Words of Radiance

“I don’t know,” Dalinar said, sitting back down on the couch beside his son. “I don’t know . . .”

Tend his wounds. It was the voice of Kaladin’s father, whispering inside him. The surgeon. Stitch that cheek. Reset the nose.

He had a more important duty. Kaladin forced himself to his feet, though he felt like he was carrying lead weights, and took a spear from one of the men at the door. “Why are the hallways silent?” he asked Moash. “Do you know where the servants are?”

“The highprince,” Moash said, nodding to Dalinar. “Brightlord Dalinar sent a couple of the men to the servants’ quarters to move everyone out. He thought that if the assassin came back, he might start killing indiscriminately. Figured the more people who left the palace, the fewer casualties there would be.”

Kaladin nodded, taking a sphere lamp and moving out into the hallway. “Hold here. I need to do something.”

* * *

Adolin slumped in his seat as the bridgeboy left. Kaladin gave no explanation, of course, and didn’t ask the king for permission to withdraw. Storming man seemed to consider himself above lighteyes. No, the storming man seemed to consider himself above the king.

He did fight alongside you, part of him said. How many men, lighteyed or dark, would stand so firm against a Shardbearer?

Troubled, Adolin stared up at the ceiling. He couldn’t have seen what he thought he had. He’d been dazed from his fall from the ceiling. Surely the assassin hadn’t actually cut Kaladin through the arm with his Shardblade. The arm seemed perfectly fine now, after all.

But why was the sleeve missing?

He fell with the assassin, Adolin thought. He fought, and looked like he was wounded, but it turns out he wasn’t. Could this all be part of some ruse?

Stop it, Adolin thought at himself. You’ll get as paranoid as Elhokar. He glanced at the king, who was staring—face pale—at his empty wine cup. Had he really gone through everything in the pitcher? Elhokar walked toward his bedroom, where there would be more waiting for him, and pulled open the door.

Navani gasped, causing the king to freeze in place. He turned toward the door. The back side of the wood had been scratched with a knife, jagged lines forming a series of glyphs.

Adolin stood up. Several of those were numbers, weren’t they?

“Thirty-eight days,” Renarin read. “The end of all nations.”

* * *

Kaladin moved tiredly through the palace hallways, retracing the route he’d led them along only a short time before. Down toward the kitchens, into the hallway with the hole cut out into the air. Past the place where Dalinar’s blood spotted the floor, to the intersection.

Where Beld’s corpse lay. Kaladin knelt down, rolling the body over. The eyes were burned out. Above those dead eyes remained the tattoos of freedom that Kaladin had designed.

Kaladin closed his own eyes. I’ve failed you, he thought. The balding, square-faced man had survived Bridge Four and the rescue of Dalinar’s armies. He’d survived Damnation itself, only to fall here, to an assassin with powers he should not have.

Kaladin groaned.

“He died protecting.” Syl’s voice.

“I should be able to keep them alive,” Kaladin said. “Why didn’t I just let them go free? Why did I bring them to this duty, and more death?”

“Someone has to fight. Someone has to protect.”

“They’ve done enough! They’ve bled their share. I should banish them all. Dalinar can find different bodyguards.”

“They made the choice,” Syl said. “You can’t take that from them.”

Kaladin knelt, struggling with his grief.

You have to learn when to care, son. His father’s voice. And when to let go. You’ll grow calluses.

He never had. Storm him, he never had. It was why he’d never made a good surgeon. He couldn’t lose patients.

And now, now he killed? Now he was a soldier? How did that make any sense? He hated how good he was at killing.

He took a deep breath, regaining control, with effort. “He can do things I can’t,” he finally said, opening his eyes and looking toward Syl, who stood in the air near him. “The assassin. Is it because I have more Words to speak?”

“There are more,” Syl said. “You’re not ready for them yet, I don’t think. Regardless, I think you could already do what he does. With practice.”

“But how is he Surgebinding? You said that the assassin had no spren.”

“No honorspren would give that creature the means to slaughter as he does.”

