Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

“Why is one man born a king, and another a beggar?” Dalinar asked. “It is the way of the world.”

“It is that easy for you?”

“Not easy,” Dalinar said, “but there is no point in demanding answers.”

“Particularly if the Almighty is dead…”

Perhaps he should not have shared that fact with her. Speaking of just that one idea could brand him a heretic, drive his own ardents from him, give Sadeas a weapon against the Throne.

If the Almighty was dead, what did Dalinar worship? What did he believe?

“We should record your memories of the vision,” Navani said with a sigh, pulling back from him. “While they are fresh.”

He nodded. It was important to have a description to match the transcriptions. He began to recount what he’d seen, speaking slowly enough that she could write it all down. He described the lake, the clothing of the men, the strange fortress in the distance. She claimed there were stories of large structures on the Purelake told by some who lived there. Scholars had considered them mythological.

Dalinar stood up and paced as he moved on to the description of the unholy thing that had risen from the lake. “It left behind a hole in the lakebed,” Dalinar explained. “Imagine if you were to outline a body on the floor, then watch that body rip itself free from the ground.

“Imagine the tactical advantage such a thing would have. Spren move quickly and easily. One could slip in behind battle lines, then stand up and start attacking the support staff. That beast’s stone body must have been difficult to break. Storms… Shardblades. Makes me wonder if these are the things the weapons were truly designed to fight.”

Navani smiled as she wrote.

“What?” Dalinar asked, stopping in his pacing.

“You are such a soldier.”

“Yes. And?”

“And it’s endearing,” she said, finishing her writing. “What happened next?”

“The Almighty spoke to me.” He gave her the monologue as best he could remember while he paced in a slow, restful walk. I need to sleep more, he thought. He wasn’t the youth he’d been twenty years ago, capable of staying up all night with Gavilar, listening with a cup of wine as his brother made plans, then charging to battle the next day full of vigor and hungering for a contest.

Once he was done with his narrative, Navani rose, tucking her writing implements away. She’d take what he’d said and have her scholars—well, his scholars, which she’d appropriated—work at matching his Alethi words up with the transcriptions she’d recorded. Though, of course, she’d first remove the lines where he mentioned sensitive issues, such as the Almighty’s death.

She’d also search for historical references to match his descriptions. Navani liked things neat and quantified. She’d prepared a timeline of all of his visions, trying to piece them into a single narrative.

“You’re still going to publish the proclamation this week?” she asked.

Dalinar nodded. He’d released it to the highprinces a week ago, in private. He’d intended to release it the same day to the camps, but Navani had convinced him that this was the wiser course. News was seeping out, but this would let the highprinces prepare.

“The proclamation will go to the public within a few days,” he said. “Before the highprinces can put further pressure on Elhokar to retract it.”

Navani pursed her lips.

“It must be done,” Dalinar said.

“You’re supposed to unite them.”

“The highprinces are spoiled children,” Dalinar said. “Changing them will require extreme measures.”

“If you break the kingdom apart, we’ll never unify it.”

“We’ll make certain that it doesn’t break.”

Navani looked him up and down, then smiled. “I am fond of this more confident you, I must admit. Now, if I could just borrow a little of that confidence in regards to us…”

“I am quite confident about us,” he said, pulling her close.

“Is that so? Because this traveling between the king’s palace and your complex wastes a lot of my time each day. If I were to move my things here—say, into your quarters—think how much more convenient everything would be.”

“No.”

“You’re confident they won’t let us marry, Dalinar. So what else are we to do? Is it the morality of the thing? You yourself said that the Almighty was dead.”

“Something is either right or it’s wrong,” Dalinar said, feeling stubborn. “The Almighty doesn’t come into it.”

“God,” Navani said flatly, “doesn’t come into whether his commands are right or wrong.”

“Er. Yes.”

“Careful,” Navani said. “You’re sounding like Jasnah. Anyway, if God is dead—”

“God isn’t dead. If the Almighty died, then he was never God, that’s all.”

She sighed, still close to him. She went up on her toes and kissed him—and not demurely, either. Navani considered demureness for the coy and frivolous. So, a passionate kiss, pressing against his mouth, pushing his head backward, hungering for more. When she pulled away, Dalinar found himself breathless.

She smiled at him, then turned and picked up her things—he hadn’t noticed her dropping them during the kiss—and then walked to the door. “I am not a patient woman, you realize. I am as spoiled as those highprinces, accustomed to getting what I want.”

He snorted. Neither was true. She could be patient. When it suited her. What she meant was that it didn’t suit her at the moment.

She opened the door, and Captain Kaladin himself peered in, inspecting the room. The bridgeman certainly was earnest. “Watch her as she travels home for the day, soldier,” Dalinar said to him.

Kaladin saluted. Navani pushed by him and left without a goodbye, closing the door and leaving Dalinar alone again.

Dalinar sighed deeply, then walked to the chair and settled down by the hearth to think.

He started awake some time later, the fire having burned out. Storms. Was he falling asleep in the middle of the day, now? If only he didn’t spend so much time at night tossing and turning, head full of worries and burdens that should never have been his. What had happened to the simple days? His hand on a sword, secure in the knowledge that Gavilar would handle the difficult parts?

Dalinar stretched, rising. He needed to go over preparations for releasing the king’s proclamation, and then see to the new guards—

He stopped. The wall of his room bore a series of stark white scratches forming glyphs. They hadn’t been there before.

Sixty-two days, the glyphs read. Death follows.

* * *

A short time later, Dalinar stood, straight-backed, hands clasped behind him as he listened to Navani confer with Rushu, one of the Kholin scholars. Adolin stood nearby, inspecting a chunk of white rock that had been found on the floor. It had apparently been pried from the row of ornamental stones rimming the room’s window, then used to write the glyphs.

Straight back, head up, Dalinar told himself, even though you want to just slump in that chair. A leader did not slump. A leader was in control. Even when he least felt like he controlled anything.