Chapter 21

First, I dared not tell them this dusty traveler with whom they shared a meal was in fact that very king they had heard of. The second was that I did not explain that very king had abdicated his throne and walked away from his kingdom.

—From The Way of Kings , fourth parable

S hallan and her team—the best she had, without Vathah and Ishnah, who were still in Shadesmar—spent the next few hours planning. Then it was finally time.

Her team of five made their way to an Oathgate outside Urithiru, hiding among a larger group of soldiers being transferred to Narak to reinforce it. She led with outward confidence, though deeper inside she acknowledged she was terrified. Mraize and Iyatil had manipulated her before. They had a nearly supernatural understanding of politics on Roshar—including the politics between gods.

Where other groups had made bids for kingdoms, the Ghostbloods made bids for worlds—or for control of economic forces as big as those worlds. This was what terrified Shallan. Not the things that she worried they’d do. The things she was too ignorant to worry they’d do.

These thoughts haunted her, accompanied by anxietyspren, as light flashed around them and they transferred to Narak—the city at the center of the Shattered Plains. It had been a year and a half since Dalinar’s fateful expedition and the events that had summoned the Everstorm. Since then, Narak had become a fortress. With Stonewards, they’d expanded the Oathgate platform a good ten feet. Then it and each of the central cluster of plateaus had been turned into a defensive bastion lined by Soulcast walls, attended by troops in towers.

A lighteyed captain shouted at them to get moving, seeing Shallan and the other four as just another squad of spearmen. They hiked off the Oathgate platform with the others, entering the new ring of ground around the plateau where people could wait their turn to transfer. Here Shallan and her team broke off, heads up, acting like they belonged. They crossed the bridge to Narak Four, a nearby plateau that had its own towering circular wall.

“Looks like a chouta roll,” Red said from behind her.

“What are you on about?” Gaz said.

“The walls around these plateaus,” he said. “Makes them look like a bunch of chouta rolls. You know, open at the top? Stuffed with meat.”

“And we’re the meat?” Darcira asked, her voice masked by a Lightweaving to sound masculine.

“Sure,” Red said.

“They’re too stocky to look like chouta,” Darcira said. “More like shalebark ridges. Oh! Tree stumps, where the center has rotted out.”

“Or, you know,” Gaz grumbled, “like the warcamps. Where we lived for years?”

“Oh, yeah!” Red said.

“Circular walls,” Darcira said, “soldiers everywhere … Nah, don’t see it.”

“You two are buffoons,” Gaz said. “I should have stayed a storming deserter. At least out in the wilds, everyone was too depressed to make small talk.”

Shallan hushed them as they reached the end of the bridge, where they presented falsified orders to the sergeant and scribe on watch at the gate. Darcira had waved them into existence on a sheet, a perfect replica. Though Shallan, via Adolin, had permission from the Bondsmiths, she wasn’t going to trust anyone she didn’t need to. Anyone here could be in Ghostblood employ.

The sergeant waved Shallan and her group through, and they entered Narak Four: a distinctive plateau covered in ancient buildings once so enveloped in crem that they’d looked like smooth mounds. A little creative application of Shardblades had unearthed the original stone buildings, providing room for barracks and a small marketplace, carefully regulated by Navani and the military.

Shallan and her team made a show—for the sergeant idly watching by the gates—of walking to their assigned barrack. They came out on the other side wearing the faces and clothing of crem scrapers: the easy-to-ignore, lowly workers that kept a place like this clean. As they moved into position, they were joined by Jayn—a Riran woman whom Shallan had recruited to the Unseen Court eight months ago. She’d been sent ahead to watch the Ghostblood hideout.

“They’re continuing to gather, Brightness,” Jayn said softly, also disguised as a crem scraper. “I’ve seen five or six people enter the building over the last half hour.”

Shallan nodded. Reports said someone was at the doorway, using black sand to check everyone who entered. That made Lightweaving tricky, as the sand could reveal uses of Radiant powers.

To maintain their disguises, her team began leveling a patch of road near the hideout with chisels, removing the crem, plants, and lichens that grew on the stone. Gaz used posts with string between to section off their working area, diverting foot traffic, letting them chat without worrying about being overheard.

Shallan took the role of foreman, walking around, checking on the other five as they worked. In reality she watched that hideout, a supposed storehouse of no importance. Two more people arrived, including a shorter uniformed Alethi man she recognized from Hoid’s sketches. The second was a member of the Azish Prime’s retinue—a vizier even, though not one of the very important ones like Noura. Shallan took a Memory of him, so she could add a drawing of the man to their stack.

