Chapter 146

But it was not a complete success, as I have not heard the Wind—neither has Szeth—in years. Save that one whisper.

Regardless, she lives, so perhaps the Oathpact, as it was, held well enough? Even without Szeth to fill the hole?

Or perhaps, as champion of the Wind, Kaladin was able to do something in the end right before he died, which turned Retribution’s ire from the spren.

—From Knights of Wind and Truth, page 290

S igzil sat in the medical rooms of Urithiru with Kaladin’s father. The officer on watch had sent him here, despite Sigzil’s insistence there was nothing a surgeon could do for him. Losing his spren wasn’t a physical ailment.

Still, Lirin examined him. The world itself could be ending, and this man just kept seeing patients. Sigzil hunched forward on the surgical table, sensing that hole inside and agonizing over what he’d done. Though his plan had worked, and the generals had commended him on salvaging a terrible situation, he didn’t feel it. He felt awful.

“You’re talking to the wrong surgeon, I’m afraid,” Lirin said, walking to his cupboard. “My son is training to help with mental and emotional ailments. His strategies for dealing with loss will help more than my medicines. That said, you might have trouble sleeping, and for that I can offer—”

The door slammed open.

Wit stood on the other side, wide-eyed, puffing, sweat trickling down his face.

“Excuse me?” Lirin said. “This surgery room is off-limits to even you. I need to maintain—”

“Dalinar is dead,” Wit snapped. “The Sibling is going into another self-protective coma. The world is ending. So if you please, Lirin, shut up. ”

What? Dalinar had lost ? Sigzil, in his haze of pain, hadn’t been paying attention to much—he was barely aware that a day had passed since losing Vienta.

Wit shoved Lirin out the door and slammed it. He dashed up to Sigzil and took him by both arms. “Kid, I need you. I really, really need your help.”

“Wha … what?” Sigzil asked. “Why are—”

“Listen to me,” Wit hissed. “In a frighteningly short amount of time, the power that Odium holds is going to identify me as the only thing on the planet that can harm him. The power bears a grudge, even though its vessel has changed. It’s going to vaporize me.”

“Wit?” Sigzil said. “I thought nothing could—”

“Pay attention,” Wit said, shaking him. “I’m holding something incredibly dangerous. Something that Odium absolutely cannot get access to. A power more ancient than any of the gods. Do you understand me? I need someone to take it. I need someone to bear it for a short time, until I can return for it. It can’t be a Radiant. It would be too dangerous, too much power in one person’s hands.”

“But … you’re a Radiant …”

“Smart as always.” Wit pointed one hand at him. “Sigzil,” he said, his voice growing solemn. “Old Dalinar has done something incredibly stupid. He made a gamble, and in so doing he unleashed a terror upon the entire cosmere. I don’t have time to explain all the ramifications, but we cannot let Odium have the Dawnshard. He is the last being in all the many worlds who should hold it.”

“And …” Sigzil said, his mind racing, the pain fading before this information. “And so you brought it here to his planet ?”

Wit took a deep breath, then nodded.

“Idiot,” Sigzil said.

“Guilty. Will you do it, Sigzil? Will you take it?”

Something came alight within him. A way to make up for his failings. “Yes, I’ll take it, Wit. I’ll do better this time. I’ll redeem myself.”

“Good lad,” Wit said. “It likes you. As much as its ilk can like anything. I don’t think it’s alive, not like a spren, or the power of the Shards. More … it likes you the way a subaxial electron likes a nucleus. Are you ready?”

Sigzil nodded.

“When Odium arrives,” Wit said, “his presence coalescing here will let me do something odd.” He held up a device made of several gears and what appeared to be glowing light—not trapped in a gemstone, but in an hourglass. “I’m sorry for how that will feel, but the Dawnshard should keep you alive. Get off this planet as soon as you can. Keep it away from him, Sig. Our only advantage is that he doesn’t know it’s here. Unfortunately, if he kills me while I hold it, he’ll discover the truth. You he’ll ignore. Hopefully.” He hesitated. “I’ll find you. I promise.”

