—From Rhythm of War, page 13 undertext
Kaladin thrashed, sweating and trembling, his mind filled with visions of his friends dying. Of Rock frozen in the Peaks, of Lopen slain on a distant battlefield, of Teft dying alone, shriveled to bones, his eyes glazed over from repeated use of firemoss.
“No,” Kaladin screamed. “No!”
“Kaladin!” Syl said. She zipped around his head, filling his eyes with streaks of blue-white light. “You’re awake. You’re all right. Kaladin?”
He breathed in and out, taking deep lungfuls. The nightmares felt so real, and they lingered. Like the scent of blood on your clothing after a battle.
He forced himself to his feet, and was surprised to find a small bag of glowing gemstones on the room’s stone ledge.
“From Dabbid,” Syl said. “He left them a little earlier, along with some broth, then grabbed the jug to go get water.”
“How did he…” Maybe he’d gotten them from the ardent at the monastery? Or maybe he’d quietly taken them from somewhere else. Dabbid could move around the tower in ways that Kaladin couldn’t—people always looked at Kaladin, remembered him. It was the height, he guessed. Or maybe it was the way he held himself. He’d never learned to keep his head down properly, even when he’d been a slave.
Kaladin shook his head, then did his morning routine: stretches, exercises, then washing as best he could with a cloth and some water. After that he saw to Teft, washing him, then shifting the way the man was lying to help prevent bedsores. That all done, Kaladin knelt beside Teft’s bench with the syringe and broth, trying to find solace from his own mind through the calming act of feeding his friend.
Syl settled onto the stone bench beside Teft as Kaladin worked, wearing her girlish dress, sitting with her knees pulled up against her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Neither of them spoke for a long while as Kaladin worked.
“I wish he were awake,” Syl finally whispered. “There’s something happy about the way Teft is angry.”
Kaladin nodded.
“I went to Dalinar,” she said, “before he left. I asked him if he could make me feel like humans do. Sad sometimes.”
“What?” Kaladin asked. “Why in the Almighty’s tenth name would you do something like that?”
“I wanted to feel what you feel,” she said.
“Nobody should have to feel like I do.”
“I’m my own person, Kaladin. I can make decisions for myself.” She stared sightlessly past Teft and Kaladin. “It was in talking to him that I started remembering my old knight, like I told you. I think Dalinar did something. I wanted him to Connect me to you. He refused. But I think he somehow Connected me to who I was. Made me able to remember, and hurt again…”
Kaladin felt helpless. He had never been able to struggle through his own feelings of darkness. How did he help someone else?
Tien could do it, he thought. Tien would know what to say.
Storms, he missed his brother. Even after all these years.
“I think,” Syl said, “that we spren have a problem. We think we don’t change. You’ll hear us say it sometimes. ‘Men change. Singers change. Spren don’t.’ We think that because pieces of us are eternal, we are as well. But pieces of humans are eternal too.
“If we can choose, we can change. If we can’t change, then choice means nothing. I’m glad I feel this way, to remind me that I haven’t always felt the same. Been the same. It means that in coming here to find another Knight Radiant, I was deciding. Not simply doing what I was made to, but doing what I wanted to.”
Kaladin cocked his head, the syringe full of broth halfway to Teft’s lips. “When I’m at my worst, I feel like I can’t change. Like I’ve never changed. That I’ve always felt this way, and always will.”
“When you get like that,” Syl said, “let me know, all right? Maybe it will help to talk to me about it.”
“Yeah. All right.”
“And Kal?” she said. “Do the same for me.”
He nodded, and the two of them fell silent. Kaladin wanted to say more. He should have said more. But he felt so tired. Exhaustionspren swirled in the room, though he’d slept half the day.
He could see the signs. Or rather, he couldn’t ignore them anymore. He was deeply within the grip of battle shock, and the tower being under occupation didn’t magically fix that. It made things worse. More fighting. More time alone. More people depending on him.
Killing, loneliness, and stress. An unholy triumvirate, working together with spears and knives to corner him. Then they just. Kept. Stabbing.
“Kaladin?” Syl said.
He realized he’d been sitting there, not moving, for … how long? Storms. He quickly refilled the syringe and lifted it to Teft’s lips. The man was stirring again, muttering, and Kaladin could almost make out what he was saying. Something about his parents?
Soon the door opened and Dabbid entered. He gave Kaladin a quick salute, then hurried over to the bench near Teft and put something down on the stone. He gestured urgently.
“What’s this?” Kaladin asked, then unwrapped the cloth to reveal some kind of fabrial. It looked like a leather bracer, the type Dalinar and Navani wore to tell the time. Only the construction was different. It had long leather straps on it, and a metal portion—like a handle—that came up and went across the palm. Turning it over, Kaladin found ten rubies in the bracer portion, though they were dun.
“What on Roshar?” Kaladin asked.
Dabbid shrugged.
“The Sibling led you to this, I assume?”
Dabbid nodded.
“Navani must have sent it,” Kaladin said. “Syl, what time is it?”
“About a half hour before your meeting with the queen,” she said, looking upward toward the sky, occluded behind many feet of stone.
“Next highstorm?” Kaladin asked.
“Not sure, a few days at least. Why?”
“We’ll want to restore the dun gemstones I used in that fight with the Pursuer. Thanks for the new ones, by the way, Dabbid. We’ll need to find a way to hide the others outside to recharge though.”
Dabbid patted his chest. He’d do it.
“You seem to be doing better these days,” Kaladin said, settling down to finish feeding Teft.
Dabbid shrugged.
“Want to share your secret?” Kaladin asked.
Dabbid sat on the floor and put his hands in his lap. So Kaladin went back to his work. It proved surprisingly tiring—as he had to forcibly keep his attention from wandering to his nightmares. He was glad when, upon finishing, Syl told him the time had arrived for his check-in with Navani.
He walked to the side of the room, pressed his hand against the crystal vein, and waited for her to speak in his mind.
Highmarshal? she said a few minutes later.
“Here,” he replied. “But, since I was on my way to becoming a full-time surgeon, I’m not sure I still have that rank.”
I’m reinstating you. I managed to have one of my engineers sneak out a fabrial you might find useful. The Sibling should be able to guide you to it.
“I’ve got it already,” Kaladin said. “Though I have no idea what it’s supposed to do.”