Mraize had rarely let Shallan meet anyone but him, isolating her from what was proving to be a distressingly large network, including people among most of the major political organizations on Roshar. The best she knew, their primary goal was to find a way to begin shipping Stormlight offworld, but that—though likely a potential source of great riches—seemed too small-scale for Mraize and Iyatil.

The front door of the hideout had a sheltered porch, with a dark shadow just inside. When each new Ghostblood arrived at the door, a short, cloaked figure stepped from the shadows and inspected them. Shallan caught a hint of a painted wooden mask, and the shape of the figure looked female. That confirmed Darcira’s observations: it was either Iyatil or, more likely, the woman among the other two.

The door guard inspected each of the two newcomers by touching their faces to check for discrepancies in their features. Then they held up a jar of black sand.

Shallan huddled with Darcira, Gaz, Red, and Jayn as they labored. They pretended to be working on a particularly stubborn section of ground together while Jeneh kept watch. Their spren had instructions to ride on the insides of clothing to remain hidden.

“All right,” Shallan said. “This is our last chance to back out.”

“This won’t be like infiltrating the Sons of Honor,” Gaz added. “That group was already dying when we put them down. This might be the most dangerous organization on the planet. I … worry we should go to ground, hide from them. Wait out the coming storm. I’m not sure we’re ready.”

“What do the rest of you think?” Shallan asked.

“I think,” Red said, “that nobody ever feels ready for big operations. Storms, you think half those boys on the walls feel ready to fight a war? The question isn’t if we’re ready, but if it needs to be done.”

Gaz grunted. “That’s true, I suppose. Red, you need to stop saying things that are smart. You’ll upend my entire opinion of you.”

Red smiled, continuing to work with his chisel, scraping away crem. He had experience with tools like this, having trained as a craftsman during his youth.

“I think our plan is good,” Darcira said. “I say we move forward.” She was an unusual one, a scientist who had shown talent for Lightweaving and left the ardents to join Shallan. She was the only one in the Court who tended to draw logicspren as often as creationspren.

“I’m worried about how many people are in there,” Jayn said. “Shallan, you will be completely outnumbered. Do we really need to do this?”

“In just over eight days,” Shallan said softly, “Dalinar Kholin will fight the champion of Odium to decide the fate of the world. The Ghostbloods, best we can determine, are the most dangerous secret political force on the planet. So …”

“They’re going to be involved somehow,” Red said. “They’ll have some plan to compromise the contest. I’m in.” His spren hummed from where he rode on the inside of Red’s jacket. Array didn’t say much, and as far as Shallan had been able to tell, he didn’t hum when he tasted lies—he seemed to like alliteration of all things.

“Mraize and Iyatil are accustomed to the luxury of darkness and shadow,” Shallan said. “We need to expose them, naked for the world to see. So long as they have a monopoly on information, they will control us. And if we’re always reacting to them, never attacking, they will beat us.” She paused, some of Mraize’s own words returning to her memory. “Prey can only ever run. It can survive, but it can never win. Not so long as the predator lives.”

“Sure,” Gaz said, “but we could just send the Radiant strike team in. I hate relying on Windrunners for anything other than transportation—and then they still usually find a way to squeeze in a lecture or two. But … we could defer to them this time, Shallan.”

“We will use them,” Shallan said. “But Gaz, if we bring in soldiers first, then my gut says Mraize and Iyatil will find a way to escape. Even if they don’t, they’ll never talk. We could throw them in prison for a decade, and those two would keep their silence. I need to know what they’re planning. I need to get into that meeting.”

She’d learned some of what she hungered for, yes. Kelek, and her own recovered memories, gave her pieces—but there was so much more. Worlds’ worth. She thirsted for the chance to at least once hear them talking freely.

Beyond that … they were planning something. Why was that woman spying on Dalinar? Why did they want Ba-Ado-Mishram? Would bursting in with swords out and powers ablaze stop their plans? Maybe. Maybe not. It depended on what pieces were already in motion.

“Storm it,” Gaz said. “You’re right. I’m in.”

Gaz and Red were among her oldest friends, and among their most experienced Lightweavers. She knew Gaz well enough to tell his objections were real—he was concerned about this mission. But he also was objecting in part so that the concerns could be voiced, then overcome.

“I’m in too,” Jayn said. “Though the real danger is to you, Brightness.”

“I can handle it,” Radiant said. “We are a go, then. Hopefully they haven’t started discussing anything important.”

Her team had talked about this. The Ghostbloods couldn’t bring everyone over through the Oathgates at once. A group would draw too much attention, and since the attendees were still trickling in, she hoped Mraize was still waiting.

