Chapter 95

The destructive version of a melody is not its opposite, then, but instead the exact same song played back at precisely the right time to negate the melody. If you were to hear the two in isolation, you would not be able to tell the difference.

—From Rhythm of War, first coda, Navani Kholin

A dolin could still feel his foot.

It was the most unreal sensation. His foot was gone; he could see that clearly. So far as he knew, what was left of it was pinned underneath the thunderclast. The corpse was barely visible as a mound of darkness in the distance.

By evening spherelight, Adolin stared at his leg while the surgeon worked, affixing the peg. They sat outside the tents, in the cool night air, near the dome.

“It’s very important that we get a clean fit, Brightlord,” the surgeon was saying. “We want it so secure and tight that your stump doesn’t move in the hogshide cup. The more it slides about, the more the stump will chafe.”

Adolin just kept staring at the missing limb. It had taken an entire day and then some for a surgeon to be spared for the fitting. Adolin hadn’t pushed for it earlier. He had plenty of work to do, going over shift reports, trying to make new battle plans following yesterday’s disaster.

The battle reports weren’t encouraging. He could hear fighting at the dome. It was constant now.

“There will almost certainly be pain anyway,” the surgeon said, pulling some straps tight around Adolin’s thigh. “You have one of Brightness Navani’s pain-reduction fabrials?”

“Somewhere,” Adolin said. “I … don’t often wear it.”

“You’ll want to start,” the man said, doing another strap. “You’re lucky that we have Regrowth to form you good scars so quickly. Usually we wait months before fitting a peg.”

“Lucky,” Adolin said. “Yeah.”

The surgeon paused, then continued working, falling silent. Storms, Adolin shouldn’t have said that. He was lucky. That thunderclast should have crushed him completely. Plus, he could get that leg back as soon as he had access to a more skilled Radiant healer. Maybe his brother. It would be good to see Renarin again. They’d spent so little time together these last months.

He tried not to consider—instead—the soldiers he knew who couldn’t be healed. The ones Regrowth didn’t work for. Lopen had regrown his arm immediately, after years going without. But some people received full Regrowth within a month, but had internalized the wound enough that the body wouldn’t comply. He didn’t know how to combat that. He needed to not accept the wound? Storms, he hated the idea that if he couldn’t get healed properly, it was his fault somehow. Wasn’t the loss of a limb bad enough?

The surgeon straightened, then nodded to him.

Adolin tentatively stood up on his left leg, then let the pegged right leg start bearing his weight again. He slipped immediately and the surgeon caught him, holding him steady.

“It will take time to relearn how to balance,” the surgeon said. “I won’t spice up my words, Adolin. A lot of people with a peg need crutches their whole lives.”

Adolin forced himself to stand again, wobbling.

“Some do learn to use it by itself as a mobility device,” the surgeon said. “It goes faster for duelists, I’ve found. People who have already spent a lot of time working on their balance, and who have strength in both legs. But Brightlord, I don’t want you in combat.”

“For how long?”

“Ever, Adolin,” the man said softly. “We permanently relieve men with these kinds of injuries, and you pay them a pension for their service, if you recall. Many on pegs are unsteady, and we can’t have a man in a shield wall who can be shoved out of place with ease.”

Adolin closed his eyes. Storms. He’d said almost exactly the same words to Zabra, hadn’t he?

A sudden spike of anger rose inside him. Anger at what had happened to him. Anger that he couldn’t help while others were dying. Across the cobbled field, an exhausted shield wall held the breach in the dome. Other forces held the doorways out.

As he’d predicted, after the firestorm of dropped oil, the defending forces had lost the entire interior. Reports from scribes who could speak the Dawnchant said that Abidi the Monarch was inside, proclaiming that the Heralds were dead. That the city was nearly theirs. All it would take was a few final pushes.

Abidi was right. Though the human forces had resisted all day, their defensive lines were barely holding, and were a terrifyingly thin three ranks deep. You needed one line on the front with shields, actively fighting. You placed a second line with pikes, supporting that front line, but also doing hard work—exhausting work. Three ranks meant only one line was resting. It would be so much better to have five ranks, and he preferred ten.

