“I remember,” she said softly. “In the darkness of the storm.”
“How do you do it, Shallan? How do you keep smiling and laughing? How do you keep from fixating on the terrible things that have happened?”
“I cover them up. I have this uncanny ability to hide away anything I don’t want to think about. It … it’s getting harder, but for most things I can just…” She trailed off, staring straight ahead. “There. Gone.”
“Wow.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I’m crazy.”
“No. No, Shallan! I wish I could do the same.”
She looked at him, brow wrinkling. “You’re crazy.”
“How nice would it be, if I could simply shove it all away? Storms.” He tried to imagine it. Not spending his life worrying about the mistakes he’d made. Not hearing the constant whispers that he wasn’t good enough, or that he’d failed his men.
“This way, I’ll never face it,” Shallan said.
“It’s better than being unable to function.”
“That’s what I tell myself.” She shook her head. “Jasnah said that power is an illusion of perception. Act like you have authority, and you often will. But pretending fragments me. I’m too good at pretending.”
“Well, whatever you’re doing, it’s obviously working. If I could smother these emotions, I’d do so eagerly.”
She nodded, but fell silent, then resisted all further attempts to draw her into conversation.
I am convinced that Nergaoul is still active on Roshar. The accounts of the Alethi “Thrill” of battle align too well with ancient records—including the visions of red mist and dying creatures.
—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 140
Dalinar remembered almost everything now. Though he still hadn’t recovered the details of his meeting with the Nightwatcher, the rest was as fresh as a new wound, dripping blood down his face.
There had been so many more holes in his mind than he’d realized. The Nightwatcher had ripped apart his memories like the fabric of an old blanket, then sewn a new quilt out of it. In the intervening years he’d thought himself mostly whole, but now all those scars had been ripped free and he could see the truth.
He tried to put all of that out of his mind as he toured Vedenar, one of the great cities of the world, known for its amazing gardens and lush atmosphere. Unfortunately, the city had been devastated by the Veden civil war, then the subsequent arrival of the Everstorm. Even along the sanitized path he walked for the tour, they passed scorched buildings, piles of rubble.
He couldn’t help but think of what he’d done to Rathalas. And so, Evi’s tears accompanied him. The cries of dying children.
Hypocrite, they said. Murderer. Destroyer.
The air smelled of salt and was filled with the sounds of waves smashing on cliffs outside the city. How did they live with that constant roaring? Did they never know peace? Dalinar tried to listen politely as Taravangian’s people led him into a garden, full of low walls overgrown with vines and shrubs. One of few that hadn’t been destroyed in the civil war.
The Vedens loved ostentatious greenery. Not a subtle people, all brimming with passion and vice.
The wife of one of the new Veden highprinces eventually led Navani off to inspect some paintings. Dalinar was instead led to a small garden square, where some Veden lighteyes were chatting and drinking wine. A low wall on the eastern side here allowed for the growth of all kinds of rare plants in a jumble, which was the current horticultural fashion. Lifespren bobbed among them.
More small talk? “Excuse me,” Dalinar said, nodding toward a raised gazebo. “I’m going to take a moment to survey the city.”
One of the lighteyes raised his hand. “I can show—”
“No thank you,” Dalinar said, then started up the steps to the gazebo. Perhaps that had been too abrupt. Well, at least it fit his reputation. His guards had the sense to remain below, at the foot of the steps.
He reached the top, trying to relax. The gazebo gave him a nice view of the cliffs and the sea beyond. Unfortunately, it let him see the rest of the city—and storms, it was not in good shape. The walls were broken in places, the palace nothing more than rubble. Huge swaths of the city had burned, including many of the platelike terraces that had been Veden showpieces.
Out beyond—on the fields north of the city—black scars on the rock still showed where heaps of bodies had been burned following the war. He tried to turn away from all that and look out at the peaceful ocean. But he could smell smoke. That wasn’t good. In the years following Evi’s death, smoke had often sent him descending into one of his worse days.
