Oathbringer

  “We’re all different people at different times. Remember?”

  “Not the same way as you.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I … I think I’ve stopped leaking into new personas. Three for now.” She turned around, smiling at him, his hands still around her waist. “How do you like that, though? Three betrotheds instead of one. Some men drool over the idea of such debauchery. If you wanted, I could be practically anyone.”

  “But that’s the thing, Shallan. I don’t want anyone. I want you.”

  “That might be the hardest one. But I think I can do it, Adolin. With some help, maybe?”

  He grinned that goofy grin of his. Storms, how could his hair look so good with gravel in it? “So…” he said. “You mentioned something about kissing me until I can’t breathe. But here I am, not even winded—”

  He cut off as she kissed him again.

  * * *

  Kaladin settled down on the edge of a roof, high at the top of Thaylen City.

  This poor city. First the Everstorm, and its subsequent returns. The Thaylens had only just started figuring out how to rebuild, and now had to deal with more smashed buildings leading up to the corpse of the thunderclast, which lay like a toppled statue.

  We can win, he thought. But each victory scars us a little more.

  In his hand he rubbed a small stone with his thumb. Down below, in an alleyway off the main thoroughfare, a woman with flowing red hair kissed a man in a ragged and ripped uniform. Some people could celebrate despite the scars. Kaladin accepted that. He merely wished he knew how they did it.

  “Kaladin?” Syl said. She wove around him as a ribbon of light. “Don’t feel bad. The Words have to come in their own time. You’ll be all right.”

  “I always am.”

  He squinted down at Shallan and Adolin, and found that he couldn’t be bitter. He didn’t feel resignation either. Instead he felt … agreement?

  “Oh, them,” Syl said. “Well, I know that you don’t back down from fights. You’ve lost the round, but—”

  “No,” he said. “Her choice is made. You can see it.”

  “I can?”

  “You should be able to.” He rubbed his finger on the rock. “I don’t think I loved her, Syl. I felt … something. A lightening of my burdens when I was near her. She reminds me of someone.”

  “Who?”

  He opened his palm, and she landed on it, forming into the shape of a young woman with flowing hair and dress. She bent down, inspecting the rock in his palm, cooing over it. Syl could still be shockingly innocent—wide-eyed and excited about the world.

  “That’s a nice rock,” she said, completely serious.

  “Thank you.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I found it on the battlefield below. If you get it wet it changes colors. It looks brown, but with a little water, you can see the white, black, and grey.”

  “Oooooh.”

  He let her inspect it for a moment more. “It’s true, then?” he finally said. “About the parshmen. That this was their land, their world, before we arrived? That … that we were the Voidbringers?”

  She nodded. “Odium is the void, Kaladin. He draws in emotion, and doesn’t let it go. You … you brought him with you. I wasn’t alive then, but I know this truth. He was your first god, before you turned to Honor.”

  Kaladin exhaled slowly, closing his eyes.

  The men of Bridge Four were having trouble with this idea. As well they should. Others in the military didn’t care, but his men … they knew.

  You could protect your home. You could kill to defend the people inside. But what if you’d stolen that house in the first place? What if the people you killed were only trying to get back what was rightfully theirs?

  Reports from Alethkar said that the parshman armies were pushing north, that Alethi armies in the area had moved into Herdaz. What would happen to Hearthstone? His family? Surely in the face of the invasion, he could convince his father to move to Urithiru. But what then?

  It got so complicated. Humans had lived upon this land for thousands of years. Could anyone really be expected to let go because of what ancient people had done, no matter how dishonorable their actions?

  Who did he fight? Who did he protect?

  Defender? Invader?

  Honorable knight? Hired thug?

  “The Recreance,” he said to Syl. “I always imagined it as a single event. A day the knights all gave up their Shards, like in Dalinar’s vision. But I don’t think it actually happened like that.”

  “Then … how?” Syl asked.

  “Like this,” Kaladin said. He squinted, watching the light of a setting sun play on the ocean. “They found out something they couldn’t ignore. Eventually they had to face it.”

