Chapter 144

And now we reach the part of the narrative where I can but speculate, as my witnesses were both unconscious.

—From Knights of Wind and Truth, page 271

N ale felt good.

Not great. Not wonderful. But he felt … better. A shadow had lifted from him.

Now though, something terrible had happened again. Suddenly his stomach churned, and a force seemed to try to turn him inside out.

“Ishar?” he said, kneeling beside the other Herald, who stared at the sky, his eyes wide. “Ishar, what is it?”

“The Stormfather is dead,” Ishar whispered. “Dalinar Kholin has failed. Honor is being consumed … Retribution … his name is Retribution.” He blinked, concentrating. “Cultivation flees. Retribution will also consume and destroy the spren, then remake them to his will and pleasure.”

“What?” Nale said, helping the aged Herald sit. “All of them? Ishar … what do we do?”

“I don’t know …” Ishar said. “I see clearly for the first time in centuries … It’s been so long, walking through fog. Or smoke, the smoke of a burning world …” He focused again on Nale. “Like the spren, we bear a distinctive part of Honor’s power in us. Retribution will want to reclaim it. Prepare yourself, Nale. This is our end.”

The end. Nale fell to his knees, then settled back. The end. Yes. He could accept the end. Even if he’d just started feeling hope for recovery …

Perhaps it was time.

Perhaps it was past time.

“What will this mean?” he asked. “For Roshar?”

“No Stormlight,” Ishar said, tired. “No highstorm. The enemy has won, and I was too infatuated with my own plots to notice or stop it …” He wiped his mouth with a trembling hand. “This is what we deserve.”

Perhaps, a familiar voice said—trembling, uncertain. But there is still a service you could perform. If you are willing.

“What service?” Nale asked the Wind.

A ring of ten, in their strength, could bind Retribution in some small way. Could it not?

“… Yes,” Ishar said. “We bear Honor’s power. Much as our Connection to Odium helped us bind him and his spren long ago, our Connection to Honor could let us bind Retribution. In a small way.” The elderly Herald wiped blood from his mouth. “We could maybe prevent him from taking the spren to himself. We could seal away that part of his power, weaken him. Yes … Yes, that could work.”

“You mean …” Nale said.

“We must reforge the circle,” Ishar replied. “If the spren are to be preserved, if a Splinter of Honor is to be kept from Retribution’s touch, we must stand tall again. Reaffirm our oaths, exploit that weakness he made in himself for us.”

Nale trembled. Reforge the Oathpact? “Ishar,” he said, feeling a deep, shameful terror rise inside of him.

Memories.

Agony.

Being held against stones, his soul burned and flayed.

Hearing his friends scream in pain, their voices echoing in his ears for centuries, awful and terrible, like the sound of fingernails being ripped from the flesh.

Nale blinked sudden tears from the corners of his eyes. “I can’t go back, Ishar. I … I can’t. I’m not strong enough!”

What if … there were a way to improve the Oathpact? the Wind asked. Nale could sense the fear in her voice … in the many voices of the windspren gathered to watch. What if there were a way for your minds to go somewhere else?

“Hmm …” Ishar said, as the Wind perhaps showed him something Nale couldn’t see. “You’ve been thinking about this a long time, haven’t you …”

I have had a great deal of time to think, Ishar.

“It could work. Nale, help me up.”

Nale did so, lifting Ishar, who suddenly seemed frail in a way no Herald ever should. They looked upon a sorry scene. Swords scattered across the ground. Stormblessed, collapsed, his hand smoldering, several fingers missing. Szeth in worse shape, his arm gone all the way to the shoulder, his clothing burned away on one side, the skin beneath scored and blackened. Sylphrena was lying on her back—she appeared whole, yet was sobbing.

A black sword. Full of Investiture, mumbling to itself in a daze. Ishar limped to his own sword, which he’d dropped in the chaos. He hesitated before touching it.

“Perhaps you should place them,” he said to Nale. “I … don’t feel like myself when I touch its power.”

