Oathbringer

  A scribe eventually entered bearing the king’s letter, and everyone but Dalinar and Evi left. Evi held the letter and hesitated. “Do you want to sit, or—”

  “No, go ahead.”

  Evi cleared her voice. “ ‘Brother,’ ” the letter began, “ ‘the treaty is sealed. Your efforts in Jah Keved are to be commended, and this should be a time of celebration and congratulations. Indeed, on a personal note, I wish to express my pride in you. The word from our best generals is that your tactical instincts have matured to full-fledged strategic genius. I never counted myself among their ranks, but to a man, they commend you as their equal.

  “ ‘As I have grown to become a king, it seems you have found your place as our general. I’m most interested to hear your own reports of the small mobile team tactics you’ve been employing. I would like to speak in person at length about all of this—indeed, I have important revelations of my own I would like to share. It would be best if we could meet in person. Once, I enjoyed your company every day. Now I believe it has been three years since we last spoke face to face.’ ”

  “But,” Dalinar said, interrupting, “the Rift needs to be dealt with.”

  Evi broke off, looking at him, then back down at the page. She continued reading. “ ‘Unfortunately, our meeting will have to wait a few storms longer. Though your efforts on the border have certainly helped solidify our power, I have failed to dominate Rathalas and its renegade leader with politics.

  “ ‘I must send you to the Rift again. You are to quell this faction. Civil war could tear Alethkar to shreds, and I dare not wait any longer. In truth, I wish I’d listened when we spoke—so many years ago—and you challenged me to send you to the Rift.

  “ ‘Sadeas will gather reinforcements and join you. Please send word of your strategic assessment of the problem. Be warned, we are certain now that one of the other highprinces—we don’t know who—is supporting Tanalan and his rebellion. He may have access to Shards. I wish you strength of purpose, and the Heralds’ own blessings, in your new task. With love and respect, Gavilar.’ ”

  Evi looked up. “How did you know, Dalinar? You’ve been poring over those maps for weeks—maps of the Crownlands and of Alethkar. You knew he was going to assign you this task.”

  “What kind of strategist would I be if I couldn’t foresee the next battle?”

  “I thought we were going to relax,” Evi said. “We were going to be done with the killing.”

  “With the momentum I have? What a waste that would be! If not for this problem in Rathalas, Gavilar would have found somewhere else for me to fight. Herdaz again, perhaps. You can’t have your best general sitting around collecting crem.”

  Besides. There would be men and women among Gavilar’s advisors who worried about Dalinar. If anyone was a threat to the throne, it would be the Blackthorn—particularly with the respect he’d gained from the kingdom’s generals. Though Dalinar had decided years ago that he would never do such a thing, many at court would think the kingdom safer if he were kept away.

  “No, Evi,” he said as he made another notation, “I doubt we will ever settle back in Kholinar again.”

  He nodded to himself. That was the way to get the Rift. One of his mobile bands could round and secure the lake’s beach. He could move the entire army across it then, attacking far faster than the Rift expected.

  Satisfied, he looked up. And found Evi crying.

  The sight stunned him, and he dropped his pencil. She tried to hold it back, turning toward the fire and wrapping her arms around herself, but the sniffles sounded as distinct and disturbing as breaking bones.

  Kelek’s breath … he could face soldiers and storms, falling boulders and dying friends, but nothing in his training had ever prepared him to deal with these soft tears.

  “Seven years,” she whispered. “Seven years we’ve been out here, living in wagons and waystops. Seven years of murder, of chaos, of men crying to their wounds.”

  “You married—”

  “Yes, I married a soldier. It’s my fault for not being strong enough to deal with the consequences. Thank you, Dalinar. You’ve made that very clear.”

  This was what it was like to feel helpless. “I … thought you were growing to like it. You now fit in with the other women.”

  “The other women? Dalinar, they make me feel stupid.”

