Words of Radiance (Page 67)

Moash shrugged. “One shift guarding Brightness Navani. One shift with the King’s Guard.”

I’m working them too hard, Kaladin thought. Stormfather. I don’t have enough men. Even with the leftover Cobalt Guard that Dalinar is sending to me. “Head back and get some sleep,” Kaladin said. “You too, Bisig. I saw you on shift this morning.”

“And you?” Moash asked Kaladin.

“I’m fine.” He had Stormlight to keep him alert. True, using Stormlight that way could be dangerous—it provoked him to act, to be more impulsive. He wasn’t sure he liked what it did to him when he used it outside of battle.

Moash raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got to be at least as tired as I am, Kal.”

“I’ll go back in a bit,” Kaladin said. “You need some time off, Moash. You’ll get sloppy if you don’t take it.”

“I have to pull two shifts,” Moash said, shrugging. “At least, if you want me to train with the King’s Guard as well as doing my regular guard duty.”

Kaladin drew his lips to a line. That was important. Moash needed to think like a bodyguard, and there was no better way than serving on an already-established crew.

“My shift here with the King’s Guard is almost over,” Moash noted. “I’ll head back after.”

“Fine,” Kaladin said. “Keep Leyten with you. Natam, you and Mart guard Brightness Navani. I’ll see Dalinar back to camp and post guards at his door.”

“Then you’ll get some sleep?” Moash asked. The others glanced at Kaladin. They were worried as well.

“Yes, fine.” Kaladin turned back to the room, where Dalinar was helping Navani to her feet. He’d walk her to her door, as he did most evenings.

Kaladin debated for a moment, then stepped up to the highprince. “Sir, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Can it wait until I’m done here?” Dalinar said.

“Yes, sir,” Kaladin said. “I’ll wait at the palace’s front doors, then will be your guard on the way back to camp.”

Dalinar led Navani away, joined by two bridgeman guards. Kaladin made his own way down the corridor, thinking. Servants had already come by to open the corridor windows, and Syl floated in through one as a spinning swirl of mist. Giggling, she spun around him a few times before going out another window. She always got more sprenlike during a highstorm.

The air smelled wet and fresh. The whole world felt clean after a highstorm, scrubbed by nature’s abrasive.

He reached the front of the palace, where a pair of the King’s Guard stood on watch. Kaladin nodded to them and got crisp salutes in return, then he fetched a sphere lantern from the guard post and filled it with his own spheres.

From the front of the palace, Kaladin could look out over all ten warcamps. As always after a storm, the Light of refreshed spheres sparkled everywhere, their gemstones ablaze with captured fragments of the tempest that had passed.

Standing there, Kaladin confronted what he needed to say to Dalinar. He rehearsed it silently more than once, but still wasn’t ready when the highprince emerged at last from the palace doors. Natam saluted from behind them, handing Dalinar off to Kaladin, then jogged back to join Mart outside Brightness Navani’s door.

The highprince started down the switchbacks of the side route down from the Pinnacle to the stables below. Kaladin fell in beside him. Dalinar appeared deeply distracted by something.

He hasn’t ever announced anything about his fits during highstorms, Kaladin thought. Shouldn’t he say something?

They’d talked about visions, earlier. What was it Dalinar saw, or thought he saw?

“So, soldier,” Dalinar said as they walked. “What is it you wanted to discuss?”

Kaladin took a deep breath. “A year ago, I was a soldier in Amaram’s army.”

“So that’s where you learned,” Dalinar said. “I should have guessed. Amaram is the only general in Sadeas’s princedom with any real leadership ability.”

“Sir,” Kaladin said, stopping on the steps. “He betrayed me and my men.”

Dalinar stopped and turned to look at him. “A poor battle decision, then? Nobody is perfect, soldier. If he sent your men into a bad situation, I doubt he intended to do so.”

Just push through it, Kaladin told himself, noticing Syl sitting on a shalebark ridge just to the right. She nodded at him. He has to know. It was just . . .

