Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

32. The One Who Hates

The spren betrayed us, it’s often felt.

Our minds are too close to their realm

That gives us our forms, but more is then

Demanded by the smartest spren,

We can’t provide what the humans lend,

Though broth are we, their meat is men.

From the Listener Song of Spren, 9th stanza

In his dream, Kaladin was the storm.

He claimed the land, surging across it, a cleansing fury. All washed before him, broke before him. In his darkness, the land was reborn.

He soared, alive with lightning, his flashes of inspiration. The wind’s howling was his voice, the thunder his heartbeat. He overwhelmed, overcame, overshadowed, and—

And he had done this before.

An awareness came to Kaladin, like water seeping under a door. Yes. He’d dreamed this dream before.

With effort, he turned around. A face as large as eternity stretched behind him, the force behind the tempest, the Stormfather himself.

SON OF HONOR, said a voice like roaring wind.

“This is real!” Kaladin yelled into the storm. He was wind itself. Spren. He found voice somehow. “You are real!”

SHE TRUSTS YOU.

“Syl?” Kaladin called. “Yes, she does.”

SHE SHOULD NOT.

“Are you the one who forbade her to come to me? Are you the one who keeps the spren back?”

YOU WILL KILL HER. The voice, so deep, so powerful, sounded regretful. Mournful. YOU WILL MURDER MY CHILD AND LEAVE HER CORPSE TO WICKED MEN.

“I will not!” Kaladin shouted.

YOU BEGIN IT ALREADY.

The storm continued. Kaladin saw the world from above. Ships in sheltered harbors rocking on violent swells. Armies huddled in valleys, preparing for war in a place of many hills and mountains. A vast lake going dry ahead of his arrival, the water retreating into holes in the rock beneath.

“How can I prevent it?” Kaladin demanded. “How can I protect her?”

YOU ARE HUMAN. YOU WILL BE A TRAITOR.

“No I won’t!”

YOU WILL CHANGE. MEN CHANGE. ALL MEN.

The continent was so vast. So many people speaking languages he could not comprehend, everyone hiding in their rooms, their caverns, their valleys.

AH, the Stormfather said. SO IT WILL END.

“What?” Kaladin shouted into the winds. “What changed? I feel—”

HE COMES FOR YOU, LITTLE TRAITOR. I AM SORRY.

Something rose before Kaladin. A second storm, one of red lightning, so enormous as to make the continent—the world itself—into nothing by comparison. Everything fell into its shadow.

I AM SORRY, the Stormfather said. HE COMES.

Kaladin awoke, heart thundering in his chest.

He almost fell from his chair. Where was he? The Pinnacle, the king’s conference chamber. Kaladin had sat down for a moment and…

He blushed. He’d dozed off.

Adolin stood nearby, talking to Renarin. “I’m not sure if anything will come from the meeting, but I’m glad Father agreed to it. I’d almost given up hope of it happening, with how long the Parshendi messenger took to arrive.”

“You’re sure the one you met out there was a woman?” Renarin asked. He seemed more at ease since he had finished bonding his Blade a couple weeks back, and no longer needed to carry it around. “A woman Shardbearer?”

“The Parshendi are pretty odd,” Adolin said with a shrug. He glanced toward Kaladin, and his lips rose in a smirk. “Sleeping on the job, bridgeboy?”

The leaking shutter shook nearby, water dribbling in under the wood. Navani and Dalinar would be in the room next door.

The king wasn’t there.

“His Majesty!” Kaladin cried, scrambling to his feet.

“In the privy, bridgeboy,” Adolin said, nodding to another door. “You can sleep during a highstorm. That’s impressive. Almost as impressive as how much you drool when you’re dozing.”

No time for gibes. That dream… Kaladin turned toward the balcony door, breathing quickly.

He comes…

Kaladin pulled open the balcony door. Adolin shouted and Renarin called out, but Kaladin ignored them, facing the tempest.

The wind still howled and rain pelted the stone balcony with a sound like sticks breaking. There was no lightning, however, and the wind—while violent—was not nearly strong enough to fling boulders or topple walls. The bulk of the highstorm had passed.

Darkness. Wind from the depths of nothingness, battering him. He felt as if he were standing above the void itself, Damnation, known as Braize in the old songs. Home to demons and monsters. He stepped out hesitantly, light from the still-open door spilling onto the wet balcony. He found the railing—a part that was still secure—and clenched it in cold fingers. Rain bit him on the cheek, seeping through his uniform, burrowing through the cloth and seeking warm skin.

“Are you mad?” Adolin demanded from the doorway. Kaladin could barely hear his voice over the wind and distant rumbles of thunder.

* * *

Pattern hummed softly as rain fell on the wagon.

Shallan’s slaves huddled together and whimpered. She wished she could quiet the blasted spren, but Pattern wasn’t responding to her promptings. At least the highstorm was nearly over. She wanted to get away and read what Tyn’s correspondents had to say about Shallan’s homeland.

Pattern’s hums sounded almost like a whimper. Shallan frowned and leaned down close to him. Were those words?

“Bad… bad… so bad…”

* * *

Syl shot out of the highstorm’s dense darkness, a sudden flash of light in the black. She spun about Kaladin before coming to rest on the iron railing before him. Her dress seemed longer and more flowing than usual. The rain passed through her without disturbing her shape.

Syl looked into the sky, then turned her head sharply over her shoulder. “Kaladin. Something is wrong.”

“I know.”

Syl spun about, twisting this way, then that. Her small eyes opened wide. “He’s coming.”

“Who? The storm?”

“The one who hates,” she whispered. “The darkness inside. Kaladin, he’s watching. Something’s going to happen. Something bad.”

Kaladin hesitated only a moment, then scrambled back into the room, pushing past Adolin and entering the light. “Get the king. We’re leaving. Now.”

“What?” Adolin demanded.

Kaladin threw open the door into the small room where Dalinar and Navani waited. The highprince sat on a sofa, expression distant, Navani holding his hand. That wasn’t what Kaladin had expected. The highprince didn’t seem frightened or mad, just thoughtful. He was speaking softly.

Kaladin froze. He sees things during the storms.

“What are you doing?” Navani demanded. “How dare you?”

“Can you wake him?” Kaladin asked, stepping into the room. “We need to leave this room, leave this palace.”

“Nonsense.” It was the king’s voice. Elhokar stepped into the room behind him. “What are you babbling about?”

“You’re not safe here, Your Majesty,” Kaladin said. “We need to get you out of the palace and take you to the warcamp.” Storms. Would that be safe? Should he go somewhere nobody would expect?