Storms. I’m stronger than this. He could fight it. He wasn’t the man he’d been all those years ago. He forced his attention toward the stated purpose of visiting the city: surveying the Veden martial capabilities.
Many of the living Veden troops were barracked in storm bunkers right inside the city walls. From reports he’d heard earlier, the civil war had brought incredible losses. Even baffling ones. Many armies would break after suffering ten percent casualties, but here—reportedly—the Vedens had continued fighting after losing more than half their numbers.
Perhaps they’d been driven mad by the persistent crashing of those waves. And … what else did he hear?
More phantom weeping. Taln’s palms! Dalinar drew a deep breath, but smelled only smoke.
Why must I have these memories? he thought, angry. Why did they suddenly return?
Mixing with those emotions was a growing fear for Adolin and Elhokar. Why hadn’t they sent word? If they’d escaped, wouldn’t they have flown to safety—or at the very least, found a spanreed? It seemed ridiculous to assume multiple Radiants and Shardbearers were trapped in the city, unable to flee. But the alternative was to worry that they hadn’t survived. That he’d sent them to die.
Dalinar tried to stand, straight-backed and at attention, beneath the weight of it all. Unfortunately, he knew too well that if you locked your knees and stood too straight, you risked fainting. Why was it that trying to stand tall should make you so much more likely to fall?
His guards at the base of the stone hill parted to let Taravangian—in his characteristic orange robes—shuffle through. The old man carried an enormous diamond-shaped kite shield, large enough to cover his entire left side. He climbed up to the gazebo, then sat down on one of the benches, panting.
“Did you want to see one of these, Dalinar?” he asked after a moment, holding out the shield.
Glad for the distraction, Dalinar took the shield, hefting it. “Half-shard?” he said, noting a steel box—with a gemstone inside—fastened to the inner surface.
“Indeed,” Taravangian said. “Crude devices. There are legends of metal that can block a Shardblade. A metal that falls from the sky. Silver, but somehow lighter. I should like to see that, but for now we can use these.”
Dalinar grunted.
“You know how they make fabrials, don’t you?” Taravangian asked. “Enslaved spren?”
“Spren can’t be ‘enslaved’ any more than a chull can.”
The Stormfather rumbled distantly in his mind.
“That gemstone,” Taravangian said, “imprisons the kind of spren that gives things substance, the kind that holds the world together. We have entrapped in that shield something that, at another time, might have blessed a Knight Radiant.”
Storms. He couldn’t deal with a philosophical problem like this today. He tried to change the topic. “You seem to be feeling better.”
“It’s a good day for me. I feel better than I have recently, but that can be dangerous. I’m prone to thinking about mistakes I’ve made.” Taravangian smiled in his kindly way. “I try to tell myself that at the very least, I made the best choice I could, with the information I had.”
“Unfortunately, I’m certain I didn’t make the best choices I could,” Dalinar said.
“But you wouldn’t change them. If you did, you’d be a different person.”
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I did change them, Dalinar thought. I erased them. And I did become a different person. Dalinar set the shield beside the old man.
“Tell me, Dalinar,” Taravangian said. “You’ve spoken of your disregard for your ancestor, the Sunmaker. You called him a tyrant.”
Like me.
“Let us say,” Taravangian continued, “you could snap your fingers and change history. Would you make it so that the Sunmaker lived longer and accomplished his desire, uniting all of Roshar under a single banner?”
“Turn him into more of a despot?” Dalinar said. “That would have meant him slaughtering his way all across Azir and into Iri. Of course I wouldn’t wish that.”
“But what if it left you, today, in command of a completely unified people? What if his slaughter let you save Roshar from the Voidbringer invasion?”
“I … You’d be asking me to consign millions of innocents to the pyre!”
