Words of Radiance

He almost fell from his chair. Where was he? The Pinnacle, the king’s conference chamber. Kaladin had sat down for a moment and . . .

He blushed. He’d dozed off.

Adolin stood nearby, talking to Renarin. “I’m not sure if anything will come from the meeting, but I’m glad Father agreed to it. I’d almost given up hope of it happening, with how long the Parshendi messenger took to arrive.”

“You’re sure the one you met out there was a woman?” Renarin asked. He seemed more at ease since he had finished bonding his Blade a couple weeks back, and no longer needed to carry it around. “A woman Shardbearer?”

“The Parshendi are pretty odd,” Adolin said with a shrug. He glanced toward Kaladin, and his lips rose in a smirk. “Sleeping on the job, bridgeboy?”

The leaking shutter shook nearby, water dribbling in under the wood. Navani and Dalinar would be in the room next door.

The king wasn’t there.

“His Majesty!” Kaladin cried, scrambling to his feet.

“In the privy, bridgeboy,” Adolin said, nodding to another door. “You can sleep during a highstorm. That’s impressive. Almost as impressive as how much you drool when you’re dozing.”

No time for gibes. That dream . . . Kaladin turned toward the balcony door, breathing quickly.

He comes. . . .

Kaladin pulled open the balcony door. Adolin shouted and Renarin called out, but Kaladin ignored them, facing the tempest.

The wind still howled and rain pelted the stone balcony with a sound like sticks breaking. There was no lightning, however, and the wind—while violent—was not nearly strong enough to fling boulders or topple walls. The bulk of the highstorm had passed.

Darkness. Wind from the depths of nothingness, battering him. He felt as if he were standing above the void itself, Damnation, known as Braize in the old songs. Home to demons and monsters. He stepped out hesitantly, light from the still-open door spilling onto the wet balcony. He found the railing—a part that was still secure—and clenched it in cold fingers. Rain bit him on the cheek, seeping through his uniform, burrowing through the cloth and seeking warm skin.

“Are you mad?” Adolin demanded from the doorway. Kaladin could barely hear his voice over the wind and distant rumbles of thunder.

* * *

Pattern hummed softly as rain fell on the wagon.

Shallan’s slaves huddled together and whimpered. She wished she could quiet the blasted spren, but Pattern wasn’t responding to her promptings. At least the highstorm was nearly over. She wanted to get away and read what Tyn’s correspondents had to say about Shallan’s homeland.

Pattern’s hums sounded almost like a whimper. Shallan frowned and leaned down close to him. Were those words?

“Bad . . . bad . . . so bad . . .”

* * *

Syl shot out of the highstorm’s dense darkness, a sudden flash of light in the black. She spun about Kaladin before coming to rest on the iron railing before him. Her dress seemed longer and more flowing than usual. The rain passed through her without disturbing her shape.

Syl looked into the sky, then turned her head sharply over her shoulder. “Kaladin. Something is wrong.”

“I know.”

Syl spun about, twisting this way, then that. Her small eyes opened wide. “He’s coming.”

“Who? The storm?”

“The one who hates,” she whispered. “The darkness inside. Kaladin, he’s watching. Something’s going to happen. Something bad.”

Kaladin hesitated only a moment, then scrambled back into the room, pushing past Adolin and entering the light. “Get the king. We’re leaving. Now.”

“What?” Adolin demanded.

Kaladin threw open the door into the small room where Dalinar and Navani waited. The highprince sat on a sofa, expression distant, Navani holding his hand. That wasn’t what Kaladin had expected. The highprince didn’t seem frightened or mad, just thoughtful. He was speaking softly.

Kaladin froze. He sees things during the storms.

“What are you doing?” Navani demanded. “How dare you?”

“Can you wake him?” Kaladin asked, stepping into the room. “We need to leave this room, leave this palace.”

“Nonsense.” It was the king’s voice. Elhokar stepped into the room behind him. “What are you babbling about?”

“You’re not safe here, Your Majesty,” Kaladin said. “We need to get you out of the palace and take you to the warcamp.” Storms. Would that be safe? Should he go somewhere nobody would expect?

Thunder rumbled outside, but the sound of rainfall slackened. The storm was dying.