Three meant long shifts with soldiers on their feet. Exhausted, subject to constant assault from a larger force that could rotate in fresh troops far faster. It was a nightmare. And they had to do this for two more days, while being down to one Shardbearer. A man with Adolin’s Plate—the boot replaced, and cracks sealed by modern fast-grow methods depleting the remaining bits of Neziham’s Plate—and Neziham’s Blade. They wouldn’t have access to Neziham’s Plate for the rest of the battle. It would take too long to regrow.

The surgeon rose, looking toward the fighting. “I’d best get back to help the wounded on the lines.”

Adolin nodded, and the surgeon grabbed his bag and jogged away. Adolin took his crutches, but tried not to use them as he limped—and slid—back into the imperial tent. Yanagawn had made a spot for Adolin in here where he could take reports in cushioned luxury. He’d assumed that Adolin would want the plushness in which to recuperate. Silently, Adolin hated it, but he also hadn’t wanted to be alone in his own tent.

To take a break from it, they’d set out the towers board for their customary evening game. Adolin gave his crutches to an aide, then forced himself to carefully balance and limp over. It was surprisingly difficult, and it felt like his muscles didn’t work like they should. Why should it be so hard to keep a rubber-tipped peg from sliding out from underneath him? Still, he made it and settled down.

Yanagawn said nothing. He was studying the game board from within his mountainous robes. Adolin had needed to leave when the surgeon was free, which had interrupted their game. Neither had suggested skipping the evening play, despite the army’s dire circumstances. Both knew there was little more they could do. Both also seemed to need this bit of stability.

Pieces on a table they could control exactly. Indeed, the emperor had dug up one of the fancy sets—not just cards, but little soldiers you could deploy in place of cards once revealed. They were, amusingly, aluminum. Yanagawn made his move, executing a classic envelopment, basically ruining Adolin’s chances of winning the match. He hadn’t been certain Yanagawn would see the move, as it required some subtle application of the terrain.

“Excellent,” Adolin said, beginning to clear the pieces. “You’ve proven you can perform an assault from a defensive position and win. That’s a difficult one to learn.”

“It’s hard to decide,” the emperor said, “whether I should hold firm on the defense, or press an advantage and risk losing my privileged position.” He stared at the table a little longer. “This is what you did in the dome the other day. You left a position of safety and risked yourself to save Neziham.”

“Yes,” Adolin said softly. “I didn’t think about it so much though. I simply acted.”

“A hundred days of preparation are needed for one day of spontaneity,” Yanagawn said.

“Quoting Sadees at me?” Adolin said with a laugh. “He attacked your kingdom.”

“He came the closest any Alethi ever did to conquering us.”

That wasn’t the way the Alethi told it. Sunmaker had taken most of Azir, before dying from disease.

“Plus,” Yanagawn said, with a smile, “someone who basically defeated us sounds like someone whose tactical insights we should listen to, eh?”

“I suppose that’s true,” Adolin said, setting out the game pieces again. He nodded to the side as Colot—his uniform bloodied and hair disheveled, though he seemed unwounded—stepped in, glanced at him, then stepped back out. Ever since Adolin’s fall, the man had checked on him every few hours. But it was difficult to complain. Adolin instructed his officers to check in on the wounded. It was merely humiliating to be on the receiving end.

I guess being a good example, Adolin thought, can go both ways.

Adolin shifted and felt the peg knock against the table leg. Storms, every time he moved, it was there reminding him. He maybe should have unstrapped it when sitting down, but he figured the faster he got used to wearing it, the better.

“Well, I have some good news, Yanagawn,” Adolin said. “You’ve defeated all the classic training scenarios. You’ve memorized and avoided the ways a general can lose from a stronger position. You have practiced not making key mistakes—and you’ve learned to react to random chance. You’re not a beginner any longer.”

“You have no idea how glad I am,” he said, drawing a gloryspren, “to be able to learn something that doesn’t involve conjugating verbs or listing dates.”

