Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

Ashamed by that, Dalinar hurried from the room, followed by his guards. He felt tired, which seemed unfair, considering he’d just spent a week basically sleeping.

Before seeking his stewards, Dalinar stopped on the fourth floor from the bottom. An extended walk from the lifts took him to the outer wall of the tower, where a small series of rooms smelled of incense. People lined the hallways, waiting for glyphwards or to speak with an ardent. More than he’d expected—but then, they didn’t have much else to do, did they?

Is that how you think of them already? a part of him asked. Only here to seek spiritual welfare because they don’t have anything better to do?

Dalinar kept his chin high, resisting the urge to shrink before their stares. He passed several ardents and stepped into a room lit and warmed by braziers, where he asked after Kadash.

He was directed onto a garden balcony, where a small group of ardents was trying to farm. Some placed seed paste while others were trying to get some shalebark starters to take along the wall. An impressive project, and one he didn’t remember ordering them to begin.

Kadash was quietly chipping crem off a planter box. Dalinar settled down beside him. The scarred ardent glanced at him and kept working.

“It’s very late coming,” Dalinar said, “but I wanted to apologize to you for Rathalas.”

“I don’t think I’m the one you need to apologize to,” Kadash said. “Those who could bear an apology are now in the Tranquiline Halls.”

“Still, I made you part of something terrible.”

“I chose to be in your army,” Kadash said. “I’ve found peace with what we did—found it among the ardents, where I no longer shed the blood of men. I suppose it would be foolish of me to suggest the same to you.”

Dalinar took a deep breath. “I’m releasing you, and the other ardents, from my control. I won’t put you in a position where you have to serve a heretic. I’ll give you to Taravangian, who remains orthodox.”

“No.”

“I don’t believe you have the option to—”

“Just listen for one storming moment, Dalinar,” Kadash snapped, then he sighed, forcibly calming himself. “You assume that because you’re a heretic, we don’t want anything to do with you.”

“You proved that a few weeks ago, when we dueled.”

“We don’t want to normalize what you’ve done or what you’re saying. That doesn’t mean we will abandon our posts. Your people need us, Dalinar, even if you believe you don’t.”

Dalinar walked to the edge of the garden, where he rested his hands on the stone railing. Beyond him, clouds mustered at the base of the peaks, like a phalanx protecting its commander. From up here, it looked like the entire world was nothing more than an ocean of white broken by sharp peaks. His breath puffed in front of him. Cold as the Frostlands, though it didn’t seem as bad inside the tower.

“Are any of those plants growing?” he asked softly.

“No,” Kadash said from behind. “We aren’t sure if it’s the cold, or the fact that few storms reach this high.” He kept scraping. “What will it feel like when a storm goes high enough to engulf this entire tower?”

“Like we’re surrounded by dark confusion,” Dalinar said. “The only light coming in flashes we can’t pinpoint or comprehend. Angry winds trying to tow us in a dozen different directions, or barring that, rip our limbs from our bodies.” He looked toward Kadash. “Like always.”

“The Almighty was a constant light.”

“And?”

“And now you make us question. You make me question. Being an ardent is the only thing that lets me sleep at night, Dalinar. You want to take that from me too? If He’s gone, there’s only the storm.”

“I think there must be something beyond. I asked you before, what did worship look like before Vorinism? What did—”

“Dalinar. Please. Just … stop.” Kadash drew in a deep breath. “Release a statement. Don’t let everyone keep whispering about how you went into hiding. Say something pedantic like, ‘I’m pleased with the work the Vorin church does, and support my ardents, even if I myself no longer have the faith I once did.’ Give us permission to move on. Storms, this isn’t the time for confusion. We don’t even know what we’re fighting.…”

Kadash didn’t want to know that Dalinar had met the thing they were fighting. Best not to speak of that.

But Kadash’s question did leave him considering. Odium wouldn’t be commanding the day-to-day operations of his army, would he? Who did that? The Fused? The Voidspren?

Dalinar strolled a short distance from Kadash, then looked toward the sky. “Stormfather?” he asked. “Do the enemy forces have a king or a highprince? Maybe a head ardent? Someone other than Odium?”

The Stormfather rumbled. Again, I do not see as much as you think I do. I am the passing storm, the winds of the tempest. All of this is me. But I am not all of it, any more than you control each breath that leaves your mouth.

Dalinar sighed. It had been worth the thought.

There is one I have been watching, the Stormfather added. I can see her, when I don’t see others.

“A leader?” Dalinar asked.

Maybe. Men, both human and singer, are strange in what or whom they revere. Why do you ask?

Dalinar had decided not to bring anyone else into one of the visions because he worried about what Odium would do to them. But that wouldn’t count for people already serving Odium, would it?

“When is the next highstorm?”

* * *

Taravangian felt old.

His age was more than the aches that no longer faded as the day proceeded. It was more than the weak muscles, which still surprised him when he tried to lift an object that should have seemed light.

It was more than finding that he’d slept through yet another meeting, despite his best efforts to pay attention. It was even more than slowly seeing almost everyone he’d grown up with fade away and die.

It was the urgency of knowing that tasks he started today, he wouldn’t finish.

He stopped in the hallway back to his rooms, hand resting on the strata-lined wall. It was beautiful, mesmerizing, but he only found himself wishing for his gardens in Kharbranth. Other men and women got to live out their waning hours in comfort, or at least familiarity.

He let Mrall take him by the arm and guide him to his rooms. Normally, Taravangian would have been bothered by the help; he did not like being treated like an invalid. Today though … well, today he would suffer the indignity. It was a lesser one than collapsing in the hallway.

Inside the room, Adrotagia sat amid six different scribbling spanreeds, buying and trading information like a merchant at market. She looked at him, but knew him well enough not to comment on his exhausted face or slow steps. Today was a good day, of average intelligence. Perhaps a little on the stupid side, but he’d take that.

He seemed to be having fewer and fewer intelligent days. And the ones he did have frightened him.

Taravangian settled down in a plush, comfortable seat, and Maben went to get him some tea.

“Well?” Adrotagia asked. She’d grown old too, with enormous bags around her green eyes, the persistent kind formed by drooping skin. She had liver spots and wispy hair. No man would look at her and see the mischievous child she’d once been. The trouble the two of them had gotten into …