The Way of Kings

“Habrin, son of Arafik,” Alaxia continued. “Jorna, son of Loats.” She hesitated, then looked up. “Tien, son of Lirin.”

There was a stillness across the square. Even the rain seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then, all eyes turned toward Tien. The boy looked dumbfounded. Lirin was immune as town surgeon, Kaladin immune as his apprentice.

But not Tien. He was a carpenter’s third apprentice, not vital, not immune.

Hesina gripped Tien tightly. “No!”

Lirin stepped in front of them, defensive. Kaladin stood stunned, looking at Roshone. Smiling, self-satisfied Roshone.

We took his son, Kaladin realized, meeting those beady eyes. This is his revenge.

“I…” Tien said. “The military?” For once, he seemed to lose his confidence, his optimism. His eyes opened wide, and he grew very pale. He fainted when he saw blood. He hated fighting. He was still small and spindly despite his age.

“He’s too young,” Lirin declared. Their neighbors sidled away, leaving Lirin’s family to stand alone in the rain.

Amaram frowned. “In the cities, youths as young as eight and nine are accepted into the military.”

“Lighteyed sons!” Lirin said. “To be trained as officers. They aren’t sent into battle!”

Amaram frowned more deeply. He stepped out into the rain, walking up to the family. “How old are you, son?” he asked Tien.

“He’s thirteen,” Lirin said.

Amaram glanced at him. “The surgeon. I’ve heard of you.” He sighed, glancing back at Amaram. “I haven’t the time to engage in your petty, small-town politics, cousin. Isn’t there another boy that will do?”

“It is my choice!” Roshone insisted. “Given me by the dictates of law. I send those the town can spare—well, that boy is the first one we can spare.”

Lirin stepped forward, eyes full of anger. Highmarshal Amaram caught him by the arm. “Do not do something you would regret, darkborn. Roshone has acted according to the law.”

“You hid behind the law, sneering at me, surgeon,” Roshone called to Lirin. “Well, now it turns against you. Keep those spheres! The look on your face at this moment is worth the price of every one of them!”

“I…” Tien said again. Kaladin had never seen the boy so terrified.

Kaladin felt powerless. The crowd’s eyes were on Lirin, standing with his arm in the grip of the lighteyed general, locking his gaze with Roshone.

“I’ll make the lad a runner boy for a year or two,” Amaram promised. “He won’t be in combat. It is the best I can do. Every body is needed in these times.”

Lirin slumped, then bowed his head. Roshone laughed, motioning Laral toward the carriage. She didn’t glance at Kaladin as she climbed back in. Roshone followed, and though he was still laughing, his expression had grown hard. Lifeless. Like the dull clouds above. He had his revenge, but his son was still dead and he was still stuck in Hearthstone.

Amaram regarded the crowd. “The recruits may bring two changes of clothing and up to three stoneweights of other possessions. They will be weighed. Report to the army in two hours and ask for Sergeant Hav.” He turned and followed Roshone.

Tien stared after him, pale as a whitewashed building. Kaladin could see his terror at leaving his family. His brother, the one who always made him smile when it rained. It was physically painful for Kaladin to see him so scared. It wasn’t right. Tien should smile. That was who he was.

He felt the wooden horse in his pocket. Tien always brought him relief when he felt pained. Suddenly, it occurred to him that there was something he could do in turn. It’s time to stop hiding in the room when someone else holds up the globe of light, Kaladin thought. It’s time to be a man.

“Brightlord Amaram!” Kaladin yelled.

The general hesitated, standing on the stepstool into the carriage, one foot in the door. He glanced over his shoulder.

“I want to take Tien’s place,” Kaladin said.

“Not allowed!” Roshone said from inside the carriage. “The law says I may choose.”

Amaram nodded grimly.

“Then what if you take me as well,” Kaladin said. “Can I volunteer?” That way, at least, Tien wouldn’t be alone.

“Kaladin!” Hesina said, grabbing him on one arm.

“It is allowed,” Amaram said. “I will not turn away any soldier, son. If you want to join, you are welcome.”

“Kaladin, no,” Lirin said. “Don’t both of you go. Don’t—”

Kaladin looked at Tien, the boy’s face wet beneath his wide-brimmed hat. He shook his head, but his eyes seemed hopeful.

“I volunteer,” Kaladin said, turning back to Amaram. “I’ll go.”

“Then you have two hours,” Amaram said, climbing into the carriage. “Same possession allotment as the others.”

The carriage door shut, but not before Kaladin got a glimpse of an even more satisfied Roshone. Rattling, the vehicle splashed away, dropping a sheet of water from its roof.

“Why?” Lirin said, turning back to Kaladin, his voice ragged. “Why have you done this to me? After all of our plans!”

Kaladin turned to Tien. The boy took his arm. “Thank you,” Tien whispered. “Thank you, Kaladin. Thank you.”

“I’ve lost both of you,” Lirin said hoarsely, splashing away. “Storm it! Both of you.” He was crying. Kaladin’s mother was crying too. She clutched Tien again.

