The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive 1)

Dalinar shook his head. “I’ve seen neither. There are Shardblades in the visions, but they seem so out of place. Perhaps they were given directly by the Heralds, as the legends say.”

“Perhaps,” Navani said. “Why don’t—”

She vanished.

Dalinar blinked. He hadn’t heard the highstorm approaching.

He was now in a large, open room with pillars running along the sides. The enormous pillars looked sculpted of soft sandstone, with unornamented, granular sides. The ceiling was far above, carved from the rock in geometric patterns that looked faintly familiar. Circles connected by lines, spreading outward from one another…

“I don’t know what to do, old friend,” a voice said from the side. Dalinar turned to see a youthful man in regal white and gold robes, walking with his hands clasped before him, hidden by voluminous sleeves. He had dark hair pulled back in a braid and a short beard that came to a point. Gold threads were woven into his hair and came together on his forehead to form a golden symbol. The symbol of the Knights Radiant.

“They say that each time it is the same,” the man said. “We are never ready for the Desolations. We should be getting better at resisting, but each time we step closer to destruction instead.” He turned to Dalinar, as if expecting a response.

Dalinar glanced down. He too wore ornamental robes, though not as lavish. Where was he? What time? He needed to find clues for Navani to record and for Jasnah to use in proving—or disproving—these dreams.

“I don’t know what to say either,” Dalinar responded. If he wanted information, he needed to act more natural than he had in previous visions.

The regal man sighed. “I had hoped you would have wisdom to share with me, Karm.” They continued walking toward the side of the room, approaching a place where the wall split into a massive balcony with a stone railing. It looked out upon an evening sky; the setting sun stained the air a dirty, sultry red.

“Our own natures destroy us,” the regal man said, voice soft, though his face was angry. “Alakavish was a Surgebinder. He should have known better. And yet, the Nahel bond gave him no more wisdom than a regular man. Alas, not all spren are as discerning as honorspren.”

“I agree,” Dalinar said.

The other man looked relieved. “I worried that you would find my claims too forward. Your own Surgebinders were… But, no, we should not look backward.”

What’s a Surgebinder? Dalinar wanted to scream the question out, but there was no way. Not without sounding completely out of place.

Perhaps…

“What do you think should be done with these Surgebinders?” Dalinar asked carefully.

“I don’t know if we can force them to do anything.” Their footsteps echoed in the empty room. Were there no guards, no attendants? “Their power… well, Alakavish proves the allure that Surgebinders have for the common people. If only there were a way to encourage them….” The man stopped, turning to Dalinar. “They need to be better, old friend. We all do. The responsibility of what we’ve been given—whether it be the crown or the Nahel bond—needs to make us better.”

He seemed to expect something from Dalinar. But what?

“I can read your disagreement in your face,” the regal man said. “It’s all right, Karm. I realize that my thoughts on this subject are unconventional. Perhaps the rest of you are right, perhaps our abilities are proof of a divine election. But if this is true, should we not be more wary of how we act?”

Dalinar frowned. That sounded familiar to him. The regal man sighed, walking to the balcony lip. Dalinar joined him, stepping outside. The perspective finally allowed him to look down on the landscape below.

Thousands of corpses confronted him.

Dalinar gasped. Dead filled the streets of the city outside, a city that Dalinar vaguely recognized. Kholinar, he thought. My homeland. He stood with the regal man at the top of a low tower, three stories high—a keep of some sort, constructed of stone. It seemed to sit where the palace would someday be.

The city was unmistakable, with its peaked stone formations rising like enormous fins into the air. The windblades, they were called. But they were less weathered than he was accustomed to, and the city around them was very different. Built of blocky stone structures, many of which had been knocked down. The destruction spread far, lining the sides of primitive streets. Had the city been hit by an earthquake?

No, those corpses had fallen in battle. Dalinar could smell the stench of blood, viscera, smoke. The bodies lay strewn about, many near the low wall that surrounded the keep. The wall was broken in places, smashed. And there were rocks of strange shape mixed about the corpses. Stones cut like…

Blood of my fathers, Dalinar thought, gripping the stone railing, leading forward. Those aren’t stones. They’re creatures. Massive creatures, easily five or six times the size of a person, their skin dull and grey like granite. They had long limbs and skeletal bodies, the forelegs—or were they arms?—set into wide shoulders. The faces were lean, narrow. Arrowlike.

“What happened here?” Dalinar asked despite himself. “It’s terrible!”

“I ask myself this same thing. How could we let this occur? The Desolations are well named. I’ve heard initial counts. Eleven years of war, and nine out of ten people I once ruled are dead. Do we even have kingdoms to lead any longer? Sur is gone, I’m sure of it. Tarma, Eiliz, they won’t likely survive. Too many of their people have fallen.”

Dalinar had never heard of those places.

The man made a fist, pounding it softly against the railing. Burning stations had been set up in the distance; they had begun cremating the corpses. “The others want to blame Alakavish. And true, if he hadn’t brought us to war before the Desolation, we might not have been broken this badly. But Alakavish was a symptom of a greater disease. When the Heralds next return, what will they find? A people who have forgotten them yet again? A world torn by war and squabbling? If we continue as we have, then perhaps we deserve to lose.”

Dalinar felt a chill. He had thought that this vision must come after his previous one, but prior visions hadn’t been chronological. He hadn’t seen any Knights Radiant yet, but that might not be because they had disbanded. Perhaps they didn’t exist yet. And perhaps there was a reason this man’s words sounded so familiar.

Could it be? Could he really be standing beside the very man whose words Dalinar had listened to time and time again? “There is honor in loss,” Dalinar said carefully, using words repeated several times in The Way of Kings.

“If that loss brings learning.” The man smiled. “Using my own sayings against me again, Karm?”

Dalinar felt himself grow short of breath. The man himself. Nohadon. The great king. He was real. Or he had been real. This man was younger than Dalinar had imagined him, but that humble, yet regal bearing… yes, it was right.

“I’m thinking of giving up my throne,” Nohadon said softly.

“No!” Dalinar stepped toward him. “You mustn’t.”

“I cannot lead them,” the man said. “Not if this is what my leadership brings them to.”

“Nohadon.”

The man turned to him, frowning. “What?”