Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

Dalinar shook his head slowly. “No. The opportunity for Sadeas to work with me has long since passed. The road to unity in Alethkar is not at the table of negotiation, it’s out there.”

Across the plateaus, to the Parshendi camp, wherever it was. An end to this war. Closure for both him and his brother.

Unite them.

“Sadeas wants you to try this expedition,” Amaram said. “He’s certain you will fail.”

“And when I do not,” Dalinar said, “he will lose all credibility.”

“You don’t even know where you’ll find the Parshendi!” Amaram said, throwing his hands into the air. “What are you going to do, just wander out there until you run across them?”

“Yes.”

“Madness. Dalinar, you appointed me to this position—an impossible position, mind you—with the charge to be a light to all nations. I’m finding it hard to even get you to listen to me. Why should anyone else?”

Dalinar shook his head, looking eastward, over those broken plains. “I have to go, Amaram. The answers are out there, not here. It’s like we walked all the way to the shore, then huddled there for years, peering out at the waters but afraid to get wet.”

“But—”

“Enough.”

“Eventually, you’re going to have to give away authority and let it stay given, Dalinar,” Amaram said softly. “You can’t hold it all, pretending you aren’t in charge, but then ignore orders and advice as if you were.”

The words, problematically truthful, slapped him hard. He did not react, not outwardly.

“What of the matter I assigned you?” Dalinar asked him.

“Bordin?” Amaram said. “So far as I can tell, his story checks out. I really think that the madman is only raving about having had a Shardblade. It’s patently ridiculous that he might have actually had one. I—”

“Brightlord!” A breathless young woman in a messenger uniform—narrow skirt slit up the sides, with silk leggings beneath—scrambled up to him. “The plateau!”

“Yes,” Dalinar said, sighing. “Sadeas is sending out troops?”

“No, sir,” the woman said, flush in the cheeks from her run. “Not… I mean… He came out of the chasms.”

Dalinar frowned, looking sharply toward her. “Who?”

“Stormblessed.”

* * *

Dalinar ran the entire way.

When he drew close to the triage pavilion at the edge of camp—normally reserved for tending to the wounded who came back from plateau runs—he had trouble seeing because of the crowd of men in cobalt blue uniforms blocking the path. A surgeon was yelling for them to back up and give him room.

Some of the men saw Dalinar and saluted, hastily pulling out of the way. The blue parted like waters blown in a storm.

And there he was. Ragged, hair matted in snarls, face scratched and leg wrapped in an improvised bandage. He sat on a triage table and had removed his uniform coat, which sat on the table beside him, tied into a round bundle with what looked like a vine wrapping it.

Kaladin looked up as Dalinar approached, and then moved to pull himself to his feet.

“Soldier, don’t—” Dalinar began, but Kaladin didn’t listen. He hauled himself up tall, using a spear to support his bad leg. Then he raised hand to breast, a slow motion, as if the arm were tied with weights. It was, Dalinar figured, the most tired salute he’d ever seen.

“Sir,” Kaladin said. Exhaustionspren puffed around Kaladin like little jets of dust.

“How…” Dalinar said. “You fell into a chasm!”

“I fell face-first, sir,” Kaladin said, “and fortunately, I’m particularly hard-headed.”

“But…”

Kaladin sighed, leaning on his spear. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t really know how I survived. Some spren were involved, we think. Anyway, I hiked back through the chasms. I had a duty to see to.” He nodded to the side.

Farther into the triage tent, Dalinar saw something he hadn’t originally noticed. Shallan Davar—a tangle of red hair and ripped clothing—sat amid a pack of surgeons.

“One future daughter-in-law,” Kaladin said, “delivered safe and sound. Sorry about the damage done to the packaging.”

“But there was a highstorm!” Dalinar said.

“We really wanted to get back before that,” Kaladin said. “Ran into some troubles along the way, I’m afraid.” With lethargic movements, he took out his side knife and cut the vines off the package beside him. “You know how everyone kept saying there was a chasmfiend prowling about in the nearby chasms?”

“Yes…”

Kaladin lifted the remnants of his coat away from the table, revealing a massive green gemstone. Though bulbous and uncut, the gemheart shone with a powerful inner light.

“Yeah,” Kaladin said, taking the gemheart in one hand and tossing it to the ground before Dalinar. “We took care of that for you, sir.” In the blink of an eye, gloryspren replaced his exhaustionspren.

Dalinar stared mutely at the gemheart as it rolled and tapped against the front of his boot, its light almost blinding.

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic, bridgeman,” Shallan called. “Brightlord Dalinar, we found the beast already dead and rotting in the chasm. We survived the highstorm by climbing up its back to a crack in the side of the plateau, where we waited out the rains. We could only get the gemheart out because the thing was half-rotted already.”

Kaladin looked to her, frowning. He turned back to Dalinar almost immediately. “Yes,” Kaladin said. “That’s what happened.”

He was a far worse liar than Shallan was.

Amaram and Navani finally arrived, the former having remained behind to escort the latter. Navani gasped when she saw Shallan, then ran to her, snapping angrily at the surgeons. She fussed and bustled around Shallan, who seemed far less the worse for wear than Kaladin, despite the terrible state of her dress and hair. In moments, Navani had Shallan wrapped in a blanket to cover her exposed skin, then she sent a runner back to prepare a warm bath and meal at Dalinar’s complex, to be had in whichever order Shallan wished.

Dalinar found himself smiling. Navani pointedly ignored Shallan’s protests that none of this was necessary. The mother axehound had finally emerged. Shallan was apparently no longer an outsider, but one of Navani’s clutch—and Chana help the man or woman who stood between Navani and one of her own.

“Sir,” Kaladin said, finally letting the surgeons settle him back on the table. “The soldiers are gathering supplies. The battalions forming up. Your expedition?”

“You needn’t worry, soldier,” Dalinar said. “I could hardly expect you to guard me in your state.”

“Sir,” Kaladin said, more softly, “Brightness Shallan found something out there. Something you need to know. Talk to her before you set out.”

“I’ll do so,” Dalinar said. He waited for a moment, then waved the surgeons aside. Kaladin seemed to be in no immediate danger. Dalinar stepped closer, leaning in. “Your men waited for you, Stormblessed. They skipped meals, pulled triple shifts. I half think they’d have sat out here, at the head of the chasms, through the highstorm itself if I hadn’t intervened.”