Before Sigzil could ask for an explanation, he felt his soul tremble. The individual pieces of himself aligning as a force overlapped him. A vast, strange power, greater than a storm, or even a world, but capable of fitting inside a human heart.

It was ancient. Wonderful and terrible. It bore a single all-powerful directive, which thrummed through Sigzil.

Exist.

The room started to darken. Wit stuck the device to Sigzil and pushed him backward, knocking him over.

“Taravangian!” Wit said, spinning around and putting his hands to the sides in an innocent posture. “Have I told you about the time I—”

The god vaporized Wit in a wave of red mist.

It was the last thing Sigzil saw as he somehow fell into Shadesmar, dropping into a version of this room on the other side, surrounded by light and terrified spren.

Renarin stood on an upper floor of Urithiru, bathed in green-blue light. The entire room in front of him had filled with some kind of crystal, and his aunt Navani floated in the center of it, glowing. Frozen, eyes closed.

She appeared to be asleep. Although the tower continued to function as it had since awakening—lifts, pumps, lights all working properly, Towerlight available to Radiants here—they could not communicate with the Sibling or Navani. Jasnah knelt in front of Renarin, her hands against the glassy wall. He put his next to hers on the wall, and could hear his aunt’s heartbeat.

“Have you ever heard of anything like this?” Renarin asked Rlain and Jasnah.

“No,” Jasnah said. She looked exhausted. Deep bags beneath her eyes, makeup a mess, normally immaculate hair out of its braids. “No. But she seems alive. She has to survive … I need her …”

A dome of light as solid as this crystal surrounded the entirety of Urithiru, impassable. The Oathgates were inside that dome, but didn’t work. He’d been transported here with Rlain during their last functional moments.

He’d left Shallan behind by accident. How could he explain that to Adolin? Last word was that his brother lived, but that was when there had been Stormlight and spanreeds. Now silence reigned. No storms. No spanreeds. No knowledge of what anyone anywhere was doing.

They were completely cut off.

Rlain put a hand on his shoulder, and Renarin placed his atop it, taking strength from the singer’s presence. Finally, Jasnah stood. She nodded to them, then led them back to a nearby room, where Sebarial and Aladar waited. They looked to Renarin now that Navani was indisposed and Renarin’s father …

Renarin’s father …

He took a deep breath, then walked with Jasnah and the highprinces to the nearby stairwell. “I will not be your king,” Renarin whispered to them as they climbed those steps.

“But—” Sebarial said.

“Jasnah, I wish to adopt your system,” Renarin said. “Can we institute a representative government for Urithiru, as you have for the Alethi exiles here?”

“I will show you how,” she said softly.

“What?” Sebarial said. “But—”

“My brother and I refuse the throne,” Renarin said. “I won’t stand for a highprince to be elevated. We will have an elected senate and a Ministerial Exemplar.” He stopped, looking back at them. “I think you’ll find Brightness Jasnah’s writings on the topic to be quite thorough.”

“I’ve read them,” Sebarial said. “But if Queen Navani wakes, she’ll discover that most of her power has been stripped away! She’ll be furious.”

“ When my aunt wakes,” Renarin said, “she’ll accept that the world has progressed, and a queen can lead without being a ruler. I think you’ll find her excited by the prospect.” He turned to the still-glowing lights in the walls of Urithiru. “Besides, I expect she’ll have plenty to do.”

He continued up the steps, surprised by how confidently he spoke. Ordering around highprinces? Demanding they give up their power? But he couldn’t be king; he and Rlain had other work to do. Odium now ruled the world, and the singers had won—at long last—one of the Desolations.

Rlain intended to speak to their leaders on behalf of humankind. Renarin would join him. Assuming they could ever get out of this city.

Renarin emerged into the top room of the tower, and from there, took the steps to the roof. Together, he, Rlain, and Jasnah joined a small, solemn group at the railing. Gavinor, somehow fully grown, sat by it with Oathbringer across his lap, his eyes red.

