Oathbringer

  “He?” Dalinar asked, puffing from his near run.

  Navani gestured toward the scribes. For the first time, Dalinar noticed that several among them wore the short beards of ardents. But those blue robes? What were those?

  Curates, he thought, from the Holy Enclave in Valath. Technically, Dalinar himself was a head of the Vorin religion—but in practice, the curates guided church doctrine. The staves they bore were wound with gemstones, more ornate than he’d expected. Hadn’t most of that pomp been done away with at the fall of the Hierocracy?

  “Dalinar Kholin!” one said, stepping forward. He was young for an ardentia leader, perhaps in his early forties. His square beard was streaked with a few lines of grey.

  “I am he,” Dalinar said, shrugging off Navani’s touch to his shoulder. “If you would speak with me, let us retire to a place more private—”

  “Dalinar Kholin,” the ardent said, louder. “The council of curates declares you a heretic. We cannot tolerate your insistence that the Almighty is not God. You are hereby proclaimed excommunicate and anathema.”

  “You have no right—”

  “We have every right! The ardents must watch the lighteyes so that you steer your subjects well. That is still our duty, as outlined in the Covenants of Theocracy, witnessed for centuries! Did you really think we would ignore what you’ve been preaching?”

  Dalinar gritted his teeth as the stupid ardent began outlining Dalinar’s heresies one by one, demanding that he deny them. The man stepped forward, close enough now that Dalinar could smell his breath.

  The Thrill stirred, sensing a fight. Sensing blood.

  I’m going to kill him, a part of Dalinar thought. I have to run now, or I will kill this man. It was as clear to him as the sun’s light.

  So he ran.

  He dashed to the Oathgate control building, frantic with the need to escape. He scrambled up to the keyhole, and only then remembered that he didn’t have a Shardblade that could operate this device.

  Dalinar, the Stormfather rumbled. Something is wrong. Something I cannot see, something hidden to me. What are you sensing?

  “I have to get away.”

  I will not be a sword to you. We spoke of this.

  Dalinar growled. He felt something he could touch, something beyond places. The power that bound worlds together. His power.

  Wait, the Stormfather said. This is not right!

  Dalinar ignored him, reaching beyond and pulling power through. Something bright white manifested in his hand, and he rammed it into the keyhole.

  The Stormfather groaned, a sound like thunder.

  The power made the Oathgate work, regardless. As his guards called his name outside, Dalinar flipped the dial that would make only the small building transport—not the entire plateau—then pushed the keyhole around the outside of the room, using the power as a handhold.

  A ring of light flashed around the structure, and cold wind poured in through the doorways. He stumbled out onto a platform before Urithiru. The Stormfather pulled back from him, not breaking the bond, but withdrawing his favor.

  The Thrill flooded in to replace it. Even this far away. Storms! Dalinar couldn’t escape it.

  You can’t escape yourself, Dalinar, Evi’s voice said in his mind. This is who you are. Accept it.

  He couldn’t run. Storms … he couldn’t run.

  Blood of my fathers. Please. Please, help me.

  But … to whom was he praying?

  He staggered down from the platform in a daze, ignoring questions from soldiers and scribes alike. He made his way to his room, increasingly desperate to find a way—any way—to hide from Evi’s condemning voice.

  In his rooms, he pulled a book off the shelf. Bound in hogshide, with thick paper. He held The Way of Kings as if it were a talisman that would drive back the pain.

  It did nothing. Once this book had saved him, but now it seemed useless. He couldn’t even read its words.

  Dropping the book, he stumbled out of the room. No conscious thought led him to Adolin’s chambers or drove him to ransack the younger man’s room. But he found what he’d hoped, a bottle of wine kept for a special occasion. Violet, prepared in its strength.

  This represented that third man he’d been. Shame, frustration, and days spent in a haze. Terrible times. Times he’d given up part of his soul in order to forget.

  But storms, it was either this or start killing again. He raised the bottle to his lips.

  Moelach is very similar to Nergaoul, though instead of inspiring a battle rage, he supposedly granted visions of the future. In this, lore and theology align. Seeing the future originates with the Unmade, and is from the enemy.

