Words of Radiance

“They’re darkeyes,” Kaladin said, saluting back. “Probably men who were fighting on the Tower when Sadeas betrayed them.”

“Stormblessed,” one of them called. “Have you heard the news?”

Curse the one who told them that nickname, Kaladin thought as Rock and the other two caught up to him.

“No,” Kaladin called. “What news?”

“A hero has come to the Shattered Plains!” the soldier yelled back. “He’s going to meet with Brightlord Kholin, perhaps support him! It’s a good sign. Might help calm things down around here.”

“What’s this?” Rock called back. “Who?”

The soldier said a name.

Kaladin’s heart became ice.

He nearly lost his spear from numb fingers. And then, he took off running. He didn’t heed Rock’s cry behind him, didn’t stop to let the others catch up with him. He dashed through the camp, running toward Dalinar’s command complex at its center.

He didn’t want to believe when he saw the banner hanging in the air above a group of soldiers, probably matched by a much larger group outside the warcamp. Kaladin passed them, drawing cries and stares, questions if something was wrong.

He finally stumbled to a stop outside the short set of steps into Dalinar’s bunkered complex of stone buildings. There, standing in front, the Blackthorn clasped hands with a tall man.

Square-faced and dignified, the newcomer wore a pristine uniform. He laughed, then embraced Dalinar. “Old friend,” he said. “It’s been too long.”

“Too long by far,” Dalinar agreed. “I’m glad you finally made your way here, after years of promises. I heard you’ve even found yourself a Shardblade!”

“Yes,” the newcomer said, pulling back and holding his hand to the side. “Taken from an assassin who dared try to kill me on the field of battle.”

The Blade appeared. Kaladin stared at the silvery weapon. Etched along its length, the Blade was shaped to look like flames in motion, and to Kaladin it seemed that the weapon was stained red. Names flooded his mind: Dallet, Coreb, Reesh . . . a squad before time, from another life. Men Kaladin had loved.

He looked up and forced himself to see the face of the newcomer. A man Kaladin hated, hated beyond any other. A man he had once worshipped.

Highlord Amaram. The man who had stolen Kaladin’s Shardblade, branded his forehead, and sold him into slavery.

THE END OF

Part One

The Rhythm of Resolve thrummed softly in the back of Eshonai’s mind as she reached the plateau at the center of the Shattered Plains.

The central plateau. Narak. Exile.

Home.

She ripped the helm of the Shardplate from her head, taking a deep breath of cool air. Plate ventilated wonderfully, but even it grew stuffy after extended exertions. Other soldiers landed behind her—she had taken some fifteen hundred this run. Fortunately, this time they’d arrived well before the humans, and had harvested the gemheart with minimal fighting. Devi carried it; he had earned the privilege by being the one to spot the chrysalis from afar.

Almost she wished it had not been so easy a run. Almost.

Where are you, Blackthorn? she thought, looking westward. Why have you not come to face me again?

She thought she’d seen him on that run a week or so back, when they’d been forced off the plateau by his son. Eshonai had not participated in that fight; her wounded leg ached, and the jumping from plateau to plateau had stressed it, even in Shardplate. Perhaps she should not be going on these runs in the first place.

She’d wanted to be there in case her strike force grew surrounded, and needed a Shardbearer—even a wounded one—to break them free. Her leg still hurt, but Plate cushioned it enough. Soon she would have to return to the fighting. Perhaps if she participated directly, the Blackthorn would appear again.

She needed to speak with him. She felt an urgency to do so blowing upon the winds themselves.

Her soldiers raised hands in farewell as they went their separate ways. Many softly sang or hummed a song to the Rhythm of Mourning. These days, few sang to Excitement, or even to Resolve. Step by step, storm by storm, depression claimed her people—the listeners, as they called their race. “Parshendi” was a human term.

Eshonai strode toward the ruins that dominated Narak. After so many years, there wasn’t much left. Ruins of ruins, one might call them. The works of men and listeners alike did not last long before the might of the highstorms.

