Veil felt dazed, though she didn’t know if it was from drink or the unwelcome image of the strangled women. She went and gave the barkeep some spheres—probably too many—and hooked the jug of Horneater white with her thumb, then carted it out with her into the night.
THIRTY-ONE YEARS AGO
A candle flickered on the table, and Dalinar lit the end of his napkin in it, sending a small braid of pungent smoke into the air. Stupid decorative candles. What was the point? Looking pretty? Didn’t they use spheres because they were better than candles for light?
At a glare from Gavilar, Dalinar stopped burning his napkin and leaned back, nursing a mug of deep violet wine. The kind you could smell from across the room, potent and flavorful. A feast hall spread before him, dozens of tables set on the floor of the large stone room. The place was far too warm, and sweat prickled on his arms and forehead. Too many candles maybe.
Outside the feast hall, a storm raged like a madman who’d been locked away, impotent and ignored.
“But how do you deal with highstorms, Brightlord?” Toh said to Gavilar. The tall, blond-haired Westerner sat with them at the high table.
“Good planning keeps an army from needing to be out during a storm except in rare situations,” Gavilar explained. “Holdings are common in Alethkar. If a campaign takes longer than anticipated, we can split the army and retreat back to a number of these towns for shelter.”
“And if you’re in the middle of a siege?” Toh asked.
“Sieges are rare out here, Brightlord Toh,” Gavilar said, chuckling.
“Surely there are cities with fortifications,” Toh said. “Your famed Kholinar has majestic walls, does it not?” The Westerner had a thick accent and spoke in a clipped, annoying way. Sounded silly.
“You’re forgetting about Soulcasters,” Gavilar said. “Yes, sieges happen now and then, but it’s very hard to starve out a city’s soldiers while there are Soulcasters and emeralds to make food. Instead we usually break down the walls quickly, or—more commonly—we seize the high ground and use that vantage to pound the city for a while.”
Toh nodded, seeming fascinated. “Soulcasters. We have not these things in Rira or Iri. Fascinating, fascinating … And so many Shards here. Perhaps half the world’s wealth of Blades and Plates, all contained in Vorin kingdoms. The Heralds themselves favor you.”
Dalinar took a long pull on his wine. Outside, thunder shook the bunker. The highstorm was in full force now.
Inside, servants brought out slabs of pork and lanka claws for the men, cooked in a savory broth. The women dined elsewhere, including, he’d heard, Toh’s sister. Dalinar hadn’t met her yet. The two Western lighteyes had arrived barely an hour before the storm hit.
The hall soon echoed with the sounds of people chatting. Dalinar tore into his lanka claws, cracking them with the bottom of his mug and biting out the meat. This feast seemed too polite. Where was the music, the laughter? The women? Eating in separate rooms?
Life had been different these last few years of conquest. The final four highprinces stood firm in their unified front. The once-frantic fighting had stalled. More and more of Gavilar’s time was required by the administration of his kingdom—which was half as big as they wanted it to be, but still demanding.
Politics. Gavilar and Sadeas didn’t make Dalinar play at it too often, but he still had to sit at feasts like this one, rather than dining with his men. He sucked on a claw, watching Gavilar talk to the foreigner. Storms. Gavilar actually looked regal, with his beard combed like that, glowing gemstones on his fingers. He wore a uniform of the newer style. Formal, rigid. Dalinar instead wore his skirtlike takama and an open overshirt that went down to midthigh, his chest bare.
Sadeas held court with a group of lesser lighteyes at a table across the hall. Every one of that group had been carefully chosen: men with uncertain loyalties. He’d talk, persuade, convince. And if he was worried, he’d find ways to eliminate them. Not with assassins, of course. They all found that sort of thing distasteful; it wasn’t the Alethi way. Instead, they’d maneuver the man into a duel with Dalinar, or would position him at the front of an assault. Ialai, Sadeas’s wife, spent an impressive amount of time cooking up new schemes for getting rid of problematic allies.
Dalinar finished the claws, then turned toward his pork, a succulent slab of meat swimming in gravy. The food was better at this feast. He just wished that he didn’t feel so useless here. Gavilar made alliances; Sadeas dealt with problems. Those two could treat a feast hall like a battlefield.