  “But…”

  “Conversation is a contest to them,” Evi said, throwing her hands up. “Everything has to be a contest to you Alethi, always trying to show up everyone else. For the women it’s this awful, unspoken game to prove how witty they each are. I’ve thought … maybe the only answer, to make you proud, is to go to the Nightwatcher and ask for the blessing of intelligence. The Old Magic can change a person. Make something great of them—”

  “Evi,” Dalinar cut in. “Please, don’t speak of that place or that creature. It’s blasphemous.”

  “You say that, Dalinar,” she said. “But no one actually cares about religion here. Oh, they make sure to point out how superior their beliefs are to mine. But who actually ever worries about the Heralds, other than to swear by their names? You bring ardents to battle merely to Soulcast rocks into grain. That way, you don’t have to stop killing each other long enough to find something to eat.”

  Dalinar approached, then settled down into the other seat by the hearth. “It is … different in your homeland?”

  She rubbed her eyes, and he wondered if she’d see through his attempt to change the subject. Talking about her people often smoothed over their arguments.

  “Yes,” she said. “True, there are those who don’t care about the One or the Heralds. They say we shouldn’t accept Iriali or Vorin doctrines as our own. But Dalinar, many do care. Here … here you just pay some ardent to burn glyphwards for you and call it done.”

  Dalinar took a deep breath and tried again. “Perhaps, after I’ve seen to the rebels, I can persuade Gavilar not to give me another assignment. We could travel. Go west, to your homeland.”

  “So you could kill my people instead?”

  “No! I wouldn’t—”

  “They’d attack you, Dalinar. My brother and I are exiles, if you haven’t forgotten.”

  He hadn’t seen Toh in a decade, ever since the man had gone to Herdaz. He reportedly liked it quite well, living on the coast, protected by Alethi bodyguards.

  Evi sighed. “I’ll never see the sunken forests again. I’ve accepted that. I will live my life in this harsh land, so dominated by wind and cold.”

  “Well, we could travel someplace warm. Up to the Steamwater. Just you and I. Time together. We could even bring Adolin.”

  “And Renarin?” Evi asked. “Dalinar, you have two sons, in case you have forgotten. Do you even care about the child’s condition? Or is he nothing to you now that he can’t become a soldier?”

  Dalinar grunted, feeling like he’d taken a mace to the head. He stood up, then walked toward the table.

  “What?” Evi demanded.

  “I’ve been in enough battles to know when I’ve found one I can’t win.”

  “So you flee?” Evi said. “Like a coward?”

  “The coward,” Dalinar said, gathering his maps, “is the man who delays a necessary retreat for fear of being mocked. We’ll go back to Kholinar after I deal with the rebellion at the Rift. I’ll promise you at least a year there.”

  “Really?” Evi said, standing up.

  “Yes. You’ve won this fight.”

  “I … don’t feel like I’ve won.…”

  “Welcome to war, Evi,” Dalinar said, heading toward the door. “There are no unequivocal wins. Just victories that leave fewer of your friends dead than others.”

  He left and slammed the door behind him. Sounds of her weeping chased him down the steps, and shamespren fell around him like flower petals. Storms, I don’t deserve that woman, do I?

  Well, so be it. The argument was her fault, as were the repercussions. He stomped down the steps to find his gener
als, and continue planning his return assault on the Rift.

  This generation has had only one Bondsmith, and some blame the divisions among us upon this fact. The true problem is far deeper. I believe that Honor himself is changing.

  —From drawer 24-18, smokestone

  A day after being murdered in a brutal fashion, Shallan found that she was feeling much better. The sense of oppression had left her, and even her horror seemed distant. What lingered was that single glimpse she’d seen in the mirror: a glimmer of the Unmade’s presence, beyond the plane of the reflection.

  The mirrors in the tailor’s shop didn’t show such proclivities; she had checked every one. Just in case, she’d given a drawing of the thing she’d seen to the others, and warned them to watch.

  Today, she strolled into the little kitchen, which was beside the rear workroom. Adolin ate flatbread and curry while King Elhokar sat at the room’s table, earnestly … writing something? No, he was drawing.

