Words of Radiance

I AM THE SLIVER OF THE ALMIGHTY HIMSELF! the voice said, sounding angry. I AM THE STORMFATHER. I WILL NOT LET MYSELF BE BOUND IN SUCH A WAY AS TO KILL ME!

“I need you,” Dalinar said. “Despite what you did. The bridgeman spoke of oaths given, and of each order of knights being different. The First Ideal is the same. After that, each order is unique, requiring different Words.”

The thunder rumbled. It sounded . . . like a challenge. Could Dalinar interpret thunder now?

This was a dangerous gambit. He confronted something primal, something unknowable. Something that had actively tried to murder him and his entire army.

“Fortunately,” Dalinar said, “I know the second oath I am to make. I don’t need to be told it. I will unite instead of divide, Stormfather. I will bring men together.”

The thunder silenced. Dalinar stood alone, staring at the sky, waiting.

VERY WELL, the Stormfather finally said. THESE WORDS ARE ACCEPTED.

Dalinar smiled.

I WILL NOT BE A SIMPLE SWORD TO YOU, the Stormfather warned. I WILL NOT COME AS YOU CALL, AND YOU WILL HAVE TO DIVEST YOURSELF OF THAT . . . MONSTROSITY THAT YOU CARRY. YOU WILL BE A RADIANT WITH NO SHARDS.

“It will be what it must,” Dalinar said, summoning his Shardblade. As soon as it appeared, screams sounded in his head. He dropped the weapon as if it were an eel that had snapped at him. The screams vanished immediately.

The Blade clanged to the ground. Unbonding a Shardblade was supposed to be a difficult process, requiring concentration and touching its stone. Yet this one was severed from him in an instant. He could feel it.

“What was the meaning of the last vision I received?” Dalinar said. “The one this morning, that came with no highstorm.”

NO VISION WAS SENT THIS MORNING.

“Yes it was. I saw light and warmth.”

A SIMPLE DREAM. NOT OF ME, NOR OF GODS.

Curious. Dalinar could have sworn it felt the same way as the visions, if not stronger.

GO, BONDSMITH, the Stormfather said. LEAD YOUR DYING PEOPLE TO FAILURE. ODIUM DESTROYED THE ALMIGHTY HIMSELF. YOU ARE NOTHING TO HIM.

“The Almighty could die,” Dalinar said. “If that is true, then this Odium can be killed. I will find a way to do it. The visions mentioned a challenge, a champion. Do you know anything of this?”

The sky gave no reply beyond a simple rumble. Well, there would be time for more questions later.

Dalinar walked down off the top of Urithiru and entered the stairwell again. The flight of steps opened into a room that encompassed nearly the entire top floor of the tower city, and it shone with light through glass windows. Glass with no shutters or support, some of it facing east. How it survived highstorms Dalinar did not know, though lines of crem did streak it in places.

Ten short pillars ringed this room, with another at the center. “Well?” Kaladin asked, turning away from an inspection of one of them. Shallan rounded another; she looked far less ragged than she had when they’d first come to the city. Though their days here in Urithiru had been frantic, some good nights’ sleep had served them all quite well.

In response to the question, Dalinar took a sphere from his pocket and held it up. Then he sucked in the Stormlight.

He knew to expect the feeling of a storm raging inside, as both Kaladin and Shallan had described it to him. It urged him to act, to move, to not stand still. It did not, however, feel like the Thrill of battle—which was what he had anticipated.

He felt his wounds healing in a familiar way. He’d done this before, he sensed. On the battlefield earlier? His arm felt fine now, and the cut on his side barely ached anymore.

“It’s horribly unfair you managed that on your first try,” Kaladin noted. “It took me forever.”

“I had instruction,” Dalinar said, walking into the room and tucking the sphere away. “The Stormfather called me Bondsmith.”

“It was the name of one of the orders,” Shallan said, resting her fingers on one of the pillars. “That makes three of us. Windrunner, Bondsmith, Lightweaver.”

“Four,” a voice said from the shadows of the stairwell. Renarin stepped up into the lit room. He looked at them, then shrank back.

“Son?” Dalinar asked.

Renarin remained in the darkness, looking down.

“No spectacles . . .” Dalinar whispered. “You stopped wearing them. I thought you were trying to look like a warrior, but no. Stormlight healed your eyes.”

Renarin nodded.

