Words of Radiance

“It’s immodest!” Shallan said, blushing furiously.

“It’s just a hand, Shallan,” Tyn said. “Storms, you Vorins are so prim. That hand looks exactly like your other hand.”

“A lot of women have breasts that aren’t much more pronounced than male ones,” Shallan snapped. “That doesn’t make it right for them to go out wearing no shirt, like a man would!”

“Actually, in parts of the Reshi Isles and Iri, it’s not uncommon for women to walk about topless. It gets hot up there. Nobody minds. I rather like it, myself.”

Shallan raised both hands to her face—one clothed, one not—hiding her blush. “You’re doing this just to provoke me.”

“Yeah,” Tyn said, chuckling. “I am. This is the girl that scammed an entire troop of deserters and took over our caravan?”

“I didn’t have to go naked to do that.”

“Good thing you didn’t,” Tyn said. “You still think you’re experienced and worldly? You blush at the mere mention of exposing your safehand. Can’t you see how it’s going to be hard for you to run any kind of productive scam?”

Shallan took a deep breath. “I guess.”

“Showing your hand off isn’t going to be the toughest thing you need to do,” Tyn said, looking distant. “Not the toughest by a breeze or a stormwind. I . . .”

“What?” Shallan asked.

Tyn shook her head. “We’ll talk about it later. Can you see those warcamps yet?”

Shallan stood up on her seat, shading her eyes against the setting sun in the west. To the north, she saw a haze. Hundreds of fires—no, thousands—seeping darkness into the sky. Her breath caught in her throat. “We’re there.”

“Call camp for the night,” Tyn said, not moving from her relaxed position.

“It looks like it’s only a few hours away,” Shallan said. “We could push on—”

“And arrive after nightfall, then be forced to camp anyway,” Tyn said. “Better to arrive fresh in the morning. Trust me.”

Shallan settled down, calling for one of the caravan workers, a youth who walked barefoot—his calluses must be frightening—alongside the caravan. Only those senior among them rode.

“Ask Trademaster Macob what he thinks of stopping here for the night,” Shallan said to the young man.

He nodded, then jogged up the line, passing lumbering chulls.

“You don’t trust my assessment?” Tyn asked, sounding amused.

“Trademaster Macob doesn’t like being told what to do,” Shallan said. “If stopping is a good move, perhaps he’ll suggest it. It seems like a better way to lead.”

Tyn closed her eyes, face toward the sky. She still held one hand up, absently rubbing moss between her fingers. “I might have some information for you tonight.”

“About?”

“Your homeland.” Tyn cracked an eye. Though her posture was lazy, that eye was curious.

“That’s nice,” Shallan said, noncommittal. She tried not to say much about her home or her life there—she also hadn’t told Tyn about her trip, or about the sinking of the ship. The less Shallan said about her background, the less likely that Tyn would realize the truth about her new student.

It’s her own fault for jumping to conclusions about me, Shallan thought. Besides, she’s the one teaching me about pretending. I shouldn’t feel bad about lying to her. She lies to everyone.

Thinking that made her wince. Tyn was right; Shallan was naive. She couldn’t help feeling guilty about lying, even to a professed con woman!

“I’d have expected more from you,” Tyn said, closing her eye. “Considering.”

That provoked Shallan, and she found herself wiggling on her seat. “Considering what?” she finally asked.

“So you don’t know,” Tyn said. “I thought as much.”

“There are many things I don’t know, Tyn,” Shallan said, exasperated. “I don’t know how to build a wagon, I don’t know how to speak Iriali, and I certainly don’t know how to prevent you from being annoying. Not that I haven’t tried to figure out all three.”

Tyn smiled, eyes closed. “Your Veden king is dead.”

“Hanavanar? Dead?” She’d never met the highprince, let alone the king. The monarchy was a far-off thing. She found that it didn’t particularly matter to her. “His son will inherit, then?”

“He would. If he weren’t dead too. Along with six of Jah Keved’s highprinces.”

Shallan gasped.

“They say it was the Assassin in White,” Tyn said softly, eyes still closed. “The Shin man who killed the Alethi king six years back.”