“Those people are long dead,” Taravangian whispered. “What are they to you? Numbers in a scribe’s footnote. Yes, the Sunmaker was a monster. However, the current trade routes between Herdaz, Jah Keved, and Azir were forged by his tyranny. He brought culture and science back to Alethkar. Your modern Alethi cultural eruption can be traced directly back to what he did. Morality and law are built upon the bodies of the slain.”
“I can’t do anything about that.”
“No, no. Of course you can’t.” Taravangian tapped the half-shard shield. “Do you know how we capture spren for fabrials, Dalinar? From spanreeds to heatrials, it’s all the same. You lure the spren with something it loves. You give it something familiar to draw it in, something it knows deeply. In that moment, it becomes your slave.”
I … I really can’t think about this right now. “Excuse me,” Dalinar said, “I need to go check on Navani.”
He strode from the gazebo and down the steps, bustling past Rial and his other guards. They followed, towed in his wake like leaves after a strong gust of wind. He entered the city, but didn’t go looking for Navani. Perhaps he could visit the troops.
He walked back along the street, trying to ignore the destruction. Even without it though, this city felt off to him. The architecture was very like Alethi architecture, nothing like the flowery designs of Kharbranth or Thaylenah—but many buildings had plants draping and dangling from every window. It was strange to walk along streets full of people who looked Alethi but spoke a foreign tongue.
Eventually Dalinar reached the large stormshelters right inside the city walls. Soldiers had set up tent cities next to them, temporary bivouacs they could tear down and carry into one of the loaflike bunkers for storms. Dalinar found himself growing calmer as he walked among them. This was familiar; this was the peace of soldiers at work.
The officers here welcomed him, and generals took him on tours of the bunkers. They were impressed by his ability to speak their language—something he’d gained early in his visit to the city, using his Bondsmith abilities.
All Dalinar did was nod and ask the occasional question, but somehow he felt like he was accomplishing something. At the end, he entered a breezy tent near the city gates, where he met with a group of wounded soldiers. Each had survived when his entire platoon had fallen. Heroes, but not the conventional type. It took being a soldier to understand the heroism of simply being willing to continue after all your friends had died.
The last in line was an elderly veteran who wore a clean uniform and a patch for a defunct platoon. His right arm was missing, his jacket sleeve tied off, and a younger soldier led him up to Dalinar. “Look, Geved. The Blackthorn himself! Didn’t you always say you wanted to meet him?”
The older man had one of those stares that made him seem like he could see right through you. “Brightlord,” he said, and saluted. “I fought your army at Slickrock, sir. Brightlord Nalanar’s second infantry. Storming fine battle that was, sir.”
“Storming fine indeed,” Dalinar said, saluting him back. “I figured your forces had us at three different points.”
“Those were good times, Brightlord. Good times. Before everything went wrong…” His eyes glazed over.
“What was it like?” Dalinar asked softly. “The civil war, the battle here, at Vedenar?”
“It was a nightmare, sir.”
“Geved,” the younger man said. “Let’s go. They have food—”
“Didn’t you hear him?” Geved said, pulling his remaining arm out of the boy’s grip. “He asked. Everyone dances around me, ignoring it. Storms, sir. The civil war was a nightmare.”
“Fighting other Veden families,” Dalinar said, nodding.
“It wasn’t that,” Geved said. “Storms! We squabble as much as you do, sir. Pardon that. But I ain’t ever felt bad fighting my own. It’s what the Almighty wants, right? But that battle…” He shuddered. “Nobody would stop, Brightlord. Even when it should have been done. They just kept right on fighting. Killing because they felt like killing.”
“It burned in us,” another wounded man said from by the food table. The man wore an eye patch and looked like he hadn’t shaved since the battle. “You know it, Brightlord, don’t you? That river inside of you, pulling your blood all up into your head and making you love each swing. Making it so that you can’t stop, no matter how tired you are.”
The Thrill.
It started to glow inside Dalinar. So familiar, so warm, and so terrible. Dalinar felt it stir, like … like a favorite axehound, surprised to hear its master’s voice after so long.
