Chapter 124

TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO

I , Tanner, betrayed the demigod Mishram.

The plan was executed perfectly. And though my heart broke for the poor spren, this was the only way. It was … it was the better way. The power within me trembled. The power of oaths. It seemed to speak. Please … understand … I do not want this. We cannot …

It must happen, I explained. One will suffer, yet a world will live. I told myself this as the trap was sprung, and Melishi pulled Mishram into a gemstone. Rayse’s rival was dealt with—in a careful way. A way that would give me leverage. For if Mishram was trapped, I could threaten to release her.

I thought myself so clever.

I had not anticipated what would happen to the singers on her capture. The tones had chosen her; the planet was aligned with her. Ripping her away had a devastating effect. How had this escaped my foreknowledge ?

Even as it happened though, I was forced into another fight. This time with my own power. I braced myself, knowing this might happen, for I had told Mishram I’d choose peace between us. I had led my agents to entice her, and my Radiants had approached her with supposedly honest intentions.

I told myself it was for the greater good. But in that moment, the moment she was captured, the power I held—the power of oaths, bonds, and promises …

It rejected me.

My trap’s aftereffect upon all the singers was too much for it. It hated what I ’d done, and the consequences were too great this time. I resisted. I cajoled. I ordered. I wrestled with the power, insisting that it see the difference between doing good and being honorable. It lashed back against me, for what I’d done was neither.

And … the being who had been Tanner …

Agreed.

In a flash, I heard Rayse laughing. He saw it too. The very weakness I’d seen in him was now manifest in me. If the power did abandon me, it would leave the Radiants and the Heralds without a check against their abilities. They would destroy the world. The Honorblades alone …

Rayse would get what he wanted—global annihilation. Removal of his primary rival. I did not know if this had been Rayse’s plan all along; he had seemed so genuinely afraid of Mishram taking his place. But either way, I knew that I was bested, and it was only a matter of time—hours at most—until the power left me entirely.

In my agony, I reached out to Kor. From her I felt only revulsion and hate. It echoed not through the singers alone, but through all bonds that had been made in my name. Each and every Radiant was corrupted. My every promise was flawed. I had sought to save the world, but in so doing had ruined it and everything I stood for.

I … I showed them. When Radiants touched me in that hollow of stone, I showed them. I showed them all . I … I knew it was a moment of madness, of terrified weakness. I should never have compounded my mistakes like that. But I did. I projected the future to them. And to them, I did not explain it was only a possible future.

They saw the world destroyed at their hands.

Horrified, I fled.

I tried to sweep to our nest, to be with Kor, to beg her forgiveness. The power, however, began to separate from me. I formed as a human again and crashed down from the sky, through a forest of trees with limbs that pulled away from me. I was left lying in the underbrush—but with a hole straight toward the sky, cool moonlight playing on me as I was splayed among the snarls of writhing vines. A fallen god.

The moonlight darkened. Then Rayse was standing next to me.

“Idiot,” Rayse said.

I cried out, reaching with trembling hands, trying to cling to my divinity.

“What an embarrassing mix you are, Tanner,” Rayse said. “Strong enough to hold the power, but not strong enough to bend it to your will. Smart enough to try to trick me, but stupid enough to be tricked in ret urn.”

Rayse drew himself up, then seized me with a hand that carried behind it shadows and stars. I was suddenly so very small.

“Before I kill you,” Rayse said, “let me show you the next world I will conquer.” Rayse prepared to launch himself into the sky—and beyond. To explore his freedom in the cosmere.

Yet tethers held him down. He could break them, of course, but in so doing would open himself up to destruction.

I laughed with realization. “You think if I am defeated,” I whispered, “our agreements don’t hold ? Rayse, you made a deal with the divine sense of honor and duty. It will not let you go as easily as another might.”

“No,” Rayse snapped. “It is nothing without a vessel. I just need to crush you, Tanner.”

He was wrong. My power was the power of bonds, and it would bind him to this system, and our agreement would hold, even if he destroyed me.

As he moved to do so, my former power … took pity on me. It offered one last hope. It offered to fight . Honor hated Odium for wanting to discard oaths so flagrantly. A part of it … understood that I had been trying. It would Invest me again if I agreed to fight, something my agreement with Rayse would allow. He simply could not attack first.

That would destroy Roshar. In that moment, I understood the depths of our stupidity—for in shattering Adonalsium, we had removed the divine sense of love and compassion from the other Shards. That one had gone to Aona, among the best of us, and therefore among the first Rayse had sought out to kill.

The power of Honor knew only one good: keeping oaths.

I knew other goods.

I had promised to protect Roshar.

This sent a shudder through the power. A confusion. A conundrum. I could have taken it up to fight, but in a moment where I was truly strong, I refused . For once in my life, I turned away, and did not make things worse.

But still I did not want to die. Protect me, I begged.

A piece of you. The power took a portion of my soul, including my memories, and fled.

Odium destroyed the rest with glee. Killing, at long last, his rival.

But the power gave this remnant of me to my avatar in the storm—to the spren I had created as a true part of my soul. I died, yes, yet at the same time I lived on.

I was now more spren than man. I did not care as much as Tanavast had—for why should a storm care ? It could only blow. But secretly I carried a greater truth, and it kept me from being like any other spren. I, in one form, had been there. I knew the burden of terrible loss.

For I, the Stormfather, remembered.

The corpse of a child held in my arms, broken and burned. Dead cities. A world that had spent thousands of years in an endless war to fuel my promise to best Odium. Last of all, a betrayal of all that I stood for. The breaking of Radiants, and of Honor itself, through the imprisonment of a spren who was seeking peace.

Wounded, weeping tears of rage with each passing year, I rode the storm. And the power of Honor whispered to me. It was free, but it hated this. It wanted a Vessel. Together, we resolved upon a plan. Tanavast had been too weak to hold the Shard, but surely there was one who could hold it. Could protect Roshar. Could end Rayse.

It would have to be the perfect individual. Honorable, but also merciful. A warrior, but also a leader. Most importantly, they could not be like those of us who had destroyed Adonalsium. I couldn’t have someone who wanted the power. It had to be someone who proved themselves without knowing their reward.

The power agreed. I, the Stormfather, would find a champion. Someone who would defeat Rayse through the contest that he had, before killing Tanavast, agreed to. If this champion saved Roshar, that would prove they were worthy. Honor would Invest them.

They could become my successor.