Darcira covertly checked her clock—which, like many scholars, she wore on one of Navani’s arm bracer fabrials. “The next Oathgate transfer is a bit over a half hour from now, and our surveillance spotted a few important members of the Ghostbloods—at least ones that Wit thought were important—hanging out in the grand entryway of Urithiru, as if waiting their turn. They’re likely to be in that next batch, which gives us just enough time to set up phase two.”

“Let’s work for a few minutes longer,” Gaz suggested. “Else it’s suspicious we set up here.”

Shallan nodded in agreement, and started to actually scrape. It was surprisingly hard work—but she did get a particularly defiant rockbud free, forcing her chisel underneath and finally prying it loose. A low rain had started to mist the air, though after the highstorm last night, the next wouldn’t be due for a few days. Weather had been odd since the coming of the Everstorm, and rain like this was more common.

Pattern hummed softly from within her jacket, though she couldn’t tell why. This next part would be difficult. She’d never heard of that strange black sand before their planning meeting earlier, but apparently it had been used to spot hidden spren toward the end of Urithiru’s occupation.

Whether the sand was in jars with guards, or sprinkled along the inside of windowsills, it would change color if any intelligent spren came near. Lesser spren apparently weren’t noticeable, but Cryptics absolutely would be. Worse, it revealed Lightweavings.

Shallan wasn’t terribly surprised—she’d seen Wit use something similar once, and had always wondered at the mechanics. Unfortunately, it meant she had to do the hardest part without her powers or her spren.

“Time to move, then,” Shallan said, standing. “Let’s go.”

Sigzil did his best to pretend he was Kaladin.

He stood tall during the long strategy meeting that followed the initial discussion of the monarchs, and he tried to act like he understood more than he did. Kaladin was always so sure of himself. He always knew the next step to take.

Sigzil couldn’t do that, but he could pretend enough to keep the anxietyspren away. Act like he belonged among monarchs, generals, and the storming Prime Aqasix of the Azish Empire .

Sigzil’s mother would laugh at him; he read the amusement in her letters. Him? A military man? Her studious little boy, so delicate and refined? Even in Azir, he’d been made fun of for his persnickety ways. Yet here he was, shoulder to shoulder with a group of generals.

“Someone,” he whispered to himself, “is going to eventually discover I’m a fraud, won’t they?”

“You’re not a fraud,” Vienta, his spren, whispered to him—remaining invisible, as she often did.

“I’m a failed scholar, a mediocre Worldsinger, and a persnickety perfectionist who drives the others up the wall. I …”

“Did you survive Bridge Four?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Through pain and storm, I survived.”

“Then you can survive this.”

“But to lead them?” he asked.

“What do you think,” she said softly, “was the result of that pain and fire? You are a leader now, Sigzil. You are a hero. Live that truth.”

As the meeting moved toward a break, Sigzil found himself standing with Kmakl, the Thaylen prince consort, at the edge of the large glowing map.

“What I don’t get,” Kmakl was saying to Ka, the Windrunner scribe, “is where their troops came from.”

Across the room, Brightlord Dalinar, Brightness Navani, Queen Jasnah, and Queen Fen retreated to a smaller chamber to discuss something sensitive. The Azish Prime had left a short time before, to return to his city. He wasn’t generally involved in detailed battle plans.

“Their troops get reborn,” Ka said, poring over the scout reports. She made notations with her silver pen, one of the most interesting uses of a Shardblade among the Windrunners to date. It had a cartridge to fill with ink and everything. She chose to wear a blue havah embroidered with the Bridge Four symbol on the shoulder, one of the new uniforms Kaladin had authorized.

There was an Azish-inspired one as well, which Sigzil could have worn. Their most recent recruits were from all across Roshar, and Sigzil himself had made the point that the Windrunners shouldn’t be perceived as an Alethi group. So why didn’t he wear that instead of the uniform he’d been given all those months ago? Was it because of the tattoo on his forehead?

Bridge Four was the only place I ever felt like a person rather than an accident, he thought. But without Kaladin, Rock, Teft, Moash … was it really Bridge Four anymore? All he wanted was to be back at that fire, sitting with his friends and listening to Rock gently make fun of him for counting the chunks of meat in bowls of stew to make sure everyone was getting proper nutrition.

“Brightlord?” Kmakl asked him. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” Sigzil said, clasping his hands behind his back, forcing his attention onto the logistics. “You were saying they have too many troops? I think Ka is correct. Their Fused can be reborn; they’ll always have more troops than we do.”