He hadn’t felt it in what seemed like an eternity. Even back on the Shattered Plains, when he’d last felt it, it had seemed to be weakening. Suddenly that made sense. It wasn’t that he’d been learning to overcome the Thrill. Instead, it had left him.
To come here.
“Did others of you feel this?” Dalinar asked.
“We all did,” another of the men said, and Geved nodded. “The officers … they rode about with teeth clenched in rictus grins. Men shouted to keep the fight, maintain the momentum.”
It’s all about momentum.
Others agreed, talking about the remarkable haze that had covered the day.
Losing any sense of peace he’d gained from the inspections, Dalinar excused himself. His guards raced to keep up as he fled—moving even faster as a newly arrived messenger called to him, saying he was needed back at the gardens.
He wasn’t ready. He didn’t want to face Taravangian, or Navani, or especially Renarin. Instead, he climbed the city wall. Inspect … inspect the fortifications. That was why he’d come.
From the top, he could again see those large sections of the city, burned and broken in the war.
The Thrill called to him, distant and thin. No. No. Dalinar marched along the wall, passing soldiers. To his right, waves crashed against the rocks. Shadows moved in the shallows, beasts two or three times as big as a chull, their shells peeking from the depths between waves.
It seemed that Dalinar had been four people in his life. The bloodlusty warrior, who killed wherever he was pointed, and the consequences could go to Damnation.
The general, who had feigned distinguished civility—when secretly, he’d longed to get back on the battlefield so he could shed more blood.
Third, the broken man. The one who paid for the actions of the youth.
Then finally, the fourth man: most false of them all. The man who had given up his memories so he could pretend to be something better.
Dalinar stopped, resting one hand on the stones. His guards assembled behind him. A Veden soldier approached from the other direction along the wall, calling out in anger. “Who are you? What are you doing up here?”
Dalinar squeezed his eyes shut.
“You! Alethi. Answer me. Who let you scale this fortification?”
The Thrill stirred, and the animal inside him wanted to lash out. A fight. He needed a fight.
No. He fled again, hurrying down a tight, constricting stone stairwell. His breathing echoed against the walls
, and he nearly stumbled and tripped down the last flight.
He burst out onto the street, sweating, surprising a group of women carrying water. His guards piled out after him. “Sir?” Rial asked. “Sir, are you … Is everything…?”
Dalinar sucked in Stormlight, hoping it would drive away the Thrill. It didn’t. It seemed to complement the sensation, driving him to act.
“Sir?” Rial said, holding out a canteen that smelled of something strong. “I know you said I shouldn’t carry this, but I did. And … and you might need it.”
Dalinar stared at that canteen. A pungent scent rose to envelop him. If he drank that, he could forget the whispers. Forget the burned city, and what he’d done to Rathalas. And to Evi.
So easy …
Blood of my fathers. Please. No.
He spun away from Rial. He needed rest. That was all, just rest. He tried to keep his head up and slow his pace as he marched back toward the Oathgate.
The Thrill nipped at him from behind.
If you become that first man again, it will stop hurting. In your youth, you did what needed to be done. You were stronger then.
He growled, spinning and flinging his cloak to the side, looking for the voice that had spoken those words. His guards shied back, gripping their spears tightly. The beleaguered inhabitants of Vedenar scurried away from him.
Is this leadership? To cry each night? To shake and tremble? Those are the actions of a child, not a man.
“Leave me alone!”
Give me your pain.
Dalinar looked toward the sky and let out a raw bellow. He charged through the streets, no longer caring what people thought when they saw him. He needed to be away from this city.
There. The steps up to the Oathgate. The people of this city had once made a garden out of its platform, but that had been cleared away. Ignoring the long ramp, Dalinar took the steps two at a time, Stormlight lending him endurance.
At the top, he found a cluster of guards in Kholin blue standing with Navani and a smattering of scribes. She immediately strode over. “Dalinar, I tried to ward him off, but he was insistent. I don’t know what he wants.”