Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

“No. Which Bondsmith, of the three?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Kaladin said. “But his spren is the Stormfather. I told you I’d spoken to him.”

It seemed, from the captain’s aghast expression, that perhaps Kaladin should have mentioned this fact earlier.

“I must keep my oath,” Kaladin said. “I need you to let Syl go, then take us to a place where we can transfer between realms.”

“I’ve sworn an oath myself,” the captain said. “To Honor, and to the truths we follow.”

“Honor is dead,” Kaladin said. “But the Bondsmith is not. You say that you can see how human variety gives us strength—well, I challenge you to do the same. See beyond the letter of your rules. You must understand that my need to defend the Bondsmith is more important than your need to deliver Syl—especially considering that the Stormfather is well aware of her location.”

The captain glanced at the windspren, which were still spinning about Kaladin, leaving trails that drifted the entire length of the ship before fading.

“I will consider,” the captain said.

* * *

Adolin stopped at the top of the steps, just behind Shallan.

Kaladin, the storming bridgeman, stood at the bow of the ship, surrounded by glowing lines of light. They illuminated his heroic figure—determined, undaunted, one hand on the prow’s flagpole, wearing his crisp Wall Guard uniform. The ship’s spren gazed upon him as if he were a storming Herald come to announce the reclamation of the Tranquiline Halls.

Just ahead of him, Shallan seemed to change. It was in her bearing, the way she stopped resting lightly on one foot, and stood solidly on two feet instead. The way her posture shifted.

And the way that she seemed to melt upon seeing Kaladin, lips rising to a grin. Blushing, she adopted a fond—even eager—expression.

Adolin breathed out slowly. He’d caught those glimpses from her before—and seen the sketches of Kaladin in her book—but looking at her now, he couldn’t deny what he was seeing. She was practically leering.

“I need to draw that,” she said. But she just stood there instead, staring at him.

Adolin sighed and made his way up onto the high deck. Seemed they weren’t forbidden here any longer. He joined Pattern, who had come up another set of steps, and was humming happily to himself.

“Kind of hard to compete with that,” Adolin noted.

“Mmm,” Pattern said.

“You know, I’ve never really felt like this before? It’s not just Kaladin, it’s all of this. And what’s happening to us.” He shook his head. “We certainly are an odd bunch.”

“Yes. Seven people. Odd.”

“It’s not like I can blame him. It’s not as if he’s trying to be like he is.”

Nearby, a sailor spren—one of the few who hadn’t gathered around Stormblessed and his halo of glowing lights—lowered a spyglass. She frowned, then raised it again. Then she began to call out in the spren language.

People tore themselves away from Kaladin and crowded around. Adolin stepped back, watching until Kaladin and Shallan joined him. Azure crested the steps nearby, looking concerned.

“What is it?” Kaladin asked.

“No idea,” Adolin said.

The captain waved for the mistspren and honorspren to make space, then took the spyglass. He finally lowered it and looked back at Kaladin. “You were right, human, when you said you might be followed.” He waved Kaladin and Adolin forward. “Look low on the horizon, at two hundred ten degrees.”

Kaladin looked through the spyglass, then breathed out. He extended it toward Adolin, but Shallan snatched it first.

“Storms!” she said. “There’s at least six of them.”

“Eight, my scout says,” the captain replied.

Adolin finally got his turn. Because of the black sky, it took him forever to spot the distant specks flying toward the ship. The Fused.

Re-Shephir, the Midnight Mother, is another Unmade who appears to have been destroyed at Aharietiam.

—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 250

Dalinar ran his fingers along a line of red crystal embedded in the stone wall. The little vein started at the ceiling and wound all the way down the wall—within the pattern of the light green and grey strata—to the floor. It was smooth to the touch, distinct in texture from the rock around it.

He rubbed his thumb across the crystal. It’s like the other strata lines ripple out from this one, getting wider as they move away from it.

“What does it mean?” he asked Navani. The two of them stood in a storage room near the top of the tower.

“I don’t know,” Navani said, “but we’re finding more and more of them. What do you know of Essential Theology?”

“A thing for ardents and scribes,” he said.

“And Soulcasters. That is a garnet.”

Garnet? Let’s see … Emeralds for grain, that was the most important, and heliodors for flesh. They raised animals for their gemhearts to provide those two. He was pretty sure diamonds made quartz, and … storms, he didn’t know much about the others. Topaz made stone. They’d needed those for the bunkers on the Shattered Plains.

“Garnets make blood,” Navani said. “We don’t have any Soulcasters that use them.”

“Blood? That sounds useless.”

“Well, scientifically, we think Soulcasters were able to use garnets to make any liquid that was soluble in water, as opposed to oil-based … Your eyes are crossing.”

“Sorry.” He felt at the crystals. “Another mystery. When will we find answers?”

“The records below,” Navani said, “speak of this tower like a living thing. With a heart of emerald and ruby, and now these veins of garnet.”

He stood up, looking around the darkened room, which held the monarchs’ chairs between meetings. It was lit by a sphere he’d set on a stone ledge by the door.

“If this tower was alive,” Dalinar said, “then it’s dead now.”

“Or sleeping. But if that’s the case, I have no idea how to wake it. We’ve tried infusing the heart like a fabrial, even had Renarin try to push Stormlight into it. Nothing’s worked.”

Dalinar picked up a chair, then pushed the door open. He held the door with his foot—shooing away a guard who tried to do it for him—while Navani collected the sphere and joined him in the conference room, in front of the glass wall looking toward the Origin.

He set down the chair and checked his forearm clock. Stupid thing. He was growing far too dependent upon it. The arm device had a painrial in it too: a kind of fabrial with a spren that feasted upon pain. He’d never yet remembered to use the thing.

Twelve minutes left. Assuming Elthebar’s calculations were correct. With spanreeds confirming the storm’s arrival hours before in the east, the calculations were down to judging the speed of the storm.

A runner arrived at the door. Creer—the duty sergeant for guards today—accepted it. He was a bridgeman from … Bridge Twenty, was it? He and his brother were both guards, though Creer wore spectacles, unlike his twin.

“Message from Brightness Khal, sir,” Creer said, handing the note to Navani. It looked like it had come from a spanreed. It had marks on the sides from the clips that had held it to the board, and the tight letters covered only the center of the page.