Thunder rumbled outside, but the sound of rainfall slackened. The storm was dying.
“This is ridiculous,” Adolin said from behind the king, throwing his hands into the air. “This is the safest place in the warcamps. You want us to leave? Drag the king out into the storm?”
“We need to wake the highprince,” Kaladin said, reaching for Dalinar.
Dalinar caught his arm as he did so. “The highprince is awake,” Dalinar said, his gaze clearing, returning from the distant place where it had been. “What is going on here?”
“The bridgeboy wants us to evacuate the palace,” Adolin said.
“Soldier?” Dalinar asked.
“It’s not safe here, sir.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Instinct, sir.”
The room grew still. Outside, the rainfall slackened to a gentle patter. The riddens had arrived.
“We go, then,” Dalinar said, rising.
“What?” the king demanded.
“You put this man in charge of your guard, Elhokar,” Dalinar said. “If he thinks our position is not safe, we should do as he says.”
There was an implied for now after that sentence, but Kaladin didn’t care. He shoved past the king and Adolin, rushing back through the main chamber to the doorway out. His heart hammered inside of him, his muscles tense. Syl, visible only to his eyes, flitted through the room, frantic.
Kaladin threw open the doors. Six men stood on watch in the hallway beyond, mostly bridgemen with one member of the King’s Guard, a man named Ralinor. “We’re leaving,” Kaladin said, pointing. “Beld and Hobber, you’re an advance squad. Scout the way out of the building—the back way, down through the kitchens—and give a shout if you see anything unusual. Moash, you and Ralinor are the rear guard—watch this room until I’ve got the king and the highprince out of sight, then follow. Mart and Eth, you stay at the king’s side, no matter what.”
The guards scrambled into action without question. As the scouts ran ahead, Kaladin moved back to the king and grabbed him by the arm, then hauled him toward the door. Elhokar allowed it, a stunned expression on his face.
The other lighteyes followed. The bridgeman brothers Mart and Eth fell in, flanking the king, Moash holding the doorway. He gripped his spear nervously, pointing it in one direction, then another.
Kaladin rushed the king and his family down the corridor along the chosen path. Instead of heading left and down the incline toward the palace’s formal entrance, they would head right, farther into its bowels. Down to the right, through the kitchens, then out into the night.
The hallways were silent. Everyone was sheltering in their rooms during the highstorm.
Dalinar joined Kaladin at the front of the group. “I will be curious to hear exactly what prompted this, soldier,” he said. “Once we are safely evacuated.”
My spren is having a fit, Kaladin thought, watching her zip back and forth in the corridor. That’s what prompted it. How was he going to explain that? That he’d listened to a windspren?
Deeper they went. Storms, these empty corridors were disturbing. Much of the palace was really just a burrow cut through the rock of the peak, with windows carved out of the sides.
Kaladin froze in place.
The lights ahead were out, the corridor dimming into the distance until it was dark as a mine.
“Wait,” Adolin said, stopping in place. “Why is it dark? What happened to the spheres?”
They’ve been drained of Light.
Damnation. And what was that on the wall of the hallway up ahead? A large patch of blackness. Kaladin frantically fished a sphere from his pocket and raised it. It was a hole! A doorway had been cut into this corridor from the outside, sliced directly through the rock. A cold breeze blew inward.
Kaladin’s light also illuminated something on the floor just ahead. A body lying where corridors crossed. It wore a blue uniform. Beld, one of the men Kaladin had sent on ahead.
The huddle of people stared at the body in horror. The corridor’s eerie silence, the lack of lights, had stilled even the king’s protests.
“He’s here,” Syl whispered.
A solemn figure stepped out of the side corridor, holding a long, silvery Blade that cut a trail in the stone floor. The figure had flowing white clothing: filmy trousers and an overshirt that rippled with each step. Bald head, pale skin. Shin.
Kaladin recognized the figure. Every person in Alethkar had heard of this man. The Assassin in White. Kaladin had seen him once in a dream, like the one earlier, though he hadn’t recognized him at that point.
Stormlight streamed from the assassin’s body.
He was a Surgebinder.
“Adolin, with me!” Dalinar shouted. “Renarin, protect the king! Take him back the way we came!” With that, Dalinar—the Blackthorn—seized a spear from one of Kaladin’s men and charged the assassin.
He’s going to get himself killed, Kaladin thought, running after him. “Go with Prince Renarin!” he yelled at his men. “Do as he tells you! Protect the king!”
The men—including Moash and Ralinor, who had caught up to them—began a frantic retreat, towing away Navani and the king.
“Father!” Renarin cried. Moash grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him back. “I can fight!”
“Go!” Dalinar bellowed. “Protect the king!”
As Kaladin charged with Dalinar and Adolin, the last thing he heard of the group was King Elhokar’s whimpering voice. “He’s come for me. I always knew he would. Like he came for Father…”
Kaladin drew in as much Stormlight as he dared. The Assassin in White stood calmly in the corridor, streaming with his own Light. How could he be a Surgebinder? What spren had chosen this man?
Adolin’s Shardblade formed in his hands.
“Trident,” Dalinar said softly, slowing as the three of them approached the assassin. “I’m the middle. You familiar with that, Kaladin?”
“Yes, sir.” It was a simple, small-squad battlefield formation.
“Let me handle this, Father,” Adolin said. “He has a Shardblade, and I don’t like the look of that glow—”
“No,” Dalinar said, “we hit him together.” His eyes narrowed as he regarded the assassin, still standing calmly above the body of poor Beld. “I’m not asleep at the table this time, you bastard. You’re not taking another one from me!”
The three charged together. Dalinar, as the middle tine of the trident, would try to hold the assassin’s attention while Kaladin and Adolin attacked from either side. He’d wisely taken the spear for reach, rather than using his side sword. They charged in a rush to confuse and overwhelm.
The assassin waited until they were close, then jumped, trailing Light. He twisted in the air as Dalinar bellowed and thrust with his spear.
The assassin did not come down. Instead, he landed on the ceiling of the corridor some twelve feet above.
“It’s true,” Adolin said, sounding haunted. He bent back, raising his Shardblade to attack at the awkward angle. The assassin, however, ran down the wall in a rustle of white cloth, battering aside Adolin’s Shardblade with his own, then slammed his hand into Adolin’s chest.
Adolin flipped upward as if he’d been tossed. His body streamed Stormlight and he crashed into the ceiling above. He groaned, rolling over, but remained on the ceiling.