Teft stumbled to his feet, and was halfway through relieving himself against some empty boxes before he realized what he was doing. There were no highstorms in here to wash the place out. Besides, he wasn’t some drunkard who wallowed in filth and pissed in alleys. Was he?
That thought immediately reminded him of the deeper pain. A pain beyond the pounding in his head or the ache of his bones. The pain that was with him always, like a persistent ringing, cutting deep to his core. This pain had awakened him. The pain of need.
No, he wasn’t just some drunkard. He was far, far worse.
He stumbled out of the alleyway, trying to smooth his hair and beard. Women he passed held safehands to mouths and noses, looking away as if embarrassed for him. Perhaps it was a good thing he’d lost his coat—storms help him if anyone recognized who he was. He’d shame the entire crew.
You’re already a shame to the crew, Teft, and you know it, he thought. You’re a godless waste of spit.
He eventually found his way to the well, where he slouched in a line behind some others. Once at the water, he fell down on his knees, then used a trembling hand to fish out a drink with his tin cup. Once he tasted the cool water, his stomach immediately cramped, rejecting it even though he was parched. This always happened after a night on the moss, so he knew to ride the nausea and the cramps, hoping he could keep the water down.
He slumped, holding his stomach, frightening the people in line behind him. Out in the crowd—there was always at least a small crowd near the well—some men in uniforms shoved through. Forest green. Sadeas’s men.
They ignored the lines, then filled their buckets. When a man in Kholin blue objected, Sadeas’s soldiers got right up in his face. The Kholin soldier finally backed down. Good lad. They didn’t need another brawl starting between Sadeas’s men and other soldiers.
Teft dipped his cup again, the pain from his previous sip fading. This well seemed deep. Rippling water on top, and a deep blackness below.
He almost threw himself in. If he woke up in Damnation tomorrow, would he still feel that itching need inside? That would be a fitting torment. Voidbringers wouldn’t even have to flay his soul—all they’d need to do was tell him he’d never feel sated again, and then they could watch him squirm.
Reflected in the waters of the well, a face appeared over his shoulder. A woman with pale white skin, glowing faintly, and hair that hovered around her head like clouds.
“You leave me alone,” he said, slapping his hand into the water. “You just … you just go find someone who cares.”
He stumbled back to his feet, finally getting out of the way so someone else could take a spot. Storms, what hour was it? Those women with buckets were ready to draw water for the day. The drunken nighttime crowds had been replaced by the enterprising and industrious.
He’d been out all night again. Kelek!
Returning to the barracks would be the smart thing to do. But could he face them like this? He wandered through the market instead, eyes down.
I’m getting worse, a piece of him realized. The first month in Dalinar’s employ, he’d been able to resist for the most part. But he’d had money again, after so long as a bridgeman. Having money was dangerous.
He’d functioned, only mossing an evening here, an evening there. But then Kaladin had left, and this tower, where everything had felt so wrong … Those monsters of darkness, including one that had looked just like Teft.
He’d needed the moss to deal with that. Who wouldn’t? He sighed. When he looked up, he found that spren standing in front of him.
Teft … she whispered. You’ve spoken oaths.…
Foolish, stupid oaths, spoken when he’d hoped that being Radiant would remove the cravings. He turned away from her and found his way to a tent nestled among the taverns. Those were closed for the morning, but this place—it had no name and didn’t need one—was open. It was always open, just like the ones back in Dalinar’s warcamp had been, just like the ones in Sadeas’s warcamp. They were harder to find in some places than others. But they were always there, nameless but still known.
The tough-looking Herdazian man sitting at the front waved him in. It was dim inside, but Teft found his way to a table and slumped down. A woman in tight clothing and a glove with no fingers brought him a little bowl of firemoss. They didn’t ask for payment. They all knew that he wouldn’t have any spheres on him today, not after his binge last night. But they would make sure to get paid eventually.
