Words of Radiance

“My gods are the spirits of the stones,” Szeth whispered. “The sun and the stars. Not men.”

“Nonsense. Your people revere the spren of stone, but you do not worship them.”

That crescent . . . He recognized it, didn’t he?

“You, Szeth,” the man said, “worship order, do you not? You follow the laws of your society to perfection. This attracted me, though I worry that emotion has clouded your ability to discern. Your ability to . . . judge.”

Judgment.

“Nin,” he whispered. “The one they call Nalan, or Nale, here. Herald of Justice.”

Nin nodded.

“Why save me?” Szeth said. “Is my torment not enough?”

“Those words are foolishness,” Nin said. “Unbecoming of one who would study beneath me.”

“I don’t want to study,” Szeth said, curling up on the stone. “I want to be dead.”

“Is that it? Truly, that is what you wish most? I will give it to you, if it is your honest desire.”

Szeth squeezed his eyes shut. The screams awaited him in that darkness. The screams of those he’d killed.

I was not wrong, he thought. I was never Truthless.

“No,” Szeth whispered. “The Voidbringers have returned. I was right, and my people . . . they were wrong.”

“You were banished by petty men with no vision. I will teach you the path of one uncorrupted by sentiment. You will bring this back to your people, and you will carry with you justice for the leaders of the Shin.”

Szeth opened his eyes and looked up. “I am not worthy.”

Nin cocked his head. “You? Not worthy? I watched you destroy yourself in the name of order, watched you obey your personal code when others would have fled or crumbled. Szeth-son-Neturo, I watched you keep your word with perfection. This is a thing lost to most people—it is the only genuine beauty in the world. I doubt I have ever found a man more worthy of the Skybreakers than you.”

The Skybreakers? But that was an order of the Knights Radiant.

“I have destroyed myself,” Szeth whispered.

“You did, and you died. Your bond to your Blade severed, all ties—both spiritual and physical—undone. You are reborn. Come along. It is time to visit your people. Your training begins immediately.” Nin began to walk away, revealing that the thing he held behind his back was a sheathed sword.

You are reborn. Could he . . . could Szeth be reborn? Could he make the screams in the shadows go away?

You are a coward, the Radiant had said, the man who owned the winds. A small piece of Szeth thought it true. But Nin offered more. Something different.

Still kneeling, Szeth looked up after the man. “My people have the other Honorblades, and have kept them safe for millennia. If I am to bring judgment to them, I will face enemies with Shards and with power.”

“This is not a problem,” Nin said, looking back. “I have brought a Shardblade for you. One that is a perfect match for your task and temperament.” He tossed his large sword to the ground. It skidded on stone and came to a rest before Szeth.

He had not seen a sword with a metal sheath before. And who sheathed a Shardblade? And the Blade itself . . . was it black? An inch or so of it had emerged from the sheath as it slid on the rocks.

Szeth swore he could see a small trail of black smoke coming off the metal. Like Stormlight, only dark.

Hello, a cheerful voice said in his mind. Would you like to destroy some evil today?

TherehastobeananswerWhatistheanswerStopTheParshendiOneofthemYestheyarethemissingpiecePushfortheAlethitodestroythemoutrightbeforethisoneobtainstheirpowerItwillformabridge

—From the Diagram, Floorboard 17: paragraph 2, every second letter starting with the second

Dalinar stood in darkness.

He turned about, trying to remember how he’d come to this place. In the shadows, he saw furniture. Tables, a rug, drapes from Azir with wild colors. His mother had always been proud of those drapes.

My home, he thought. As it was when I was a child. Back before conquest, back before Gavilar . . .

Gavilar . . . hadn’t Gavilar died? No, Dalinar could hear his brother laughing in the next room. He was a child. They both were.

Dalinar crossed the shadowed room, feeling the fuzzy joy of familiarity. Of things being as they should be. He’d left his wooden swords out. He had a collection, each carved like a Shardblade. He was too old for those now, of course, but he still liked having them. As a collection.

He stepped to the balcony doors and pushed them open.