Nale did as asked, taking each Honorblade and placing it in the circle until all nine stood in their slots. All but Jezrien’s.

“The Wind has suggested a way to avoid the torture, Nale,” Ishar said. “Impossible while Honor lived, but with some of his power siphoned off as Retribution asserts himself …”

Nale spun. “How?”

“I have studied the Stormfather’s visions,” Ishar explained. “The Wind has suggested that I create something similar. Though our souls will return to Braize, our minds are separate—and I can place them inside a vision, freed from whatever our souls or bodies might feel. With delicacy, this can be hidden from the Shards. I think I can do it, if Ash and Pralla help.”

Nale rushed back to Ishar, taking him by the arm. “You mean …?”

“We could perhaps have peace between Returns,” Ishar said. “Instead of torture. Retribution will certainly seek vengeance against us if we bind him, and will attempt to make us break the pact, but if he cannot find our minds …”

Something deep within Nale trembled at that idea. Peace. He had not known it for so long.

“Will it work?” Nale asked. “Truly work?”

“I cannot guarantee it,” Ishar said, “but I think it will. Old friend. Can you summon the courage to try?”

Old friend. They had not begun as friends. He had considered Ishar haughty. Perhaps he had been. Perhaps some of that remained. But friends, now. Yes, that was right.

But what of Nale’s courage? He opened his mouth, but thought he heard …

He thought he heard the sound of flutes.

“I will try,” Nale whispered.

“Good, good,” Ishar said. “Come. It will be the end of all spren if we do not do something. Honor must be preserved.” Ishar knelt by Szeth. Nale joined him, prodding delicately at the man’s wounds. They weren’t quite like burns; more like necrosis.

“Szeth lives,” Nale said, “but he needs Regrowth. I have a fabrial—”

“But no Stormlight,” Ishar said.

“No Stormlight.” Nale deflated. During the confrontation, either Ishar, the sword, or Stormblessed had consumed it.

“Once Szeth is a Herald, this body will be meaningless anyway,” Ishar said. “We proceed.”

Nale turned Szeth onto his back. His head rolled, limp. He breathed, barely. “Can he do it? He must speak the Words.”

No, the Wind said. He cannot.

A sound rumbled in the east. Nale looked, and saw darkness growing in the sky. Like a bruise on the heavens themselves. “You said no more storms, Ishar!”

“I said no more highstorm,” Ishar whispered. “But there is another storm. Now the only storm. The Night of Sorrows has come, Nale. The True Desolation is here.”

“The True Desolation?” Nale said, cradling Szeth in his lap. “Ishar, what … what good is it to fight now? Why struggle? Why care? The Stormfather is gone. Jezrien is gone. We have lost, finally. Honor is dead. ”

“Yes,” a quiet voice said. “Honor is dead.”

Both Heralds spun to see Kaladin Stormblessed slowly pushing himself up to a seated position, hair disheveled, blue uniform rumpled, dirt on his face. He looked at his right hand, what was left of it, and grimaced. Then he sighed and heaved himself to his feet.

“But,” Stormblessed said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Kaladin, feeling like the crusted stuff on the inside of a cauldron after a stew got burned, trudged across the empty field and knelt beside Syl.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“He’s dead,” she whispered. “My father is … dead. And I’m not sure if I ever really knew him …”

She glanced at him, and as she did, he saw a storm in her eyes. Not a metaphoric one, but actual lightning and swirling clouds, filling them. In a moment, she wore something very different. A regal gown, fit for … for a queen.

“I can’t protect the spren, Kaladin,” she said. “Odium holds Honor’s power. We are now part of … of him. He will take us to him, destroy us, Unmake us.”

“I think,” Kaladin said, “the Wind has prepared a solution for that. Haven’t you?”

I’m sorry. I should not ask … but I do. This is the only solution I could think of to prevent the danger that I sensed.

Syl sat up, and hesitated. “The last remnants of Honor lie here, in the hands of a broken circle of broken men and women. I see. Damnation, Kaladin. I see.”

“An Oathpact could stop what is coming?” Kaladin asked.

