Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

Dalinar sat in the darkness for a short time, contemplating that warmth he had felt. What had that been? It had been an odd time to get one of the visions. They always came during highstorms. Before, when he’d felt one coming on while sleeping, it had awakened him.

He checked with his guards. No highstorm was blowing. Contemplative, he started to dress. He wanted to see if he could get out onto the roof of the tower today.

* * *

As Adolin walked the dark halls of Urithiru, he tried not to show how overwhelmed he felt. The world had just shifted, like a door on its hinges. A few days ago, his causal betrothal had been that of a powerful man to a relatively minor scion of a distant house. Now, Shallan might be the most important person in the world, and he was…

What was he?

He raised his lantern, then made a few marks in chalk on the wall to indicate he’d been here. This tower was huge. How did the entire thing stay up? They could probably explore in here for months without opening every door. He had thrown himself into the duty of exploration because it seemed like something he could do. It also, unfortunately, gave him time to think. He didn’t like how few answers he came up with.

He turned around, realizing he’d gotten far from the rest of his scouting party. He was doing that more and more often. The first groups from the Shattered Plains had started arriving, and they needed to decide where to house everyone.

Were those voices ahead? Adolin frowned, then continued down the corridor, leaving his lantern behind so it wouldn’t give him away. He was surprised when he recognized one of the speakers down the hallway. Was that Sadeas?

It was. The highprince stood with a scouting party of his own. Silently, Adolin cursed the wind that had persuaded Sadeas—of all people—to heed the call to come to Urithiru. Everything would have been so much easier if he’d just stayed behind.

Sadeas gestured for a few of his soldiers to go down one branch of the tunnel-like corridor. His wife and a few of her scribes went the other way, two soldiers trailing. Adolin watched for a moment as the highprince himself raised a lantern, inspecting a faded painting on the wall. A fanciful picture, with animals from mythology. He recognized a few from children’s stories, like the enormous, minklike creature with the mane of hair that burst out around and behind its head. What was it called again?

Adolin turned to go, but his boot scraped stone.

Sadeas spun, raising his lantern. “Ah, Prince Adolin.” He wore white, which really didn’t help his complexion—the pale color made his ruddy features seem downright bloody by comparison.

“Sadeas,” Adolin said, turning back. “I wasn’t aware that you had arrived.” Storming man. He’d ignored Father all those months, and now he decided to obey?

The highprince strolled up the hallway, passing Adolin. “This place is remarkable. Remarkable indeed.”

“So you acknowledge that my father was right,” Adolin said. “That his visions are true. The Voidbringers have returned, and you are made a fool.”

“I will admit,” Sadeas said, “there is more fight left to your father than I’d once feared. A remarkable plan. Contacting the Parshendi, working out this deal with them. They put on quite a show, I hear. It certainly convinced Aladar.”

“You can’t possibly believe it was all a show.”

“Oh please. You deny that he had a Parshendi among his own guard? Isn’t it convenient that these new ‘Radiants’ include the head of Dalinar’s guard and your own betrothed?”

Sadeas smiled, and Adolin saw the truth. No, he didn’t believe this, but it was the lie he would tell. He would start the whisperings again, trying to undermine Dalinar.

“Why?” Adolin asked, stepping up to him. “Why are you like this, Sadeas?”

“Because,” Sadeas said with a sigh, “it has to happen. You can’t have an army with two generals, son. Your father and I, we’re two old whitespines who both want a kingdom. It’s him or me. We’ve been pointed that way since Gavilar died.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

“It does. Your father will never trust me again, Adolin, and you know it.” Sadeas’s face darkened. “I will take this from him. This city, these discoveries. It’s just a setback.”

Adolin stood for a moment, staring Sadeas in the eyes, and then something finally snapped.

That’s it.

Adolin grabbed Sadeas by the throat with his unwounded hand, slamming the highprince back against the wall. The look of utter shock on Sadeas’s face amused a part of Adolin, the very small part that wasn’t completely, totally, and irrevocably enraged.

He squeezed, choking off a cry for help as he moved to pin Sadeas back against the wall, grabbing the man’s arm with his own. But Sadeas was a trained soldier. He tried to break the hold, taking Adolin by the arm and twisting.

Adolin kept hold, but lost his balance. The two of them fell in a jumble, twisting, rolling. This wasn’t the calculated intensity of the dueling grounds, or even the methodical butchery of the battlefield.

This was two sweating, straining men, both on the edge of panic. Adolin was younger, but he was still bruised from the fight with the Assassin in White.

He managed to come up on top, and as Sadeas struggled to yell, Adolin slammed the man’s head down against the stone floor to daze him. Breathing in gasps, Adolin grabbed his side knife. He plunged the knife toward Sadeas’s face, though the man managed to get his hands up to grab Adolin by the wrist.

Adolin grunted, forcing the knife closer, clutched in his off hand. He brought the right in anyway, the wrist flaring with pain, as he leaned it against the crossguard. Sweat prickled on Sadeas’s brow, the knife’s tip touching the end of his left nostril.

“My father,” Adolin said with a grunt, sweat from his nose dripping down onto the blade of the knife, “thinks I’m a better man than he is.” He strained, and felt Sadeas’s grip weaken. “Unfortunately for you, he’s wrong.”

Sadeas whimpered.

With a surge, Adolin forced the blade up past Sadeas’s nose and into the eye socket—piercing the eye like a ripe berry—then rammed it home into the brain.

Sadeas shook for a moment, blood pooling around the blade as Adolin worked it to be certain.

A second later, a Shardblade appeared beside Sadeas—his father’s Shardblade. Sadeas was dead.

Adolin stumbled back to not get blood on his clothing, though his cuffs were already stained. Storms. Had he just done that? Had he just murdered a highprince?

Dazed, he stared at that weapon. Neither man had summoned his Blade for the fight. The weapons might be worth a fortune, but they’d do less good than a rock in such a close-quarters fight.

Thoughts coming more clearly, Adolin picked up the weapon and stumbled away. He ditched the Blade out a window, dropping it down into one of the planterlike outcroppings of the terrace below. It might be safe there.

After that, he had the presence of mind to cut off his cuffs, remove his chalk mark on the wall by scraping it free with his own Blade, and walk as far away as he could before finding one of his scouting parties and pretending he’d been in that area all along.

* * *

Dalinar finally figured out the locking mechanism, then pushed on the metal door at the end of the stairwell. The door was set into the ceiling here, the steps running straight up to it.