Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

“Vargo?” Adrotagia asked.

“My apologies,” he said. “Dalinar Kholin has recovered.”

“A problem.”

“An enormous one.” Taravangian took the tea from Maben. “More than you can guess, I should say, even with the Diagram before you. But please, give me time to consider. My mind is slow today. Have you reports?”

Adrotagia flipped over a paper from one of her stacks. “Moelach seems to have settled in the Horneater Peaks. Joshor is on his way there now. We might again soon have access to the Death Rattles.”

“Very well.”

“We’ve found what happened to Graves,” Adrotagia continued. “Scavengers found the storm-blown wreckage of his wagon, and there was an intact spanreed inside.”

“Graves is replaceable.”

“And the Shards?”

“Irrelevant,” Taravangian said. “We won’t win the prize through force of arms. I was reluctant to let him try his little coup in the first place.”

He and Graves had disagreed about the Diagram’s instructions: to kill Dalinar or recruit him? And who was to be king of Alethkar?

Well, Taravangian had been wrong about the Diagram himself many times. So he’d allowed Graves to move forward with his own plots, according to his own readings of the Diagram. While the man’s schemes had failed, so had Taravangian’s attempt to have Dalinar executed. So perhaps neither of them had read the Diagram correctly.

He took some time to recover, frustrated that he should need to recover from a simple walk. A few minutes later, the guard admitted Malata. The Radiant wore her usual skirt and leggings, Thaylen style, with thick boots.

She took a seat across from Taravangian at the low table, then sighed in a melodramatic way. “This place is awful. Every last idiot here is frozen, ears to toes.”

Had she been this confident before bonding a spren? Taravangian hadn’t known her well then. Oh, he’d managed the project, full of eager recruits from the Diagram, but the individuals hadn’t mattered to him. Until now.

“Your spren,” Adrotagia asked, getting out a sheet of paper. “Has she anything to report?”

“No,” Malata said. “Only the tidbit from earlier, about other visions Dalinar hasn’t shared with everyone.”

“And,” Taravangian asked, “has the spren expressed any … reservations? About the work you’ve given her?”

“Damnation,” Malata said, rolling her eyes. “You’re as bad as Kholin’s scribes. Always poking.”

“We need to be cautious, Malata,” Taravangian said. “We can’t be certain what your spren will do as her self-awareness grows. She will surely dislike working against the other orders.”

“You’re as frozen as the lot of them,” Malata said. She started glowing, Stormlight rising from her skin. She reached forward, whipping off her glove—safehand no less—and pressing it against the table.

Marks spread out from the point of contact, little swirls of blackness etching themselves into the wood. The scent of burning filled the air, but the flames didn’t persist if she didn’t will them to.

The swirls and lines extended across the tabletop, a masterwork of engraving accomplished in moments. Malata blew off the ash. The Surge she used, Division, caused objects to degrade, burn, or turn to dust.

It also worked on people.

“Spark is fine with what we’re doing,” Malata said, pressing her finger down and adding another swirl to the table. “I told you, the rest of them are idiots. They assume all the spren are going to be on their side. Never mind what the Radiants did to Spark’s friends, never mind that organized devotion to Honor is what killed hundreds of ashspren in the first place.”

“And Odium?” Taravangian asked, curious. The Diagram warned that the personalities of the Radiants would introduce great uncertainty to their plans.

“Spark is game for whatever it takes to get vengeance. And what lets her break stuff.” Malata grinned. “Someone should have warned me how fun this would be. I’d have tried way harder to land the job.”

“What we do is not fun,” Taravangian said. “It is necessary, but it is horrible. In a better world, Graves would have been right. We would be allies to Dalinar Kholin.”

“You’re too fond of the Blackthorn, Vargo,” Adrotagia warned. “It will cloud your mind.”

“No. But I do wish I hadn’t gotten to know him. That will make this difficult.” Taravangian leaned forward, holding his warm drink. Boiled ingo tea, with mint. Smells of home. With a start, he realized … he’d probably never live in that home again, would he? He’d thought perhaps he would return in a few years.

He wouldn’t be alive in a few years.

“Adro,” he continued, “Dalinar’s recovery convinces me we must take more drastic action. Are the secrets ready?”

“Almost,” she said, moving some other papers. “My scholars in Jah Keved have translated the passages we need, and we have the information from Malata’s spying. But we need some way to disseminate the information without compromising ourselves.”

“Assign it to Dova,” Taravangian said. “Have her write a scathing, anonymous essay, then leak it to Tashikk. Leak the translations from the Dawnchant the same day. I want it all to strike at once.” He set aside the tea. Suddenly, scents of Kharbranth made him hurt. “It would have been so, so much better for Dalinar to have died by the assassin’s blade. For now we must leave him to the enemy’s desires, and that will not be as kind as a quick death.”

“Will it be enough?” Malata asked. “That old axehound is tough.”

“It will be enough. Dalinar would be the first to tell you that when your opponent is getting back up, you must act quickly to crush his knees. Then he will bow, and present to you his skull.”

Oh, Dalinar. You poor, poor man.

Chemoarish, the Dustmother, has some of the most varied lore surrounding her. The wealth of it makes sorting lies from truths extremely difficult. I do believe she is not the Nightwatcher, contrary to what some stories claim.

—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 231

Shallan sketched in her notepad as she stood on the deck of the honorspren ship, the wind of its passing ruffling her hair. Next to her, Kaladin rested his arms on the ship’s railing, overlooking the ocean of beads.

Their current vessel, Honor’s Path, was faster than Ico’s merchant ship. It had mandras rigged not only at the front, but also to winglike rails jutting from the sides. It had five decks—including three below for crew and storage—but those were mostly empty. It felt like a war vessel intended to carry troops, but which didn’t currently have a full complement.

The main deck was similar to the top deck of human ships, but this craft also had a high deck running down its center from prow to stern. Narrower than the main deck, it was supported by broad white pillars, and probably offered an excellent view. Shallan could no more than guess, as only the crew was allowed up there.

At least they’d been let out—Shallan and the others had spent their first week on board locked in the hold. The honorspren had given no explanation when, finally, the humans and Pattern had been released and allowed to move on deck, so long as they stayed off the high deck and did not make nuisances of themselves.