Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

Renarin glanced away.

“Or not,” Adolin said, then poked Renarin in the shoulder. “You’ve got a replacement already, don’t you.”

Renarin blushed again.

“You mink!” Adolin said. “You’ve managed to create a Radiant Blade? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“It just happened. Glys wasn’t certain he could do it … but we need more people to work the Oathgate … so…”

He took a deep breath, then stretched his hand to the side and summoned a long glowing Shardblade. Thin, with almost no crossguard, it had waving folds to the metal, like it had been forged.

“Gorgeous,” Adolin said. “Renarin, it’s fantastic!”

“Thanks.”

“So why are you embarrassed?”

“I’m … not?”

Adolin gave him a flat stare.

Renarin dismissed the Blade. “I simply … Adolin, I was starting to fit in. With Bridge Four, with being a Shardbearer. Now, I’m in the darkness again. Father expects me to be a Radiant, so I can help him unite the world. But how am I supposed to learn?”

Adolin scratched his chin with his good hand. “Huh. I assumed that it just kind of came to you. It hasn’t?”

“Some has. But it … frightens me, Adolin.” He held up his hand, and it started to glow, wisps of Stormlight trailing off it, like smoke from a fire. “What if I hurt someone, or ruin things?”

“You’re not going to,” Adolin said. “Renarin, that’s the power of the Almighty himself.”

Renarin only stared at that glowing hand, and didn’t seem convinced. So Adolin reached out with his good hand and took Renarin’s, holding it.

“This is good,” Adolin said to him. “You’re not going to hurt anyone. You’re here to save us.”

Renarin looked to him, then smiled. A pulse of Radiance washed through Adolin, and for an instant he saw himself perfected. A version of himself that was somehow complete and whole, the man he could be.

It was gone in a moment, and Renarin pulled his hand free and murmured an apology. He mentioned again the Shardblade needing to be given away, then fled back into the tower.

Adolin stared after him. Gallant trotted up and nudged him for more sugar, so he reached absently into his satchel and fed the horse.

Only after Gallant trotted off did Adolin realize he’d used his right hand. He held it up, amazed, moving his fingers.

His wrist had been completely healed.

THIRTY-THREE YEARS AGO

Dalinar danced from one foot to the other in the morning mist, feeling a new power, an energy in every step. Shardplate. His own Shardplate.

The world would never be the same place. They’d all expected he would someday have his own Plate or Blade, but he’d never been able to quiet the whisper of uncertainty from the back of his mind. What if it never happened?

But it had. Stormfather, it had. He’d won it himself, in combat. Yes, that combat had involved kicking a man off a cliff, but he’d defeated a Shardbearer regardless.

He couldn’t help but bask in how grand it felt.

“Calm, Dalinar,” Sadeas said from beside him in the mist. Sadeas wore his own golden Plate. “Patience.”

“It won’t do any good, Sadeas,” Gavilar—clad in bright blue Plate—said from Dalinar’s other side. All three of them wore their faceplates up for the moment. “The Kholin boys are chained axehounds, and we smell blood. We can’t go into battle breathing calming breaths, centered and serene, as the ardents teach.”

Dalinar shifted, feeling the cold morning fog on his face. He wanted to dance with the anticipationspren whipping in the air around him. Behind, the army waited in disciplined ranks, their footsteps, clinkings, coughs, and murmured banter rising through the fog.

He almost felt as if he didn’t need that army. He wore a massive hammer on his back, so heavy an unaided man—even the strongest of them—wouldn’t be able to lift it. He barely noticed the weight. Storms, this power. It felt remarkably like the Thrill.

“Have you given thought to my suggestion, Dalinar?” Sadeas asked.

“No.”

Sadeas sighed.

“If Gavilar commands me,” Dalinar said, “I’ll marry.”

“Don’t bring me into this,” Gavilar said. He summoned and dismissed his Shardblade repeatedly as they talked.

“Well,” Dalinar said, “until you say something, I’m staying single.” The only woman he’d ever wanted belonged to Gavilar. They’d married—storms, they had a child now. A little girl.

His brother must never know how Dalinar felt.

“But think of the benefit, Dalinar,” Sadeas said. “Your wedding could bring us alliances, Shards. Perhaps you could win us a princedom—one we wouldn’t have to storming drive to the brink of collapse before they join us!”

After two years of fighting, only four of the ten princedoms had accepted Gavilar’s rule—and two of those, Kholin and Sadeas, had been easy. The result was a united Alethkar: against House Kholin.

Gavilar was convinced that he could play them off one another, that their natural selfishness would lead them to stab one another in the back. Sadeas, in turn, pushed Gavilar toward greater brutality. He claimed that the fiercer their reputation, the more cities would turn to them willingly rather than risk being pillaged.

“Well?” Sadeas asked. “Will you at least consider a union of political necessity?”

“Storms, you still on that?” Dalinar said. “Let me fight. You and my brother can worry about politics.”

“You can’t escape this forever, Dalinar. You realize that, right? We’ll have to worry about feeding the darkeyes, about city infrastructure, about ties with other kingdoms. Politics.”

“You and Gavilar,” Dalinar said.

“All of us,” Sadeas said. “All three.”

“Weren’t you trying to get me to relax?” Dalinar snapped. Storms.

The rising sun finally started to disperse the fog, and that let him see their target: a wall about twelve feet high. Beyond that, nothing. A flat rocky expanse, or so it appeared. The chasm city was difficult to spot from this direction. Named Rathalas, it was also known as the Rift: an entire city that had been built inside a rip in the ground.

“Brightlord Tanalan is a Shardbearer, right?” Dalinar asked.

Sadeas sighed, lowering his faceplate. “We only went over this four times, Dalinar.”

“I was drunk. Tanalan. Shardbearer?”

“Blade only, Brother,” Gavilar said.

“He’s mine,” Dalinar whispered.

Gavilar laughed. “Only if you find him first! I’ve half a mind to give that Blade to Sadeas. At least he listens in our meetings.”

“All right,” Sadeas said. “Let’s do this carefully. Remember the plan. Gavilar, you—”

Gavilar gave Dalinar a grin, slammed his faceplate down, then took off running to leave Sadeas midsentence. Dalinar whooped and joined him, Plated boots grinding against stone.

Sadeas cursed loudly, then followed. The army remained behind for the moment.

Rocks started falling; catapults from behind the wall hurled solitary boulders or sprays of smaller rocks. Chunks slammed down around Dalinar, shaking the ground, causing rockbud vines to curl up. A boulder struck just ahead, then bounced, spraying chips of stone. Dalinar skidded past it, the Plate lending a spring to his motion. He raised his arm before his eye slit as a hail of arrows darkened the sky.