Chapter 111

NINE YEARS AGO

I ’m sorry, honor-nimi,” Lumo said. “I cannot authorize this for one Honorbearer. I just … Szeth, you have to know how this looks. It’s insane.”

“It’s Truth, Lumo,” Szeth said.

He stood, Blade in hand, before his old home on the clifftop—the small town and warcamp outside the Stoneward monastery. He stood in roughly the last place he’d seen his mother before leaving.

She lived in a city a short flight away. He had been tempted to seek her out, but … not like this. He would wait until he was seen as a hero.

Strange, how much this place he’d hated now felt like returning home. He’d saved Lumo years ago from a burning ship during that infamous attack on the raiders. The red-bearded man was now the General of the entire place. Straight-backed, tall, with a neat uniform. This camp maintained the discipline that Neturo had instilled; that was clear from the soldiers arrayed to meet Szeth.

Soldiers who, despite his history with them, didn’t believe.

“Can you offer proof?” Lumo asked.

“My own word is my proof,” Szeth said. “And my station as Honorbearer.”

“Honorbearer Pozen visited us last night,” Lumo said softly. “Elsecalled right into the center of the camp. He said you were a delusional heretic who couldn’t be trusted.”

“And what,” Szeth said quietly, “do you think of Pozen?”

The soldiers shared looks. All was still for a moment as a cold, highland breeze greeted them.

“He is not a soldier,” Szeth said. “Did he send us help when we held here alone against raiders? Did he bring his Blade and fight by our side? Did he even seem to care ?”

They did not respond.

“Something is wrong in this land,” Szeth said. “You know it. Right before I left you, I was to be banished—then suddenly the narrative changed, bizarrely, and I was rewarded. It was the Unmade. They all obey it. I swear it to you.”

“You … hear a voice,” Lumo said. “Telling you to do things.”

“Each Honorbearer does,” Szeth said.

Silence. He knew, from their expressions, that he had failed. These capable soldiers were lost to him. At least that was what he assumed, until salvation arrived.

In the form of an enemy army.

One of Lumo’s soldiers spotted it, raising the alarm. The banners, Szeth saw as he turned, were of the other monasteries. An army multiple times larger than his, emerging through an Elsecalled portal to fight.

In that moment, he knew retreat was impossible against Elsegates.

“It is time,” Szeth said. “We fight.”

“I cannot join you, Szeth,” Lumo said, pained.

“Then,” Szeth said, meeting his eyes, “you shall instead have to watch them slaughter me.”

Shortly thereafter, Szeth raised the flag of rebellion and led his army against the forces of the Honorbearers. But today he did not kill.

The way he’d slain dozens in the previous battle haunted him. He felt as if their souls watched him from the quiet places beneath the stones, where the spren were said to lurk. He knew why the Honorbearers refused to use their weapons against the raiders, although he hadn’t said so to Lumo. It was too much.

So today, he led. He glowed, he hovered before his men, and he shouted encouragement. They were outnumbered, but at least had their backs to the cliffs, so they couldn’t be surrounded. He thought this position must be good, as his soldiers would fight more valiantly, knowing the weakness of a retreat was forbidden them. Indeed, they fought better this time, even if the individual soldiers missed a great number of strikes, and didn’t seem to understand the flow of the conflict.

Szeth kept them fighting with shouts and orders, and because he didn’t fight, the other Honorbearers didn’t join the fray. He could see their banners, one from each of the other monasteries. Including the Bondsmith monastery, which was curious. So he was arrayed against seven banners, all but the Windrunner, Stoneward, and Skybreaker.

He let his armies begin retreating up the switchback to the clifftop warcamp, but only under pressure from his shamans. Still, he kept them fighting. He kept them desperate, until …

At last.

The armies of the Stoneward monastery above came to Szeth’s rescue. As he’d hoped, they were unable to watch as one of their own was destroyed. Szeth rose into the air, afire with Stormlight, listening to the glorious sound of their trumpets. Crystal-clear notes accompanying a force marching down the switchbacks to join Szeth’s troops.

Something swelled in Szeth at the sound, the sign of that glorious force marching with bright helmets and shields held high. This was the moment when his flaming ember became a wildfire. The moment when resistance against the Voidbringers truly began, and the Desolation was opposed.

He landed in a storm of light. “It’s true,” whispered Drodli, one of his head shamans, his helmet askew with a dent in one side, and blood—not his—on his armor. “They are coming, as you said. What … what would we have done if they hadn’t?”

“We’d have died,” Szeth said calmly. “Better to die than to let the Return happen unresisted.”