Adolin chuckled, although inwardly he was horrified. He was all for men learning whatever they wanted, but he hoped Aunt Navani never heard about Yanagawn’s education. Poor little Gavinor would probably end up having to memorize the names of all the different kinds of forks in the world.

“So what next?” Yanagawn asked, leaning forward hungrily. “Do we move on to games where we start out on equal footing?”

“Journeyman training usually involves something like that,” Adolin said. “You’ll get smashed the first few times, but it’s good to knock that crutch out from under you when you’re new, before you rely on your confidence in winning too much.”

Yanagawn’s eyes flicked toward the crutches, and it took Adolin a moment to realize what he’d said. Then his foot—which wasn’t even storming there —started to ache again.

“I’m eager to start losing,” Yanagawn said.

“Good. After that, it might do you good to try a few unwinnable scenarios, to teach you more about minimizing losses and calculated retreats. What do you think, Gezamal?” Adolin scanned the room’s guards, searching for Kushkam’s son.

He wasn’t here. Adolin went chill. Kushkam the elder was back on his feet and in command after being knocked unconscious, then healed. But his son … had he …?

“He had to be reassigned,” Yanagawn said softly. “Gezamal agreed to lead the guards into battle yesterday with me. He listened to me, when he should have rejected my order.”

“They can reject your orders?”

“I’m not all powerful, Adolin,” Yanagawn said. “We have a bill of legal citizen rights—and the azaderach-tor , the limit on imperial power and reach. Civil servants form a representative government for the people. I am the soul of our people, but I’m not some Alethi dictator.” He glanced down, seeming embarrassed. “Sorry. I repeated that as it was told to me; I should have shown more tact.”

“It’s all right,” Adolin said. “But they act like you’re so powerful.”

“I reign,” he said, “but do not rule. It’s a fine distinction. Regardless, my soldiers … they’re not supposed to let me hurt myself. Gezamal stood with me when I tried to go fight, and so … he was removed.”

“Yanagawn,” Adolin said, irate, “you can’t punish a good officer for making a good decision—particularly one you wanted him to make. You can’t let your soldiers question the difference between the moral decision and the right one. Make them the same thing!”

“I understand such criticisms,” Yanagawn said, his head down, arranging his pieces, not meeting Adolin’s eyes. “But there are things we must do to be a civilized society. One of those is to accept that actions have consequences. Embracing those consequences is sometimes both moral and right.”

Adolin shook his head, finding that attitude utterly contemptible. But he acknowledged that he was in a bad mood. After all, he’d lost his leg and the city was doomed. That made small talk awkward.

They dug into a few more games. After crushing Yanagawn a few times as promised, Adolin decided to use the facilities. He refused the crutches as he limped out of the tent, intending to hit the officers’ latrine.

Colot was waiting in the moonlight outside.

“Checking on me again?” Adolin said. “You might be going a little too far on that, Colot.”

“I found him, Adolin.”

“Him?”

“Kushkam’s son,” he said. “He was reassigned to basic infantry. He’s on rotation out to reserves right now, if you want to talk to him.”

Adolin hesitated, then grinned. “Colot, you gemstone of a human being. You’re wasted as an officer.”

“I am?” he said, sounding amused.

“You should have been a sergeant, given how useful you are. Come on, let’s go and talk to Gezamal. I feel we might have an open spot in my guard for someone like him.”

Szeth wasn’t certain he wanted to keep living. Yet Nin said they wanted to make Szeth immortal ?

Szeth was numb from that revelation. He would have welcomed laughter or tears, or really any emotion other than the crushing pressure. That grip on his heart, squeezing. Making of him a ball of stone.

Nin had left them earlier in the night, saying he needed to prepare for something. Szeth now watched the last flickers of their campfire, embers falling apart, relaxing as life finally left them and their colors faded. How strange to see no flamespren upon the fire; he had spent so many years in places where spren, like stone, were common. The unusual had become usual. A fitting metaphor for his life.

