Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

“Don’t crowd you,” Lieutenant Noro said, “and don’t let anyone else crowd you either. Can do, sir.”

Kaladin looked to the king and nodded. The two of them took the last few steps up to the landing to emerge into a broad stone hallway, carpeted down the center but otherwise unornamented. Kaladin had expected the palace to be more lavish, but it appeared that even here—in the seat of their power—the Kholins preferred buildings that felt like bunkers. Funny, after hearing them complain that their fortresses on the Shattered Plains lacked comfort.

Syl was right. A platoon of enemy soldiers had formed up down the hall, holding halberds or crossbows, but seemed content to wait. Kaladin prepared Stormlight; he could paint the walls with a power that would cause crossbow bolts to veer aside in their flight, but it was far from a perfect art. It was the power he understood the least.

“Do you not see me?” Elhokar bellowed. “Do you not know your monarch? Are you so far consumed by the touch of the spren that you would kill your own king?”

Storms … those soldiers barely seemed to be breathing. At first they didn’t move—then a few looked backward, down the hallway. Was that a distant voice?

The palace soldiers immediately broke formation and retreated. Elhokar set his jaw, then led the way after them. Each step made Kaladin more anxious. He didn’t have the troops to properly hold their retreat; all he could do was post a pair of men at each intersection, with instructions to yell if they saw someone coming down the cross hallways.

They passed a corridor lined with statues of the Heralds. Nine of them, at least. One was missing. Kaladin sent Syl ahead to watch, but that left him feeling even more exposed. Everyone but him seemed to know the way, which made sense, but it made him feel carried along on some sort of tide.

They finally reached the royal chambers, marked by a broad set of doors, open and inviting. Kaladin stopped his men thirty feet from the opening, near a corridor that split off to the left.

Even from here, he could see that the chamber beyond the doors finally displayed some of the lavish ornamentation he had expected. Rich carpets, too much furniture, everything covered in embroidery or gilding.

“There are soldiers down that smaller hallway to the left,” Syl said, zipping back to him. “There isn’t a single one in the room ahead, but … Kaladin, she’s in there. The queen.”

“I can hear her,” Elhokar said. “That’s her voice, singing.”

I know that tune, Kaladin thought. Something about her soft song was familiar. He wanted to advise caution, but the king was already hurrying forward, a worried squad of men following.

Kaladin sighed, then arranged his remaining men; half stayed back to watch their retreat, and the other half formed up at the left hallway to stare down the Palace Guard. Storms. If this went wrong he’d have a bloodbath on his hands, with the king trapped in the middle.

Still, this was why they’d come up here. He followed the queen’s song and entered the room.

* * *

Shallan stepped up to the dark heart. Even though she hadn’t studied human anatomy as much as she’d have liked—her father thought it unfeminine—in the sunlight, she could easily see that it was the wrong shape.

This isn’t a human heart, she decided. Maybe it’s a parshman heart. Or, well, a giant, dark violet spren in the shape of one, growing over the Oathgate control building.

“Shallan,” Adolin said. “We’re running out of time.”

His voice brought to her an awareness of the city around her. Of soldiers skirmishing only one street over. Of distant drums going quiet, one at a time, as guard posts on the wall fell. Of smoke in the air, and a soft, high-pitched roar that seemed the echoes of thousands upon thousands of people shouting in the chaos of a city being conquered.

She tried Pattern first, stabbing him into the heart as a Shardblade. The mass simply split around the Blade. She slashed with it, and the spren cut, then sealed up behind. So. Time to try what she’d done in Urithiru.

Trembling, Shallan closed her eyes and pressed her hand against the heart. It felt real, like warm flesh. Like in Urithiru, touching the thing let her sense it. Feel it. Know it.

It tried to sweep her away.

* * *

The queen sat at a vanity beside the wall.

She was much as Kaladin had anticipated. Younger than Elhokar, with long dark Alethi hair, which she was combing. Her song had fallen away to a hum.

“Aesudan?” Elhokar asked.

She looked away from the mirror, then smiled broadly. She had a narrow face, with prim lips painted a deep red. She rose from the seat and glided to him. “Husband! So it was you I heard. You have returned at last? Victorious over our enemies, your father avenged?”

“Yes,” Elhokar said, frowning. He moved to step toward her, but Kaladin grabbed him by the shoulder and held him back.

The queen focused on Kaladin. “New bodyguard, dear one? Far too scruffy; you should have consulted me. You have an image to maintain.”

“Where is Gav, Aesudan? Where is my son?”

“He’s playing with friends.”

Elhokar looked to Kaladin, and gestured to the side with his chin. See what you can find, it seemed to say.

“Keep alert,” Kaladin whispered, then began picking through the room. He passed the remnants of lavish meals only partially eaten. Pieces of fruit each with a single bite taken out of them. Cakes and pastries. Candied meats on sticks. It looked like it should have rotted, based on the decayspren he noticed, but it hadn’t.

“Dear one,” Elhokar said, keeping his distance from the queen, “we heard that the city has seen … trouble lately.”

“One of my ardents tried to refound the Hierocracy. We really should keep better watch on who joins them; not every man or woman is proper for service.”

“You had her executed.”

“Of course. She tried to overthrow us.”

Kaladin picked around a pile of musical instruments of the finest wood, sitting in a heap.

Here, Syl’s voice said in his mind. Across the room. Behind the dressing screen.

He passed the balcony to his left. If he remembered right—though the story had been told so often, he had heard a dozen differing versions—Gavilar and the assassin had fallen off that ledge during their struggles.

“Aesudan,” Elhokar said, his voice pained. He stepped forward, extending his hand. “You’re not well. Please, come with me.”

“Not well?”

“There’s an evil influence in the palace.”

“Evil? Husband, what a fool you are at times.”

Kaladin joined Syl and glanced behind the dressing screen, which had been pushed back against the wall to section off a small cubby. Here a child—two or three years old—huddled and trembled, clutching a stuffed soldier. Several spren with soft red glows were picking at him like cremlings at a corpse. The boy tried to turn his head, and the spren pulled on the back of his hair until he looked up, while others hovered in front of his face and took horrific shapes, like horses with melting faces.

Kaladin reacted with swift, immediate rage. He growled, seizing the Sylblade from the air, forming a small dagger from mist. He drove the dagger forward and caught one of the spren, pinning it to the wall’s wooden paneling. He had never known a Shardblade to cut a spren before, but this worked. The thing screamed in a soft voice, a hundred hands coming from its shape and scraping at the Blade, at the wall, until it seemed to rip into a thousand tiny pieces, then faded.