  Shallan rested fond fingers on Adolin’s shoulder and enjoyed his grin in response. Then she rounded to peek over the king’s shoulder. He was doing a map of the city, with the palace and the Oathgate platform. It wasn’t half bad.

  “Anyone seen the bridgeman?” Elhokar asked.

  “Here,” Kaladin said, strolling in from the workroom. Yokska, her husband, and her maid were out shopping for more food, using spheres that Elhokar had provided. Food was apparently still for sale in the city, if you had the spheres to pay.

  “I,” Elhokar said, “have devised a plan for how to proceed in this city.”

  Shallan shared a look with Adolin, who shrugged. “What do you suggest, Your Majesty?”

  “Thanks to the Lightweaver’s excellent reconnaissance,” the king said, “it is evident my wife is being held captive by her own guards.”

  “We don’t know that for certain, Your Majesty,” Kaladin said. “It sounded like the queen has succumbed to whatever is affecting the guards.”

  “Either way, she is in need of rescue,” Elhokar said. “Either we must sneak into the palace for her and little Gavinor, or we must rally a military force to help us capture the location by strength of arms.” He tapped his map of the city with his pen. “The Oathgate, however, remains our priority. Brightness Davar, I want you to investigate this Cult of Moments. Find out how they’re using the Oathgate platform.”

  Yokska had confirmed that each night, some members of the cult set a blazing fire on top of the platform. They guarded the place all hours of the day.

  “If you could join whatever ritual or event they are performing,” the king said, “you would be within feet of the Oathgate. You could transport the entire plateau to Urithiru, and let our armies there deal with the cult.

  “In case that is not viable, Adolin and I—in the guise of important lighteyes from the Shattered Plains—shall contact the lighteyed houses in the city who maintain private guard forces. We shall gather their support, perhaps revealing our true identities, and put together an army for assaulting the palace, if needed.”

  “And me?” Kaladin asked.

  “I don’t like the sound of this Azure person. See what you can find out about him and his Wall Guard.”

  Kaladin nodded, then grunted.

  “It’s a good plan, Elhokar,” Adolin said. “Nice work.”

  A simple compliment probably should not have made a king beam like it did. Elhokar even drew a gloryspren—and notably, it didn’t seem different from ordinary ones.

  “But there is something we have to face,” Adolin continued. “Have you listened to the list of charges that ardent—the one who got executed—made against the queen?”

  “I … Yes.”

  “Ten glyphs,” Adolin said, “denouncing Aesudan’s excess. Wasting food while people starved. Increasing taxes, then throwing lavish parties for her ardents. Elhokar, this started long before the Everstorm.”

  “We can … ask her,” the king said. “Once she is safe. Something must have been wrong. Aesudan was always proud, and always ambitious, but never gluttonous.” He eyed Adolin. “I know that Jasnah says I shouldn’t have married her—that Aesudan was too hungry for power. Jasnah never understood. I needed Aesudan. Someone with strength…” He took a deep breath, then stood up. “We mustn’t waste time. The plan. Do you agree with it?”

  “I like it,” Shallan said.

  Kaladin nodded. “It’s too general, but it’s at least a line of attack. Additionally, we need to trace the grain in the city. Yokska says the lighteyes provide it, but she also says the palace stores are closed.”

  “You think someone has a Soulcaster?” Adolin asked.

  “I think this city has too many secrets,” Kaladin said.

  “Adolin and I shall ask the lighteyes, and see if they know,” Elhokar said, then looked to Shallan. “The Cult of Moments?”

  “I’ll get on it,” she said. “I need a new coat anyway.”

  * * *

  She slipped out of the building again as Veil. She wore the trousers and her coat, though that now had a hole in the back. Ishnah had been able to wash the blood off, but Veil still wanted to replace it. For now, she covered the hole with a Lightweaving.

  Veil sauntered down the street, and found herself feeling increasingly confident. Back in Urithiru, she’d still been struggling to get her coat on straight, so to speak. She winced as she thought of her trips through the bars, making a fool of herself. You didn’t need to prove how much you could drink in order to look tough—but that was the sort of thing you couldn’t learn without wearing the coat, living in it.

