Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

He stepped down from the table.

Then he went to work.

* * *

Hours later, Dalinar eventually let himself sit down in a seat beside a table at the feast, exhaustionspren swirling around him. He’d spent the rest of the evening moving through the crowd, forcing his way into conversations, drumming up support for his excursion onto the Plains.

He had pointedly ignored the pages with his visions on them, except when asked direct questions about what he’d seen. Instead, he had presented them with a forceful, confident man—the Blackthorn turned politician. Let them chew on that and compare him to the frail madman the falsified transcripts would make him out to be.

Outside, past the small rivers—they now glowed blue, the spheres having been changed to match the second moon—the king’s carriage rolled away, bearing Elhokar and Navani the short distance to the Pinnacle, where porters would carry them in a palanquin up to the top. Adolin had already retired, escorting Shallan back to Sebarial’s warcamp, which was a fair ride away.

Adolin seemed to be fonder of the young Veden woman than of any woman in the recent past. For that reason alone, Dalinar was increasingly inclined to encourage the relationship, assuming he could ever get some straight answers out of Jah Keved about her family. That kingdom was a mess.

Most of the other lighteyes had retired, leaving him on an island populated by servants and parshmen who cleared away food. A few master-servants, trusted for such duties, began to scoop the spheres out of the river with nets on long poles. Dalinar’s bridgemen, at his suggestion, were attacking the feast’s leftovers with the voracious appetite exclusive to soldiers who had been offered an unexpected meal.

A servant strolled by, then stopped, resting his hand on his side sword. Dalinar started, realizing he’d mistaken Wit’s black military uniform for that of a master-servant in training.

Dalinar put on a firm face, though inwardly he groaned. Wit? Now? Dalinar felt as if he’d been fighting on the battlefield for ten hours straight. Odd, how a few hours of delicate conversation could feel so similar to that.

“What you did tonight was clever,” Wit said. “You turned an attack into a promise. The wisest of men know that to render an insult powerless, you often need only to embrace it.”

“Thank you,” Dalinar said.

Wit nodded curtly, following the king’s coach with his eyes as it vanished. “I found myself without much to do tonight. Elhokar was not in need of Wit, as few sought to speak to him. All came to you instead.”

Dalinar sighed, his strength seeming to drain away. Wit hadn’t said it, but he hadn’t needed to. Dalinar read the implication.

They came to you, instead of the king. Because essentially, you are king.

“Wit,” Dalinar found himself asking, “am I a tyrant?”

Wit cocked an eyebrow, and seemed to be looking for a clever quip. A moment later, he discarded the thought. “Yes, Dalinar Kholin,” he said softly, consolingly, as one might speak to a tearful child. “You are.”

“I do not wish to be.”

“With all due respect, Brightlord, that is not quite the truth. You seek for power. You take hold, and let go only with great difficulty.”

Dalinar bowed his head.

“Do not sorrow,” Wit said. “It is an era for tyrants. I doubt this place is ready for anything more, and a benevolent tyrant is preferable to the disaster of weak rule. Perhaps in another place and time, I’d have denounced you with spit and bile. Here, today, I praise you as what this world needs.”

Dalinar shook his head. “I should have allowed Elhokar his right of rule, and not interfered as I did.”

“Why?”

“Because he is king.”

“And that position is something sacrosanct? Divine?”

“No,” Dalinar admitted. “The Almighty, or the one claiming to be him, is dead. Even if he hadn’t been, the kingship didn’t come to our family naturally. We claimed it, and forced it upon the other highprinces.”

“So then why?”

“Because we were wrong,” Dalinar said, narrowing his eyes. “Gavilar, Sadeas, and I were wrong to do as we did all those years ago.”

Wit seemed genuinely surprised. “You unified the kingdom, Dalinar. You did a good work, something that was sorely needed.”

“This is unity?” Dalinar asked, waving a hand back toward the scattered remnants of the feast, the departing lighteyes. “No, Wit. We failed. We crushed, we killed, and we have failed miserably.” He looked up. “I receive, in Alethkar, only what I have demanded. In taking the throne by force, we implied—no we screamed—that strength is the right of rule. If Sadeas thinks he is stronger than I am, then it is his duty to try to take the throne from me. These are the fruits of my youth, Wit. It is why we need more than tyranny, even the benevolent kind, to transform this kingdom. That is what Nohadon was teaching. And that is what I’ve been missing all along.”

Wit nodded, looking thoughtful. “I need to read that book of yours again, it seems. I wanted to warn you, however. I’ll be leaving soon.”

“Leave?” Dalinar said. “You only just arrived.”

“I know. It’s incredibly frustrating, I must admit. I have discovered a place that I must be, though to be honest I’m not exactly sure why I need to be there. This doesn’t always work as well as I’d like it to.”

Dalinar frowned at him. Wit smiled back affably.

“Are you one of them?” Dalinar asked.

“Excuse me?”

“A Herald.”

Wit laughed. “No. Thank you, but no.”

“Are you what I’ve been looking for, then?” Dalinar asked. “Radiant?”

Wit smiled. “I am but a man, Dalinar, so much as I wish it were not true at times. I am no Radiant. And while I am your friend, please understand that our goals do not completely align. You must not trust yourself with me. If I have to watch this world crumble and burn to get what I need, I will do so. With tears, yes, but I would let it happen.”

Dalinar frowned.

“I will do what I can to help,” Wit said, “and for that reason, I must go. I cannot risk too much, because if he finds me, then I become nothing—a soul shredded and broken into pieces that cannot be reassembled. What I do here is more dangerous than you could ever know.”

He turned to go.

“Wit,” Dalinar called.

“Yes?”

“If who finds you?”

“The one you fight, Dalinar Kholin. The father of hatred.” Wit saluted, then jogged off.

68. Bridges

However, it seems to me that all things have been set up for a purpose, and if we—as infants—stumble through the workshop, we risk exacerbating, not preventing, a problem.

The Shattered Plains.

Kaladin did not claim these lands as he did the chasms, where his men had found safety. Kaladin remembered all too well the pain of bloodied feet on his first run, battered by this broken stone wasteland. Barely anything grew out here, only the occasional patch of rockbuds or set of enterprising vines draping down into a chasm on the leeward side of a plateau. The bottoms of the cracks were clogged with life, but up here it was barren.