“Perspectives can be different among humans,” Kaladin said, trying to keep the emotion from his voice as he turned Beld facedown so he wouldn’t have to see those shriveled, burned-out eyes. “What if the honorspren thought this assassin was doing the right thing? You gave me the means to slaughter Parshendi.”

“To protect.”

“In their eyes, the Parshendi are protecting their kind,” Kaladin said. “To them, I’m the aggressor.”

Syl sat down, wrapping her arms around her knees. “I don’t know. Maybe. But no other honorspren are doing what I do. I am the only one who disobeyed. But his Shardblade . . .”

“What of it?” Kaladin asked.

“It was different. Very different.”

“It looked ordinary to me. Well, as ordinary as a Shardblade can.”

“It was different,” she repeated. “I feel I should know why. Something about the amount of Light he was consuming . . .”

Kaladin rose, then walked down the side corridor, holding up his lamp. It bore sapphires, turning the walls blue. The assassin had cut that hole with his Blade, entered the corridor, and killed Beld. But Kaladin had sent two men on ahead.

Yes, another body. Hobber, one of the first men Kaladin had saved in Bridge Four. Storms take that assassin! Kaladin remembered saving this man after he had been left by everyone else to die on the plateau.

Kaladin knelt beside the corpse, rolled it over.

And found it weeping.

“I . . . I’m . . . sorry,” Hobber said, overcome with emotion and barely able to speak. “I’m sorry, Kaladin.”

“Hobber!” Kaladin said. “You’re alive!” Then he noticed that the legs of Hobber’s uniform had been sliced through at midthigh. Beneath the fabric, Hobber’s legs were darkened and grey, dead, as Kaladin’s arm had been.

“I didn’t even see him,” Hobber said. “He cut me down, then stabbed Beld straight through. I listened to you fighting. I thought you’d all died.”

“It’s all right,” Kaladin said. “You’re all right.”

“I can’t feel my legs,” Hobber said. “They’re gone. I’m no soldier anymore, sir. I’m useless now. I—”

“No,” Kaladin said firmly. “You’re still Bridge Four. You’re always Bridge Four.” He forced himself to smile. “We’ll just have Rock teach you how to cook. How are you with stew?”

“Awful, sir,” Hobber said. “I can burn broth.”

“Then you’ll fit right in with most military cooks. Come on, let’s get you back to the others.” Kaladin strained, getting his arms under Hobber, trying to lift him.

His body would have none of it. He let out an involuntary groan, putting Hobber back down.

“It’s all right, sir,” Hobber said.

“No,” Kaladin said, sucking in the Light of one of the spheres in the lamp. “It’s not.” He heaved again, lifting Hobber, then carried him back toward the others.

Our gods were born splinters of a soul,

Of one who seeks to take control,

Destroys all lands that he beholds, with spite.

They are his spren, his gift, his price.

But the nightforms speak of future life,

A challenged champion. A strife even he must requite.

—From the Listener Song of Secrets, final stanza

Highprince Valam might be dead, Brightness Tyn, the spanreed wrote. Our informants are uncertain. He was never in the best of health, and now there are rumors that his illness finally overcame him. His forces are gearing up to seize Vedenar, however, so if he’s dead, his bastard son is likely pretending he is not.

Shallan sat back, though the reed continued writing. It moved seemingly of its own volition, paired to an identical reed used by Tyn’s associate somewhere in Tashikk. They’d set up regular camp following the highstorm, Shallan joining Tyn in her magnificent tent. The air still smelled of rain, and the floor of the tent let some water leak through, wetting Tyn’s rug. Shallan wished she’d worn her oversized boots instead of slippers.

What would it mean for her family if the highprince was dead? He had been one of her father’s main problems in the latter days of his life, and her house had gone into debt securing allies to win the highprince’s ear or perhaps—instead—to try to unseat him. A succession war could pressure the people who held her family’s debts, and that might make them come to her brothers demanding payments. Or, instead, the chaos could cause the creditors to forget about Shallan’s brothers and their insignificant house. And what of the Ghostbloods? Would the succession war make them more or less likely to come, demanding their Soulcaster?