  —From Hessi’s Mythica, page 143

  Adolin tugged at the jacket, standing in Captain Ico’s cabin. The spren had lent the room to him for a few hours.

  The jacket was too short, but was the biggest the spren had. Adolin had cut off the trousers right below the knees, then tucked the bottoms into his long socks and tall boots. He rolled the sleeves of the jacket up to match, approximating an old style from Thaylenah. The jacket still looked too baggy.

  Leave it unbuttoned, he decided. The rolled sleeves look intentional that way. He tucked his shirt in, pulled the belt tight. Good by contrast? He studied it in the captain’s mirror. It needed a waistcoat. Those, fortunately, weren’t too hard to fake. Ico had provided a burgundy coat that was too small for him. He removed the collar and sleeves, stitched the rough edges under, then slit it up the back.

  He was just finishing it up with some laces on the back when Ico checked in on him. Adolin buttoned on the improvised waistcoat, threw on the jacket, then presented himself with hands at his sides.

  “Very nice,” Ico said. “You look like an honorspren going to a Feast of Light.”

  “Thanks,” Adolin said, inspecting himself in the small mirror. “The jacket needs to be longer, but I don’t trust myself to let down the hems.”

  Ico studied him with metal eyes—bronze, with holes for the pupils, like Adolin had seen done for some statues. Even the spren’s hair appeared sculpted in place. Ico could almost have been a Soulcast king from an age long past.

  “You were a ruler among your kind, weren’t you?” Ico asked. “Why did you leave? The humans we get here are refugees, merchants, or explorers. Not kings.”

  King. Was Adolin a king? Surely his father would decide not to continue with the abdication, now that Elhokar had passed.

  “No answer?” Ico said. “That is fine. But you were a ruler among them. I can read it in you. Highborn status is important to humans.”

  “Maybe a little too important, eh?” Adolin said, adjusting the neck scarf he’d made from his handkerchief.

  “That is true,” Ico said. “You are all human—and so none of you, regardless of birth, can be trusted with oaths. A contract to travel, this is fine. But humans will betray trust if it is given to them.” The spren frowned, then seemed to grow embarrassed, glancing away. “That was rude.”

  “Rudeness doesn’t necessarily imply untruth though.”

  “I did not mean an insult, regardless. You are not to be blamed. Betraying oaths is simply your nature, as a human.”

  “You don’t know my father,” Adolin said. Still, the conversation left him uncomfortable. Not because of Ico’s words—spren tended to say odd things, and Adolin didn’t take offense.

  More, he felt his own growing worry that he might actually have to take the throne. He’d grown up knowing it could happen, but he’d also grown up wishing—desperately—that it never would. In his quiet moments, he’d assumed this hesitance was because a king couldn’t apply himself to things like dueling and … well … enjoying life.

  What if it went deeper? What if he’d always known inconsistency lurked within him? He couldn’t keep pretending he was the man his father wanted him to be.

  Well, it was moot anyway—Alethkar, as a nation, had fallen. He accompanied Ico back out of the captain’s cabin onto t
he deck, walking over to Shallan, Kaladin, and Azure, who stood by the starboard wale. Each wore a shirt, trousers, and jacket they’d bought off the Reachers with dun spheres. Dun gemstones weren’t worth nearly as much on this side, but apparently trade with the other side did happen, so they had some value.

  Kaladin gaped at Adolin, looking down at his boots, then up at the neck scarf, then focusing on the waistcoat. That befuddled expression alone made the work worthwhile.

  “How?” Kaladin demanded. “Did you sew that?”

  Adolin grinned. Kaladin looked like a man trying to wear his childhood suit; he’d never button that coat across his broad chest. Shallan fit her shirt and jacket better from a pure measurements standpoint, but the cut wasn’t flattering. Azure looked far more … normal without her dramatic breastplate and cloak.

  “I’d practically kill for a skirt,” Shallan noted.

  “You’re kidding,” Azure said.

  “No. I’m getting tired of the way trousers rub my legs. Adolin, could you sew me a dress? Maybe stitch the legs of these trousers together?”