Teft stared at the little bowl, loathing himself. And yet the scent of it made his longing multiply tenfold. He let out a whimpering groan, then seized the firemoss and ground it between his thumb and forefinger. The moss let off a small plume of smoke, and in the dim light, the center of the moss glowed like an ember.
It hurt, of course. He’d worn through his calluses last night, and now rubbed the moss with raw, blistering fingers. But this was a sharp, present pain. A good kind of pain. Merely physical, it was a sign of life.
It took a minute before he felt the effects. A washing away of his pains, followed by a strengthening of his resolve. He could remember long ago that the firemoss had done more to him—he remembered euphoria, nights spent in a dizzy, wonderful daze, where everything around him seemed to make sense.
These days, he needed the moss to feel normal. Like a man scrambling up wet rocks, he could barely reach where everyone else was standing before he slowly started sliding back down. It wasn’t euphoria he craved anymore; it was the mere capacity to keep on going.
The moss washed away his burdens. Memories of that dark version of himself. Memories of turning his family in as heretics, even though they’d been right all along. He was a wretch and a coward, and didn’t deserve to wear the symbol of Bridge Four. He’d as good as betrayed that spren already. She’d best have fled.
For a moment he could give that all up to the firemoss.
Unfortunately, there was something broken in Teft. Long ago he’d gone to the moss at the urgings of other men in his squad in Sadeas’s army. They could rub the stuff and get some benefit, like a man chewed ridgebark when on guard duty to stay awake. A little firemoss, a little relaxation, and then they moved on with their lives.
Teft didn’t work that way. Burdens shoved aside, he could have gotten up and gone back to the bridgemen. He could have started his day.
But storms, a few more minutes sounded so nice. He kept going. He went through three bowls before a garish light made him blink. He pulled his face off the table where—to his shame—he’d drooled a puddle. How long had it been, and what was that terrible, awful light?
“Here he is,” Kaladin’s voice said as Teft blinked. A figure knelt beside the table. “Oh, Teft…”
“He owes us for three bowls,” said the den’s keeper. “One garnet broam.”
“Be glad,” an accented voice growled, “we do not rip off pieces of your body and pay you with those.”
Storms. Rock was here too? Teft groaned, turning away. “Don’t see me,” he croaked. “Don’t…”
“Our establishment is perfectly legal, Horneater,” the den keeper said. “If you assault us, be assured we will bring the guard and they will defend us.”
“Here’s your blood money, you eel,” Kaladin said, pushing the light toward them. “Rock, can you get him?”
Large hands took Teft, surprisingly gentle with their touch. He was crying. Kelek …
“Where’s your coat, Teft?” Kaladin asked from the darkness.
“I sold it,” Teft admitted, squeezing his eyes shut against the shamespren that drifted down around him, in the shape of flower petals. “I sold my own storming coat.”
Kaladin fell silent, and Teft let Rock carry him from the den. Halfway back, he finally managed to scrounge up enough dignity to complain about Rock’s breath and make them let him walk on his own feet—with a little support under the arms.
* * *
Teft envied better men than he. They didn’t have the itch, the one that went s
o deep that it stung his soul. It was persistent, always with him, and couldn’t ever be scratched. Despite how hard he tried.
Kaladin and Rock set him up in one of the barrack rooms, private, wrapped in blankets and with a bowl of Rock’s stew in his hands. Teft made the proper noises, the ones they expected. Apologies, promises he would tell them if he was feeling the need again. Promises that he’d let them help him. Though he couldn’t eat the stew, not yet. It would be another day before he could keep anything down.
Storms, but they were good men. Better friends than he deserved. They were all growing into something grand, while Teft … Teft just stayed on the ground, looking up.
They left him to get some rest. He stared at the stew, smelling the familiar scent, not daring to eat it. He’d go back to work before the day was out, training bridgemen from the other crews. He could function. He could go for days, pretending that he was normal. Storms, he’d balanced everything in Sadeas’s army for years before taking one step too far, missing duty one too many times, and landing himself in the bridge crews as punishment.