That stone spire ahead, that had probably once been a tower. Over the centuries, it had grown a thick coating of crem from the raging storms. The soft crem had seeped into cracks and filled windows, then slowly hardened. The tower now looked like an enormous stalagmite, rounded point toward the sky, side knobbed with rock that looked as if it had been melted.

The spire must have had a strong core to survive the winds so long. Other examples of ancient engineering had not fared so well. Eshonai passed lumps and mounds, remnants of fallen buildings that had slowly been consumed by the Shattered Plains. The storms were unpredictable. Sometimes huge sections of rock would break free from formations, leaving gouges and jagged edges. Other times, spires would stand for centuries, growing—not shrinking—as the winds both weathered and augmented them.

Eshonai had discovered similar ruins in her explorations, such as the one she’d been on when her people had first encountered humans. Only seven years ago, but also an eternity. She had loved those days, exploring a wide world that felt infinite. And now . . .

Now she spent her life trapped on this one plateau. The wilderness called to her, sang that she should gather up what things she could carry and strike out. Unfortunately, that was no longer her destiny.

She passed into the shadow of a big lump of rock that she always imagined might have been a city gate. From what little they’d learned from their spies over the years, she knew that the Alethi did not understand. They marched over the uneven surface of the plateaus and saw only natural rock, never knowing that they traversed the bones of a city long dead.

Eshonai shivered, and attuned the Rhythm of the Lost. It was a soft beat, yet still violent, with sharp, separated notes. She did not attune it for long. Remembering the fallen was important, but working to protect the living was more so.

She attuned Resolve again and entered Narak. Here, the listeners had built the best home they could during the years of war. Rocky shelves had become barracks, carapace from greatshells forming the walls and roofs. Mounds that had once been buildings now grew rockbuds for food on their leeward sides. Much of the Shattered Plains had once been populated, but the largest city had been here at the center. So now the ruins of her people made their home in the ruins of a dead city.

They had named it Narak—exile—for it was where they had come to be separated from their gods.

Listeners, both malen and femalen, raised hands to her as she passed. So few remained. The humans were relentless in their pursuit of vengeance.

She didn’t blame them.

She turned toward the Hall of Art. It was nearby, and she hadn’t put in an appearance there for days. Inside, soldiers did a laughable job of painting.

Eshonai strode among them, still wearing her Shardplate, helm under her arm. The long building had no roof—allowing in plenty of light to paint by—and the walls were thick with long-hardened crem. Holding thick-bristled brushes, the soldiers tried their best to depict the arrangement of rockbud flowers on a pedestal at the center. Eshonai did a round of the artists, looking at their work. Paper was precious and canvas nonexistent, so they painted on shell.

The paintings were awful. Splotches of garish color, off-center petals . . . Eshonai paused beside Varanis, one of her lieutenants. He held the brush delicately between armored fingers, a hulking form before an easel. Plates of chitin armor grew from his arms, shoulders, chest, even head. They were matched by her own, under her Plate.

“You are getting better,” Eshonai said to him, speaking to the Rhythm of Praise.

He looked to her, and hummed softly to Skepticism.

Eshonai chuckled, resting a hand on his shoulder. “It actually looks like flowers, Varanis. I mean it.”

“It looks like muddy water on a brown plateau,” he said. “Maybe with some brown leaves floating in it. Why do colors turn brown when they mix? Three beautiful colors put together, and they become the least beautiful color. It makes no sense, General.”

General. At times, she felt as awkward in the position as these men did trying to paint pictures. She wore warform, as she needed the armor for battle, but she preferred workform. More limber, more rugged. It wasn’t that she disliked leading these men, but doing the same thing every day—drills, plateau runs—numbed her mind. She wanted to be seeing new things, going new places. Instead, she joined her people in a long funeral vigil as, one by one, they died.

No. We will find a way out of it.

The art was part of that, she hoped. By her order, each man or woman took a turn in the Hall of Art at their appointed time. And they tried; they tried hard. So far, it had been about as successful as trying to leap a chasm with the other side out of sight. “No spren?” she asked.

“Not a one.” He said it to the Rhythm of Mourning. She heard that rhythm far too often these days.