A Herald. Eternal. The idea made him want to run. To hide himself someplace where the very movements of the earth could grind him down into the nothing that he deserved to be. He had lived a horrible, murderous life, but always he had believed there would be an out. An end, in death.

If he completed this pilgrimage, death would be no end.

But is this not the torment you deserve? a part of him questioned. To hear those whispers forever? To spend eternity adding to his body count, for the Heralds were—first and foremost—soldiers. Ishu might be a scholar, but he was also one of their finest swordsmen.

To live among them … as one of them … would be agony.

And what of my father? My sister? Were they trapped in some kind of half-death? Would … becoming a Herald mean that at least he’d be with them?

He looked up as a figure approached his dozing fire, but it was not Kaladin, Sylphrena, or even Nin. It was a creature in the shape of a man, but whose figure cut a hole in reality itself—displaying a starfield beyond.

“Hello, my squire,” the spren said.

Szeth bowed his head. The spren had never appeared to him in such a human shape before. He was honored. It was an emotion he could paste to the ball of stone that was his crushed innards, like a note stuck with gum paste to the message post in the center of town.

The spren sat down on the other side of the embers. Kaladin and Syl were playing the flute on the next hillside over. Szeth found a certain … vibrance to Kaladin’s playing. It wasn’t good. He played haltingly, often starting, stopping, then replaying the same sequence multiple times. And he knew only one song.

It should have been annoying, but Szeth remembered when his sister had practiced this way. She’d needed to feel out songs as she learned them. In this, Kaladin’s music was alive—finding its way, growing. To Szeth that was beautiful, and it was one of the few things on this trip that had offered him comfort.

“Szeth,” the spren said, “I would speak to you.”

“Please,” Szeth said softly, gazing down at the embers.

“Do you have … questions for me?”

“Is it true?” Szeth said. “That this is my destiny? To join the Heralds?”

“Yes,” the spren said. “It is why Nale first came to you, why he gave you that black sword. The weapon is supposedly a kind of … test of a person’s character. You have passed.”

“I’ve done little with the sword,” Szeth said, glancing toward where Nightblood and the Honorblades lay.

“That is part of passing the test.”

Kaladin’s music cut off as he played a comically bad note. Then laughter drifted over as Syl said something. Szeth’s spren looked that direction, and though his posture was difficult to read, he appeared … envious.

“Do you wish our bond was more like theirs?” Szeth asked.

“I shouldn’t,” the spren said. “Our bond is not like theirs. No highspren should want one where the human could kill us. It is unseemly.”

That part was true. Szeth didn’t know the mechanics, but it had been shared with him as he reached higher levels of training. A highspren could end their bond at any point, with no repercussions to either of them. No deadeyed highspren existed, or would exist. If Szeth walked away from his oaths, his spren would not be hurt.

The way they did this involved a distance between them, which protected the highspren from the human. And that distance was part of why their attitude toward their Radiants was so different as well.

“It is not appropriate for a piece of deity to laugh as she does, to joke and make light,” his spren added. “It just sounds so … friendly. Regardless, I wish I could have explained your true task in this pilgrimage, Szeth. Nale said I could not until you were fully committed. Are you … fully committed?”

Szeth looked to the sky, where those glowing lines led the way. The correlation between Shadesmar and this land wasn’t absolute; reflections could show up here in odd ways. On the other side, those spren likely marched or swam toward their destination. It now made sense to him why they were going. To witness what would happen to Szeth. Should he succeed.

“I do not wish for this burden,” he whispered.

“I know,” the spren said. “Nale and my superiors tell me that only one who does not want the burden should be offered it. They’ve been waiting for you for many years. A man with no attachments, trained in the best arts of war—a man who will fight on command, and who knows how to follow the dictates of such an important bond. You’re perfect for the role, Szeth. Not only an expert with the Surges. You are completely in control and completely obedient.”

“That is required, then, of a Herald?”

“How else do you think they survived thousands of years?”

It seemed to him that the Heralds had been getting worse over the years. So were they actually surviving? But of course such thoughts were foolish. The Heralds were imbued with the power of Honor himself—and it was Honor’s very nature to be obedient and to demand obedience. Honor was the force by which up became up and down became down. Gravityspren did not question. Szeth should not either. It was what he’d been taught in the monasteries.