It was so much to take in. Gavinor had been Odium’s champion? Add that to Navani being comatose, and … storms, Renarin had barely explained about Ba-Ado-Mishram. It was too much to deal with at the moment. Now … now he needed to deal with what was ahead of him. A few others had come to see the body, and they parted for Renarin.

He braced himself, took a deep breath, then knelt by the corpse of Dalinar Kholin.

Most of the damage to his body had been to his back, including the strikes of windblown stones to his skull that had killed him. Now lying face-upward on the roof, he appeared peaceful. Eyes closed.

Renarin closed his own eyes to the anguishspren floating around him and gave his father a final hug. Of the sort that Dalinar had always needed, despite everyone else—everyone but Renarin—thinking otherwise. Being strong didn’t mean that you didn’t need anyone. Those around you were the source of your strength.

“Thank you,” Renarin whispered to his father. “For being proud of me. For showing me the heights we can reach, regardless of the depths we once knew.”

“I hate that he died alone up here,” Aladar said, his voice rough, repeating a sentiment he’d mentioned earlier. “That we couldn’t help him.”

“He didn’t die alone, Aladar,” Renarin said, rising and turning toward the rest of them. “He … I …”

He looked to Jasnah. She nodded to him. So, as he’d told her, he took out his notes, reading what he’d written quickly while Jasnah had tried to get through the crystal to Navani.

“No hero dies alone,” Renarin read, written in halting words by his own hand, “for he carries with him the dreams of everyone who continues to live. Those dreams will keep my father company in the Beyond, where he taught us we go when we die. No continual war. No more killing. My father is finally at peace. And we live because of his sacrifice.”

He glanced up from his notes and smiled—weakly, sadly—as Rlain hummed to the Lost. Sebarial nodded.

Aladar, however, looked down, not meeting his eyes. “He failed, Renarin. I loved him too, but I can’t lie. He came up here to save humankind, and he failed. The enemy destroyed him, took the power, and won the very world. ”

“No more highstorm,” Teshav said. “You’ve seen the Everstorm growing?” Beneath them, a blackness was moving to cover the entire land. Everything but Urithiru itself. “The world is doomed. It’s inevitable now …”

Both sentiments, Renarin knew, would be prevalent in the years to come. His father would be remembered as a brave hero who failed.

Glys had another take on it.

He found a way forward, the spren said. The only way forward. I feel it, Renarin, but I do not understand it. I think we will eventually. I hope we will.

“My father,” Renarin said, looking back at his notes, “will, um, need to be Soulcast to stone. I have asked Jasnah to do it. So he can be set with the ancient kings of Urithiru, and someday—hopefully—moved to be with those statues at Kholinar, where his brother still stands.”

Renarin took another deep breath. He had seen his father burning in his visions, for some reason, not made into stone. They weren’t always right. But that didn’t mean they were always wrong either. Dalinar had died.

Rlain embraced him. Renarin appreciated it—because although embracing in front of others was embarrassing, they needed to see that singer and human could work together.

They started toward the steps. At the top of them, Renarin joined Jasnah in turning back to face the body—lying on blood-soaked blankets.

“I wanted you to see him up here,” Jasnah said. “Before we moved him.”

“Thank you,” Renarin said. “And thank you for letting me speak to the highprinces. I … I think I needed that.”

“We have difficult days ahead, Renarin,” Jasnah said, her voice strangely frail. “Days I hoped to prevent. But everything I’ve striven to achieve has collapsed, and everything I thought I knew … is no more …”

He raised his hand toward her, and let her nod before hugging her, as had always been their way.

“Come,” Jasnah said, walking back down. “Your father’s work is finished. Ours is merely beginning.”

Renarin followed. He would discover why his father had given up the power to the enemy. Because if Glys was right, then in that decision, they would find their only way forward. Into a future that, for once in a long while, Renarin knew nothing about.

Szeth-son-Neturo awoke in a land covered by darkness. Not pitch-black, but dark as the hateful hour, the time between moons. Crackling red lightning, more or less constant, gave some relief to the night. The ground trembled in a way he’d never experienced before. Rumbling periodically, like a counterpoint to the thunder. It felt like distant mountains collapsing.

