Chapter 19

A land where the king was a holy man, and was concerned with the plight of the farmer beyond the appropriation of taxes.

—From The Way of Kings , fourth parable

S zeth-son-Honor continued to wear white clothing.

That was no longer mandated. Dalinar had said he could wear what he wanted, and though Szeth was a Skybreaker, he had no uniform. Even during training and official functions, they’d wear the uniform of the local guard or constables.

Still, Szeth wore filmy white clothing that flapped in the wind as they flew. Still, Szeth shaved his head each day, and found the faintest prickle of stubble on his scalp an annoyance. Did he do these things because he wanted to, or because they were now tradition? Life could be so full of distracting, meaningless small decisions while the large ones—such as determining his duty to his people—were so hard.

So he pretended it was right to continue his routines. If they were wrong—if instead he should have a preference among many tiny options … well, that made him shudder to his core.

He did like flying though. During the days training with the Honorblades in his youth, taking to the sky had appealed to him most of all the powers. He and Kaladin-son-Lirin had flown far with the storm, before sleeping in a coalition camp near the base of the mountains.

Now, at last, they approached the Misted Mountains at the edge of Shinovar. They avoided the northern border, where Shin had been loosing arrows at anyone who drew too close. Szeth figured these southern farmlands would be better. It was also close to where he’d grown up, so he knew the region.

Within the rushing of the wind and the flapping of clothing in flight, he could not hear the voices whispering or screaming from the shadows. They’d been quiet for some time, so he thought he’d escaped them. It turned out they’d simply been lying in wait.

“Is that the pass?” Kaladin’s voice came to him, cutting through the noise, perfectly audible. Windrunning permitted sculpting airflow. Such conveniences were no longer available to Szeth. Nale had granted him leave to use Division, now that Szeth had reached the Third Ideal. Unfortunately, Szeth’s spren had so far forbidden him the art, although he had the skill. His spren said the time wasn’t right.

Regardless, it was the correct pass, and seeing it made Szeth tremble. He and Kaladin lowered to some twenty feet off the ground, then proceeded, mountains on either side. They passed stonewalker plants for now—short, stout trees with leaves pulled in before the wind. Grass in tufts behind boulders or lying low in burrows.

But soon … soon they’d see …

Soil. Dirt breaking the stone. Mud running alongside washes, sediment filling the bottom of fissures. Here was where the highstorms finally surrendered, Shinovar bringing the great eastern tyrant of the skies to his knees. A place where the lazy rainfall—like a corpse that had already bled out—no longer contained the minerals that hardened into cremstone.

Here life could truly flourish. Szeth’s breath caught, and two gloryspren appeared above him, as he spotted mosses growing on rocks, leading to a few scraggly weeds alongside the wash. Szeth cried out despite himself and canceled his Lashings, dropping with a thump to this patch of soil. After so many, many years, his booted feet fell not on blasphemous stone.

He hadn’t realized how it would overwhelm him. He fell to his knees before the dandelions and stared at them.

Kaladin alighted on a rock nearby, confusionspren—like streaks of violet extending from a central point—expanding behind him. He couldn’t know how beautiful this tiny plant was. Szeth reached out with trembling fingers and touched leaves that didn’t pull back.

“What’s wrong with that plant?” Kaladin asked. “Is this a sign of the problems in your homeland?”

“No,” Szeth whispered. “It is merely a weed. The most beautiful of weeds …”

Kaladin glanced to the side, where his spren landed and appeared as a full-sized human in a skirted Bridge Four uniform, leggings underneath reaching down to mid-thigh. Szeth had not asked why she chose that form. It was not for him to question.

“Szeth,” said a voice.

His spren. A highspren.

He still did not know its name. It had never been offered. It was not a distinction the highspren gave lightly, though some other Skybreakers had been granted the names of their spren.

“This emotion is unfitting of your station,” the spren said, audible and visible only to him. “Do not spoil your dignity with base sentimentality. You serve the law.”

Szeth, with effort, forced his hand away from the plant. He stood up. Voices. Had there ever been a time when his life hadn’t been ruled by voices? Would he even know what to do if they stopped?