Now those teachings were crushing him to the point that he could barely breathe. He felt it coming on again, a tightening that was somehow worse than the numbness. A paralyzing tension, as if he were steam needing to escape, but there was no release. Just more. And more. Pressure. Pushing him to—

Kaladin’s music began once more. A flute, reminding Szeth of the days when his dances had not left corpses. He found himself able to breathe.

“I know that song from somewhere …” Szeth’s spren said.

“It’s … possible, then?” Szeth forced out. “To make a new Herald?”

“So far as I understand,” the spren said, turning back to the fire. Did he watch the embers die? What did an immortal being think about such endings? “The Oathpact unravels because of Jezrien’s death, but it is a slow unraveling. The enemy has been unable to find and destroy any other Heralds, and so the hole can be patched. It would require taking a piece of Honor, forging from it a new sword. Saying the most important Words a person can say, and joining the Heralds.”

“The Words,” Szeth said. “I cannot be told them.”

“Yes!” the spren said, animatedly gesturing with both hands. “You see. You understand.”

“I do,” Szeth said. And knew he had the right Words inside him. “It is … necessary?”

“Ishar has foreseen that unless the Oathpact is reforged,” the spren said, “millions will suffer. Millions upon millions.”

The ball tightened.

“Then I will do it,” Szeth whispered, closing his eyes. “There was never any question that I would, was there?”

“Well, not until Kaladin started … you know. Helping.”

“I would be dead now if he hadn’t,” Szeth said. “Nin is broken, spren. This test is irrational. Any soldier can lose a fight, no matter how good that soldier is. He could have accidently seen me dead at any point on this quest.”

“He … says that vigilant adherence to the law will protect you.”

“He does not know what is right any longer,” Szeth said, staring out into the darkness. Nin’s departure left Szeth concerned, because the next monastery was the Skybreaker one. “Nin was angry that I refused to fight my sister. But not fighting her is how I won the battle!”

“I …” The spren looked away, toward the music. “I want to help. Really help. Be your partner, Szeth. I … wanted you to know that.”

How strange, that this uncertain, amiable being was the same one who had spoken to him so imperiously before. Spren, it seemed, were as capable as humans of wearing different faces and putting on airs.

“I joined the Skybreakers,” the spren said, “and became a knight within their ranks so that I might help protect the world. We’re not like other orders—we never abandoned our duties. So … I’m trying, Szeth. Once you’re a Herald, I’m … ready.”

“What is the cost to you?”

“What you do, I have to do with you,” the spren explained. “Nale’s spren was always trapped with him on Braize, and subject to the pains that the enemy can inflict.”

“Storms,” Szeth whispered.

“Ishar searches for a way to make us truly physical,” the spren said. “I do not know the details—he will not share them with the Skybreakers—but he says it will make us untorturable.”

“How would you having physical bodies, ” Szeth said, “make you less easy to torture?”

“I don’t know,” the spren admitted. “Ishar has been erratic these last few millennia. I’m sure he has a good plan in there somewhere. He always does.”

“And the Unmade plaguing Shinovar?” Szeth said. “I assume that cleansing the land is how I prove I am worthy of being a Herald?” Again, the tightening inside. “But how does it relate? Why am I fighting Honorbearers, and why haven’t the Heralds cleansed them already?”

The spren squirmed on the ground by the fire.

“I can’t know this yet?” Szeth asked.

The spren shook his head.

“I know an Unmade is here,” Szeth said. “I heard its Voice in my head, starting on the day I killed the soldier. I discovered its place of darkness, and realized—even back then—that my people were corrupted. At the time, I believed the Unmade in Shinovar meant the Return had begun—I didn’t realize that the Unmade had been left behind.

“So, I was both wrong and right. Wrong, in that the general mass of the Voidbringers had not yet Returned. Right, in that a servant of Odium was doing terrible things to my people.” He thought a moment. “Are the Heralds unable to cleanse this land for some reason? Must it be a Shin who performs the act? Perhaps that allows the Shin people to be redeemed, and join the fight?”

