The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive 1)

“So… you think…”

“The Voidbringers had a natural, real-world correlate,” Jasnah said firmly. “I’m certain of it. Something caused the legends.”

“What was it?”

Jasnah handed Shallan a page of notes. “These are the best I’ve been able to find. Read them. Tell me what you think.”

Shallan scanned the page. Some of the quotes—or at least the concepts—were familiar to her from what she’d read already.

Suddenly dangerous. Like a calm day that became a tempest.

“They were real,” Jasnah repeated.

Beings of ash and fire.

“We fought with them,” Jasnah said. “We fought so often that men began to speak of the creatures in metaphor. A hundred battles—ten tenfolds…”

Flame and char. Skin so terrible. Eyes like pits of blackness. Music when they kill.

“We defeated them…” Jasnah said.

Shallan felt a chill.

“…but the legends lie about one thing,” Jasnah continued. “They claim we chased the Voidbringers off the face of Roshar or destroyed them. But that’s not how humans work. We don’t throw away something we can use.”

Shallan rose, walking to the edge of the balcony, looking out at the lift, which was slowly being lowered by its two porters.

Parshmen. With skin of black and red.

Ash and fire.

“Stormfather…” Shallan whispered, horrified.

“We didn’t destroy the Voidbringers,” Jasnah said from behind, her voice haunted. “We enslaved them.”

The chill spring weather might finally have slipped back into summer. It was still cool at night, but not uncomfortably so. Kaladin stood on Dalinar Kholin’s staging ground, looking eastward over the Shattered Plains.

Ever since the failed betrayal and subsequent rescue earlier, Kaladin had found himself nervous. Freedom. Bought with a Shardblade. It seemed impossible. His every life experience taught him to expect a trap.

He clasped his hands behind him; Syl sat on his shoulder.

“Dare I trust him?” he asked softly.

“He’s a good man,” Syl said. “I’ve watched him. Despite that thing he carried.”

“That thing?”

“The Shardblade.”

“What do you care about it?”

“I don’t know,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. “It just feels wrong to me. I hate it. I’m glad he got rid of it. Makes him a better man.”

Nomon, the middle moon, began to rise. Bright and pale blue, bathing the horizon in light. Somewhere, out across the Plains, was the Parshendi Shardbearer that Kaladin had fought. He’d stabbed the man in the leg from behind. The watching Parshendi had not interfered with the duel and had avoided attacking Kaladin’s wounded bridgemen, but Kaladin had attacked one of their champions from the most cowardly position possible, interfering with a fight.

He was bothered by what he’d done, and that frustrated him. A warrior couldn’t worry about who he attacked or how. Survival was the only rule of the battlefield.

Well, survival and loyalty. And he sometimes let wounded enemies live if they weren’t a threat. And he saved young soldiers who needed protection. And…

And he’d never been good at doing what a warrior should.

Today, he’d saved a highprince—another lighteyes—and along with him thousands of soldiers. Saved them by killing Parshendi.

“Can you kill to protect?” Kaladin asked out loud. “Is that a self-contradiction?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“You acted strangely in the battle,” Kaladin said. “Swirling around me. After that, you left. I didn’t see much of you.”

“The killing,” she said softly. “It hurt me. I had to go.”

“Yet you’re the one who prompted me to go and save Dalinar. You wanted me to return and kill.”

“I know.”

“Teft said that the Radiants held to a standard,” Kaladin said. “He said that by their rules, you shouldn’t do terrible things to accomplish great ones. Yet what did I do today? Slaughter Parshendi in order to save Alethi. What of that? They aren’t innocent, but neither are we. Not by a faint breeze or a stormwind.”

Syl didn’t reply.

“If I hadn’t gone to save Dalinar’s men,” Kaladin said, “I would have allowed Sadeas to commit a terrible betrayal. I’d have let men die who I could have saved. I’d have been sick and disgusted with myself. I also lost three good men, bridgemen who were mere breaths away from freedom. Are the lives of the others worth that?”

“I don’t have the answers, Kaladin.”

“Does anyone?”

Footsteps came from behind. Syl turned. “It’s him.”

The moon had just risen. Dalinar Kholin, it appeared, was a punctual man.

He stepped up beside Kaladin. He carried a bundle under his arm, and he had a military air about him, even without his Shardplate on. In fact, he was more impressive without it. His muscular build indicated that he did not rely on his Plate to give him strength, and the neatly pressed uniform indicated a man who understood that others were inspired when their leader looked the part.

Others have looked just as noble, Kaladin thought. But would any man trade a Shardblade just to keep up appearances? And if they would, at what point did the appearance become reality?

“I’m sorry to make you meet me so late,” Dalinar said. “I know it has been a long day.”

“I doubt I could have slept anyway.”

Dalinar grunted softly, as if he understood. “Your men are seen to?”

“Yes,” Kaladin said. “Quite well, actually. Thank you.” Kaladin had been given empty barracks for the bridgemen and they had received medical attention from Dalinar’s best surgeons—they’d gotten it before the wounded lighteyed officers had. The other bridgemen, the ones who weren’t from Bridge Four, had accepted Kaladin immediately, without any deliberation on the matter, as their leader.

Dalinar nodded. “How many, do you suspect, will take my offer of a purse and freedom?”

“A fair number of the men from other crews will. But I’ll wager an even larger number won’t. Bridgemen don’t think of escape or freedom. They wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. As for my own crew… Well, I have a feeling that they’ll insist on doing whatever I do. If I stay, they’ll stay. If I go, they’ll go.”

Dalinar nodded. “And what will you do?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“I spoke to my officers.” Dalinar grimaced. “The ones who survived. They said that you gave orders to them, took charge like a lighteyes. My son still feels bitter about the way your… conversation with him went.”

“Even a fool could see he wasn’t going to be able to get to you. As for the officers, most were in shock or run ragged. I merely nudged them.”

“I owe you my life twice over,” Dalinar said. “And that of my son and my men.”

“You paid that debt.”

“No,” Dalinar said. “But I’ve done what I can.” He eyed Kaladin, as if sizing him up, judging him. “Why did your bridge crew come for us? Why, really?”