Those months running bridges had been the only time in his adult life when he hadn’t been dominated by the moss. But even back then, when he’d been able to afford a little alcohol, he’d known that eventually he’d find his way back. The liquor wasn’t ever enough.
Even as he braced himself to go to work for the day, one nagging thought overshadowed his mind. A shameful thought.
I’m not going to get any more moss for a while, am I?
That sinister knowledge hurt him more than anything. He was going to have to go a few excruciating days feeling like half a man. Days when he couldn’t feel anything but his own self-loathing, days living with the shame, the memories, the glances of other bridgemen.
Days without any storming help whatsoever.
That terrified him.
Cephandrius, bearer of the First Gem,
You must know better than to approach us by relying upon presumption of past relationship.
Inside the increasingly familiar vision, Dalinar carefully nocked an arrow, then released, sending a black-fletched missile into the back of the wildman. The man’s screech was lost in the cacophony of battle. Ahead, men fought frantically as they were pushed backward toward the edge of a cliff.
Dalinar methodically nocked a second arrow, then loosed. This arrow hit as well, lodging in a man’s shoulder. The man dropped his axe midswing, causing him to miss the young, dark-skinned youth lying on the ground. The boy was barely into his teens; the awkwardness hadn’t left him yet, and he had limbs that seemed too long, a face that was too round, too childlike. Dalinar might have let him run messages, but not hold a spear.
The lad’s age hadn’t prevented him from being named Prime Aqasix Yanagawn the First, ruler of Azir, emperor of greater Makabak.
Dalinar had perched on some rocks, bow in hand. While he didn’t intend to repeat his mistake of letting Queen Fen manage all on her own in a vision, he also didn’t want Yanagawn to slip through it without challenge or stress. There was a reason that the Almighty had often put Dalinar in danger in these visions. He’d needed a visceral understanding of what was at stake.
He felled another enemy who got close to the boy. The shots weren’t difficult from his vantage near the fight; he had some training with the bow—though his archery in recent years had been with so-called Shardbows, fabrial bows crafted with such a heavy draw weight that only a man in Shardplate could use them.
It was strange, experiencing this battle for the third time. Though each repetition played out slightly differently, there were certain familiar details. The scents of smoke and moldy, inhuman blood. The way that man below fell after losing an arm, screaming the same half-prayer, half-condemnation of the Almighty.
With Dalinar’s bowmanship, the band of defenders lasted against the enemy until that Radiant climbed up over the edge of the cliff, glowing in Shardplate. Emperor Yanagawn sat down as the other soldiers rallied around the Radiant and pushed the enemy backward.
Dalinar lowered his bow, reading the terror in the youth’s trembling figure. Other men spoke of getting the shakes when a fight was over—the horror of it catching up with them.
The emperor finally stumbled to his feet, using the spear like a staff. He didn’t notice Dalinar, didn’t even question why some of the bodies around him had arrows in them. This boy was no soldier, though Dalinar hadn’t expected him to be one. From his experience, Azish generals were too pragmatic to want the throne. It involved too much pandering to bureaucrats and, apparently, dictating essays.
The youth started down a path away from the cliff, and Dalinar followed. Aharietiam. The people who lived through this had thought it the end of the world. Surely they assumed they’d soon return to the Tranquiline Halls. How would they respond to the information that—after four millennia—mankind still hadn’t been allowed back into heaven?
The boy stopped at the bottom of the twisting path, which led into the valley between rock formations. He watched wounded men limp by, supported by friends. Moans and shouts rose in the air. Dalinar intended to step up and start explaining about these visions, but the boy strode out to walk beside some wounded men, chatting with them.
Dalinar followed, curious, catching fragments of the conversation. What happened here? Who are you? Why were you fighting?
The men didn’t have many answers. They were wounded, exhausted, trailed by painspren. They did find their way to a larger group though, in the direction Jasnah had gone during Dalinar’s previous visit to this vision.