Warm light bathed him. A deep, enveloping, piercing warmth. A warmth that soaked down deep through his skin, into his very self. He stared at that light, and was not blinded. The source was distant, but he knew it. Knew it well.

He smiled.

Then he awoke. Alone in his new rooms in Urithiru, a temporary location for him to stay while they scouted the entire tower. A week had passed since they had arrived at this place, and the people of the warcamps had finally started to arrive, bearing spheres recharged during the unexpected highstorm. They needed those badly to make the Oathgate function.

Those from the warcamps arrived none too soon. The Everstorm had not yet returned, but if it moved like a regular highstorm, it should be striking any day now.

Dalinar sat in the darkness for a short time, contemplating that warmth he had felt. What had that been? It had been an odd time to get one of the visions. They always came during highstorms. Before, when he’d felt one coming on while sleeping, it had awakened him.

He checked with his guards. No highstorm was blowing. Contemplative, he started to dress. He wanted to see if he could get out onto the roof of the tower today.

* * *

As Adolin walked the dark halls of Urithiru, he tried not to show how overwhelmed he felt. The world had just shifted, like a door on its hinges. A few days ago, his causal betrothal had been that of a powerful man to a relatively minor scion of a distant house. Now, Shallan might be the most important person in the world, and he was . . .

What was he?

He raised his lantern, then made a few marks in chalk on the wall to indicate he’d been here. This tower was huge. How did the entire thing stay up? They could probably explore in here for months without opening every door. He had thrown himself into the duty of exploration because it seemed like something he could do. It also, unfortunately, gave him time to think. He didn’t like how few answers he came up with.

He turned around, realizing he’d gotten far from the rest of his scouting party. He was doing that more and more often. The first groups from the Shattered Plains had started arriving, and they needed to decide where to house everyone.

Were those voices ahead? Adolin frowned, then continued down the corridor, leaving his lantern behind so it wouldn’t give him away. He was surprised when he recognized one of the speakers down the hallway. Was that Sadeas?

It was. The highprince stood with a scouting party of his own. Silently, Adolin cursed the wind that had persuaded Sadeas—of all people—to heed the call to come to Urithiru. Everything would have been so much easier if he’d just stayed behind.

Sadeas gestured for a few of his soldiers to go down one branch of the tunnel-like corridor. His wife and a few of her scribes went the other way, two soldiers trailing. Adolin watched for a moment as the highprince himself raised a lantern, inspecting a faded painting on the wall. A fanciful picture, with animals from mythology. He recognized a few from children’s stories, like the enormous, minklike creature with the mane of hair that burst out around and behind its head. What was it called again?

Adolin turned to go, but his boot scraped stone.

Sadeas spun, raising his lantern. “Ah, Prince Adolin.” He wore white, which really didn’t help his complexion—the pale color made his ruddy features seem downright bloody by comparison.

“Sadeas,” Adolin said, turning back. “I wasn’t aware that you had arrived.” Storming man. He’d ignored Father all those months, and now he decided to obey?

The highprince strolled up the hallway, passing Adolin. “This place is remarkable. Remarkable indeed.”

“So you acknowledge that my father was right,” Adolin said. “That his visions are true. The Voidbringers have returned, and you are made a fool.”

“I will admit,” Sadeas said, “there is more fight left to your father than I’d once feared. A remarkable plan. Contacting the Parshendi, working out this deal with them. They put on quite a show, I hear. It certainly convinced Aladar.”

“You can’t possibly believe it was all a show.”

“Oh please. You deny that he had a Parshendi among his own guard? Isn’t it convenient that these new ‘Radiants’ include the head of Dalinar’s guard and your own betrothed?”

Sadeas smiled, and Adolin saw the truth. No, he didn’t believe this, but it was the lie he would tell. He would start the whisperings again, trying to undermine Dalinar.

“Why?” Adolin asked, stepping up to him. “Why are you like this, Sadeas?”

“Because,” Sadeas said with a sigh, “it has to happen. You can’t have an army with two generals, son. Your father and I, we’re two old whitespines who both want a kingdom. It’s him or me. We’ve been pointed that way since Gavilar died.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”