“Father!” Kaladin said, turning, amazed at how confident he felt.

Lirin paused, standing in the rain, one foot in a puddle where rainspren clustered. They inched away from him like vertical slugs.

“In four years, I will bring him home safely,” Kaladin said. “I promise it by the storms and the Almighty’s tenth name itself. I will bring him back.”

I promise….

“Yelignar, called Blightwind, was one that could speak like a man, though often his voice was accompanied by the wails of those he consumed.”

—The Unmade were obviously fabrications of folklore. Curiously, most were not considered individuals, but instead personifications of kinds of destruction. This quote is from Traxil, line 33, considered a primary source, though I doubt its authenticity.

They are an oddly welcoming group, these wild parshmen, Shallan read. It was King Gavilar’s account again, recorded a year before his murder. It has now been nearly five months since our first meeting. Dalinar continues to pressure me to return to our homeland, insisting that the expedition has stretched too long.

The parshmen promise that they will lead me on a hunt for a great-shelled beast they call an ulo mas vara, which my scholars say translates roughly to “Monster of the Chasms.” If their descriptions are accurate, these creatures have large gemhearts, and one of their heads would make a truly impressive trophy. They also speak of their terrible gods, and we think they must be referring to several particularly large chasm greatshells.

We are amazed to find religion among these parshmen. The mounting evidence of a complete parshman society—with civilization, culture, and a unique language—is astounding. My stormwardens have begun calling this people “the Parshendi.” It is obvious this group is very different from our ordinary servant parshmen, and may not even be the same race, despite the skin patterns. Perhaps they are distant cousins, as different from ordinary parshmen as Alethi axehounds are from the Selay breed.

The Parshendi have seen our servants, and are confused by them. “Where is their music?” Klade will often ask me. I do not know what he means. But our servants do not react to the Parshendi at all, showing no interest in emulating them. This is reassuring.

The question about music may have to do with the humming and chanting the Parshendi often do. They have an uncanny ability to make music together. I swear that I have left one Parshendi singing to himself, then soon passed another out of earshot of the first, yet singing the very same song—eerily near to the other in tempo, tune, and lyric.

Their favored instrument is the drum. They are crudely made, with handprints of paint marking the sides. This matches their simple buildings, which they construct of crem and stone. They build them in the craterlike rock formations here at the edge of the Shattered Plains. I ask Klade if they worry about highstorms, but he just laughs. “Why worry? If the buildings blow down, we can build them again, can we not?”

On the other side of the alcove, Jasnah’s book rustled as she turned a page. Shallan set aside her own volume, then picked through the books on the desk. Her philosophy training done for the time being, she had returned to her study of King Gavilar’s murder.

She slid a small volume out from the bottom of the stack: a record dictated by Stormwarden Matain, one of the scholars who had accompanied the king. Shallan flipped through the pages, searching for a specific passage. It was a description of the very first Parshendi hunting party they encountered.

It happened after we set up beside a deep river in a heavily wooded area. It was an ideal location for a long-term camp, as the dense cobwood trees would protect against highstorm winds, and the river’s gorge eliminated the risk of flooding. His Majesty wisely took my advice, sending scouting parties both upriver and down.

Highprince Dalinar’s scouting party was the first to encounter the strange, untamed parshmen. When he returned to camp with his story, I—like many others—refused to believe his claims. Surely Brightlord Dalinar had simply run across the parshman servants of another expedition like our own.

Once they visited our camp the next day, their reality could no longer be denied. There were ten of them—parshmen to be sure, but bigger than the familiar ones. Some had skin marbled black and red, and others were marbled white and red, as is more common in Alethkar. They carried magnificent weapons, the bright steel etched with complex decorations, but wore simple clothing of woven narbin cloth.

Before long, His Majesty became fascinated by these strange parshmen, insisting that I begin a study of their language and society. I’ll admit that my original intent was to expose them as a hoax of some kind. The more we learned, however, the more I came to realize how faulty my original assessment had been.

Shallan tapped the page, thinking. Then she pulled out a thick volume, titled King Gavilar Kholin, a Biography, published by Gavilar’s widow, Navani, two years before. Shallan flipped through pages, scanning for a particular paragraph.

My husband was an excellent king—an inspiring leader, an unparalleled duelist, and a genius of battlefield tactics. But he didn’t have a single scholarly finger on his left hand. He never showed an interest in the accounting of highstorms, was bored by talk of science, and ignored fabrials unless they had an obvious use in battle. He was a man built after the classical masculine ideal.

“Why was he so interested in them?” Shallan said out loud.

“Hmmm?” Jasnah asked.

“King Gavilar,” Shallan said. “Your mother insists in her biography that he wasn’t a scholar.”

“True.”

“But he was interested in the Parshendi,” Shallan said. “Even before he could have known about their Shardblades. According to Matain’s account, he wanted to know about their language, their society, and their music. Was that just embellishment, to make him sound more scholarly to future readers?”