Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

Did they think they were speaking softly enough that he couldn’t hear?

Look at the wounded people in this room, Kaladin. You’re missing something.

The wounded … they displayed fractures. Concussions. Very few lacerations. This was not the aftermath of a battle, but of a natural disaster. So what had happened to the Voidbringers? Who had fought them off?

“Things have gotten better since you left,” Hesina promised Kaladin, squeezing his shoulder. “Roshone isn’t as bad as he once was. I think he feels guilty. We can rebuild, be a family again. And there’s something else you need to know about. We—”

“Hesina,” Lirin said, throwing his hands into the air.

“Yes?”

“Write a letter to the highprince’s administrators,” Lirin said. “Explain the situation; see if we can get a forbearance, or at least an explanation.” He looked to the soldier. “Will that satisfy your master? We can wait upon a higher authority, and in the meantime I can have my son back.”

“We’ll see,” the soldier said, folding his arms. “I’m not sure how much I like the idea of a shash-branded man running around my town.”

Hesina rose to join Lirin. The two had a hushed exchange as the guard settled back against the doorway, pointedly keeping an eye on Kaladin. Did he know how little like a soldier he looked? He didn’t walk like a man acquainted with battle. He stepped too hard, and stood with his knees too straight. There were no dents in his breastplate, and his sword’s scabbard knocked against things as he turned.

Kaladin sipped his soup. Was it any wonder that his parents still thought of him as a child? He’d come in looking ragged and abandoned, then had started sobbing about Tien’s death. Being home brought out the child in him, it seemed.

Perhaps it was time, for once, to stop letting the rain dictate his mood. He couldn’t banish the seed of darkness inside him, but Stormfather, he didn’t need to let it rule him either.

Syl walked up to him in the air. “They’re like I remember them.”

“Remember them?” Kaladin whispered. “Syl, you never knew me when I lived here.”

“That’s true,” she said.

“So how can you remember them?” Kaladin said, frowning.

“Because I do,” Syl said, flitting around him. “Everyone is connected, Kaladin. Everything is connected. I didn’t know you then, but the winds did, and I am of the winds.”

“You’re honorspren.”

“The winds are of Honor,” she said, laughing as if he’d said something ridiculous. “We are kindred blood.”

“You don’t have blood.”

“And you don’t have an imagination, it appears.” She landed in the air before him and became a young woman. “Besides, there was … another voice. Pure, with a song like tapped crystal, distant yet demanding…” She smiled, and zipped away.

Well, the world might have been upended, but Syl was as impenetrable as ever. Kaladin set aside his soup and climbed to his feet. He stretched to one side, then the other, feeling satisfying pops from his joints. He walked toward his parents. Storms, but everyone in this town seemed smaller than he remembered. He hadn’t been that much shorter when he’d left Hearthstone, had he?

A figure stood right outside the room, speaking with the guard with the rusty helmet. Roshone wore a lighteyes’ coat that was several seasons out of fashion—Adolin would have shaken his head at that. The citylord wore a wooden foot on his right leg, and had lost weight since Kaladin had last seen him. His skin drooped on his figure like melted wax, bunching up at his neck.

That said, Roshone had the same imperious bearing, the same angry expression—his light yellow eyes seemed to blame everyone and everything in this insignificant town for his banishment. He’d once lived in Kholinar, but had been involved in the deaths of some citizens—Moash’s grandparents—and had been shipped out here as punishment.

He turned toward Kaladin, lit by candles on the walls. “So, you’re alive. They didn’t teach you to keep yourself in the army, I see. Let me have a look at those brands of yours.” He reached over and held up the hair in front of Kaladin’s forehead. “Storms, boy. What did you do? Hit a lighteyes?”

“Yes,” Kaladin said.

Then punched him.

He bashed Roshone right in the face. A solid hit, exactly like Hav had taught him. Thumb outside of his fist, he connected with the first two knuckles of his hand across Roshone’s cheekbone, then followed through to slide across the front of the face. Rarely had he delivered such a perfect punch. It barely even hurt his fist.

Roshone dropped like a felled tree.

“That,” Kaladin said, “was for my friend Moash.”

I did not die.

I experienced something worse.

—From Oathbringer, preface

“Kaladin!” Lirin exclaimed, grabbing him by the shoulder. “What are you doing, son?”

Roshone sputtered on the ground, his nose bleeding. “Guards, take him! You hear me!”

Syl landed on Kaladin’s shoulder, hands on her hips. She tapped her foot. “He probably deserved that.”

The darkeyed guard scrambled to help Roshone to his feet while the captain leveled his sword at Kaladin. A third joined them, running in from another room.

Kaladin stepped one foot back, falling into a guard position.

“Well?” Roshone demanded, holding his handkerchief to his nose. “Strike him down!” Angerspren boiled up from the ground in pools.

“Please, no,” Kaladin’s mother cried, clinging to Lirin. “He’s just distraught. He—”

Kaladin held out a hand toward her, palm forward, in a quieting motion. “It’s all right, Mother. That was only payment for a little unsettled debt between Roshone and me.”

He met the eyes of the guards, each in turn, and they shuffled uncertainly. Roshone blustered. Unexpectedly, Kaladin felt in complete control of the situation—and … well, more than a little embarrassed.

Suddenly, the perspective of it crashed down on him. Since leaving Hearthstone, Kaladin had met true evil, and Roshone hardly compared. Hadn’t he sworn to protect even those he didn’t like? Wasn’t the whole point of what he had learned to keep him from doing things like this? He glanced at Syl, and she nodded to him.

Do better.

For a short time, it had been nice to just be Kal again. Fortunately, he wasn’t that youth any longer. He was a new person—and for the first time in a long, long while, he was happy with that person.

“Stand down, men,” Kaladin said to the soldiers. “I promise not to hit your brightlord again. I apologize for that; I was momentarily distracted by our previous history. Something he and I both need to forget. Tell me, what happened to the parshmen? Did they not attack the town?”

The soldiers shifted, glancing toward Roshone.

“I said stand down,” Kaladin snapped. “For storm’s sake, man. You’re holding that sword like you’re going to chop a stumpweight. And you? Rust on your cap? I know Amaram recruited most of the able-bodied men in the region, but I’ve seen messenger boys with more battle poise than you.”