The spren didn’t reply.

“But why so late?” Szeth said softly. “The war has been happening for well over a year now. Longer, depending on when the first Voidspren began to appear.”

“Answers will come …” the spren said.

“… in the next two monasteries,” Szeth said with a sigh.

“Yes.” The spren paused. “Szeth, can I admit something to you? I … don’t know the answers. I … have some of the very same questions you do.”

Szeth settled back as the last embers died. He had thought the matter of his future settled. He had chosen Kaladin’s path, that of peace, but now the world itself had been settled upon his shoulders.

Peace was something for other people. For Szeth, there had always been—and would always be—voices in the darkness. And his insides were crushed between the force of landscapes: one made of stone, and the other soil.

While hunting down Gezamal, Adolin walked the entire way across the cobbled courtyard on his own, without needing crutches—though he did have to lean on Colot now and then. Notum arrived, full sized, hovering next to them as he gave a quiet report. The lines were holding, but casualties were frighteningly high. In turn, morale was frighteningly low.

The defenders had finally, reluctantly, gathered a second—and later today, even a third—wave of recruits from the city. Untrained men and women with spears and shields would hold the first line, with more experienced soldiers using pikes from behind. It was a horrible tactic, but the sole one available—plugging holes in the front with people who had only the most basic of training.

Once you started building weak points into your lines, the fall was imminent.

Two days, Adolin thought. Less than that now. Practically a day and a half. That’s all we have to survive. The contest would happen at midday on the tenth day at Urithiru, meaning late morning here in Azir.

Still, he could hear people screaming as they fought.

“At least,” Notum said, “the enemy forces have been vastly depleted. They are tired too, and wounded.”

“Yeah,” Colot said. “But there’s still more of them, so they can rest their lines better.”

He was probably right. The enemy had been depleted, then demoralized by the Herald attack, the loss of the thunderclast, and the firebombs the day before. Plus, if he’d been in command of the singers, he’d have picked a force and rested them for a day, keeping the humans busy with other troops.

The hammer would fall tomorrow. Blood of his fathers … the worst part was not being able to help. To be hobbling along on one good leg while soldiers died. He was able to send Kushkam some suggestions on where to position the weaker pike blocks, but that didn’t feel like much. Maybe Adolin could put on the Plate himself, leave one leg out with the peg, and—

No. He wouldn’t let his pride endanger the city—he was good with Plate, but one of his armor standbys would be better. He hated it, but the mature thing was to let someone else fight in his place.

They passed the shadow of the fallen thunderclast. At least his leg had a storming fine tombstone. Past that were the latrines, a row of wooden outhouses with steps up onto them, and bottom sections that could be removed and periodically Soulcast—waste and all. Adolin found it amusing to think that some of the city’s bronze came, literally, from dung.

The younger Kushkam was here, wearing gloves and an apron over his uniform, cleaning latrines. His weapons were near, and he—as a fit soldier—would be doing a full rotation on the front lines like everyone else. During his time off however, instead of resting, he got this duty.

Adolin barely contained his anger; demoting a man like Gezamal was an insult. Specifically, an insult to every soldier who had made a snap—and correct—decision to disobey orders when the circumstances changed.

“Gezamal,” he said, catching the man’s attention. “Missed you at our nightly game.”

Gezamal seemed glad to see Adolin, judging by his posture in the night as he stood taller and hopped down the steps. “Adolin? Walking already? You’ll be fit for service again in no time.”

A small lie, of the type soldiers told one another. Adolin clasped hands with the man—though only after Gezamal had removed his gloves and positioned himself downwind.

“You like my new offices?” Gezamal said, gesturing.

“Gezamal,” Adolin said softly, “this is an affront. I can’t believe—”

“Stop,” Gezamal said, his entire posture changing. He stood more alert, and shied back. “Do not speak ill of the emperor.”

“I won’t. But this business of demoting you? It’s insanity! After what you did?”