  “They made the wrong choice.”

  Kaladin pocketed the stone. “The oaths are about perception, Syl. You confirmed that. The only thing that matters is whether or not we are confident that we’re obeying our principles. If we lose that confidence, then dropping the armor and weapons is only a formality.”

  “Kal—”

  “I’m not going to do the same,” he said. “I’d like to think that the past of Bridge Four will make us a little more pragmatic than those ancient Radiants. We won’t abandon you. But finding out what we will do might end up being messy.”

  Kaladin stepped off the building, then Lashed himself so he soared in a wide arc over the city. He landed on a rooftop where most of Bridge Four was sharing a meal of flatbread with kuma—crushed lavis and spices. They could have demanded something far better than travel rations, but they didn’t seem to realize it.

  Teft stood apart, glowing softly. Kaladin waved to the other men, then walked up to join Teft at the edge of the rooftop, staring out over the ocean beyond.

  “Almost time to get the men back to work,” Teft noted. “King Taravangian wants us to fly wounded up from the triage stations to the Oathgate. The men wanted a break for food, not that they storming did much. You’d already won this battle when we got here, Kal.”

  “I’d be dead if you hadn’t activated the Oathgate,” Kaladin said softly. “Somehow I knew that you would, Teft. I knew you’d come for me.”

  “Knew better than I did, then.” Teft heaved a breath.

  Kaladin rested his hand on Teft’s shoulder. “I know how it feels.”

  “Aye,” Teft said. “I suppose you do. But isn’t it supposed to feel better? The longing for my moss is still storming there.”

  “It doesn’t change us, Teft. We’re still who we are.”

  “Damnation.”

  Kaladin looked back at the others. Lopen was currently trying to impress Lyn and Laran with a story about how he lost his arm. It was the seventh rendition Kaladin had heard, each a little different.

  Beard … Kaladin thought, feeling the loss like a stab to his side. He and Lopen would have gotten along well.

  “It doesn’t get easier, Teft,” he said. “It gets harder, I think, the more you learn about the Words. Fortunately, you do get help. You were mine when I needed it. I’ll be yours.”

  Teft nodded, but then pointed. “What about him?”

  For the first time, Kaladin realized that Rock wasn’t with the rest of the team. The large Horneater was sitting—Stormlight extinguished—on the steps of one of the temples down below. Shardbow across his lap. Head bowed. He obviously considered what he’d done to be an oath broken, despite it having saved Kaladin’s life.

  “We lift the bridge together, Teft,” Kaladin said. “And we carry it.”

  * * *

  Dalinar refused to leave Thaylen City immediately—but in compromise with Navani, he agreed to return to his villa in the Royal Ward and rest. On his way, he stopped in the temple of Talenelat—which had been cleared of people to make space for the generals to meet.

  Those hadn’t arrived yet, so he had a short time to himself, looking at the reliefs dedicated to the Herald. He knew that he should go up and
sleep, at least until the Azish ambassador arrived. But something about those images of Talenelat’Elin, standing tall against overwhelming forces …

  Did he ever have to fight humans in one of these last stands? Dalinar thought. Worse, did he ever wonder about what he had done? What we all had done, in taking this world?

  Dalinar was still standing there when a frail figure darkened the doorway to the temple. “I brought my surgeons,” Taravangian said, voice echoing in the large stone chamber. “They have already begun helping with the city’s wounded.”

  “Thank you,” Dalinar said.

  Taravangian didn’t enter. He stood, waiting, until Dalinar sighed softly. “You abandoned me,” he said. “You abandoned this city.”

  “I assumed that you were going to fall,” Taravangian said, “and so positioned myself in a way that I could seize control of the coalition.”

  Dalinar started. He turned toward the old man, who stood silhouetted in the doorway. “You what?”

  “I assumed that the only way for the coalition to recover from your mistakes was for me to take command. I could not stand with you, my friend. For the good of Roshar, I stepped away.”

  Even after their discussions together—even knowing how Taravangian viewed his obligations—Dalinar was shocked. This was brutal, utilitarian politics.