“You all right?” Kaladin said, hopping off his rock.

Oh, I’m fine! said the sword strapped to Szeth’s back. Thank you. Nobody has been paying attention to me today, but I’m famously patient. It comes from being a sword.

Kaladin ignored the comment, stepping closer to Szeth.

“My spren,” Szeth said, “wishes me to show better composure. I obey.”

Szeth did not ask an explanation of the spren. He was Truthless no longer, but he still did as his masters required. He simply trusted that in the highspren and Dalinar, he had chosen better masters.

He stepped away as Kaladin knelt by the plant, Syl bending down next to him. The rising sun behind sent sunlight streaming through this valley into Shinovar, the land that swallowed that sun each night. Light created shadows—in the leeward side of stones, in crevices, and beneath the very blades of grass. As soon as he saw that, the whispers started once more.

Voices of those he’d killed. Condemning him.

Kaladin poked the plant with his toe. Then again. “I knew about these,” he said to his spren. “Everyone mentions them. But it’s so strange. Shouldn’t it have been eaten by something?”

“Maybe it tastes really bad,” Syl said. “Maybe that’s why there are fewer proper plants in Shinovar. Our plants get eaten first, because they’re delicious.” She leaned over farther and tapped the plant, proving substantial enough to make it quiver.

“It’s like a painting,” Kaladin whispered.

“Or a statue,” Syl said. “You think it was Soulcast? That it was once a real plant, and someone made it into this?”

Kaladin shook his head, then lifted his boot. Szeth found it amusing how Kaladin rammed his foot down, then stopped with a jerk a fraction of an inch from the plant. Trying to get it to flinch.

This is a man, Szeth thought, who pulls back before crushing a weed.

“No wonder you broke and gave up the spear,” Szeth said, “leaving your friends to battle without you. You have grown into a coward, then?”

Kaladin pulled up sharply. “You shouldn’t say such things.”

“I should not speak truth?” Szeth said, genuinely curious. “Or are you saying I am not the one to tell you these things, as I have no authority over you? Interesting.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Szeth,” Kaladin said.

“Then you should stop talking,” Szeth replied. “Because if you cannot explain what you mean, then why voice silly thoughts?”

Szeth walked on, and reminded himself not to underestimate this man’s skill. Kaladin deserved at least some of his fearsome reputation. Before Szeth had died his first death, he had faced this man, fighting amid debris and breaking plateaus, red lightning crashing against white. Because of that day, Szeth’s soul remained only loosely connected to his body—though his afterimage was less pronounced now. As if he were slowly healing from that revival.

“I think these plants are neat,” Syl said. She seemed to be trying to distract Kaladin from his annoyance at Szeth—which was an odd emotion to be displaying in the face of true statements expressed clearly.

“I suppose we’ll get used to them,” Kaladin finally said, flying ahead without stepping on any plants. “They’re supposed to be all over Shinovar, hiding among the normal plants.”

Szeth hesitated. He couldn’t help asking. “Hiding among normal plants?”

“What?” Kaladin said, turning in the air. “Oh. They can’t hide, because they don’t move? Still seems strange to me that they can survive. I know the storms aren’t strong here, but people and animals are going to step on them.”

“They’re more resilient than you think,” Szeth said.

“Yeah, but once the real plants retract,” Kaladin said, “these will be sitting out in the open. Like the lone soldier in a company with no armor on.”

Szeth contained his amusement—his spren would not be happy to see such an emotion—and instead joined Kaladin flying along the pass. Soon they reached a point where the path turned steeply downward, giving them a view—for the first time—of Shinovar itself.

Greenery covered the landscape. Vines across the valley walls; grass waving on the path. Trees below in a vast forest along the slope—beyond that the expansive open prairies of the lowlands. Kaladin and Syl landed beside Szeth.

“Here,” Szeth said, “these are the normal plants. There are none like those you are accustomed to.”

“… All of them?” Kaladin said.

“All of them.”

An awespren burst around Kaladin, then he started down the path, obviously excited. Szeth followed, though not because he was excited. This was merely where he had to be.

The whispers followed.