Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

In Urithiru, she’d made an army of a score to distract the Unmade. Now, hundreds of illusions rose around her: soldiers, shopkeepers, washwomen, scribes, all drawn from her pages. They glowed brilliantly, Light streaming from them—as if each were a Knight Radiant.

Adolin climbed to his feet, and came face-to-face with an illusion of himself wearing a Kholin uniform. The illusory Adolin glowed with Stormlight and floated a few inches off the ground. She’d made him a Windrunner.

I … I can’t take that. He turned toward the city. His father had been focused on the Radiants, and had neglected to give Adolin a specific duty. So maybe he could help the defenders inside.

Adolin picked his way across the rubble and through the broken wall. Jasnah stood right inside, hands on hips, as if she were surveying a mess left by rampaging children. The gap opened into an unremarkable city square dominated by barracks and storehouses. Fallen troops wearing either Thaylen or Sadeas uniforms indicated a recent clash here, but most of the enemy seemed to have moved on. Shouts and clangs sounded from nearby streets.

Adolin reached for a discarded sword, then paused, and—feeling a fool—summoned his Shardblade. He braced himself for a scream, but none came, and the Blade fell into his hand after ten heartbeats.

“I’m sorry,” he said, lifting the glistening weapon. “And thank you.”

He headed toward one of the nearby clashes, where men were shouting for help.

* * *

Szeth of the Skybreakers envied Kaladin, the one they called Stormblessed, in the honor of protecting Dalinar Kholin. But of course, he would not complain. He had chosen his oath.

And he would do as his master demanded.

Phantoms appeared, created from Stormlight by the woman with the red hair. These were the shadows in the darkness, the ones he heard whispering of his murders. How she brought them to life, he did not know. He landed near the Reshi Surgebinder, Lift.

“So,” she said to him. “How do we find that ruby?”

Szeth pointed with his sheathed Shardblade toward the ships docked in the bay. “The creature carrying it ran back that way.” The parshmen still clustered there, deep within the shadow of the Everstorm.

“Figures,” Lift said, then glanced at him. “You aren’t gonna try to eat me again, right?”

Don’t be silly, said the sword in Szeth’s hand. You aren’t evil. You’re nice. And I don’t eat people.

“I will not draw the sword,” Szeth said, “unless you are already dead and I decide to accept death myself.”

“Greaaaaaaaaaaat,” Lift said.

You’re supposed to contradict me, Szeth, the sword said, when I say I don’t eat people. Vasher always did. I think he was joking. Anyway, as people who have carried me go, you aren’t very good at this.

“No,” Szeth said. “I am not good at being a person. It is … a failing of mine.”

It’s all right! Be happy. Looks like there’s a lot of evil to slay today! That’s greaaaaaaaaaaat, right?

Then the sword started humming.

* * *

The brands on Kaladin’s head seemed a fresh pain as he dove to strike Amaram. But Amaram recovered quickly from his fit, then slammed his faceplate down. He rebuffed Kaladin’s attack with an armored forearm.

Those red eyes cast a crimson glow through the helm’s slit. “You should thank me, boy.”

“Thank you?” Kaladin said. “For what? For showing me that a person could be even more loathsome than the petty lighteyes who ruled my hometown?”

“I created you, spearman. I forged you.” Amaram pointed at Kaladin with the wide, hook-ended Shardblade. Then he extended his left hand, summoning a second Blade. Long and curved, the back edge rippled like flowing waves.

Kaladin knew that Blade well. He’d won it—saving Amaram’s life—then refused to bear it. For when he looked at his reflection in the silvery metal, all he could see were the friends it had killed. So much death and pain, caused by that rippling Blade.

It seemed a symbol of all he’d lost, particularly held now in the hand of the man who had lied to him. The man who had taken Tien away.

Amaram presented a sword stance, holding two Blades. One taken in bloodshed, at the cost of Kaladin’s crew. The other, Oathbringer. A sword given to ransom Bridge Four.

Don’t be intimidated! Syl whispered in Kaladin’s mind. History notwithstanding, he’s only a man. And you’re a Knight Radiant.

The vambrace of Amaram’s armor pulsed suddenly on his forearm, as if something were pushing it from beneath. The red glow from the helm deepened, and Kaladin got the distinct impression of something enveloping Amaram.

A black smoke. The same that Kaladin had seen surrounding Queen Aesudan at the end, as they’d fled the palace. Other sections of Amaram’s armor began to rattle or pulse, and he suddenly moved with a violent burst of speed, swinging with one Shardblade, then the other.

* * *

Dalinar slowed as he approached the main core of the Thrill. The red mist churned and boiled here, nearly solid. He saw familiar faces reflected in it. He watched the old highprince Kalanor fall from the heights of a rock formation. He saw himself fight alone on a field of stone after a rockslide. He watched as he caught the claw of a chasmfiend on the Shattered Plains.

He could hear the Thrill. A thrumming, insistent, warming pulse. Almost like the beating of a drum.

“Hello, old friend,” Dalinar whispered, then stepped into the red mist.

* * *

Shallan stood with arms outstretched. Stormlight expanded from her on the ground, a pool of liquid light, radiant mist swirling above it. It became a gateway. From it, her collection emerged.

Every person she’d ever sketched—from the maids in her father’s house to the honorspren who had held Syl captive—grew from Stormlight. Men and women, children and grandparents. Soldiers and scribes. Mothers and scouts, kings and slaves.

Mmm, Pattern said as a sword in her hand. MMMMMMM.

“I’ve lost these,” Shallan said as Yalb the sailor climbed from the mist and waved to her. He drew a glowing Shardspear from the air. “I lost these pictures!”

You are close to them, Pattern said. Close to the realm of thought … and beyond. All the people you’ve Connected to, over the years …

Her brothers emerged. She’d buried worries about them in the back of her mind. Held by the Ghostbloods … No word from any spanreed she tried …

Her father stepped from the Light. And her mother.

The illusions immediately started to fail, melting back to Light. Then, someone seized her by the left hand.

Shallan gasped. Forming from mist was … was Veil? With long straight black hair, white clothing, brown eyes. Wiser than Shallan—and more focused. Capable of working on small pieces when Shallan grew overwhelmed by the large scale of her work.

Another hand took Shallan’s on the right. Radiant, in glowing garnet Shardplate, tall, with braided hair. Reserved and cautious. She nodded to Shallan with a steady, determined look.

Others boiled at Shallan’s feet, trying to crawl from the Stormlight, their glowing hands grabbing at her legs.

“… No,” Shallan whispered.

This was enough. She had created Veil and Radiant to be strong when she was weak. She squeezed their hands tight, then hissed out slowly. The other versions of Shallan retreated into the Stormlight.