Dalinar reached to his side for his knife so he could cut the pork. Except the knife wasn’t there.
Damnation. He’d lent it to Teleb, hadn’t he? He stared down at the pork, smelling its peppery sauce, his mouth watering. He reached to eat with his fingers, then thought to look up. Everyone else was eating primly, with utensils. But the servers had forgotten to bring him a knife.
Damnation again. He sat back, wagging his mug for more wine. Nearby, Gavilar and that foreigner continued their chat.
“Your campaign here has been impressive, Brightlord Kholin,” Toh said. “One sees a glint of your ancestor in you, the great Sunmaker.”
“Hopefully,” Gavilar noted, “my accomplishments won’t be as ephemeral as his.”
“Ephemeral! He reforged Alethkar, Brightlord! You shouldn’t speak so of one like him. You’re his descendant, correct?”
“We all are,” Gavilar said. “House Kholin, House Sadeas … all ten princedoms. Their founders were his sons, you know. So yes, signs of his touch are here—yet his empire didn’t last even a single generation past his death. Leaves me wondering what was wrong with his vision, his planning, that his great empire broke apart so quickly.”
The storm rumbled. Dalinar tried to catch the attention of a servant to request a dinner knife, but they were too busy scuttling about, seeing to the needs of other demanding feastgoers.
He sighed, then stood—stretching—and walked to the door, holding his empty mug. Lost in thought, he threw aside the bar on the door, then shoved open the massive wooden construction and stepped outside.
A sheet of icy rain suddenly washed over his skin, and wind blasted him fiercely enough that he stumbled. The highstorm was at its raging height, lightning blasting down like vengeful attacks from the Heralds.
Dalinar struck out into the storm, his overshirt whipping about him. Gavilar talked more and more about things like legacy, the kingdom, responsibility. What had happened to the fun of the fight, to riding into battle laughing?
Thunder crashed, and the periodic strikes of lightning were barely enough to see by. Still, Dalinar knew his way around well enough. This was a highstorm waystop, a place built to house patrolling armies during storms. He and Gavilar had been positioned at this one for a good four months now, drawing tribute from the nearby farms and menacing House Evavakh from just inside its borders.
Dalinar found the particular bunker he was looking for and pounded on the door. No response. So he summoned his Shardblade, slid the tip between the double doors, and sliced the bar inside. He pushed open the door to find a group of wide-eyed armed men scrambling into defensive lines, surrounded by fearspren, weapons held in nervous grips.
“Teleb,” Dalinar said, standing in the doorway. “Did I lend you my belt knife? My favorite one, with the whitespine ivory on the grip?”
The tall soldier, who stood in the second rank of terrified men, gaped at him. “Uh … your knife, Brightlord?”
“Lost the thing somewhere,” Dalinar said. “I lent it to you, didn’t I?”
“I gave it back, sir,” Teleb said. “You used it to pry that splinter out of your saddle, remember?”
“Damnation. You’re right. What did I do with that blasted thing?” Dalinar left the doorway and strode back out into the storm.
Perhaps Dalinar’s worries had more to do with himself than they did Gavilar. The Kholin battles were so calculated these days—and these last months had been more about what happened off the bat
tlefield than on it. It all seemed to leave Dalinar behind like the discarded shell of a cremling after it molted.
An explosive burst of wind drove him against the wall, and he stumbled, then stepped backward, driven by instincts he couldn’t define. A large boulder slammed into the wall, then bounced away. Dalinar glanced and saw something luminous in the distance: a gargantuan figure that moved on spindly glowing legs.
Dalinar stepped back up to the feast hall, gave the whatever-it-was a rude gesture, then pushed open the door—throwing aside two servants who had been holding it closed—and strode back in. Streaming with water, he walked up to the high table, where he flopped into his chair and set down his mug. Wonderful. Now he was wet and he still couldn’t eat his pork.
Everyone had gone silent. A sea of eyes stared at him.
“Brother?” Gavilar asked, the only sound in the room. “Is everything … all right?”