“This is ridiculous,” Adolin said from behind the king, throwing his hands into the air. “This is the safest place in the warcamps. You want us to leave? Drag the king out into the storm?”

“We need to wake the highprince,” Kaladin said, reaching for Dalinar.

Dalinar caught his arm as he did so. “The highprince is awake,” Dalinar said, his gaze clearing, returning from the distant place where it had been. “What is going on here?”

“The bridgeboy wants us to evacuate the palace,” Adolin said.

“Soldier?” Dalinar asked.

“It’s not safe here, sir.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Instinct, sir.”

The room grew still. Outside, the rainfall slackened to a gentle patter. The riddens had arrived.

“We go, then,” Dalinar said, rising.

“What?” the king demanded.

“You put this man in charge of your guard, Elhokar,” Dalinar said. “If he thinks our position is not safe, we should do as he says.”

There was an implied for now after that sentence, but Kaladin didn’t care. He shoved past the king and Adolin, rushing back through the main chamber to the doorway out. His heart hammered inside of him, his muscles tense. Syl, visible only to his eyes, flitted through the room, frantic.

Kaladin threw open the doors. Six men stood on watch in the hallway beyond, mostly bridgemen with one member of the King’s Guard, a man named Ralinor. “We’re leaving,” Kaladin said, pointing. “Beld and Hobber, you’re an advance squad. Scout the way out of the building—the back way, down through the kitchens—and give a shout if you see anything unusual. Moash, you and Ralinor are the rear guard—watch this room until I’ve got the king and the highprince out of sight, then follow. Mart and Eth, you stay at the king’s side, no matter what.”

The guards scrambled into action without question. As the scouts ran ahead, Kaladin moved back to the king and grabbed him by the arm, then hauled him toward the door. Elhokar allowed it, a stunned expression on his face.

The other lighteyes followed. The bridgeman brothers Mart and Eth fell in, flanking the king, Moash holding the doorway. He gripped his spear nervously, pointing it in one direction, then another.

Kaladin rushed the king and his family down the corridor along the chosen path. Instead of heading left and down the incline toward the palace’s formal entrance, they would head right, farther into its bowels. Down to the right, through the kitchens, then out into the night.

The hallways were silent. Everyone was sheltering in their rooms during the highstorm.

Dalinar joined Kaladin at the front of the group. “I will be curious to hear exactly what prompted this, soldier,” he said. “Once we are safely evacuated.”

My spren is having a fit, Kaladin thought, watching her zip back and forth in the corridor. That’s what prompted it. How was he going to explain that? That he’d listened to a windspren?

Deeper they went. Storms, these empty corridors were disturbing. Much of the palace was really just a burrow cut through the rock of the peak, with windows carved out of the sides.

Kaladin froze in place.

The lights ahead were out, the corridor dimming into the distance until it was dark as a mine.

“Wait,” Adolin said, stopping in place. “Why is it dark? What happened to the spheres?”

They’ve been drained of Light.

Damnation. And what was that on the wall of the hallway up ahead? A large patch of blackness. Kaladin frantically fished a sphere from his pocket and raised it. It was a hole! A doorway had been cut into this corridor from the outside, sliced directly through the rock. A cold breeze blew inward.

Kaladin’s light also illuminated something on the floor just ahead. A body lying where corridors crossed. It wore a blue uniform. Beld, one of the men Kaladin had sent on ahead.

The huddle of people stared at the body in horror. The corridor’s eerie silence, the lack of lights, had stilled even the king’s protests.

“He’s here,” Syl whispered.

A solemn figure stepped out of the side corridor, holding a long, silvery Blade that cut a trail in the stone floor. The figure had flowing white clothing: filmy trousers and an overshirt that rippled with each step. Bald head, pale skin. Shin.

Kaladin recognized the figure. Every person in Alethkar had heard of this man. The Assassin in White. Kaladin had seen him once in a dream, like the one earlier, though he hadn’t recognized him at that point.

Stormlight streamed from the assassin’s body.

He was a Surgebinder.

“Adolin, with me!” Dalinar shouted. “Renarin, protect the king! Take him back the way we came!” With that, Dalinar—the Blackthorn—seized a spear from one of Kaladin’s men and charged the assassin.