume eagerly. Words of Radiance, the title read.

“Go,” Jasnah said. “Read.”

Shallan glanced at her.

“I will sleep,” Jasnah promised, a smile creeping to her lips. “And stop trying to mother me. I don’t even let Navani do that.”

Shallan sighed, nodding, and left Jasnah’s quarters. Pattern tagged along behind; he’d spent the entire conversation silent. As she entered her cabin, she found herself much heavier of heart than when she’d left it. She couldn’t banish the image of terror in Jasnah’s eyes. Jasnah Kholin shouldn’t fear anything, should she?

Shallan crawled onto her cot with the book she’d been given and the pouch of spheres. Part of her was eager to begin, but she was exhausted, her eyelids drooping. It really had gotten late. If she started the book now . . .

Perhaps better to get a good night’s sleep, then dig refreshed into a new day’s studies. She set the book on the small table beside her bed, curled up, and let the rocking of the boat coax her to sleep.

She awoke to screams, shouts, and smoke.

I was unprepared for the grief my loss brought—like an unexpected rain—breaking from a clear sky and crashing down upon me. Gavilar’s death years ago was overwhelming, but this . . . this nearly crushed me.

—From the journal of Navani Kholin, Jesesach 1174

Still half asleep, Shallan panicked. She scrambled off her cot, accidentally slapping the goblet of mostly drained spheres. Though she used wax to keep it in place, the swat knocked it free and sent spheres tumbling across her cabin.

The scent of smoke was powerful. She ran to her door, disheveled, heart thumping. At least she’d fallen asleep in her clothing. She threw open the door.

Three men crowded in the passageway outside, holding aloft torches, their backs to her.

Torches, sparking with flamespren dancing about the fires. Who brought open flame onto a ship? Shallan stopped in numb confusion.

The shouts came from the deck above, and it seemed that the ship wasn’t on fire. But who were these men? They carried axes, and were focused on Jasnah’s cabin, which was open.

Figures moved inside. In a frozen moment of horror, one threw something to the floor before the others, who stepped aside to make way.

A body in a thin nightgown, eyes staring sightlessly, blood blossoming from the breast. Jasnah.

“Be sure,” one of the men said.

The other one knelt and rammed a long, thin knife right into Jasnah’s chest. Shallan heard it hit the wood of the floor beneath the body.

Shallan screamed.

One of the men spun toward her. “Hey!” It was the blunt-faced, tall fellow that Yalb had called the “new kid.” She didn’t recognize the other men.

Somehow fighting through the terror and disbelief, Shallan slammed her door and threw the bolt with trembling fingers.

Stormfather! Stormfather! She backed away from the door as something heavy hit the other side. They wouldn’t need the axes. A few determined smashes of shoulder to door would bring it down.

Shallan stumbled back against her cot, nearly slipping on the spheres rolling to and fro with the ship’s motion. The narrow window near the ceiling—far too small to fit through—revealed only the dark of night outside. Shouts continued above, feet thumping on wood.

Shallan trembled, still numb. Jasnah. . . .

“Sword,” a voice said. Pattern, hanging on the wall beside her. “Mmmm . . . The sword . . .”

“No!” Shallan screamed, hands to the sides of her head, fingers in her hair. Stormfather! She was trembling.

Nightmare. It was a nightmare! It couldn’t be—

“Mmmm . . . Fight . . .”

“No!” Shallan found herself hyperventilating as the men outside continued to ram their shoulders against her door. She was not ready for this. She was not prepared.

“Mmmm . . .” Pattern said, sounding dissatisfied. “Lies.”

“I don’t know how to use the lies!” Shallan said. “I haven’t practiced.”

“Yes. Yes . . . remember . . . the time before . . .”

The door crunched. Dared she remember? Could she remember? A child, playing with a shimmering pattern of light . . .

“What do I do?” she asked.

“You need the Light,” Pattern said.

It sparked something deep within her memory, something prickled with barbs she dared not touch. She needed Stormlight to fuel the Surgebinding.

Shallan fell to her knees beside her cot and, without knowing exactly what she was doing, breathed in sharply. Stormlight left the spheres around her, pouring into her body, becoming a storm that raged in her veins. The cabin went dark, black as a cavern deep beneath the earth.