The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive 1)

“Wish I had half that boy’s energy,” Lirin said.

“I’ve got a place for us picked out!” Tien called eagerly, pointing. “By the rain barrels! Come on! We’re going to miss it!”

Tien scurried over, climbing atop the barrels. Several of the town’s other boys noticed him, and they nudged one another, one making some comment Kal couldn’t hear. It set the others laughing at Tien, and that immediately made Kal furious. Tien didn’t deserve mockery just because he was a little small for his age.

This wasn’t a good time to confront the other boys, though, so Kal sullenly joined his parents beside the barrels. Tien smiled at him, standing atop his barrel. He’d piled a few of his favorite rocks near him, stones of different colors and shapes. There were rocks all around them, and yet Tien was the only person he knew who found wonder in them. After a moment’s consideration, Kal climbed atop a barrel—careful not to disturb any of Tien’s rocks—so he too could get a better view of the citylord’s procession.

It was enormous. There must have been a dozen wagons in that line, following a fine black carriage pulled by four sleek black horses. Kal gawked despite himself. Wistiow had only owned one horse, and it had seemed as old as he was.

Could one man, even a lighteyes, own that much furniture? Where would he put it all? And there were people too. Dozens of them, riding in the wagons, walking in groups. There were also a dozen soldiers in gleaming breastplates and leather skirts. This lighteyes even had his own honor guard.

Eventually the procession reached the turn-off to Hearthstone. A man riding a horse led the carriage and its soldiers forward to the town while most of the wagons continued up to the manor. Kal grew increasingly excited as the carriage rolled slowly into place. Would he finally get to see a real, lighteyed hero? The word around town claimed it was likely that the new citylord would be someone King Gavilar or Highprince Sadeas had promoted because he’d distinguished himself in the wars to unite Alethkar.

The carriage turned sideways so that the door faced the crowd. The horses snorted and stomped the ground, and the carriage driver hopped down and quickly opened the door. A middle-aged man with a short, grey-streaked beard stepped out. He wore a ruffled violet coat, tailored so that it was short at the front—reaching only to his waist—but long at the back. Beneath it, he wore a golden takama, a long, straight skirt that went down to his calves.

A takama. Few wore them anymore, but old soldiers in town spoke of the days when they’d been popular as warrior’s garb. Kal hadn’t expected the takama to look so much like a woman’s skirt, but still, it was a good sign. Roshone himself seemed a little too old, a little too flabby, to be a true soldier. But he wore a sword.

The lighteyed man scanned the crowd, a distasteful look on his face, as if he’d swallowed something bitter. Behind the man, two people peeked out. A younger man with a narrow face and an older woman with braided hair. Roshone studied the crowd, then shook his head and turned around to climb back in the carriage.

Kal frowned. Wasn’t he going to say anything? The crowd seemed to share Kal’s shock; a few of them began whispering in anxiety.

“Brightlord Roshone!” Kal’s father called.

The crowd hushed. The lighteyed man glanced back. People shied away, and Kal found himself shrinking down beneath that harsh gaze. “Who spoke?” Roshone demanded, his voice a low baritone.

Lirin stepped forward, raising a hand. “Brightlord. Was your trip pleasant? Please, can we show you the town?”

“What is your name?”

“Lirin, Brightlord. Hearthstone’s surgeon.”

“Ah,” Roshone said. “You’re the one who let old Wistiow die.” The brightlord’s expression darkened. “In a way, it’s your fault I’m in this pitiful, miserable quarter of the kingdom.” He grunted, then climbed back in the carriage and slammed the door. Within seconds, the carriage driver had replaced the stairs, climbed into his place, and started turning the vehicle around.

Kal’s father slowly let his arm fall to his side. The townspeople began to chatter immediately, gossiping about the soldiers, the carriage, the horses.

Kal sat down on his barrel. Well, he thought. I guess we could expect a warrior to be curt, right? The heroes from the legends weren’t necessarily the polite types. Killing people and fancy talking didn’t always go together, old Jarel had once told him.

Lirin walked back, his expression troubled.

“Well?” Hesina said, trying to sound cheerful. “What do you think? Did we throw the queen or the tower?”

“Neither.”

“Oh? And what did we throw instead?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “A pair and a trio, maybe. Let’s get back home.”

Tien scratched his head in confusion, but the words weighed on Kal. The tower was three pairs in a game of breakneck. The queen was two trios. The first was an outright loss, the other an outright win.

But a pair and a trio, that was called the butcher. Whether you won or not would depend on the other throws you made.

And, more importantly, on the throws of everyone else.

I am being chased. Your friends of the Seventeenth Shard, I suspect. I believe they’re still lost, following a false trail I left for them. They’ll be happier that way. I doubt they have any inkling what to do with me should they actually catch me.

“I stood in the darkened monastery chamber,’” Litima read, standing at the lectern with the tome open before her, “‘its far reaches painted with pools of black where light did not wander. I sat on the floor, thinking of that dark, that Unseen. I could not know, for certain, what was hidden in that night. I suspected there were walls, sturdy and thick, but could I know without seeing? When all was hidden, what could a man rely upon as True?’”

Litima—one of Dalinar’s scribes—was tall and plump and wore a violet silk gown with yellow trim. She read to Dalinar as he stood, regarding the maps on the wall of his sitting room. That room was fitted with handsome wood furnishings and fine woven rugs imported up from Marat. A crystal carafe of afternoon wine—orange, not intoxicating—sat on a high-legged serving table in the corner, sparkling with the light of the diamond spheres hanging in chandeliers above.

“‘Candle flames,’” Litima continued. The selection was from The Way of Kings, read from the very copy that Gavilar had once owned. “‘A dozen candles burned themselves to death on the shelf before me. Each of my breaths made them tremble. To them, I was a behemoth, to frighten and destroy. And yet, if I strayed too close, they could destroy me. My invisible breath, the pulses of life that flowed in and out, could end them freely, while my fingers could not do the same without being repaid in pain.’”

Dalinar idly twisted his signet ring in thought; it was sapphire with his Kholin glyphpair on it. Renarin stood next to him, wearing a coat of blue and silver, golden knots on the shoulders marking him as a prince. Adolin wasn’t there. Dalinar and he had been stepping gingerly around one another since their argument in the Gallery.

“‘I understood in a moment of stillness,’” Litima read. “‘Those candle flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Left alone, they lit and warmed. Let run rampant, they would destroy the very things they were meant to illuminate. Embryonic bonfires, each bearing a seed of destruction so potent it could tumble cities and dash kings to their knees. In later years, my mind would return to that calm, silent evening, when I had stared at rows of living lights. And I would understand. To be given loyalty is to be infused like a gemstone, to be granted the frightful license to destroy not only one’s self, but all within one’s care.’”