  Taravangian finally stepped into the chamber, trailing a wizened hand along one of the wall reliefs. He joined Dalinar, and together they studied a carving of a powerful man, standing tall between two pillars of stone—barring the way between monsters and men.

  “You … didn’t become king of Jah Keved by accident, did you?” Dalinar asked.

  Taravangian shook his head. It seemed obvious to Dalinar now. Taravangian was easy to dismiss when you assumed he was slow of thought. But once you knew the truth, other mysteries began to fit into place.

  “How?” Dalinar asked.

  “There’s a woman at Kharbranth,” he said. “She goes by the name Dova, but we think she is Battah’Elin. A Herald. She told us the Desolation was approaching.” He looked to Dalinar. “I had nothing to do with the death of your brother. But once I heard of what incredible things the assassin did, I sought him out. Years later, I located him, and gave him specific instructions.…”

  * * *

  Moash stepped down out of the Kholinar palace into the shadows of a night that had seemed far too long in coming.

  People clogged the palace gardens—humans who had been cast out of homes to make way for parshmen. Some of these refugees had strung tarps between benches of shalebark, creating very low tents only a couple of feet tall. Lifespren bobbed among them and the garden plants.

  Moash’s target was a particular man who sat giggling in the darkness near the back of the gardens. A madman with eye color lost to the night.

  “Have you seen me?” the man asked as Moash knelt.

  “No,” Moash said, then rammed the strange golden knife into the man’s stomach. The man took it with a quiet grunt, smiled a silly smile, then closed his eyes.

  “Were you really one of them?” Moash asked. “Herald of the Almighty?”

  “Was, was, was…” The man started to tremble violently, his eyes opening wide. “Was … no. No, what is this death? What is this death!”

  Huddled forms stirred, and some of the wiser ones scuttled away.

  “It’s taking me!” the man screamed, then looked down at the knife in Moash’s hand. “What is that?”

  The man trembled for a moment more, then jerked once, going motionless. When Moash pulled the yellow-white knife free, it trailed dark smoke and left a blackened wound. The large sapphire at the pommel took on a subdued glow.

  Moash glanced over his shoulder toward the Fused hanging in the night sky behind the palace. This murder seemed a thing that they dared not do themselves. Why? What did they fear?

  Moash held the knife aloft toward them, but there were no cheers. Nothing accompanied the act but a few muttered words from people trying to sleep. These broken slaves were the only other witnesses to this moment.

  The final death of Jezrien. Yaezir. Jezerezeh’Elin, king of Heralds. A figure known in myth and lore as the greatest human who had ever lived.

  * * *

  Lopen leaped behind a rock, then grinned, spotting the little spren in the shape of a leaf tucked there. “Found you, naco.”

  Rua transformed into the shape of a petulant young boy, maybe nine or ten years old. Rua was his name, but “naco” was—of course—what Lopen called him.

  Rua zipped into the air as a ribbon of light. Bridge Four stood near some tents at the bottom of Thaylen City, in the Low Ward, right in the shadow of the walls. Here, a massive surgeons’ station was caring for the wounded.

  “Lopen!” Teft called. “Stop being crazy and get over here to help.”

  “I’m not crazy,” Lopen yelled back. “Sure, I’m the least crazy of this whole lot! And you all know it!”

  Teft sighed, then waved to Peet and Leyten. Together, they carefully Lashed a large platform—easily twenty feet square—into the air. It was filled with recuperating wounded. The three bridgemen flew with it toward the upper part of the city.

  Rua zipped onto Lopen’s shoulder and formed into the shape of a young man, then thrust a hand toward the bridgemen and tried the gesture that Lopen had taught him.

  “Nice,” Lopen said. “But wrong finger. Nope! Not that one either. Naco, that’s your foot.”

  The spren turned the gesture toward Lopen.

  “That’s it,” Lopen said. “You can thank me, naco, for inspiring this great advance in your learning. People—and little things made out of nothing too, sure—are often inspired near the Lopen.”