He stared upward, thinking he must be dead, until the pain of his body convinced him otherwise. He groaned, reaching with his left hand to probe at his pained side, and found his right arm was gone, and even part of his shoulder. The skin was tender, and the wrongness of the missing limb was disorienting. Like being in a nightmare, or in someone else’s body.

He rolled over, his clothing loose and burned. Then he groaned again as he found the corpse of Kaladin Stormblessed on the ground nearby. No breath, no pulse, his eyes pits of blackness. The Honorblades and Heralds were gone.

Szeth bowed his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “After all you did for me, Ishu killed you, didn’t he?”

Szeth wished he could find tears. He just felt … so overwhelmed. So numb. Did that mean he was callous?

“Sylphrena?” he called. “Sylphrena, are you here?”

Nothing. What was wrong with the Everstorm? Why did it not move?

Szeth? A quiet, frail voice.

Szeth cried out at hearing something familiar. He crawled, one-handed, shuffling and searching until he found Nightblood, sheathed, on the ground.

Szeth. I killed him, didn’t I? I killed Kaladin …

“No,” Szeth said. “His eyes were burned. He was stabbed by a Shardblade, Nightblood. You took a few of his fingers, but you didn’t kill him. You stopped. ”

But you … your arm …

“A price I paid to save my family,” he said. “ You did that. You freed them.”

I … did?

Szeth clutched the sword, holding it close in his left hand as he stumbled to his feet on an empty field. The horses had fled, taking the wagon with them, leaving only Kaladin’s pack.

Upon looking through that, he found …

A small woolen sheep. And a carved wooden toy horse. Szeth held both up with one hand, by light of the Everstorm, and finally found tears to weep.

Eventually, he wiped his eyes. “The Heralds …”

Gone, Nightblood said. I felt them being destroyed by … by something powerful, Szeth. Something amazingly powerful. More powerful than anything I’ve ever felt. A new god. That is him, in the sky.

Szeth gazed up at blackness. The ground trembled again, enough to make him stumble. Once it subsided, he looked toward Kaladin. He would … have to find help to bury the man. He couldn’t manage it one-handed with no tools.

What do we do? Nightblood asked.

“I was told to live better,” Szeth said. “And I will. My people will need help with what is to come, and I believe there are still better Skybreakers to be found.”

And so Szeth-son-Neturo, the last bearer of Truth of Shinovar, put his sword to his shoulder and started walking. He’d find help to bury Kaladin, then seek the more populated parts of Shinovar—and there, do his best to provide answers to a nation of people who were certain to be confused and afraid.

Jasnah trailed through her rooms in Urithiru.

Her uncle’s death loomed large. She felt … like she’d failed him, and herself, in multiple ways. Jasnah, who had prided herself on being the first Radiant of this generation, had been unable to help either Bondsmith in the end. She had also failed in protecting Thaylen City.

She’d given up the Shattered Plains, recognizing that a treaty was the best choice—but that was inconsequential without the Oathgates. She’d once imagined rebuilding Alethkar as a nation in the Unclaimed Hills, but she’d ceded the habitable land to the listeners. And again, without Oathgates, her people couldn’t travel there. They’d have to be declared citizens of Urithiru. Alethkar was, finally and irretrievably, lost.

Fortunately, not everything had failed her. Her opposition to the Vorin religion and deity in general was—at the moment—one of her only stable touchstones. But her moral philosophy …

I let my position of authority guide me to believe I knew what the greatest good was. That I was capable of making that decision for others.

The greater good … regardless of the means used to reach it … That wasn’t the answer. It never had been. She’d dedicated her life to an ideal she didn’t, deep down, believe. Storms. Dalinar’s way might not have been the best way, but hers … hers was full of holes.

She sat on the edge of her bed, exhausted, alone. Ivory was consulting with the Radiant spren trapped in the tower, trying to figure out what all this would mean—and if there was a way to speak to the Sibling or Navani.

Jasnah climbed through exhaustionspren into her bed, feeling drained, overwhelmed.

