The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive 1)

“And I…” Dalinar said.

“You just spoke a line from one of them,” Navani said. “Beyond that, if the phrase you just gave me is correct, you translated it. This could prove the Vanrial Hypothesis! One sentence isn’t much, but it could give us the key to translating the entire script. It has been itching at me for a while, listening to these visions. I thought the things you were saying had too much order to be gibberish.” She looked at Dalinar, smiling deeply. “Dalinar, you might just have cracked one of the most perplexing—and ancient— mysteries of all time.”

“Wait,” Adolin said. “What are you saying?”

“What I’m saying, nephew,” Navani said, looking directly at him, “is that we have your proof.”

“But,” Adolin said. “I mean, he could have heard that one phrase…”

“And extrapolated an entire language from it?” Navani said, holding up a sheet full of writings. “This is not gibberish, but it’s no language that people now speak. I suspect it is what it seems, the Dawnchant. So unless you can think of another way your father learned to speak a dead language, Adolin, the visions are most certainly real.”

The room fell silent. Navani herself looked stunned by what she had said. She shook it off quickly. “Now, Dalinar,” she said, “I want you to describe this vision as accurately as possible. I need the exact words you spoke, if you can recall them. Every bit we gather will help my scholars sort through this….”

“In the storm I awaken, falling, spinning, grieving.”

—Dated Kakanev, 1173, 13 seconds pre-death. Subject was a city guardsman.

“How can you be so sure it was him, Dalinar?” Navani asked softly.

Dalinar shook his head. “I just am. That was Nohadon.”

It had been several hours since the end of the vision. Navani had left her writing table to sit in a more comfortable chair near Dalinar. Renarin sat across from him, accompanying them for propriety’s sake. Adolin had left to get the highstorm damage report. The lad had seemed very disturbed by the discovery that the visions were real.

“But the man you saw never spoke his name,” Navani said.

“It was him, Navani.” Dalinar stared toward the wall over Renarin’s head, looking at the smooth brown Soulcast rock. “There was an aura of command about him, the weight of great responsibilities. A regality.”

“It could have been some other king,” she said. “After all, he discarded your suggestion that he write a book.”

“It just wasn’t the time for him to write it yet. So much death… He was cast down by some great loss. Stormfather! Nine out of ten people dead in war. Can you imagine such a thing?”

“The Desolations,” Navani said.

Unite the people…. The True Desolation comes….

“Do you know of any references to the Desolations?” Dalinar asked. “Not the tales ardents tell. Historical references?”

Navani held a cup of warmed violet wine in her hand, beads of condensation on the rim of the glass. “Yes, but I am the wrong one to ask. Jasnah is the historian.”

“I think I saw the aftermath of one. I… I may have seen corpses of Voidbringers. Could that give us more proof?”

“Nothing nearly as good as the linguistics.” Navani took a sip of her wine. “The Desolations are matters of ancient lore. It could be argued that you imagined what you expected to see. But those words—if we can translate them, nobody will be able to dispute that you are seeing something real.” Her writing board lay on the low table between them, reed and ink set carefully across the paper.

“You intend to tell others?” Dalinar asked. “Of my visions?”

“How else will we explain what is happening to you?”

Dalinar hesitated. How could he explain? On one hand, it was relieving to know that he was not mad. But what if some force were trying to mislead him with these visions, using images of Nohadon and the Radiants because he would find them trustworthy?

The Knights Radiant fell, Dalinar reminded himself. They abandoned us. Some of the other orders may have turned against us, as the legends say. There was an unsettling edge to all of that. He had another stone in rebuilding the foundation of who he was, but the most important point still remained undecided. Did he trust his visions or not? He couldn’t go back to believing them unquestioningly, not now that Adolin’s challenges had raised real worries in his head.

Until he knew their source, he felt he shouldn’t spread knowledge of them.

“Dalinar,” Navani said, leaning forward. “The warcamps speak of your episodes. Even the wives of your officers are uncomfortable. They think you fear the storms, or that you have some disease of the mind. This will vindicate you.”

“How? By making me into some kind of mystic? Many will think that the breeze of these visions blows too close to prophecy.”

“You see the past, Father,” Renarin said. “That is not forbidden. And if the Almighty sends them, then how could men question?”

“Adolin and I both spoke with ardents,” Dalinar replied. “They said it was very unlikely that this would come from the Almighty. If we do decide the visions are to be trusted, many will disagree with me.”

Navani settled back, sipping her wine, safehand lying across her lap. “Dalinar, your sons told me that you once sought the Old Magic. Why? What did you ask of the Nightwatcher, and what curse did she give you in return?”

“I told them that shame is my own,” Dalinar said. “And I will not share it.”

The room fell silent. The flurries of rain following the highstorm had ceased falling on the roof. “It might be important,” Navani finally said.

“It was long ago. Long before the visions began. I don’t think it’s related.”

“But it could be.”

“Yes,” he admitted. Would that day never stop haunting him? Was not losing all memory of his wife enough?

What did Renarin think? Would he condemn his father for such an egregious sin? Dalinar forced himself to look up and meet his son’s bespectacled eyes.

Curiously, Renarin didn’t seem bothered. Just thoughtful.

“I’m sorry you had to discover my shame,” Dalinar said, looking to Navani.

She waved indifferently. “Soliciting the Old Magic is offensive to the devotaries, but their punishments for the act are never severe. I assume that you didn’t have to do much to be cleansed.”

“The ardents asked for spheres to give the poor,” Dalinar said. “And I had to commission a series of prayers. None of that removed the effects or my sense of guilt.”

“I think you’d be surprised at how many devout lighteyes turn to the Old Magic at one point in their lives or another. The ones who can make their way to the Valley, at least. But I do wonder if this is related.”

“Aunt,” Renarin said, turning to her. “I have recently asked for a number of readings about the Old Magic. I agree with his assessment. This does not feel like the work of the Nightwatcher. She gives curses in exchange for granting small desires. Always one curse and one desire. Father, I assume you know what both of those things are?”