He’d never spoken of this, not in full. Not even to Rock, Teft, and the others.

“It wasn’t that, sir,” Kaladin said, meeting Dalinar’s eyes by spherelight. “I know where Amaram got his Shardblade. I was there. I killed the Shardbearer carrying it.”

“That can’t be the case,” Dalinar said slowly. “If you had, you’d hold the Plate and Blade.”

“Amaram took it for himself, then slaughtered everyone who knew the truth,” Kaladin said. “Everyone but a lone soldier who, in his guilt, Amaram branded a slave and sold rather than murdering.”

Dalinar stood in silence. From this angle, the hillside behind him was completely dark, lit only by stars. A few spheres glowed in Dalinar’s pocket, shining through the fabric of his uniform.

“Amaram is one of the best men I know,” Dalinar said. “His honor is spotless. I’ve never even known him to take undue advantage of an opponent in a duel, despite cases when it would have been acceptable.”

Kaladin didn’t respond. He’d believed that too, at one point.

“Do you have any proof?” Dalinar asked. “You understand that I can’t take one man’s word on something of this nature.”

“One darkeyed man’s word, you mean,” Kaladin said, gritting his teeth.

“It’s not the color of your eyes that is the problem,” Dalinar said, “but the severity of your accusation. The words you speak are dangerous. Do you have any proof, soldier?”

“There were others there when he took the Shards. Men of his personal guard did the actual killing at his command. And there was a stormwarden there. Middle-aged, with a peaked face. He wore a beard like an ardent.” He paused. “They were all complicit in the act, but maybe . . .”

Dalinar sighed softly in the night. “Have you spoken this accusation to anyone else?”

“No,” Kaladin said.

“Continue to hold your tongue. I’ll talk to Amaram. Thank you for telling me of this.”

“Sir,” Kaladin said, taking a step closer to Dalinar. “If you really believe in justice, you—”

“That’s enough for the moment, son,” Dalinar cut in, voice calm but cool. “You’ve had your say, unless you can offer me anything else by way of evidence.”

Kaladin forced down his immediate burst of anger. It was difficult.

“I appreciated your input when we were talking about my son’s duels earlier,” Dalinar said. “This is the second time you’ve added something important to one of our conferences, I believe.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“But soldier,” Dalinar said, “you’re walking quite a line between helpfulness and insubordination in the way you treat me and mine. You have a chip on your shoulder the size of a boulder. I ignore it, because I know what was done to you, and I can see the soldier beneath. That’s the man I hired for this job.”

Kaladin ground his teeth, and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now run along.”

“Sir, but I must escort—”

“I think I’ll return to the palace,” Dalinar said. “I don’t think I’ll get much sleep tonight, so I might want to pester the dowager with my thoughts. Her guards can watch over me. I’ll take one with me when I return to my camp.”

Kaladin let out a long breath. Then saluted. Fine, he thought, continuing down the dark, damp path. When he reached the bottom, Dalinar was still standing up above, now just a shadow. He seemed lost in thought.

Kaladin turned and walked back toward Dalinar’s warcamp. Syl flitted up and landed on his shoulder. “See,” she said. “He listened.”

“No he didn’t, Syl.”

“What? He replied and said—”

“I told him something he didn’t want to hear,” Kaladin said. “Even if he does look into it, he’ll find plenty of reasons to dismiss what I said. In the end, it will be my word against Amaram’s. Stormfather! I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You’d let it go, then?”

“Storms, no,” Kaladin said. “I’d find my own justice.”

“Oh . . .” Syl settled on his shoulder.

They walked for a long while, eventually approaching the warcamp.

“You’re not a Skybreaker, Kaladin,” Syl finally said. “You’re not supposed to be like this.”

“A what?” he asked, stepping over scuttling cremlings in the dark. They came out in force after a storm, when plants unfolded to lap up the water. “That was one of the orders, wasn’t it?” He did know some little of them. Everyone did, from the legends.

“Yes,” Syl said, voice soft. “I’m worried about you, Kaladin. I thought things would be better, once you were free from the bridges.”