Chapter 139

I can’t speak to that. But I can speak to the testimony of one man’s experience. That of what it felt like to be in the very depths of despair, and then to have someone stand up and try their best to shield you from it.

—From Knights of Wind and Truth, page 237

K aladin stood up to protect Szeth, Syl, and even Ishar. Not because he had to. Not because the situation forced him into it. But because this WAS the man he wanted to be.

Ishar cut off his rambling and turned to look at him, eyes widening. Everyone else on that barren field of rock lay on the ground, curled up, trembling, eyelids clenched shut. Even Syl was incapacitated. Like Kaladin, Nale, and Szeth, she had a cord of white light leading to Ishar.

In that moment, Kaladin understood why he had come here. He felt the Wind herself take a welcome gasp. His invisible armor—and, it seemed, thousands of windspren, somewhere—found wonder in this simple act. A man standing up.

“Impossible,” Ishar said. “What are you?”

“I’m just an old spear who wouldn’t break, Ishar.”

He stepped sideways in front of Szeth, putting himself between Ishar and his friend. It was perhaps a hollow gesture, but there was a darkness emanating from Ishar—and maybe Kaladin could shield others from it, like one could in standing before a terrible storm. Indeed, Szeth opened his eyes.

Ishar stalked toward Kaladin. “I don’t believe it.” He looked at Kaladin’s cord, then back at him. “How?”

“This horrible darkness,” Kaladin said. “That’s what you feel?”

“Every day.”

“It’s awful, isn’t it?”

Ishar nodded.

“I will not lie,” Kaladin said, “and promise you that all future days will be warm. But Ishar, you will be warm again. And that is another thing entirely to promise.”

“I … I don’t know if that is true,” Ishar whispered. “It’s different for us.”

“It’s not,” Kaladin said. “I feel your pain now, and I see what it is. Your lives might be supernatural, Ishar, but what you feel is what I feel. I realize that on one hand, that is no consolation. Your pain, your sorrow—your darkness—doesn’t transform because another experienced it. Still, it seems to help, doesn’t it? Knowing you aren’t alone.”

It was difficult to even speak. Kaladin wasn’t lying; he had felt this before—but whatever Ishar had done to him was worse than most of his days. It was like all of the worst days Kaladin had known distilled into 200 proof awfulness. The Horneater white of misery.

This was worse than the days when he didn’t want to move. It was like the days when he would have done anything not to exist. Days like the one when he’d stood in the rain above a chasm long ago.

That was what the Heralds lived with.

Storms, Kaladin thought. I have to help them.

It was a laughable thought. How could he help? He was barely functional. It was all he could do to stand there.

But stand. Kaladin. DID.

And somehow it helped. Seeing someone else resist helped. Szeth, groaning, managed to look up at him. Syl stirred.

“How?” Ishar repeated. “What are you?” He gestured toward Szeth. “Are you … are you his spren? His god?”

“No,” Kaladin said. “I’m his therapist.”

Ishar blinked. “… What is that?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Kaladin admitted.

Ishar moved with a crash of speed. A pop, and a rush, and suddenly he was there with a hand at Kaladin’s throat. “I will crush you. You will fall here, Stormblessed. You cannot help. You cannot stop me. Everyone you love will die for this insolence. Doesn’t that terrify you?”

“Yes,” Kaladin admitted.

The darkness wanted him to see himself failing. It tried to show him. Except Kaladin had learned, and Words formed without him realizing that he’d begun to know them. The Words that both soldier and surgeon needed to learn eventually.

Two halves of one man. A singular lesson.

A step forward from what he’d learned in storm and tempest two weeks ago, Words said in agony. This was a counterpoint, learned with a peace that flowed through him and held off the darkness. Quiet Words. Reminiscent of what Teft had learned, and his friend’s wisdom helped now.

Kaladin rested his hand comfortingly on Ishar’s shoulder, ignoring the hand at his throat, and spoke them.

“I will protect myself, so that I may continue to protect others.”

The power of Honor gathered around Dalinar like a corona. The rumbling from Odium became tiny, buzzing instead of thunder.

This power … knew it was no longer like the others. It had spent too long without a vessel, and part of it craved to be held again. Yet it had seen so much betrayal.

“I know,” Dalinar whispered, his heart trembling. “I was there.”

Too much of his focus, in the visions of the past, had been on Tanavast. Natural, as Dalinar had been seeing them from his perspective—now, instead, he accepted the power’s viewpoint. Trying earnestly to work with Tanavast—but finding him infuriatingly uncaring about oaths.

“I see your pain,” Dalinar whispered.

Lines of light—dozens, hundreds—began to appear at his chest, vanishing into nothing, tethering him to … to something distant. Or something here, but in another realm.

You … the power whispered. You are the uniter.

Yes. He had followed the command to unite them. He’d brought Alethkar together, forged a cohesive nation out of squabbling highprinces. Then he’d brought nations together in his coalition. Stumbles notwithstanding, he and Navani had built this tower and its people into a true kingdom.

Those lines of light strengthened.

“I know you want a successor,” Dalinar said.

Humans lie, the power said. I have watched them lie. Every one of them lies. The lies hurt.

“I saw,” Dalinar said. “I do not think you’ll do better than me, right now. I have grown so much, even in the past ten days.” Dalinar had learned the lessons of those who had failed. He was ready. Ready to take the next step.

The lines of light … stayed the same. The power didn’t care about Dalinar’s willingness to serve. Why not?

It is the power of Honor and oaths, Dalinar thought. Not of self-improvement. It doesn’t care if I’ve grown. It cares if I will keep my word.

Dalinar thought of the many oaths he’d made, and kept. Promises to himself, to others. Including as recently as sending Radiants with the Mink, when it had hurt his war efforts. And yet … he found himself uncertain.

Was he really a man of his word? He’d told Elhokar that he didn’t want the throne, had sworn it to Sadeas, vowed he’d never be king … but then he’d taken that throne in all but name.

The power didn’t care. So long as Dalinar technically hadn’t taken the throne, all was well.

That bothered him. This power had a certain immaturity he had not thought to find in something deific. But … he supposed it was relatively newly aware.

It is time, Dalinar. That was … Cultivation’s voice. Speak the Words. You know them now.

He did. He fixated on the power’s perspective, watching Tanavast betray it time and time again. He took to heart the lessons of his realm: that in this case, the destination wasn’t about a place, but about a Connection. It was about who you had become, not about where you arrived.

The power surrounded him, and he slammed his hands together, opening a perpendicularity. Then he spoke to Honor the most important Words he might ever say. Words that only worked if he could say them truly.

“I understand you.”