“True, true,” Kmakl said. “But with the number of Fused marching on the Shattered Plains, those troop transports coming for Thaylen City will be filled with ordinary singers. They’ll be thrown at our battle lines like bait to be caught in our nets. Poor souls. They have to be running out of frontline soldiers, don’t they?”

“Apparently not,” Ka said. “How do we distribute our Windrunners? Sigzil?”

“Thaylen City will need at least one squad, maybe an entire company,” Sigzil said. “The enemy will probably move some Skybreakers to the Shattered Plains, now that the blockade is broken, but an air force will guard those troop transports during the crossing. So we should be ready to match them once they reach Thaylen City, to not cede air superiority.”

He wished they had more variety to their Radiant forces. Yes, they had Windrunners and Edgedancers aplenty, and a growing force of Stonewards and Lightweavers. The other orders were largely empty though.

“The enemy will have a difficult landing at my homeland,” Kmakl said. “That’s when they’ll be most vulnerable. We’ll burn the docks and lay hull-rippers in the shallows. When they land, we go back to the walls.”

“They smashed those open with thunderclasts last time,” Ka noted. “But I have an idea. We could assign our Windrunners to another battlefield until the enemy arrives at yours—forcing them to waste Skybreakers guarding their ships for days.”

“A clever idea,” Kmakl said. “With Oathgates at both the Shattered Plains and Thaylen City, we can transfer troops between battlefields as necessary.” He glanced up, toward where the Azish contingent had been earlier.

Considering, perhaps, Sigzil thought, what the Mink said. About Azimir being a tougher defense than it looked. It would be the only one of the three unable to receive support from the other battlefields, as its Oathgate would soon cease functioning. At least they’d have an entire army arriving to help in a few days.

Sigzil had to worry about stretching his Windrunners too thin. The battle at the Shattered Plains was going to be a strange one, full of so many Fused. And somehow he had to lead that defense.

“We can use the Oathgates,” Ka noted, “but we will want to be very careful with them. We’ve had one too many instances of ‘Wait, how’d these pesky enemy forces get here in the squishy part of my rear lines?’ I think we should assign some people to keep talking to each Oathgate spren, to hopefully prevent any other defections. What do you think, Sigzil?”

What did he think? He glanced at her, and heard his spren’s words echoing in his mind.

Live that truth.

Storm him, it was time to stop being unsure of himself, wasn’t it? It was time to stop fidgeting. He’d been put in command.

He needed to act like it.

“I think you’re right,” he said. “And also … Ka, I have an idea about the defense of Narak. Where I’m in command. It’s a strange one, but I think it might work.”

“Excellent,” Ka said. “If so, we should run it past the Mink.”

Kmakl scanned the room. “I have some questions to ask him too. But … has anyone seen him?”

Storms. The little man had vanished yet again.

Jasnah—with Dalinar, Navani, and Fen—entered a room full of plants and bobbing lifespren.

It had once been an ordinary room, but upon the Sibling’s awakening, it had transformed. The stone of the ceiling looked transparent, replicating the sun—making you feel like you were standing beneath a skylight. But that sun didn’t move, and didn’t match the true position outside.

Fragments of glowing white light embedded in the stone made the walls and ceiling sparkle, and plants had begun to sprout from the stonework—vines and rockbuds, moss and even grass in patches. All growing with incredible speed.

“I heard of this place long ago,” Ivory said, his voice soft but audible from where he—shrunken to tiny size—rode on her earring. “The tower likes to experiment with what a room should be, building strange landscapes. I thought the stories fancies.”

“This is growing into something of a mess,” Dalinar said from the center of the room, where vines were curling around his legs. “Can we ask the Sibling to tone it down?”

“They’d rather not,” Navani said.

The room vibrated, and a quiet voice echoed from the air vents near the floor. “It is a room for my sister, should she visit. A room for the Nightwatcher.”

“Very well,” Dalinar said, with his firmest voice. His you really should listen to me and do as I say, but I’ll pretend you doing otherwise doesn’t bother me voice. “We appreciate your willingness to make the tower function.”

“I did not have much choice in the matter,” the Sibling said. “But I did have some. So you are welcome.”

Queen Fen took a chair from those piled near some tables on the far side, pulling it free of the foliage. They’d used this smaller chamber off the meeting room for storage. Jasnah stepped softly, trying to imagine the Nightwatcher visiting, enjoying the abundance of life. Had it ever happened? The Sibling and the tower had shut down just before the Recreance, over two thousand years ago.

“When was the Nightwatcher created?” Jasnah whispered to Ivory. “We call her the Old Magic, but how long has she been around? When did Cultivation form her?”