“Lost my storming knife,” Dalinar said. “Thought I’d left it in the other bunker.” He raised his mug and took a loud, lazy slurp of rainwater.
“Excuse me, Lord Gavilar,” Toh stammered. “I … I find myself in need of refreshment.” The blond-haired Westerner stood from his place, bowed, and retreated across the room to where a master-servant was administering drinks. His face seemed even paler than those folk normally were.
“What’s wrong with him?” Dalinar asked, scooting his chair closer to his brother.
“I assume,” Gavilar said, sounding amused, “that people he knows don’t casually go for strolls in highstorms.”
“Bah,” Dalinar said. “This is a fortified waystop, with walls and bunkers. We needn’t be scared of a little wind.”
“Toh thinks differently, I assure you.”
“You’re grinning.”
“You may have just proven in one moment, Dalinar, a point I’ve spent a half hour trying to make politically. Toh wonders if we’re strong enough to protect him.”
“Is that what the conversation was about?”
“Obliquely, yes.”
“Huh. Glad I could help.” Dalinar picked at a claw on Gavilar’s plate. “What does it take to get one of these fancy servants to get me a storming knife?”
“They’re master-servants, Dalinar,” his brother said, making a sign by raising his hand in a particular way. “The sign of need, remember?”
“No.”
“You really need to pay better attention,” Gavilar said. “We aren’t living in huts anymore.”
They’d never lived in huts. They were Kholin, heirs to one of the world’s great cities—even if Dalinar had never seen the place before his twelfth year. He didn’t like that Gavilar was buying into the story the rest of the kingdom told, the one that claimed their branch of the house had until recently been ruffians from the backwaters of their own princedom.
A gaggle of servants in black and white flocked to Gavilar, and he requested a new dining knife for Dalinar. As they split to run the errand, the doors to the women’s feast hall opened, and a figure slipped in.
Dalinar’s breath caught. Navani’s hair glowed with the tiny rubies she’d woven into it, a color matched by her pendant and bracelet. Her face a sultry tan, her hair Alethi jet black, her red-lipped smile so knowing and clever. And a figure … a figure to make a man weep for desire.
His brother’s wife.
Dalinar steeled himself and raised his arm in a gesture like the one Gavilar had made. A serving man stepped up with a springy gait. “Brightlord,” he said, “I will see to your desires of course, though you might wish to know that the sign is off. If you’ll allow me to demonstrate—”
Dalinar made a rude gesture. “Is this better?”
“Uh…”
“Wine,” Dalinar said, wagging his mug. “Violet. Enough to fill this three times at least.”
“And what vintage would you like, Brightlord?”
He eyed Navani. “Whichever one is closest.”
Navani slipped between tables, followed by the squatter form of Ialai Sadeas. Neither seemed to care that they were the only lighteyed women in the room.
“What happened to the emissary?” Navani said as she arrived. She slid between Dalinar and Gavilar as a servant brought her a chair.
“Dalinar scared him off,” Gavilar said.
The scent of her perfume was heady. Dalinar scooted his chair to the side and set his face. Be firm, don’t let her know how she warmed him, brought him to life like nothing else but battle.
Ialai pulled a chair over for herself, and a servant brought Dalinar’s wine. He took a long, calming drink straight from the jug.
“We’ve been assessing the sister,” Ialai said, leaning in from Gavilar’s other side. “She’s a touch vapid—”
“A touch?” Navani asked.
“—but I’m reasonably sure she’s being honest.”
“The brother seems the same,” Gavilar said, rubbing his chin and inspecting Toh, who was nursing a drink near the bar. “Innocent, wide-eyed. I think he’s genuine though.”
“He’s a sycophant,” Dalinar said with a grunt.
“He’s a man without a home, Dalinar,” Ialai said. “No loyalty, at the mercy of those who take him in. And he has only one piece he can play to secure his future.”
Shardplate.
Taken from his homeland of Rira and brought east, as far as Toh could get from his kinsmen—who were reportedly outraged to find such a precious heirloom stolen.
“He doesn’t have the armor with him,” Gavilar said. “He’s at least smart enough not to carry it. He’ll want assurances before giving it to us. Powerful assurances.”
