Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

“The area is as secure as I can make it without disrupting training, Brightlord,” Kaladin said, walking up to Adolin. “My men and I will keep an eye out while you spar, but don’t hesitate to give a holler if something seems amiss.”

Adolin grunted, surveying the place, barely paying Kaladin any heed. He was a tall man, his few black Alethi hairs overwhelmed by quite a bit of golden blond. His father didn’t have that. Adolin’s mother had been from Rira, perhaps?

Kaladin turned to walk toward the northern side of the courtyard, where he’d have a different view from Moash.

“Bridgeman,” Adolin called. “You’ve decided to start using proper titles for people? Didn’t you call my father ‘sir’?”

“He’s in my chain of command,” Kaladin said, turning back. The simple answer seemed the best.

“And I’m not?” Adolin asked, frowning.

“No.”

“And if I give you an order?”

“I’ll comply with any reasonable requests, Brightlord. But if you wish for someone to fetch you tea between bouts, you’ll have to send someone else. There should be plenty here willing to lick your heels.”

Adolin stepped up to him. Though the deep blue Shardplate added only a few inches to his height, he seemed to tower because of it. Perhaps that line about licking heels had been brash.

Adolin represented something, though. The privilege of the lighteyes. He wasn’t like Amaram or Sadeas, who brought out Kaladin’s hatred. Men like Adolin just annoyed him, reminding him that in this world, some sipped wine and wore fancy clothing while others were made slaves almost on a whim.

“I owe you my life,” Adolin growled, as if it hurt to say the words. “That’s the only reason I haven’t yet thrown you through a window.” He reached up with a gauntleted finger and tapped at Kaladin’s chest. “But my patience with you won’t extend as far as my father’s, little bridgeman. There’s something off about you, something I can’t put my finger on. I’m watching you. Remember your place.”

Great. “I’ll keep you alive, Brightlord,” Kaladin said, pushing aside the finger. “That’s my place.”

“I can keep myself alive,” Adolin said, turning away and tromping across the sand with a clink of Plate. “Your job is to watch over my brother.”

Kaladin was more than happy to let him leave. “Spoiled child,” he muttered. Kaladin supposed that Adolin was a few years older than him. Just recently, Kaladin had realized that he’d passed his twentieth birthday while a bridgeman, and never known it. Adolin was in his early twenties. But being a child had little to do with age.

Renarin still stood awkwardly near the front gate, wearing Dalinar’s former Shardplate, carrying his newly won Shardblade. Adolin’s quick duel from yesterday was the talk of the warcamps, and it would take Renarin five days to fully bond his Blade before he could dismiss it.

The young man’s Shardplate was the color of dark steel, unpainted. That was how Dalinar had preferred it. By giving his Plate away, Dalinar suggested that he felt he needed to win his next victories as a politician. It was a laudable move; you couldn’t always have men following you because they feared you could beat them up—or even because you were the best soldier among them. You needed more, far more, to be a true leader.

Yet Kaladin did wish Dalinar had kept the Plate. Anything that helped the man stay alive would have been a boon for Bridge Four.

Kaladin leaned back against a column, folding his arms, spear in the crook of his arm, watching the area for trouble and inspecting everyone that got too close to the princelings. Adolin walked over and grabbed his brother by the shoulder, towing him across the courtyard. Various people sparring in the square stopped and bowed—if not in uniform—or saluted the princelings as they passed. A group of grey-clothed ardents had gathered at the back of the courtyard, and the woman from earlier stepped forward to chat with the brothers. Adolin and Renarin both bowed formally to her.

It had been three weeks now since Renarin had been given his Plate. Why had Adolin waited so long to bring him here for training? Had he been waiting until the duel, so he could win the lad a Blade too?

Syl landed on Kaladin’s shoulder. “Adolin and Renarin are both bowing to her.”

“Yeah,” Kaladin said.

“But isn’t the ardent a slave? One their father owns?”

Kaladin nodded.

“Humans don’t make sense.”

“If you’re only now learning that,” Kaladin said, “then you haven’t been paying attention.”

Syl tossed her hair, which moved realistically. The gesture itself was very human. Perhaps she’d been paying attention after all. “I don’t like them,” she said airily. “Either one. Adolin or Renarin.”

“You don’t like anyone who carries Shards.”

“Exactly.”

“You called the Blades abominations before,” Kaladin said. “But the Radiants carried them. So were the Radiants wrong to do so?”

“Of course not,” she said, sounding like he was saying something completely stupid. “The Shards weren’t abominations back then.”

“What changed?”

“The knights,” Syl said, growing quiet. “The knights changed.”

“So it’s not that the weapons are abominations specifically,” Kaladin said. “It’s that the wrong people are carrying them.”

“There are no right people anymore,” Syl whispered. “Maybe there never were…”

“And where did they come from in the first place?” Kaladin asked. “Shardblades. Shardplate. Even modern fabrials are nowhere near as good. So where did the ancients get weapons so amazing?”

Syl fell silent. She had a frustrating habit of doing that when his questions got too specific.

“Well?” he prompted.

“I wish I could tell you.”

“Then do.”

“I wish it worked that way. It doesn’t.”

Kaladin sighed, turning his attention back to Adolin and Renarin, where it was supposed to be. The senior ardent had led them to the very back of the courtyard, where another group of people sat on the ground. They were ardents too, but something was different about them. Teachers of some sort?

As Adolin spoke to them, Kaladin did another quick scan around the courtyard, then frowned.

“Kaladin?” Syl asked.

“Man in the shadows over there,” Kaladin said, gesturing with his spear toward a place under the eaves. A man stood there, leaning cross-armed against a waist-high wooden railing. “He’s watching the princelings.”

“Um, so is everyone else.”

“He’s different,” Kaladin said. “Come on.”

Kaladin wandered over casually, unthreatening. The man was probably just a servant. Long-haired, with a short but scruffy black beard, he wore loose tan clothing tied with ropes. He looked out of place in the sparring yard, and that itself was probably enough to indicate he wasn’t an assassin. The best assassins never stood out.

Still, the man had a robust build and a scar on his cheek. So he’d seen fighting. Best to check on him. The man watched Renarin and Adolin intently and, from this angle, Kaladin couldn’t see if his eyes were light or dark.