“And the Shardblade,” Dalinar said, stepping over and taking his son by the shoulder. “You hear screams. That’s what happened to you in the arena. You couldn’t fight because of those shouts in your head from summoning the Blade. Why? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I thought it was me,” Renarin whispered. “My mind. But Glys, he says . . .” Renarin blinked. “Truthwatcher.”

“Truthwatcher?” Kaladin said, glancing at Shallan. She shook her head. “I walk the winds. She weaves light. Brightlord Dalinar forges bonds. What do you do?”

Renarin met Kaladin’s eyes across the room. “I see.”

“Four orders,” Dalinar said, squeezing Renarin’s shoulder with pride. Storms, the lad was trembling. What made him so worried? Dalinar turned to the others. “The other orders must be returning as well. We need to find those whom the spren have chosen. Quickly, for the Everstorm is upon us, and it is worse than we feared.”

“How?” Shallan asked.

“It will change the parshmen,” Dalinar said. “The Stormfather confirmed it to me. When that storm hits it will bring back the Voidbringers.”

“Damnation,” Kaladin said. “I need to get to Alethkar, to Hearthstone.” He strode toward the exit.

“Soldier?” Dalinar called. “I’ve done what I can to warn our people.”

“My parents are back there,” Kaladin said. “And the citylord of my town has parshmen. I’m going.”

“How?” Shallan asked. “You’ll fly the entire distance?”

“Fall,” Kaladin said. “But yes.” He paused at the doorway out.

“How much Light will that take, son?” Dalinar asked.

“I don’t know,” Kaladin admitted. “A lot, probably.”

Shallan looked to Dalinar. They didn’t have Stormlight to spare. Though those from the warcamps brought recharged spheres, activating the Oathgate took a great deal of Stormlight, depending on how many people were brought. Lighting the lamps in the room at the center of the Oathgate was merely the minimum amount needed to start the device—bringing many people partially drained the infused gemstones they carried as well.

“I will get you what I can, lad,” Dalinar said. “Go with my blessing. Perhaps you will have enough left over to get to the capital afterward and help the people there.”

Kaladin nodded. “I’ll put together a pack. I need to leave within the hour.” He ducked from the room into the stairwell down.

Dalinar sucked in more Stormlight, and felt the last of his wounds retreat. This seemed a thing a man could easily grow accustomed to having.

He sent Renarin with orders to speak with the king and requisition some emerald broams that Kaladin could borrow for his trip. Elhokar had finally arrived, in the company of a group of Herdazians, of all things. One claiming his name needed to be added to the lists of Alethi kings . . .

Renarin went eagerly to obey the order. He seemed to want something he could do.

He’s one of the Knights Radiant, Dalinar thought, watching him go. I’ll probably need to stop sending him on errands.

Storms. It was really happening.

Shallan had walked to the windows. Dalinar stepped up beside her. This was the eastern face of the tower, the flat edge that looked directly toward the Origin.

“Kaladin will only have time to save a few,” Shallan said. “If that many. There are four of us, Brightlord. Only four against a storm full of destruction . . .”

“It is what it is.”

“So many will die.”

“And we will save the ones we can,” Dalinar said. He turned to her. “Life before death, Radiant. It is the task to which we are now sworn.”

She pursed her lips, still looking eastward, but nodded. “Life before death, Radiant.”

“A blind man awaited the era of endings,” Wit said, “contemplating the beauty of nature.”

Silence.

“That man is me,” Wit noted. “I’m not physically blind, just spiritually. And that other statement was actually very clever, if you think about it.”

Silence.

“This is a lot more satisfying,” he said, “when I have intelligent life whom I can render awed, rapt with attention for my clever verbosity.”

The ugly lizard-crab-thing on the next rock over clicked its claw, an almost hesitant sound.

“You’re right, of course,” Wit said. “My usual audience isn’t particularly intelligent. That was also the obvious joke, however, so shame on you.”

The ugly lizard-crab-thing scuttled across its rock, moving onto the other side. Wit sighed. It was night, which was normally a good time for dramatic arrivals and meaningful philosophy. Unfortunately for him, there was nobody here upon which to philosophize or visit, dramatically or otherwise. A small river gurgled nearby, one of the few permanent waterways in this strange land. Extending in all directions were rolling hills, furrowed by passing water and grown over in the valleys with an odd kind of briar. Very few trees here, though farther west a true forest sprouted on the slopes down from the heights.