“Look how he stares at Dalinar,” Navani said. “You impressed him.” She cocked her head. “Are you wet?”
Dalinar ran his hand through his hair. Storms. He hadn’t been embarrassed to stare down the crowd in the room, but before her he found himself blushing.
Gavilar laughed. “He went for a stroll.”
“You’re kidding,” Ialai said, scooting over as Sadeas joined them at the high table. The bulbous-faced man settled down on her chair with her, the two of them sitting half on, half off. He dropped a plate on the table, piled with claws in a bright red sauce. Ialai attacked them immediately. She was one of the few women Dalinar knew who liked masculine food.
“What are we discussing?” Sadeas asked, waving away a master-servant with a chair, then draping his arm around his wife’s shoulders.
“We’re talking about getting Dalinar married,” Ialai said.
“What?” Dalinar demanded, choking on a mouthful of wine.
“That is the point of this, right?” Ialai said. “They want someone who can protect them, someone their family will be too afraid to attack. But Toh and his sister, they’ll want more than just asylum. They’ll want to be part of things. Inject their blood into the royal line, so to speak.”
Dalinar took another long drink.
“You could try water sometime you know, Dalinar,” Sadeas said.
“I had some rainwater earlier. Everyone stared at me funny.”
Navani smiled at him. There wasn’t enough wine in the world to prepare him for the gaze behind the smile, so piercing, so appraising.
“This could be what we need,” Gavilar said. “It gives us not only the Shard, but the appearance of speaking for Alethkar. If people outside the kingdom start coming to me for refuge and treaties, we might be able to sway the remaining highprinces. We might be able to unite this country not through further war, but through sheer weight of legitimacy.”
A servant, at long last, arrived with a knife for Dalinar. He took it eagerly, then frowned as the woman walked away.
“What?” Navani asked.
“This little thing?” Dalinar asked, pinching the dainty knife between two fingers and dangling it. “How am I supposed to eat a pork steak with this?”
“Attack it,” Ialai said, making a stabbing motion. “Pretend it’s some thick-necked man who has been insulting your biceps.”
>
“If someone insulted my biceps, I wouldn’t attack him,” Dalinar said. “I’d refer him to a physician, because obviously something is wrong with his eyes.”
Navani laughed, a musical sound.
“Oh, Dalinar,” Sadeas said. “I don’t think there’s another person on Roshar who could have said that with a straight face.”
Dalinar grunted, then tried to maneuver the little knife into cutting the steak. The meat was growing cold, but still smelled delicious. A single hungerspren started flitting about his head, like a tiny brown fly of the type you saw out in the west near the Purelake.
“What defeated Sunmaker?” Gavilar suddenly asked.
“Hmm?” Ialai said.
“Sunmaker,” Gavilar said, looking from Navani, to Sadeas, to Dalinar. “He united Alethkar. Why did he fail to create a lasting empire?”
“His kids were too greedy,” Dalinar said, sawing at his steak. “Or too weak maybe. There wasn’t one of them that the others would agree to support.”
“No, that’s not it,” Navani said. “They might have united, if the Sunmaker himself could have been bothered to settle on an heir. It’s his fault.”
“He was off in the west,” Gavilar said. “Leading his army to ‘further glory.’ Alethkar and Herdaz weren’t enough for him. He wanted the whole world.”
“So it was his ambition,” Sadeas said.
“No, his greed,” Gavilar said quietly. “What’s the point of conquering if you can never sit back and enjoy it? Shubreth-son-Mashalan, Sunmaker, even the Hierocracy … they all stretched farther and farther until they collapsed. In all the history of mankind, has any conqueror decided they had enough? Has any man just said, ‘This is good. This is what I wanted,’ and gone home?”
“Right now,” Dalinar said, “what I want is to eat my storming steak.” He held up the little knife, which was bent in the middle.
Navani blinked. “How in the Almighty’s tenth name did you do that?”
“Dunno.”
Gavilar stared with that distant, far-off look in his green eyes. A look that was becoming more and more common. “Why are we at war, Brother?”