  He rubbed his chin, which had begun to sprout a blond beard. “It doesn’t work that way—I can’t magic more cloth out of nothing. It…”

  He trailed off as, overhead, the clouds suddenly rippled, glowing with a strange mother-of-pearl iridescence. Another highstorm, their second since arriving in Shadesmar. The group stopped and stared up at the dramatic light show. Nearby, the Reachers seemed to stand up more straight, move about their sailing duties more vigorously.

  “See,” Azure said. “I told you. They must feed off it, somehow.”

  Shallan narrowed her eyes, then grabbed her sketchbook and stalked over to begin interviewing some of the spren. Kaladin trailed away to join his spren at the prow of the ship, where she liked to stand. Adolin often noticed him looking southward, as if anxiously wishing the ship to move more quickly.

  He lingered by the side of the ship, watching the beads crash away below. When he looked up, he found Azure studying him. “Did you really sew that?” she asked.

  “There wasn’t much sewing involved,” Adolin said. “The scarf and jacket hide most of the damage I did to the waistcoat—which used to be a smaller jacket.”

  “Still,” she said. “An unusual skill for a royal.”

  “And how many royals have you known?”

  “More than some might assume.”

  Adolin nodded. “I see. And are you enigmatic on purpose, or is it kind of an accidental thing?”

  Azure leaned against the ship’s wale, breeze blowing her short hair. She looked more youthful when not wearing the breastplate and cloak. Mid-thirties, maybe. “A little of both. I discovered when I was younger that being too open with strangers … went poorly for me. But in answer to your question, I have known royals. Including one woman who left it behind. Throne, family, responsibilities…”

  “She abandoned her duty?” That was practically inconceivable.

  “The throne was better served by someone who enjoyed sitting on it.”

  “Duty isn’t about what you enjoy. It’s about doing what is demanded of you, in serving the greater good. You can’t just abandon responsibility because you feel like it.”

  Azure glanced at Adolin, and he felt himself blush. “Sorry,” he said, looking away. “My father and my uncle might have … instilled me with a little passion on the topic.”

  “It’s all right,” Azure said. “Maybe you’re right, and maybe there’s something in me that knows it. I always find myself in situations like in Kholinar, leading the Wall Guard. I get too involved … then abandon everyone.…”

  “You didn’t abandon the Wall Guard, Azure,” Adolin said. “You couldn’t have prevented what happened.”

  “Perhaps. I can’t help feeling that this is merely one in a long string of duties abdicated, of burdens set down, perhaps to disastrous results.” For some reason, she put her hand on the pommel of her Shardblade when she said that. Then she looked up at Adolin. “But of all the things I’ve walked away from, the one I don’t regret is allowing someone else to rule. Sometimes, the best way to do your duty is to let someone else—someone more capable—try carrying it.”

  Such a foreign idea. Sometimes you took up a duty that wasn’t yours, but abandoning one? Just … giving it to someone else?

  He found himself musing on that. He nodded his thanks to Azure as she excused herself to get something to drink. He was still standing there when Shallan returned from interviewing—well, interrogating—the Reachers. She took his arm, and together they watched the shimmering clouds for a while.

  “I look terrible, don’t I?” she finally asked, nudging him in the side. “No makeup, with hair that hasn’t been washed in days, and now wearing a dumpy set of worker’s clothing.”

  “I don’t think you’re capable of looking terrible,” he said, pulling her closer. “In all their color, even those clouds can’t compete.”

  They passed through a sea of floating candle flames, which represented a village on the human side. The flames were huddled together in patches. Hiding from the storm.

  Eventually the clouds faded—but they were supposedly near the city now, so Shallan got excited, watching for it. Finally, she pointed to land on the horizon.

  Celebrant nestled not far down its coast. As they drew closer, they spotted other ships entering or leaving the port, each pulled by at least two mandras.

  Captain Ico walked over. “We’ll soon arrive. Let’s go get your deadeye.”

  Adolin nodded, patting Shallan on the back, and followed Ico down to the brig, a small room far aft in the cargo hold. Ico used keys to unlock the door, revealing the spren of Adolin’s sword sitting on a bench inside. She looked at him with those haunting scratched-out eyes, her string face void of emotion.