She found a note on the pillow.

I’m sorry, it said in Wit’s handwriting. You are right, and your letter to me was—characteristically—full of wisdom and excellent deductions. I accept that we cannot continue as we have …

Goodbye. It might be a great long time before we see one another again, if ever.

She laughed. Because what else could she do? Her letter had explained all the logical reasons they were bad for one another—but at this moment, all she wanted was someone to hold. She pulled the covers around herself. Her father was long dead. Her mother was in a coma. Her brother had been slain. Her uncle had died failing to protect the planet. And now, even Wit was gone.

Worst of all, Taravangian had been right. At every point, he had been right. About her. About everything.

She hadn’t felt so utterly alone since that day she’d been locked away as a child. And there was no one to dry her tears as she shook, trying to hold it back, curled up in her bed. Overwhelmed, worn out, and—worst of all— wrong.

Venli sat at the edge of the main plateau of Narak, looking toward a sunset she could not see. Black clouds and red lightning stretched in all directions, blocking the sunlight.

A day had passed since Odium’s Ascension to Retribution. He had spoken to them, via messenger. He would be in touch. For now, the listeners were allowed his Light to fuel their powers, should they wish it. The messenger also explained that they could use it to grow crops, as Stormlight had once done.

They received this Light once a day, at midnight, by placing their spheres beneath the sky and asking him to bless them. Retribution asked for nothing in exchange, and had promised he did not see himself as their god. Only an interested party wishing to offer them help.

They had done as instructed last night, testing his word, and now had filled gemstones. With that, they could survive in this land. Their need to do so, however, worried her. Would that she had her sister’s wisdom to advise. She thought of Eshonai, and watching the sunset together on these plateaus.

Thinking of her gave Venli a sense of peace. Even with the terrible storm. And she wondered … was this what redemption felt like? This uncertainty that she could have done more, mixing with a thrill of having come home at last?

Timbre thrummed to Hope.

Venli’s mother approached—she’d gone to get tea—and settled down, saying nothing, but offering a cup to Venli. Together they hummed.

This may not be redemption, Venli thought. Not yet. Maybe just … atonement. The redemption comes later, after we see if I can keep improving.

The treaty sat beside her, in its waterproof pouch. Eshonai hadn’t been able to get the humans to listen, but somehow Venli had. It wasn’t a competition, and she had to keep that in mind. But this land was theirs again.

“Venli!” a voice called. She turned to see Bila waving to her. Venli looked to her mother, who hummed to Tension.

They went running past lounging chasmfiends—including some who had just arrived, carrying more listeners here from the edge of the plateaus. She also passed a couple of Fused who hadn’t left yesterday, when El had called the retreat. They had asked to stay. That group included the Husked One she ’d seen the other night on the plateau, staring at the sky.

He had been a farmer many thousands of years ago, and was now chatting with them—animated in a way he hadn’t been before. Venli ran past him to the building where, using Retribution’s gifted Light, she’d secretly made a passage downward, and had found the underground pool to be empty.

Now, with her mother and Bila, she reached the pool and found the strange too-thick liquid returning. Welling up from the ground. The color was different, a brilliant black-blue. A new tone accompanied it, pulsing to a new rhythm. The … Rhythm of War? She knew its name instinctively.

“What does it mean?” Thude asked her, looking up from where he knelt by the gathering pool of blue-black liquid light.

“It means,” she said softly, “that we have a very powerful duty, Thude. Our little land is going to be important to the coming world.”

“Why can’t anyone ever just leave us alone?” Bila asked.

“That’s not how the world works, Bila,” Venli said. “We have to be part of life. I guess … that’s what our leaders decided, along with Eshonai, all those years ago when they went to meet the humans. Yes, our ancestors walked away.” She looked to the light. “We, in turn, have to come back. We make a nation, a strong one, for any singer who wants to join us. Anyone who seeks to listen, and hear, the peaceful rhythm in the stillness of the storm’s heart.”

The others nodded, humming to Determination, as they watched the new god’s power fill this hidden well.