  She turned toward the market, where she hoped to get a feel for Kholinar’s people. She needed to know how they thought before she could begin to understand how the Cult of Moments had come to be, and therefore how to infiltrate it.

  This market was very different from those at Urithiru, or the night markets of Kharbranth. First off, this one was obviously ancient. These worn, weathered shops felt like they’d been here for the first Desolation. These were stones smoothed by the touch of a million fingers, or indented by the press of thousands of passing feet. Awnings bleached by the progression of day after day.

  The street was wide, and not crowded. Some stalls were empty, and the remaining merchants didn’t shout at her as she passed. These seemed effects of the smothered sensation everyone felt—the feeling of a city besieged.

  Yokska served only men, and Veil wouldn’t have wanted to reveal herself to the woman anyway. So she stopped at a clothier and tried on some new coats. She chatted with the woman who ran the accounts—her husband was the actual tailor—and got some suggestions on where to look for a coat matching her current one, then stepped back out onto the street.

  Soldiers in light blue patrolled here, the glyphs on their uniforms proclaiming them to be of House Velalant. Yokska had described their brightlord as a minor player in the city until so many lighteyes had vanished into the palace.

  Veil shivered, remembering the line of corpses. Adolin and Elhokar were fairly certain those were the remnants of a distant Kholin and his attendants—a man named Kaves, who had often tried to gain power in the city. Neither were sad to see him go, but it whispered of a continuing mystery. More than thirty people had gone to meet with the queen, many more powerful than Kaves. What had happened to them?

  She passed an assortment of vendors peddling the usual range of necessities and curiosities, from ceramics to dining wares, to fine knives. It was nice to see that here, the soldiers had imposed some semblance of order. Perhaps rather than fixating on the closed stalls, Veil should have appreciated how many were still open.

  The third clothing shop finally had a coat she liked, of the same style as her old one—white and long, past her knees. She paid to have it taken in, then casually asked the seamstress about the city’s grain.

  The answers led her one street over to a grain station. It had formerly been a Thaylen bank, with the words Secure Keeps across the top in Thaylen and the women’s script. T
he proprietors had long ago fled—moneylenders seemed to have a sixth sense for impending danger, the way some animals could sense a storm hours before it arrived.

  The soldiers in light blue had appropriated it, and the vaults now protected precious grain. People waited in line outside, and at the front, soldiers doled out enough lavis for one day’s flatbread and gruel.

  It was a good sign—if a distinct and terrible reminder of the city’s situation. She would have applauded Velalant’s kindness, save for his soldiers’ blatant incompetence. They shouted at everyone to stay in line, but didn’t do anything to enforce the order. They did have a scribe watching to make sure nobody got in line twice, but they didn’t exclude people who were obviously too well-to-do to need the handout.

  Veil glanced around the market, and noted people watching from the crannies and hollows of abandoned stalls. The poor and unwanted, those destitute beyond even the refugees. Tattered clothing, dirty faces. They watched like spren drawn by a powerful emotion.

  Veil settled down on a low wall beside a drainage trough. A boy huddled nearby, watching the line with hungry eyes. One of his arms ended in a twisted, unusable hand: three fingers mere nubs, the other two crooked.

  She fished in her trouser pocket. Shallan didn’t carry food, but Veil knew the importance of having something to chew on. She could have sworn she’d tucked something in while getting ready.… There it was. A meat stick, Soulcast but flavored with sugar. Not quite large enough to be a sausage. She bit off an end, then wagged the rest toward the urchin.

  The boy sized her up, probably trying to determine her angle. Finally he crept over and took the offering, quickly stuffing the whole thing into his mouth. He waited, eyeing her to see if she had more.

  “Why don’t you get in line?” Veil asked.

  “They got rules. Gotta be a certain age. And if you’re too poor, they shove ya out of line.”

  “For what reason?”

  The boy shrugged. “Don’t need one, I guess. They say you’ve already been through, ’cept you haven’t.”