  “I wish you hadn’t locked her in here,” Adolin said, stooping down to peer through the squat doorway.

  “Can’t have them on deck,” Ico said. “They don’t watch where they’re walking and fall off. I’m not going to spend days trying to fish out a lost deadeye.”

  She moved to join Adolin, then Ico reached over to shut the cell.

  “Wait!” Adolin said. “Ico, I saw something moving back there.”

  Ico locked the door and hung the keys on his belt. “My father.”

  “Your father?” Adolin said. “You keep your father locked up?”

  “Can’t stand the thought of him wandering around somewhere,” Ico said, eyes forward. “Have to keep him locked away though. He’ll go searching for the human carrying his corpse, otherwise. Walk right off the deck.”

  “Your father was a Radiant spren?”

  Ico started toward the steps up to the deck. “It is rude to ask about such ones.”

  “Rudeness doesn’t imply untruth though, right?”

  Ico turned and regarded him, then smiled wanly and nodded toward Adolin’s spren. “What is she to you?”

  “A friend.”

  “A tool. You use her corpse on the other side, don’t you? Well, I won’t blame you. I’ve heard stories of what they can do, and I am a pragmatic person. Just … don’t pretend she is your friend.”

  By the time they reached the deck, the ship was approaching the docks. Ico started calling orders, though his crew clearly knew what to do already.

  The Celebrant docks were wide and large, longer than the city. Ships pulled in along stone piers, though Adolin couldn’t figure out how they got back out again. Hook the mandras to the stern and pull them out that way?

  The shore was marked by long warehouses set in rows, which marred the view of the city proper, in Adolin’s opinion. The ship drew up at a berth on a specific pier, guided by a Reacher with semaphore. Ico’s sailors unlatched a piece of the hull, which unfolded to steps, and a sailor hiked down immediately to greet another group of Reachers. These began unlatching the mandras with long hooks, leading them away.

  As each flying spren was released from the rigging, the ship sank a l
ittle farther into the bead ocean. Eventually, it seemed to settle onto some braces and steady there.

  Pattern came over, humming to himself and meeting the rest of them as they gathered on the deck. Ico stepped up, gesturing. “A deal fulfilled, and a bond kept.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Adolin said, shaking Ico’s hand. Ico returned the gesture awkwardly. He obviously knew what to do, but was unpracticed at it. “You’re sure you won’t take us the rest of the way to the portal between realms?”

  “I’m certain,” Ico said firmly. “The region around Cultivation’s Perpendicularity has gained a poor reputation of late. Too many ships vanishing.”

  “What about Thaylen City?” Kaladin asked. “Could you take us there?”

  “No. I unload goods here, and then head east. Away from trouble. And if you’ll accept a little advice, stay in Shadesmar. The Physical Realm is not a welcoming place these days.”

  “We’ll take that under advisement,” Adolin said. “Is there anything we should know about the city?”

  “Don’t stray too far outside; with human cities nearby, there will be angerspren in the area. Try not to draw too many lesser spren, and maybe see if you can find a place to tie up that deadeye of yours.” He pointed. “The dock registrar is that building ahead of us, with the blue paint. There you’ll find a list of ships willing to take on passengers—but you’ll have to go to each one individually and make sure they are equipped to take humans, and haven’t already booked all their cabins.

  “The building next to that is a moneychanger, where you can trade Stormlight for notes of exchange.” He shook his head. “My daughter used to work there, before she ran off chasing stupid dreams.”

  He bade them farewell, and the group of travelers walked down the gangway onto the docks. Curiously, Syl still wore an illusion, making her face an Alethi tan, her hair black, her clothing red. Was being an honorspren really that big a deal?

  “So,” Adolin said as they reached the pier, “how are we going to do this? In the city, I mean.”

  “I’ve counted out our marks,” Shallan said, holding up a bag of spheres. “It’s been long enough since they were renewed, they’ll almost certainly lose their Stormlight in the next few days. A few have already gone out. We might as well trade for supplies—we can keep the broams and the larger gemstones for Surgebinding.”