Words of Radiance

“Things are better,” he said. “None of my men have been killed since we were freed.”

“But you . . .” She didn’t seem to know what else to say. “I thought you might be like the person you were before. I can remember a man on a field of battle . . . A man who fought . . .”

“That man is dead, Syl,” Kaladin said, waving to the guards as he entered the warcamp. Once again, light and motion surrounded him, people running quick errands, parshmen repairing buildings damaged by the storm. “During my time as a bridgeman, all I had to worry about was my men. Now things are different. I have to become someone. I just don’t know who yet.”

When he reached Bridge Four’s barrack, Rock was dishing out the evening stew. Far later than usual, but some of the men were on odd shifts. The men weren’t limited to stew any longer, but they still insisted on it for the evening meal. Kaladin took a bowl gratefully, nodding to Bisig, who was relaxing with several of the others and chatting about how they actually missed carrying their bridge. Kaladin had instilled in them a respect for it, much as a soldier respected his spear.

Stew. Bridges. They spoke so fondly of things that had once been emblems of their captivity. Kaladin took a bite, then stopped, noticing a new man leaning against a rock beside the fire.

“Do I know you?” he asked, pointing at the bald, muscular man. He had tan skin, like an Alethi, but he didn’t seem to have the right face shape. Herdazian?

“Oh, don’t mind Punio,” Lopen called from nearby. “He’s my cousin.”

“You had a cousin on the bridge crews?” Kaladin asked.

“Nah,” Lopen said. “He just heard my mother say we needed more guards, so he came to help. I got him a uniform and things.”

The newcomer, Punio, smiled and raised his spoon. “Bridge Four,” he said with a thick Herdazian accent.

“Are you a soldier?” Kaladin asked him.

“Yes,” the man said. “Brightlord Roion army. Not worry. I swore to Kholin instead, now. For my cousin.” He smiled affably.

“You can’t just leave your army, Punio,” Kaladin said, rubbing his forehead. “It’s called desertion.”

“Not for us,” Lopen called. “We’re Herdazian—nobody can tell us apart anyway.”

“Yes,” Punio said. “I leave for the homeland once a year. When I come back, nobody remembers me.” He shrugged. “This time, I come here.”

Kaladin sighed, but the man looked like he knew his way around a spear, and Kaladin did need more men. “Fine. Just pretend you were one of the bridgemen from the start, all right?”

“Bridge Four!” the man said enthusiastically.

Kaladin passed him and found his customary place by the fire to relax and think. He didn’t get that chance, however, as someone stepped up and squatted down before him. A man with marbled skin and a Bridge Four uniform.

“Shen?” Kaladin asked.

“Sir.”

Shen continued to stare at him.

“Is there something you wanted?” Kaladin asked.

“Am I really Bridge Four?” Shen asked.

“Of course you are.”

“Where is my spear?”

Kaladin looked Shen in the eyes. “What do you think?”

“I think that I am not Bridge Four,” Shen said, taking time to think with each word. “I am Bridge Four’s slave.”

It was like a punch to Kaladin’s gut. He’d hardly heard a dozen words out of the man during their time together, and now this?

The words smarted either way. Here was a man who, unlike the others, wasn’t welcome to leave and make his way in the world. Dalinar had freed the rest of Bridge Four—but a parshman . . . he’d be a slave no matter where he went or what he did.

What could Kaladin say? Storms.

“I appreciate your help when we were scavenging. I know it was difficult for you to see what we did down there sometimes.”

Shen waited, still squatting, listening. He regarded Kaladin with those impenetrable, solid black parshman eyes of his.

“I can’t start arming parshmen, Shen,” Kaladin said. “The lighteyes barely accept us as it is. If I gave you a spear, think of the storm it would cause.”

Shen nodded, face displaying no hint of his emotions. He stood up straight. “A slave I am, then.”

He withdrew.

Kaladin knocked his head back against the stone behind him, staring up at the sky. Storming man. He had a good life, for a parshman. Certainly more freedom than any other of his kind.

