The general, who had feigned distinguished civility—when secretly, he’d longed to get back on the battlefield so he could shed more blood.
Third, the broken man. The one who paid for the actions of the youth.
Then finally, the fourth man: most false of them all. The man who had given up his memories so he could pretend to be something better.
Dalinar stopped, resting one hand on the stones. His guards assembled behind him. A Veden soldier approached from the other direction along the wall, calling out in anger. “Who are you? What are you doing up here?”
Dalinar squeezed his eyes shut.
“You! Alethi. Answer me. Who let you scale this fortification?”
The Thrill stirred, and the animal inside him wanted to lash out. A fight. He needed a fight.
No. He fled again, hurrying down a tight, constricting stone stairwell. His breathing echoed against the walls, and he nearly stumbled and tripped down the last flight.
He burst out onto the street, sweating, surprising a group of women carrying water. His guards piled out after him. “Sir?” Rial asked. “Sir, are you … Is everything…?”
Dalinar sucked in Stormlight, hoping it would drive away the Thrill. It didn’t. It seemed to complement the sensation, driving him to act.
“Sir?” Rial said, holding out a canteen that smelled of something strong. “I know you said I shouldn’t carry this, but I did. And … and you might need it.”
Dalinar stared at that canteen. A pungent scent rose to envelop him. If he drank that, he could forget the whispers. Forget the burned city, and what he’d done to Rathalas. And to Evi.
So easy …
Blood of my fathers. Please. No.
He spun away from Rial. He needed rest. That was all, just rest. He tried to keep his head up and slow his pace as he marched back toward the Oathgate.
The Thrill nipped at him from behind.
If you become that first man again, it will stop hurting. In your youth, you did what needed to be done. You were stronger then.
He growled, spinning and flinging his cloak to the side, looking for the voice that had spoken those words. His guards shied back, gripping their spears tightly. The beleaguered inhabitants of Vedenar scurried away from him.
Is this leadership? To cry each night? To shake and tremble? Those are the actions of a child, not a man.
“Leave me alone!”
Give me your pain.
Dalinar looked toward the sky and let out a raw bellow. He charged through the streets, no longer caring what people thought when they saw him. He needed to be away from this city.
There. The steps up to the Oathgate. The people of this city had once made a garden out of its platform, but that had been cleared away. Ignoring the long ramp, Dalinar took the steps two at a time, Stormlight lending him endurance.
At the top, he found a cluster of guards in Kholin blue standing with Navani and a smattering of scribes. She immediately strode over. “Dalinar, I tried to ward him off, but he was insistent. I don’t know what he wants.”
“He?” Dalinar asked, puffing from his near run.
Navani gestured toward the scribes. For the first time, Dalinar noticed that several among them wore the short beards of ardents. But those blue robes? What were those?
Curates, he thought, from the Holy Enclave in Valath. Technically, Dalinar himself was a head of the Vorin religion—but in practice, the curates guided church doctrine. The staves they bore were wound with gemstones, more ornate than he’d expected. Hadn’t most of that pomp been done away with at the fall of the Hierocracy?
“Dalinar Kholin!” one said, stepping forward. He was young for an ardentia leader, perhaps in his early forties. His square beard was streaked with a few lines of grey.
“I am he,” Dalinar said, shrugging off Navani’s touch to his shoulder. “If you would speak with me, let us retire to a place more private—”
“Dalinar Kholin,” the ardent said, louder. “The council of curates declares you a heretic. We cannot tolerate your insistence that the Almighty is not God. You are hereby proclaimed excommunicate and anathema.”
“You have no right—”
“We have every right! The ardents must watch the lighteyes so that you steer your subjects well. That is still our duty, as outlined in the Covenants of Theocracy, witnessed for centuries! Did you really think we would ignore what you’ve been preaching?”
Dalinar gritted his teeth as the stupid ardent began outlining Dalinar’s heresies one by one, demanding that he deny them. The man stepped forward, close enough now that Dalinar could smell his breath.
The Thrill stirred, sensing a fight. Sensing blood.
I’m going to kill him, a part of Dalinar thought. I have to run now, or I will kill this man. It was as clear to him as the sun’s light.
So he ran.
He dashed to the Oathgate control building, frantic with the need to escape. He scrambled up to the keyhole, and only then remembered that he didn’t have a Shardblade that could operate this device.
Dalinar, the Stormfather rumbled. Something is wrong. Something I cannot see, something hidden to me. What are you sensing?
“I have to get away.”
I will not be a sword to you. We spoke of this.
Dalinar growled. He felt something he could touch, something beyond places. The power that bound worlds together. His power.
Wait, the Stormfather said. This is not right!
Dalinar ignored him, reaching beyond and pulling power through. Something bright white manifested in his hand, and he rammed it into the keyhole.
The Stormfather groaned, a sound like thunder.
The power made the Oathgate work, regardless. As his guards called his name outside, Dalinar flipped the dial that would make only the small building transport—not the entire plateau—then pushed the keyhole around the outside of the room, using the power as a handhold.
A ring of light flashed around the structure, and cold wind poured in through the doorways. He stumbled out onto a platform before Urithiru. The Stormfather pulled back from him, not breaking the bond, but withdrawing his favor.
The Thrill flooded in to replace it. Even this far away. Storms! Dalinar couldn’t escape it.
You can’t escape yourself, Dalinar, Evi’s voice said in his mind. This is who you are. Accept it.
He couldn’t run. Storms … he couldn’t run.
Blood of my fathers. Please. Please, help me.
But … to whom was he praying?
He staggered down from the platform in a daze, ignoring questions from soldiers and scribes alike. He made his way to his room, increasingly desperate to find a way—any way—to hide from Evi’s condemning voice.
In his rooms, he pulled a book off the shelf. Bound in hogshide, with thick paper. He held The Way of Kings as if it were a talisman that would drive back the pain.
It did nothing. Once this book had saved him, but now it seemed useless. He couldn’t even read its words.
Dropping the book, he stumbled out of the room. No conscious thought led him to Adolin’s chambers or drove him to ransack the younger man’s room. But he found what he’d hoped, a bottle of wine kept for a special occasion. Violet, prepared in its strength.
This represented that third man he’d been. Shame, frustration, and days spent in a haze. Terrible times. Times he’d given up part of his soul in order to forget.