Chapter 106

NINE YEARS AGO

S zeth, the last bearer of Truth, killed.

He soared across the battlefield, dressed in bright colors: red and orange and all shades between. He came in low, booted feet brushing the grass, sword out to the side, passing an entire line of soldiers. Twenty of them died before they could react, and the block of soldiers shattered.

He hovered briefly, watching his troops move in, displeased. His soldiers were sloppy, timid. Killing a human being was an entirely different experience from stabbing a pig carcass, and years of abstract training could not replace actual experience in battle. They would have to do better. The Voidbringers would put up a much more resilient defense than this city militia.

He gave his soldiers just long enough to start to flounder, his long red belt fluttering in the wind, sword out to the side. He had, unfortunately, very little experience training soldiers—merely a short stint as an officer during which he’d sunk those raiders’ ships. Looking back, he could see how lucky he’d been to inherit soldiers who were battle-hardened against the stonewalkers.

As his line stalled—a few of them staring, disbelieving, at the deaths they’d caused—he lowered, then infused one of the holy boulders outside this town and sent it crashing among the enemy ranks. The remnants went fleeing back to their town, throwing down their weapons.

So it began. Their first battle. It hadn’t happened with a triumphant march of glorious armies, but with a few hundred acolytes who were killing for the first time.

“You will have to do better,” he snapped at his troops, and saw them deflate, sag. Well, good. They had been embarrassing, and he’d needed to do all the work. “Come. We must secure the town and begin persuading them to join our cause.”

Everyone in the town paid him lip service now that he’d conquered them. They would bow to him as he walked past, call him honor-nimi. Board his soldiers, and let him recruit.

He didn’t have their hearts. He felt it as he spoke with the town butcher to secure supplies for his men. The spindly man bowed, but he was afraid. He was not liberated. And he refused to be liberated, no matter what Szeth said.

“I promise you,” Szeth told him, “the Return has begun. The Voidbringers attack our land.”

“Yes, of course, honor-nimi.” The butcher bowed again.

“You don’t believe,” Szeth said, then glanced at his officers. “He doesn’t believe.”

“It took me time to believe, honor-nimi,” Thal-son-Geord said, with a shrug.

“Maybe … we should go and get a Voidbringer,” Visk-daughter-Brador suggested. “Show off one of their corpses.”

“The Voidbringers will not be caught so easily,” Szeth said. “They have been stealthy all this time.” He looked to the butcher. “They corrupted our leadership. You must see and understand that. Why don’t you see?”

The man seemed uncomfortable. He offered more of his best cuts of meat. Szeth sighed, accepted the offer, then moved on through the town.

His officers caught up. “It’s going to be like this everywhere we go,” Visk warned. “It’s why Tuko never actually decided to rebel. He knew—one Honorbearer against the others—it was going to look like a power struggle, a civil war.”

Szeth stopped at the end of the boardwalk and gazed out across the green spring grass, the fields newly planted, beneath a sky that at times appeared too pure a blue to be real. As if they were watercolors on a giant canvas.

He’d imagined thousands flocking to him. The banner of Truth raised high, a grand army forming to help him root out the sickness upon the land. Instead, the people wanted to ignore him. Hoping he, like a strange stench, would simply … go away.

Szeth dismissed his officers. One small town, and already administration was a headache. Thinking of that made him wonder about his father, held by the enemy—Sivi and Pozen’s conversation had confirmed that. Eventually the enemy would play that piece, demanding that Szeth turn himself in or Neturo would be executed.

What would he do when that day came? It was a situation where … where the right choice was exceptionally difficult. And how was Szeth going to conquer an entire nation? How would he lead them against the Voidbringers’ invading force, which—as soon as they realized what he was doing—would be sure to come out of hiding and strike.

“How,” he whispered, still standing at the edge of the boardwalk. “How do I do this? Please.”

The Honorbearers are weak, the Voice said. They hide, hoping you will lose your nerve.

“You,” Szeth hissed. “I thought I was done with you.”

Oh, Szeth. You’ll never be done with me.

“Out!” Szeth shouted. “Out of my head!”

The Voice chuckled. You’ve committed a cardinal sin. You’ve killed others of your kind, raised a rebellion, however small. The fight you’ve wanted is building. You just need to push it over the tipping point, and draw out the other Honorbearers so you can kill them.

Szeth forced himself to be calm. At least the Voice was familiar. He knew where he stood with it. And, perhaps in its decision to taunt him, it had given something away. So long as he contained his revolution to this small region, the others would rightly assume they could ignore him. What he needed was a real army, a real threat.

He turned along the mountains. Southward.

Minutes later, he found Visk at their camp outside the town. “Give the orders,” Szeth told the shaman. “Break the camp. We march.”

“What?” she asked. “Where?”

“Along the mountains,” Szeth said. “Toward my home village—and the Stoneward monastery. Where a real army has been training for decades against raiders from outside.”

An army that had been organized, disciplined, and administered by a genius: Szeth’s father. They would listen to Szeth. Among them were soldiers who respected him for his strength of leadership.

Let the Honorbearers ignore him once those troops were beneath his banner.