The original one worked because most of the Heralds had once been chosen by Odium, and could leverage that Connection to bind him, the Wind said, blowing across him. An oath here, now that he’s Retribution, should do the same. Maybe. Please. Don’t hate me.

Kaladin gritted his teeth and stood, forming fists—or trying, since one of his hands didn’t work anymore, and he felt only numbness from it.

He faced into the Wind. “Will the spren really die if this is not done?”

Yes, the Wind whispered. Dalinar Kholin is dead. Cultivation has been freed from the planet, and runs, fearful of what she has done. Honor and Odium combine. Retribution will absorb all of the power, and will create weapons from it. New Unmade. Terrible Unmade.

Kaladin took a deep breath. “What do you need me to do?”

Syl took his arm, and when he looked to her, he saw tears on her cheeks. Actual tears. How?

“Are you sure, Kaladin?” Syl whispered. “You know what it will mean? For you to …”

Storms. Was she saying …?

Yes. He had known it the moment he stood up.

“We cannot ask this of you,” Syl whispered.

Kaladin steeled himself. “But I can offer.”

“You spent all this time learning that you can’t sacrifice yourself for everyone else,” she said. “You can’t do this.”

“Pardon,” he said gently, placing his hand on hers, “but that is not what I learned, Syl.”

She looked up at him.

“I learned that I don’t have to make that sacrifice,” he explained. “I can’t protect everyone, and I have made peace with that. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to do what I can, and I’ve learned that I can help without losing myself. You spren have given your entire lives to your Radiants. I can repay that now.” He faced the Wind again. “Dalinar is really dead?”

Yes. And I cannot feel Navani or the Sibling.

Syl shivered, tears rolling farther down her cheeks. Had he ever seen her cry before?

Kaladin closed his eyes. “The people will have nothing left. No storm, no god, no king … They must be given some kind of hope.” He opened his eyes and met Syl’s. “What do you need me to do. ”

“You will need to say the Words,” she whispered.

“Stormblessed?” Nale asked.

Kaladin turned to see Nale gingerly lowering Szeth, unconscious, to the ground. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” Nale said. “Ishar’s plan to protect our minds might not work. We could be going to torture. Even if not … it could be centuries until we return. Everyone you know and love will be dead by then.”

Kaladin’s heart trembled. Bridge Four … his family …

“It should be him,” Nale said, nodding to Szeth. “He has no Connections left. He has been prepared for this.”

Kaladin crossed the patch of too-springy ground. He knelt and rested his fingers on Szeth’s wounded shoulder. “No. He cannot bear this.”

“But—” Nale began.

“He chose peace,” Kaladin said, “not war. Heralds must fight, and he needs to heal.” He felt the wind blowing across him. “I cannot protect everyone. But I can protect him. ”

Ishar, kneeling nearby, looked up at Kaladin. “Child? You really think you can replace Jezrien, our king?”

Kaladin rose and carefully slid Nightblood’s sheath back onto him. The sword didn’t seem to be awake; instead it was in a stupor. From there, Kaladin walked to his pack and dug inside, finding something soft at the bottom.

“Jezrien was the greatest of men,” Ishar said. “Our guide and our leader. I prepared Szeth for over a decade. You cannot take the place of a king like Jezrien.”

“To think,” Kaladin said softly, “that you have lived millennia and you haven’t learned a simple truth.” He pulled a deep blue cloak from the pack, the tower and the crown emblazoned on the back. “Nobility has nothing to do with blood, Ishar. But it has everything to do with heart.”

Kaladin stood up and threw the cloak over his shoulders. It swept through the air, and he felt the Wind making it float around him.

The spren were there when you needed us, the Wind said to him. Please. They are so afraid.

“It’s all right,” he said. He took a deep breath, and started toward the ring of swords. “I’m here.”

Syl fell into step next to him. “No one can tell you the Words.”

“Fortunately, I know them.”

Wind blew around him, and he … he remembered that wind. He remembered it blowing as he first picked up a spear, long ago, and before that when he was a child first holding a quarterstaff. Kaladin stepped through a version of himself, that youthful version everyone had called Kal. For he was part of Kaladin.