Drodli gave him a horrified look at that. Never mind. Better soldiers were coming. His shamans were, he noticed, yelling for the men to take heart at the sight—something he likely should have done. Instead he flew up to speak to Lumo at the head of the new troops.

“We’ll fight, Szeth,” he said, “but only because you’re on the defensive—and they apparently want to exterminate you. Something strange is going on, and it’s time that we had some respect here, rather than being considered second-class because we lack an Honorbearer.”

Those were not quite the words of a glorious champion for Truth, but they would do. Szeth flew back down, and the Stoneward army began to support his ranks. As the troops were bolstered, stabilizing on the incline—a favorable position—he shouted a challenge to the enemy armies.

Other Honorbearers materialized. First Moss, who should have been his friend, then Sivi. Pozen was making those closest to Szeth come first, hoping they would die by his Blade.

Well, today he refused. He was no assassin, no murderer crafted to do evil. He sought them out and clashed with them, but made no killing blows. He merely fought until Moss broke and fled. Sivi waited until that fight was done, then came in next.

Though she could bend the stones to her will, he made certain not to leave the soil. She refused to Elsegate away, and so theirs was mostly a duel of sword against sword, fought on the ground in the middle of the enemy ranks—who made room for them, and did not try to interfere.

Szeth did her the honor of minimizing his use of powers, and therefore had to spend a good five minutes fighting until he managed to disarm her and send her sprawling across the grass in a heap, her short hair falling and obscuring her eyes.

“You’re strong,” she whispered. “Stones Unhallowed … how did you get so strong?”

“Because,” he said, leveling his Blade at her, “I fight to protect our land. Join me, and we will be two.”

“Szeth,” she said. “You’re confused. That wasn’t an Unmade you saw.”

“I will not be persuaded by you.”

She sighed and sat up. “Well, at least you let yourself be distracted by a duel.”

Distracted?

Trumpets sounded behind him. He turned, with horror, and saw the troops from the Stoneward monastery retreating. No, worse—re-forming and turning their weapons against his troops, who were now trapped between two enemy forces.

“Traitors!” Szeth shouted. “Treason!”

Everything crumbled. His vision of a glorious resistance. His men leading a wildfire of change that saved the world itself. He screamed in denial, and shot through the sky on a Lashing, an arrow in flight. He slammed against the ground between his forces and those of the traitors, Lumo at their head. He opened his mouth to demand answers … and a figure stepped out from among them.

A stout man with a short beard, thinning hair, a friendly smile. Neturo. His father.

A lightning bolt of shock jolted through Szeth. His father was a captive. A prisoner. A … a …

“Hello, son,” Neturo said, stopping a few feet in front of him. “We thought that Lumo and his troops might listen to reason if I spoke to them.”

“Lightweaving,” Szeth whispered. “You aren’t real.”

“I’m sorry,” Neturo said, wearing his old uniform, but with new colors. Blue, brown, and green. The …

The Bondsmith colors.

Neturo summoned an Honorblade, with a wavy blade and writing along it, then placed it into the ground in front of him. “I am real, Szeth. When Sivi and Pozen came to me with this offer, I didn’t know what to think. Grand senator? Bondsmith? Leader of our people? They said it might be the only way to save you. So I listened. And … well, I’ve heard him now, son.”

“The Voice?” Szeth whispered.

“He says you turned your back on him.”

“Father, he’s—”

“He’s not a Voidbringer, son,” Neturo said. “I’ve met him. I don’t know what he is. A god perhaps, as he says—but he’s not one of them. ”

“I …” Szeth put a hand to his forehead. “No. You can’t be … can’t be real …”

Neturo dismissed his Blade, then stepped forward, arms out, and Szeth backed up. His father kept coming until he embraced Szeth. And … stones … it was him.

“We have to stop this madness,” Neturo said. “The Voice is committed, but I know there must be another way.”

“I’m following my heart, Father,” Szeth whispered. “I’m trying to do what is right. I’ve always tried to do what is right.”

“I know,” Neturo said. “I know.”

Szeth squeezed his eyes closed, and he was a little boy again. Standing before a rock that would go on to kill every bit of joy in his life.

“Szeth,” his father said, his arms warm, his voice warmer, “I’ve realized why I followed you all those years.”

“Why?”

“I thought you might lead me to answers.” He gave Szeth a squeeze. “You did.”

Neturo …

Neturo had answers.

Suddenly, the horror of what Szeth had done overwhelmed him. He’d killed dozens with an Honorblade. He’d raised an army to fight his own people. If he was wrong …

Why had he thought he could trust his own judgment? He was a fool, and a child, and he always had been.

“Tell me what to do,” Szeth whispered. “And I’ll do it. If you tell me.”