Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

As Kaladin got close, his foot audibly scraped the sand. The man spun immediately, and Kaladin leveled his spear by instinct. He could see the man’s eyes now—they were brown—but Kaladin had trouble placing his age. Those eyes seemed old somehow, but the man’s skin didn’t seem wrinkled enough to match them. He could have been thirty-five. Or he could have been seventy.

Too young, Kaladin thought, though he couldn’t say why.

Kaladin lowered his spear. “Sorry, I’m a little jumpy. First few weeks on the job.” He tried to say it disarmingly.

It didn’t work. The man looked him up and down, still showing the chained menace of a warrior deciding whether or not to strike. Finally, he turned away from Kaladin and relaxed, watching Adolin and Renarin.

“Who are you?” Kaladin asked, stepping up beside the man. “I’m new, as I said. I’m trying to learn everyone’s names.”

“You’re the bridgeman. The one who saved the highprince.”

“I am,” Kaladin said.

“You don’t need to keep prying,” the man said. “I’m not going to hurt your Damnation prince.” He had a low, grinding voice. Scratchy. Strange accent too.

“He’s not my prince,” Kaladin said. “Just my responsibility.” He looked the man over again, noticing something. The light clothing, tied with ropes, was very similar to what some of the ardents were wearing. The full head of hair had thrown Kaladin off.

“You’re a soldier,” Kaladin guessed. “Ex-soldier, I mean.”

“Yeah,” the man said. “They call me Zahel.”

Kaladin nodded, the irregularities clicking into place. Occasionally, a soldier retired to the ardentia, if he had no other life to return to. Kaladin would have expected them to require the man to at least shave his head.

I wonder if Hav is in one of these monasteries somewhere, Kaladin thought idly. What would he think of me now? He’d probably be proud. He always had seen guard duty as the most respectable of a soldier’s assignments.

“What are they doing?” Kaladin asked Zahel, nodding toward Renarin and Adolin—who, despite the encumbrance of their Shardplate, had seated themselves on the ground before the elder ardents.

Zahel grunted. “The younger Kholin has to be chosen by a master. For training.”

“Can’t they just pick whichever one they want?”

“Doesn’t work that way. It’s kind of an awkward situation, though. Prince Renarin, he’s never practiced much with a sword.” Zahel paused. “Being chosen by a master is a step that most lighteyed boys of suitable rank take by the time they’re ten.”

Kaladin frowned. “Why didn’t he ever train?”

“Health problems of some sort.”

“And they’d really turn him down?” Kaladin asked. “The highprince’s own son?”

“They could, but they probably won’t. Not brave enough.” The man narrowed his eyes as Adolin stood up and gestured. “Damnation. I knew it was suspicious that he waited for this until I got back.”

“Swordmaster Zahel!” Adolin called. “You aren’t sitting with the others!”

Zahel sighed, then gave Kaladin a resigned glance. “I’m probably not brave enough either. I’ll try not to hurt him too much.” He walked around the railing and jogged over. Adolin clasped Zahel’s hand eagerly, then pointed to Renarin. Zahel looked distinctly out of place among the other ardents with their bald heads, neatly trimmed beards, and cleaner clothing.

“Huh,” Kaladin said. “Did he seem odd to you?”

“You all seem odd to me,” Syl said lightly. “Everyone but Rock, who is a complete gentleman.”

“He thinks you’re a god. You shouldn’t encourage him.”

“Why not? I am a god.”

He turned his head, looking at her flatly as she sat on his shoulder. “Syl…”

“What? I am!” She grinned and held up her fingers, as if pinching something very small. “A little piece of one. Very, very little. You have permission to bow to me now.”

“Kind of hard to do when you’re sitting on my shoulder,” he mumbled. He noticed Lopen and Shen arriving at the gate, likely bearing the daily reports from Teft. “Come on. Let’s see if Teft has anything he needs from me, then we’ll do a circuit and check on Drehy and Moash.”

Shallan’s Sketchbook: Pattern

17. A Pattern

Dullform dread, with the mind most lost.

The lowest, and one not bright.

To find this form, one need banish the cost.

It finds you and brings you to blight.

From the Listener Song of Listing, final stanza

Riding on her wagon, Shallan covered her anxiety with scholarship. There was no way to tell if the deserters had spotted the trails of crushed rockbuds made by the caravan. They might be following. They might not be.

No use dwelling on it, she told herself. And so she found a distraction. “The leaves can start their own shoots,” she said, holding up one of the small, round leaves on the tip of her finger. She turned it toward the sunlight.

Bluth sat beside her, hulking like a boulder. Today, he wore a hat that was entirely too stylish for him—dusty white, with a brim that folded upward at the sides. He would occasionally flick his guiding reed—it was at least as long as Shallan was tall—on the shell of the chull ahead.

Shallan had made a small list of the beats he used in the back of her book. Bluth hit twice, paused, and hit again. That made the animal slow as the wagon in front of them—driven by Tvlakv—began moving up a hillside covered in tiny rockbuds.

“You see?” Shallan said, showing him the leaf. “That’s why the plant’s limbs are so fragile. When the storm comes, it will shatter these branches and break off the leaves. They will blow away and start new shoots, building their own shell. They grow so quickly. Faster than I’d have expected out here, in these infertile lands.”

Bluth grunted.

Shallan sighed, lowering her finger and putting the tiny plant back in the cup she’d been using to nurture it. She glanced over her shoulder.

No sign of pursuit. She really should just stop worrying.

She turned back to her new sketchbook—one of Jasnah’s notebooks that didn’t have many pages filled—then began a quick sketch of the small leaf. She didn’t have very good materials, only a single charcoal pencil, some pens, and a little ink, but Pattern had been right. She could not stop.

She had begun with a replacement sketch of the santhid as she remembered it from her dip in the sea. The picture wasn’t equal to the one she’d crafted right after the event, but having it again—in any form—had started healing the wounds inside.

She finished the leaf, then turned the page and began a sketch of Bluth. She didn’t particularly want to restart her collection of people with him, but her options were limited. Unfortunately, that hat really did look silly—it was far too small for his head. The image of him huddled forward like a crab, back to the sky and hat on his head… well, at least it would be an interesting composition.