The crowd had gathered around a man standing on a large boulder. Tall and confident, the man was in his thirties, and he wore white and blue. He had an Alethi feel to him, except … not quite. His skin was a shade darker, and something was faintly off about his features.
Yet there was something … familiar about the man.
“You must spread the word,” the man proclaimed. “We have won! At long last, the Voidbringers are defeated. This is not my victory, or that of the other Heralds. It is your victory. You have done this.”
Some of the people shouted in triumph. Too many others stood silent, staring with dead eyes.
“I will lead the charge for the Tranquiline Halls,” the man shouted. “You will not see me again, but think not on that now! You have won your peace. Revel in it! Rebuild. Go now, help your fellows. Carry with you the light of your Herald king’s words. We are victorious, at long last, over evil!”
Another round of shouts, more energetic this time.
Storms, Dalinar thought, feeling a chill. This was Jezerezeh’Elin himself, Herald of Kings. The greatest among them.
Wait. Did the king have dark eyes?
The group broke up, but the young emperor remained, staring at the place where the Herald had stood. Finally, he whispered, “Oh, Yaezir. King of the Heralds.”
“Yes,” Dalinar said, stepping up beside him. “That was him, Your Excellency. My niece visited this vision earlier, and she wrote that she thought she’d spotted him.”
Yanagawn grabbed Dalinar by the arm. “What did you say? You know me?”
“You are Yanagawn of Azir,” Dalinar said. He nodded his head in a semblance of a bow. “I am Dalinar Kholin, and I apologize that our meeting must take place under such irregular circumstances.”
The youth’s eyes widened. “I see Yaezir himself first, and now my enemy.”
“I am not your enemy.” Dalinar sighed. “And this is no mere dream, Your Excellency. I—”
“Oh, I know it’s not a dream,” Yanagawn said. “As I am a Prime raised to the throne miraculously, the Heralds may choose to speak through me!” He looked about. “This day we are living through, it is the Day of Glory?”
“Aharietiam,” Dalinar said. “Yes.”
“Why did they place you here? What does it mean?”
“They didn’t place me here,” Dalinar said. “Your Excellency, I instigated this vision, and I brought you into it.”
br /> Skeptical, the boy folded his arms. He wore the leather skirt provided by the vision. He’d left his bronze-tipped spear leaning against a rock nearby.
“Have you been told,” Dalinar asked, “that I am considered mad?”
“There are rumors.”
“Well, this was my madness,” Dalinar said. “I suffered visions during the storms. Come. See.”
He led Yanagawn to a better view of the large field of the dead, which spread out from the mouth of the canyon. Yanagawn followed, then his face grew ashen at the sight. Finally, he strode down onto the larger battlefield, moving among the corpses, moans, and curses.
Dalinar walked beside him. So many dead eyes, so many faces twisted in pain. Lighteyed and dark. Pale skin like the Shin and some Horneaters. Dark skin like the Makabaki. Many that could have been Alethi, Veden, or Herdazian.
There were other things, of course. The giant broken stone figures. Parshmen wearing warform, with chitin armor and orange blood. One spot they passed had a whole heap of strange cremlings, burned and smoking. Who would have taken the time to pile up a thousand little crustaceans?
“We fought together,” Yanagawn said.
“How else could we have resisted?” Dalinar said. “To fight the Desolation alone would be madness.”
Yanagawn eyed him. “You wanted to talk to me without the viziers. You wanted me alone! And you can just … you just show me whatever will strengthen your argument!”
“If you accept that I have the power to show you these visions,” Dalinar said, “would that not in itself imply that you should listen to me?”
“The Alethi are dangerous. Do you know what happened the last time the Alethi were in Azir?”
“The Sunmaker’s rule was a long time ago.”
“The viziers have talked about this,” Yanagawn said. “They told me all about it. It started the same way back then, with a warlord uniting the Alethi tribes.”
“Tribes?” Dalinar said. “You’d compare us to the nomads that roam Tu Bayla? Alethkar is one of the most cultured kingdoms on Roshar!”