“What I did,” Gezamal said, his voice grown cold, “was what needed to be done. As is this.”

“What?” Adolin said. “Gezamal—”

“Adolin,” he said, lowering his voice, “when I ordered my men to march into battle with the emperor, I knew what it would cost. If he’d been injured, I’d have been executed. He wasn’t, blessedly, so I’ll accept this.”

“What you did was right.”

“Which is why I’m fine taking my duties now.”

“It’s bad military discipline, Gezamal,” Adolin said. “You can’t punish soldiers for making good decisions—or sometimes even those who make the wrong ones. You need officers to feel comfortable making decisions. If you muddle that with a fear of repercussions, the result is indecisive leadership. And the result of that is disaster. ”

Gezamal sighed and settled down on the outhouse steps, nodding as a soldier arrived to use the facilities. Gezamal slumped forward a little, crossing his arms. “I suppose we shouldn’t fault you for offering advice when that’s what we invited you here to do. It’s probably good advice, too. If there’s one thing the Alethi know, it’s how to maintain a disciplined fighting force.”

“Not all of us,” Adolin said, thinking of Sadeas’s armies. “But I’ve learned a few things. Either we need to get your demotion reversed, or at the very least I want you on my staff. I value a soldier who has the courage to do what you did.”

“I appreciate the offer. But I won’t leave.”

“Why?”

Gezamal looked up as the first moon started to set behind him, the violet light dwindling. “You ever love something flawed, Adolin?”

“Isn’t everything flawed?” he said, glancing at Colot, who had so far remained silent in this conversation.

“I suppose it is,” Gezamal said. “Well, I love the empire. I love that our people have stood for thousands of years, against invaders with more Shards. I love that we have produced writing and art, standing as a light against the twin tides of ignorance and lies.

“I love that in Azir, a thief can become emperor. That any person who dedicates themselves can take the tests and rise high. I love the way we have reasons for what we do. Yes, the weight of those reasons might create books full of bureaucracy. Yes, it might get unwieldy. Yes, it might hurt you now and then. But everything you love is going to hurt you now and then, because it is flawed.”

He rose from the steps. “There should obviously be a threshold for being hurt. We haven’t reached mine. The laws say that a man who did what I did needs to be punished. Maybe the law should change, but I accept what has happened. Because Adolin, I guarantee that every other soldier in our military—even those who think I was a monster for putting the emperor in danger—understands. Accepting your punishment with decorum is a mark of respect for the thing we all love.”

Another soldier passed in the night and nodded to Gezamal. Neither gave salutes, but the impression Adolin had was similar. Thoughtful, Adolin nodded to Gezamal himself, then let him return to what he’d been doing.

Adolin started back across the courtyard. Pondering. Did he love things that hurt him?

Maybe not something. But certainly some one. A father.

“I think …” Colot said, walking with him, “I get it, Adolin. Maybe that’s why I’m still a soldier.” The red-haired man paused, then turned and gazed back at the setting moon. “It hurt, being rejected by the Windrunners. All their ideals—about protecting, about helping—meant so much to me. It really seemed to be working. I learned to draw in the Light, and I even took to the sky a few times. And then …”

“You told me the spren didn’t want you,” Adolin said. “Because you were lighteyed.”

“It feels so strange,” Colot said, “to have something that had always been an advantage turn against me. Should I be embarrassed? Angry? Is it fair that I should get rejected when I personally didn’t do anything other than be born lighteyed?” He sighed. “I wish I knew, Adolin. I start to feel better, then I see them flying, and it all floods back …” He looked to Adolin, then appeared embarrassed. “Sorry. Just … I get what Gezamal said. I’m still here. Despite when it hurts.”

Notum soon came zipping back, and fetched Colot, as Kushkam needed him to take command while he saw to other duties. Despite his obvious fatigue, Colot jogged away, leaving Adolin alone as the moonlight vanished. He balanced precariously on the peg and the stump that was already starting to ache. Listening to other people fight, and feeling a mounting dread.

They weren’t going to last another day and a half.