  He turned and strolled into a tent of wounded, the far wall of which was tied right onto a nice, shiny bronze portion of wall. Lopen hoped the Thaylens would appreciate how nice it was. Who had a metal wall? Lopen would put one on his palace when he built it. Thaylens were strange though. What else could you say about a people who liked it so far south, in the cold? The local language was practically chattering teeth.

  This tent of wounded was filled with the people who had been deemed too healthy to deserve Renarin’s or Lift’s healing, but still needed a surgeon’s care. They weren’t dying, sure, right now. Maybe later. But everyone was dying maybe later, so it was probably all right to ignore them for someone whose guts got misplaced.

  The moans and whimpers indicated that they found not dying immediately to be a small comfort. The ardents did what they could, but most of the real surgeons were set up higher in the city. Taravangian’s forces had finally decided to join the battle, now that all the easy stuff—like dying, which really didn’t take much skill—was through.

  Lopen fetched his pack, then passed Dru—who was folding freshly boiled bandages. Even after all these centuries, sure, they did what the Heralds had told them. Boiling stuff killed rotspren.

  Lopen patted Dru on the shoulder. The slender Alethi man looked up and nodded toward Lopen, showing reddened eyes. Loving a soldier was not easy, and now that Kaladin had returned from Alethkar alone …

  Lopen moved on, and eventually settled down beside a wounded man in a cot. Thaylen, with drooping eyebrows and a bandage around his head. He stared straight ahead, not blinking.

  “Want to see a trick?” Lopen asked the soldier.

  The man shrugged.

  Lopen lifted his foot up and put the boot on the man’s cot. The laces had come undone, and Lopen—one hand behind his back—deftly grabbed the strings and looped them around his hand, twisted them, then pulled them tight, using his other foot to hold one end. He wound up with an excellent knot with a nice bow. It was even symmetrical. Maybe he could get an ardent to write a poem about it.

  The soldier gave no reaction. Lopen settled back, pulling over his pack, which clinked softly. “Don’t look like that. It’s not the end of the world.”

  The soldier cocked his head.

  “Well, sure. Technic
ally it might be. But for the end of the world, it’s not so bad, right? I figured that when everything ended, we’d sink into a noxious bath of pus and doom, breathing in agony as the air around us—sure—became molten, and we screamed a final burning scream, relishing the memories of the last time a woman loved us.” Lopen tapped the man’s cot. “Don’t know about you, moolie, but my lungs aren’t burning. The air doesn’t seem very molten. Considering how bad this could have gone, you’ve got a lot to be thankful for. Remember that.”

  “I…” The man blinked.

  “I meant, remember those exact words. That’s the phrase to tell the woman you’re seeing. Helps a ton.” He fished in his pack and pulled out a bottle of Thaylen lavis beer he’d salvaged. Rua stopped zipping around the top of the tent long enough to float down and inspect it.

  “Want to see a trick?” Lopen asked.

  “A … another?” the man asked.

  “Normally, I’d pop the cap off with one of my fingernails. I have great Herdazian ones, extra hard. You have weaker ones like most people. So here’s the trick.”

  Lopen rolled up his trouser leg with one hand. He pressed the bottle—top first—to his leg and then, with a quick flick, twisted off the cap. He raised the bottle toward the man.

  The man reached for it with the bandaged stump of his right arm, which ended above the elbow. He looked at it, grimaced, then reached with the left hand instead.

  “If you need any jokes,” Lopen said, “I’ve got a few I can’t use anymore.”

  The soldier drank quietly, eyes flicking to the front of the tent, where Kaladin had entered, glowing softly, speaking with some of the surgeons. Knowing Kaladin, he was probably telling them how to do their jobs.

  “You’re one of them,” the soldier said. “Radiant.”

  “Sure,” Lopen said. “But not really one of them. I’m trying to figure out the next step.”

  “Next step?”

  “I’ve got the flying,” Lopen said, “and the spren. But I don’t know if I’m good at saving people yet.”

  The man looked at his drink. “I … think you might be doing just fine.”

  “That’s a beer, not a person. Don’t get those mixed up. Very embarrassing, but I won’t tell.”