Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

What stupid words. Yet Dalinar found himself weeping. Renarin let go, but Dalinar grabbed him, pulling him close.

Oh, Almighty. Oh God. Oh God, please … I’ve started to hate my sons. Why hadn’t the boys learned to hate him back? They should hate him. He deserved to be hated.

Please. Anything. I don’t know how to get free of this. Help me. Help me …

Dalinar wept and clung to that youth, that child, as if he were the only real thing left in a world of shadows.

Yelig-nar had great powers, perhaps the powers of all Surges compounded in one. He could transform any Voidbringer into an extremely dangerous enemy. Curiously, three legends I found mention swallowing a gemstone to engage this process.

—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 27

Kaladin marched at speed through Shadesmar, trying—with difficulty—to control the simmering dissatisfaction inside of him.

“Mmmm…” Pattern said as another screech sounded behind them. “Humans, you must stop your emotions. They are very inconvenient here.”

The group hiked southward, along the narrow line of land that overlaid the river in the real world. Shallan was the slowest of them, and had difficulty keeping up, so they’d agreed she should hold a little Stormlight. It was either that, or let the screeching spren reach them.

“What are they like?” Adolin said to Azure, puffing as they marched. “You said those sounds were from angerspren? Boiling pools of blood?”

“That’s the part you see in the Physical Realm,” Azure said. “Here … that’s merely their saliva, pooling as they drool. They’re nasty.”

“And dangerous,” Syl said. She scampered along the obsidian ground, and didn’t seem to get tired. “Even to spren. But how did we draw them? Nobody was angry, right?”

Kaladin tried again to smother his frustration.

“I wasn’t feeling anything other than tired,” Shallan said.

“I felt overwhelmed,” Adolin said. “Still do. But not angry.”

“Kaladin?” Syl said.

He looked at the others, then down at his feet. “It just feels like … like we’re abandoning Kholinar. And only I care. You were talking about how to get food, find a way to the Horneater Peaks, this perpendicularity or whatever. But we’re abandoning people to the Voidbringers.”

“I care too!” Adolin said. “Bridgeboy, that was my home. It—”

“I know,” Kaladin snapped. He took a breath, forcing himself to calm. “I know, Adolin. I know it’s not rational to try to get back through the Oathgate. We don’t know how to work it from this side, and besides, it’s obviously been corrupted. My emotions are irrational. I’ll try to contain them. I promise.”

They fell silent.

You’re not angry at Adolin, Kaladin thought forcefully. You’re not actually angry at anyone. You’re just looking for something to latch on to. Something to feel.

Because the darkness was coming.

It fed off the pain of defeat, the agony of losing men he’d tried to protect. But it could feed off anything. Life going well? The darkness would whisper that he was only setting himself up for a bigger fall. Shallan glances at Adolin? They must be whispering about him. Dalinar sends him to protect Elhokar? The highprince must want to get rid of Kaladin.

He’d failed at that, regardless. When Dalinar heard that Kholinar had fallen …

Get out, Kaladin thought, squeezing his eyes shut. Get out, get out, get out!

It would continue until numbness seemed preferable. Then that numbness would claim him and make it hard to do anything at all. It would become a sinking, inescapable void from within which everything looked washed out. Dead.

Within that dark place, he’d wanted to betray his oaths. Within that dark place, he’d given the king up to assassins and murderers.

Eventually, the screeches faded into the distance. Syl guessed that the angerspren had been drawn into the beads, off toward Kholinar and the powerful emotions there. The group continued their hike. There was only one way to go: south, along the narrow peninsula of obsidian running through the bead ocean.

“When I traveled here last time,” Azure said, “we passed numbers of peninsulas like this one. They always had lighthouses at the ends. We stopped at them sometimes for supplies.”

“Yes…” Syl said, nodding. “I remember those. It’s useful for ships to note where land juts into the beads. There should be one at the end of this one … though it looks loooong. We’ll have to hike it for several days.”

“At least it’s a goal,” Adolin said. “We travel south, get to the lighthouse, and hope to catch a ship there.”

There was an insufferable spring to his step, like he was actually excited by this terrible place. Idiot Adolin, who probably didn’t even understand the consequences of—

Stop it. STOP IT. He helped you.

Storms. Kaladin hated himself when he got like this. When he tried to empty his mind, he drifted toward the void of darkness. But when he instead let himself think, he started remembering what had happened in Kholinar. Men he loved, killing each other. Awful, terrifying perspective.

He could see too many sides. Parshmen angry at being enslaved for years, attempting to overthrow a corrupt government. Alethi protecting their homes from invading monsters. Elhokar trying to save his son. The palace guards trying to keep their oaths.

Too many eyes to see through. Too many emotions. Were these his only two options? Pain or oblivion?

Fight it.

Their hike continued, and he tried to turn his attention to his surroundings instead of his thoughts. The thin peninsula wasn’t barren, as he’d first assumed. Growing along its edges were small, brittle plants that looked like ferns. When he asked, Syl told him they grew exactly like plants in the Physical Realm.

Most were black, but occasionally they had vibrant colors, blended together like stained glass. None grew higher than his knees, and most only reached his ankles. He felt terrible whenever he brushed one and it crumpled.

The sun didn’t seem to change position in the sky, no matter how long they walked. Through spaces between the clouds, he saw only blackness. No stars, no moons. Eternal, endless darkness.

* * *

They camped for what should have been the night, then hiked all the next day. Kholinar vanished into the distance behind, but still they kept going: Azure at the front, then Pattern, Syl, and Kaladin, with Shallan and Adolin at the back, Adolin’s spren trailing them. Kaladin would have preferred to take the rearguard, but if he tried, Adolin positioned himself to the back again. What did the princeling think? That Kaladin would lag behind, if not minded?

Syl walked beside him, mostly quiet. Being back on this side troubled her. She’d look at things, like the occasional colorful plant, and cock her head as if trying to remember. “It’s like a dream from the time when I was dead,” she’d said when he prompted her.

They camped another “night,” then started walking again. Kaladin skipped breakfast—their rations were basically gone. Besides, he welcomed the grumbling stomach. It reminded him that he was alive. Gave him something to think about, other than the men he’d lost …

“Where did you live?” he asked Syl, still carrying his pack, hiking along the seemingly infinite peninsula. “When you were young, on this side?”