The wind had been there on the day he’d killed Helaran and saved Amaram. The last day Squadleader Kaladin had existed. Kaladin walked through that old version of himself. For he was part of Kaladin.

He remembered the wind blowing in his face, trying to force him back from the Honor Chasm. He remembered thinking about how it had worked to keep him from taking those steps. That version of Kaladin appeared, the wretch, the slave. Kaladin strode through him, for he was part of Kaladin.

The wind had been there with him when he’d fought Szeth in the clouds. Kaladin Stormblessed, Radiant. Kaladin strode through that man, for that man was part of him.

The wind had been there when he’d fought the Pursuer after Teft’s death—that day when Kaladin had almost given in to Odium. That version of Kaladin appeared, his eyes burning yellow-red. Kaladin strode through that figure, for it was yet another element of him, and he should not forget.

The Wind had always been there. Holding its breath at some important moments, but blowing alongside him gloriously during others. If he did not act, Retribution would kill it, and Syl, and all of them. Kaladin had to hide the Wind, the Heralds, and the last bits of Honor away. Protect them.

Until the time was right to Return.

Yes, he knew the Words. Not an Ideal of any set of Radiants. Something more daunting. A last version of Kaladin appeared in front of him, a terrifying, glorious being.

Kaladin. Herald.

“I,” Kaladin whispered, walking through that version, “accept this journey.”

The air split with a crack of thunder. When the reply came, it was Syl’s voice. These Words are accepted.

“That isn’t what we said,” Nale said.

“The important part is not the Words themselves,” Kaladin said. “It is, again, the heart. Thousands of years, and I’d think you would know this.”

Kaladin thrust out his broken hand—withered, with only the thumb and two fingers remaining—as he reached the ring of weapons. Syl, in turn, thrust her hand forward, near his and right below it. A white-blue spear of light formed in their hands—both Kaladin and Syl gripping it.

Together, they rammed it into the ground in the open spot of the ring. The light faded, creating a tall, silvery spear—not the one he’d been using, though it had echoes of the design. This hadn’t been made from Syl; this had been created, like the Honorblades, from Honor.

Ishar walked to his sword and placed his hand on it. Nale on his. And then … Kaladin felt the others. Terrified, but released from a small portion of their darkness. He felt Ishar reach out to them, and offer something vital.

Redemption.

A ghostly figure strode forward as if from nothing. A tall, muscular man. Taln? His hand went to his sword. He was the first back into the ring. Others followed, people Kaladin didn’t know. A woman in a havah with long black hair, another with red hair, and a third with tan skin and a book under one arm. Then Ash, and even Kalak, though his image was almost completely transparent. The very last was a woman with a shaved head, a curious expression on her face.

Each had come to the call. Despite everything they had survived, they listened, and they responded.

Yes. He could help these people.

He felt something Connect inside him. Warmth flooded through Kaladin, like the warmth of Stormlight, but less about motion, more about … stability. Gloryspren burst into existence above him, and then a ring of light, made of a thousand windspren. Ribbons, like Syl sometimes became. No faces, and no laughter. Making a spinning whirlpool of light. Kaladin looked down at himself, and found that he was glowing.

Thank you, the Wind said. Herald.

“Kaladin,” Syl said. “Your eyes.”

“What about them?”

“Dark brown,” she whispered, her hand raised to touch his face. “Like they used to be.”

Kaladin smiled, then turned to see the other Heralds had vanished—all but Ishar and Nale. “It worked,” Nale breathed. “I can feel it. The Oathpact …”

“Reforged,” Ishar said. He hesitated a moment, then lifted his arm to gesture toward Kaladin. “Welcome, Kaladin Stormblessed. Herald of Kings. Herald of the Wind. Herald of …”

“Herald,” Kaladin said, “of Second Chances.”

Nale smiled, nodding.

All fell still.

“Now what?” Kaladin asked.

“Now,” Ishar said, “I must make you immortal. And then we must leave this world.”