Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

The grass back near the Shattered Plains had barely reached as high as his ankle, and had mostly grown in yellowish patches on the leeward side of hills. He was surprised to find that he distrusted this taller, fuller grass. An ambusher could hide in that, by crouching down and waiting for the grass to rise back up. How had Kaladin never noticed? He’d run through fields like this playing catch-me with his brother, trying to see who was quick enough to grab handfuls of grass before it hid.

Kaladin felt drained. Used up. Four days ago, he’d traveled by Oathgate to the Shattered Plains, then flown to the northwest at speed. Filled to bursting with Stormlight—and carrying a wealth more in gemstones—he’d been determined to reach his home, Hearthstone, before the Everstorm returned.

After just half a day, he’d run out of Stormlight somewhere in Aladar’s princedom. He’d been walking ever since. Perhaps he could have flown all the way to Hearthstone if he’d been more practiced with his powers. As it was, he’d traveled over a thousand miles in half a day, but this last bit—ninety or so miles—had taken an excruciating three days.

He hadn’t beaten the Everstorm. It had arrived earlier in the day, around noon.

Kaladin noticed a bit of debris peeking out of the grass, and he trudged toward it. The foliage obligingly pulled back before him, revealing a broken wooden churn, the kind used for turning sow’s milk into butter. Kaladin crouched and rested fingers on the splintered wood, then glanced toward another chunk of wood peeking out over the tops of the grass.

Syl zipped down as a ribbon of light, passing his head and spinning around the length of wood.

“It’s the edge of a roof,” Kaladin said. “The lip that hangs down on the leeward side of a building.” Probably from a storage shed, judging by the other debris.

Alethkar wasn’t in the harshest of the stormlands, but neither was this some soft-skinned Western land. Buildings here were built low and squat, sturdy sides pointed eastward toward the Origin, like the shoulder of a man set and ready to take the force of an impact. Windows would only be on the leeward—the westward—side. Like the grass and the trees, humankind had learned to weather the storms.

That depended on storms always blowing in the same direction. Kaladin had done what he could to prepare the villages and towns he passed for the coming Everstorm, which would blow in the wrong direction and transform parshmen into destructive Voidbringers. Nobody in those towns had possessed working spanreeds, however, and he’d been unable to contact his home.

He hadn’t been fast enough. Earlier today, he’d spent the Everstorm within a tomb he’d hollowed out of rock using his Shardblade—Syl herself, who could manifest as any weapon he desired. In truth, the storm hadn’t been nearly as bad as the one where he’d fought the Assassin in White. But the debris he found here proved that this one had been bad enough.

The mere memory of that red storm outside his hollow made panic rise inside him. The Everstorm was so wrong, so unnatural—like a baby born with no face. Some things just should not be.

He stood up and continued on his way. He had changed uniforms before leaving—his old uniform had been bloodied and tattered. He now wore a spare generic Kholin uniform. It felt wrong not to bear the symbol of Bridge Four.

He crested a hill and spotted a river to his right. Trees sprouted along its banks, hungry for the extra water. That would be Hobble’s Brook. So if he looked directly west …

Hand shading his eyes, he could see hills that had been stripped of grass and rockbuds. They’d soon be slathered with seed-crem, and lavis polyps would start to bud. That hadn’t started yet; this was supposed to be the Weeping. Rain should be falling right now in a constant, gentle shower.

Syl zipped up in front of him, a ribbon of light. “Your eyes are brown again,” she noted.

It took a few hours without summoning his Shardblade. Once he did that, his eyes would bleed to a glassy light blue, almost glowing. Syl found the variation fascinating; Kaladin still hadn’t decided how he felt about it.

“We’re close,” Kaladin said, pointing. “Those fields belong to Hobbleken. We’re maybe two hours from Hearthstone.”

“Then you’ll be home!” Syl said, her ribbon of light spiraling and taking the shape of a young woman in a flowing havah, tight and buttoning above the waist, with safehand covered.

Kaladin grunted, walking down the slope, longing for Stormlight. Being without it now, after holding so much, was an echoing hollowness within him. Was this what it would be like every time he ran dry?

The Everstorm hadn’t recharged his spheres, of course. Neither with Stormlight nor some other energy, which he’d feared might happen.

“Do you like the new dress?” Syl asked, wagging her covered safehand as she stood in the air.

“Looks strange on you.”

“I’ll have you know I put a ton of thought into it. I spent positively hours thinking of just how— Oh! What’s that?”

She turned into a little stormcloud that shot toward a lurg clinging to a stone. She inspected the fist-size amphibian on one side, then the other, before squealing in joy and turning into a perfect imitation of the thing—except pale white-blue. This startled the creature away, and she giggled, zipping back toward Kaladin as a ribbon of light.

“What were we saying?” she asked, forming into a young woman and resting on his shoulder.

“Nothing important.”

“I’m sure I was scolding you. Oh, yes, you’re home! Yay! Aren’t you excited?”

She didn’t see it—didn’t realize. Sometimes, for all her curiosity, she could be oblivious.

“But … it’s your home…” Syl said. She huddled down. “What’s wrong?”

“The Everstorm, Syl,” Kaladin said. “We were supposed to beat it here.” He’d needed to beat it here.

Surely someone would have survived, right? The fury of the storm, and then the worse fury after? The murderous rampage of servants turned into monsters?

Oh, Stormfather. Why hadn’t he been faster?

He forced himself into a double march again, pack slung over his shoulder. The weight was still heavy, dreadfully so, but he found that he had to know. Had to see.

Someone had to witness what had happened to his home.

* * *

The rain resumed about an hour out of Hearthstone, so at least the weather patterns hadn’t been completely ruined. Unfortunately, this meant he had to hike the rest of the way wet. He splashed through puddles where rainspren grew, blue candles with eyes on the very tip.

“It will be all right, Kaladin,” Syl promised from his shoulder. She’d created an umbrella for herself, and still wore the traditional Vorin dress instead of her usual girlish skirt. “You’ll see.”

The sky had darkened by the time he finally crested the last lavis hill and looked down on Hearthstone. He braced himself for the destruction, but it shocked him nonetheless. Some of the buildings he remembered were simply … gone. Others stood without roofs. He couldn’t see the entire town from his vantage, not in the gloom of the Weeping, but many of the structures he could make out were hollow and ruined.

He stood for a long time as night fell. He didn’t spot a glimmer of light in the town. It was empty.