And were you satisfied with that? a voice inside him asked. Were you happy to be a well-treated slave? Or did you try to run, fight your way to freedom?

What a mess. He mulled over those thoughts, digging into his stew. He got two bites down before Natam—one of the men who’d been guarding at the palace—came stumbling into their camp, sweating, frantic, and red-cheeked from running.

“The king!” Natam said, puffing. “An assassin.”

Nightform predicting what will be,

The form of shadows, mind to foresee.

As the gods did leave, the nightform whispered.

A new storm will come, someday to break.

A new storm a new world to make.

A new storm a new path to take, the nightform listens.

—From the Listener Song of Secrets, 17th stanza

The king was fine.

One hand on the doorframe, Kaladin stood gasping from his run back to the palace. Inside, Elhokar, Dalinar, Navani, and both of Dalinar’s sons spoke together. Nobody was dead. Nobody was dead.

Stormfather, he thought, stepping into the room. For a moment, I felt like I did on the plateaus, watching my men charge the Parshendi. He hardly knew these people, but they were his duty. He hadn’t thought that his protectiveness could apply to lighteyes.

“Well, at least he ran here,” the king said, waving off the attentions of a woman who was trying to bandage a gash on his forehead. “You see, Idrin. This is what a good bodyguard looks like. I bet he wouldn’t have let this happen.”

The captain of the King’s Guard stood near the door, red-faced. He looked away, then stalked out into the hallway. Kaladin raised a hand to his head, bewildered. Comments like that one from the king were not going to help his men get along with Dalinar’s soldiers.

Inside the room, a mess of guards, servants, and members of Bridge Four stood around, looking confused or embarrassed. Natam was there—he’d been on duty with the King’s Guard—as was Moash.

“Moash,” Kaladin called. “You’re supposed to be back in the camp asleep.”

“So are you,” Moash said.

Kaladin grunted, trotting over, speaking more softly. “Were you here when it happened?”

“I’d just left,” Moash said. “Finishing my shift with the King’s Guard. I heard yelling, and came back as quickly as I could.” He nodded toward the open balcony door. “Come have a look.”

They walked out onto the balcony, which was a circular stone pathway that ran around the peak rooms of the palace—a terrace cut into the stone itself. From such a height, the balcony offered an unparalleled view overlooking the warcamps and the Plains beyond. Some members of the King’s Guard stood here, inspecting the balcony railing with sphere lamps. A section of the ironwork structure had twisted outward and hung precariously over the drop.

“From what we’ve figured,” Moash said, pointing, “the king came out here to think, as he likes to do.”

Kaladin nodded, walking with Moash. The stone floor beneath was still wet from highstorm rain. They reached the place where the railing was ripped, several guards making way for them. Kaladin looked down over the side. The drop was a good hundred feet onto the rocks below. Syl drifted through the air down there, making lazy glowing circles.

“Damnation, Kaladin!” Moash said, taking his arm. “Are you trying to make me panic?”

I wonder if I could survive that fall. . . . He’d dropped half that once before, filled with Stormlight, and had landed without trouble. He stepped back for Moash’s sake, though even before gaining his special abilities, heights had fascinated him. It felt liberating to be up so high. Just you and the air itself.

He knelt down, looking at the places where the footings of the iron railing had been mortared into holes in the stone. “The railing pulled free of its mountings?” he asked, poking his finger into a hole, then pulling it out with mortar dust on his fingers.

“Yeah,” Moash said, several of the men of the king’s guard nodding.

“Could just be a flaw in the design,” Kaladin said.

“Captain,” said one of the guardsmen. “I was here when it happened, watching him on the balcony. It fell right out. Barely a sound. I was standing here, looking out at the Plains and thinking to myself, and next I knew His Majesty was hanging right there, holding on for his life and cursing like a caravan worker.” The guard blushed. “Sir.”

Kaladin stood, inspecting the metalwork. So the king had leaned against this section of the railing, and it had bent forward—the mountings at the bottom giving way. It had almost come free completely, but fortunately one bar had held tight. The king had grabbed hold and clung to it long enough to be rescued.