Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

THERE IS NOT A MAN ALIVE WHO HAS NOT BROKEN AN OATH, DALINAR KHOLIN. YOUR NEW RADIANTS HOLD IN THEIR HANDS THE SOULS AND LIVES OF MY CHILDREN. NO. I WILL NOT LET YOU DO AS YOUR PREDECESSORS DID. YOU KNOW THE IMPORTANT PARTS. THE REST IS IRRELEVANT.

Dalinar drew in a deep breath, but contained his anger. In a way, the Stormfather was right. He couldn’t know how this secret would affect him or his Radiants.

He’d still rather know it. He felt as if he were walking about with a headsman following, planning to claim his life at any moment.

He sighed as Navani stood and walked to him, taking his arm. “I’ll need to try to do sketches from memory of each of those Honorblades—or better, send Shallan to do it. Perhaps we can use the drawings to locate the others.”

A shadow moved at the entrance to this little alcove, and a moment later a young man stumbled in. He was pale of skin, with strange, wide Shin eyes and brown hair that had a curl to it. He could have been one of any number of Shin men Dalinar had seen in his own time—they were still ethnically distinct, despite the passing of millennia.

The man fell to his knees before the wonder of the abandoned Honorblades. But a moment later, the man looked to Dalinar, and then spoke with the Almighty’s voice. “Unite them.”

“Was there nothing you could do for the Heralds?” Dalinar asked. “Was there nothing their God could do to prevent this?”

The Almighty, of course, couldn’t answer. He had died fighting this thing they faced, the force known as Odium. He had, in a way, given his own life to the same cause as the Heralds.

The vision faded.

No good can come of two Shards settling in one location. It was agreed that we would not interfere with one another, and it disappoints me that so few of the Shards have kept to this original agreement.

“Shallan can take notes for us,” Jasnah said.

Shallan looked up from her notebook. She’d settled against the tile-covered wall, sitting on the floor in her blue havah, and had intended to spend the meeting doing sketches.

It had been over a week since her recovery and subsequent meeting with Jasnah at the crystal pillar. Shallan was feeling better and better, and at the same time less and less like herself. What a surreal experience it was, following Jasnah around as if nothing had changed.

Today, Dalinar had called a meeting of his Radiants, and Jasnah had suggested the basement rooms of the tower because they were so well secured. She was incredibly worried about being spied upon.

The rows of dust had been removed from the library floor; Navani’s flock of scholars had carefully catalogued every splinter. The emptiness served only to underscore the absence of the information they’d hoped to find.

Now everyone was looking at her. “Notes?” Shallan asked. She’d barely been following the conversation. “We could call for Brightness Teshav.…”

So far, it was a small group. The Blackthorn, Navani, and their core Surgebinders: Jasnah, Renarin, Shallan, and Kaladin Stormblessed, the flying bridgeman. Adolin and Elhokar were away, visiting Vedenar to survey the military capacities of Taravangian’s army. Malata was working the Oathgate for them.

“No need to call in another scribe,” Jasnah said. “We covered shorthand in your training, Shallan. I’d see how well you’ve retained the skill. Be fastidious; we will need to report to my brother what we determine here.”

The rest of them had settled into a group of chairs except for Kaladin, who stood leaning against the wall. Looming like a thundercloud. He had killed Helaran, her brother. The emotion of that peeked out, but Shallan smothered it, stuffing it into the back of her mind. Kaladin wasn’t to be blamed for that. He’d just been defending his brightlord.

She stood up, feeling like a chastened child. The weight of their stares prodded her to walk over and take a seat beside Jasnah with her pad open and pencil ready.

“So,” Kaladin said. “According to the Stormfather, not only is the Almighty dead, but he condemned ten people to an eternity of torture. We call them Heralds, and they’re not only traitors to their oaths, they’re probably also mad. We had one of them in our custody—likely the maddest of the lot—but we lost him in the turmoil of getting everyone to Urithiru. In short, everyone who might have been able to help us is crazy, dead, a traitor, or some combination of the three.” He folded his arms. “Figures.”

Jasnah glanced at Shallan. She sighed, then recorded a summary of what he’d said. Even though it was already a summary.

“So what do we do with this knowledge?” Renarin said, leaning forward with his hands clasped.

“We must curb the Voidbringer assault,” Jasnah said. “We can’t let them secure too great a foothold.”

“The parshmen aren’t our enemies,” Kaladin said softly.

Shallan glanced at him. There was something about that wavy dark hair, that grim expression. Always serious, always solemn—and so tense. Like he had to be strict with himself to contain his passion.

“Of course they’re our enemies,” Jasnah said. “They’re in the process of conquering the world. Even if your report indicates they aren’t as immediately destructive as we feared, they are still an enormous threat.”

“They just want to live better lives,” Kaladin said.

“I can believe,” Jasnah said, “that the common parshmen have such a simple motive. But their leaders? They will pursue our extinction.”

“Agreed,” Navani said. “They were born out of a twisted thirst to destroy humankind.”

“The parshmen are the key,” Jasnah said, shuffling through some pages of notes. “Looking over what you discovered, it seems that all parshmen can bond with ordinary spren as part of their natural life cycle. What we’ve been calling ‘Voidbringers’ are instead a combination of a parshman with some kind of hostile spren or spirit.”

“The Fused,” Dalinar said.

“Great,” Kaladin said. “Fine. Let’s fight them, then. Why do the common folk have to get crushed in the process?”

“Perhaps,” Jasnah said, “you should visit my uncle’s vision and see for yourself the consequences of a soft heart. Firsthand witness of a Desolation might change your perspective.”

“I’ve seen war, Brightness. I’m a soldier. Problem is, Ideals have expanded my focus. I can’t help but see the common men among the enemy. They’re not monsters.”

Dalinar raised a hand to stop Jasnah’s reply. “Your concern does you credit, Captain,” Dalinar said. “And your reports have been exceptionally timely. Do you honestly see a chance for an accommodation here?”

“I … I don’t know, sir. Even the common parshmen are furious at what was done to them.”

“I can’t afford to stay my hand from war,” Dalinar said. “Everything you say is right, but it is also nothing new. I have never gone to battle where some poor fools on either side—men who didn’t want to be there in the first place—weren’t going to bear the brunt of the pain.”

“Maybe,” Kaladin said, “that should make you reconsider those other wars, rather than using them to justify this one.”

Shallan’s breath caught. It didn’t seem the sort of thing you said to the Blackthorn.