Shallan pushed through her confusion. Her brothers. Were they all right? “Six highprinces. Which ones?” If she knew that, it might tell her how her own princedom was fairing.

“I don’t know for certain,” Tyn said. “Jal Mala and Evinor for sure, and probably Abrial. Some died in the attack, others before that, though the information is vague. Getting any kind of reliable information out of Vedenar these days is tough.”

“Valam. He still lives?” Her own highprince.

“He was fighting for the succession, reports say. I have my informants sending me word tonight via spanreed. Might have something for you then.”

Shallan settled back. The king, dead? A succession war? Stormfather! How could she find out about her family and their estate? They were nowhere near the capital, but if the entire country was consumed by war, it could reach even to the backwater areas. There was no easy way to reach her brothers. She’d lost her own spanreed in the sinking of the Wind’s Pleasure.

“Any information would be appreciated,” Shallan said. “Any at all.”

“We’ll see. I’ll let you come by for the report.”

Shallan settled back to digest this information. She suspected I didn’t know, but didn’t tell me until now. Shallan liked Tyn, but had to remember that the woman made a profession of hiding information. What else did Tyn know that she wasn’t sharing?

Ahead, the caravan youth walked back down the line of moving wagons. As he reached Shallan, he turned and walked beside her vehicle. “Macob says you are wise to ask, and says we should probably camp here. The warcamps each have secure borders, and aren’t likely to let us in during the night. Beyond that, he is uncertain if we could reach the camps before tonight’s storm.”

To the side, eyes still closed, Tyn grinned.

“We camp, then,” Shallan said.

The spren betrayed us, it’s often felt.

Our minds are too close to their realm

That gives us our forms, but more is then

Demanded by the smartest spren,

We can’t provide what the humans lend,

Though broth are we, their meat is men.

—From the Listener Song of Spren, 9th stanza

In his dream, Kaladin was the storm.

He claimed the land, surging across it, a cleansing fury. All washed before him, broke before him. In his darkness, the land was reborn.

He soared, alive with lightning, his flashes of inspiration. The wind’s howling was his voice, the thunder his heartbeat. He overwhelmed, overcame, overshadowed, and—

And he had done this before.

An awareness came to Kaladin, like water seeping under a door. Yes. He’d dreamed this dream before.

With effort, he turned around. A face as large as eternity stretched behind him, the force behind the tempest, the Stormfather himself.

SON OF HONOR, said a voice like roaring wind.

“This is real!” Kaladin yelled into the storm. He was wind itself. Spren. He found voice somehow. “You are real!”

SHE TRUSTS YOU.

“Syl?” Kaladin called. “Yes, she does.”

SHE SHOULD NOT.

“Are you the one who forbade her to come to me? Are you the one who keeps the spren back?”

YOU WILL KILL HER. The voice, so deep, so powerful, sounded regretful. Mournful. YOU WILL MURDER MY CHILD AND LEAVE HER CORPSE TO WICKED MEN.

“I will not!” Kaladin shouted.

YOU BEGIN IT ALREADY.

The storm continued. Kaladin saw the world from above. Ships in sheltered harbors rocking on violent swells. Armies huddled in valleys, preparing for war in a place of many hills and mountains. A vast lake going dry ahead of his arrival, the water retreating into holes in the rock beneath.

“How can I prevent it?” Kaladin demanded. “How can I protect her?”

YOU ARE HUMAN. YOU WILL BE A TRAITOR.

“No I won’t!”

YOU WILL CHANGE. MEN CHANGE. ALL MEN.

The continent was so vast. So many people speaking languages he could not comprehend, everyone hiding in their rooms, their caverns, their valleys.

AH, the Stormfather said. SO IT WILL END.

“What?” Kaladin shouted into the winds. “What changed? I feel—”

HE COMES FOR YOU, LITTLE TRAITOR. I AM SORRY.

Something rose before Kaladin. A second storm, one of red lightning, so enormous as to make the continent—the world itself—into nothing by comparison. Everything fell into its shadow.

I AM SORRY, the Stormfather said. HE COMES.

Kaladin awoke, heart thundering in his chest.