Before Ivory could answer, a voice whispered back from a nearby air vent. “The Nightwatcher came from the Night, as the Stormfather came from the Wind. Though, when I was young, the Wind was different. So very different.”

“When were you created, Sibling?” Jasnah asked.

“Some six thousand years ago, when the Stones wanted a legacy in the form of a child of Honor and Cultivation. Back when Bondsmiths bonded not to spren, but to the ancient forces, left by gods.”

“And the Stormfather?”

“Soon before me.”

“That’s inaccurate though,” Jasnah said. “Dalinar speaks of the Stormfather having existed when people first came to Roshar, seven thousand years ago. The Stormfather remembers that event, and detailed the timing.”

“It has been confusing,” the Sibling said, “to learn of all that has happened while I slept. I knew the Stormfather when he was young. I, formed from the Stone, which was the sibling of Wind and Night. The Night left. Few loved her, or even spoke of her, and it seems Mother replaced her with a being of some of the same essence. A new creature, unconnected to anyone’s perception.

“Now, the Stormfather has changed, and the Nightwatcher has not spoken to me as she used to. My siblings are no longer as I remember. I hate that.”

Something about those timelines itched at Jasnah. Something that made her want to gather the other Veristitalians and set them to work, searching for primary sources. First, though, her uncle had something he wanted to say. She and Navani turned to Dalinar, in the center of the room, who had his eyes closed. It looked as if he were hovering beneath a sea of lights, grass rippling around his feet.

“Uncle?” Jasnah asked.

“I am not ready,” he said, opening his eyes, “to fight Odium.”

“I don’t know what preparation we can make, given the deadline,” Navani said. “A deadline you agreed to.”

“Yes. I did.” He seized a chair from a stack beside some tables draped in tablecloths, the whole pile shifting as he jerked it free, and Jasnah heard a distinctive eep from them. They weren’t alone.

Of course they weren’t. That girl seemed able to wiggle in anywhere. Jasnah glanced into Shadesmar, and saw Lift there—manifesting as a glowing light like a candle’s flame. Alongside someone else. Curious.

“Even when I agreed to the contract,” Dalinar said, setting the chair down for Navani, then fetching another, “I was uncertain, but the chance was too valuable to pass up. Now that I’ve seen one of my mistakes—not preventing this assault—I fear there are more, regardless of what Wit says.”

“What is it I say?” Wit said, slipping into the room, carrying snacks. That was why he’d sneaked off, delaying them? Really? He handed her a plate of fruit. “I hope whatever it is that you said that I said, it was either nasty or clever. Or both. I honestly prefer both.”

“I am worried Odium will outmaneuver me,” Dalinar replied. He glanced at Jasnah and nodded toward the seats, with a question in his eyes. She nodded back, so he fetched her one.

Curious, how he’d changed. She’d read of times when he wouldn’t have worried about anyone else. She’d known him throughout her adulthood as the man who would take care of people even when they didn’t want it. Now, for the first time she could remember, he asked if she wanted his help. Because he knew that sometimes she disliked it when people did things for her that she would rather have done for herself.

She took her seat. Fen pulled over her chair, and Wit placed a small table and arranged food on it in an artistic way, because of course he did. Jasnah realized, absently, that she was hungry. They’d all likely forgotten breakfast in the chaos.

Once in a while, it was nice to have someone take care of you. She didn’t blame others for getting confused about what she wanted; she regularly confused herself. So today, she enjoyed the plate of fruit.

Wit brought over a chair and spun it around the wrong way before settling down among them. When in public, he acted the proper Wit, standing behind her chair, deferring to her. In a setting like this … well, whatever he was, it was above a queen or a highprince. He didn’t need to say it: he could sit among them. They all knew it by now, including Fen, who looked at him the way one might at an eel that could strike at any moment.

“You are wise to be worried,” Wit said to Dalinar. “I am troubled by this new Odium. The power will remember me and hate me, no matter who is at the helm—but the new Vessel stole several of my memories, then let me assume that I’d bested them. This tells us a little of their personality. Not gloating, though the power would probably have enjoyed that.”

“The power … can think?” Jasnah asked.

“Yes,” Wit said. “Ask your spren what happens if fragments of a god are left to their own devices for too long. They stand up, start walking about, and start riding around in people’s earrings. They start caring.

“Each ‘god’ is a slice of a greater entity killed some ten thousand years ago, its power divided. Those fragments have Identities, Intents. Honor: the instinct to make bonds and keep them. Odium: a god’s divine wrath, uncoupled from essential moderating factors like mercy and love.”

“I met another one earlier,” Dalinar said. “On my way up here: Cultivation appeared to me in the form of a woman.”

Jasnah came alert, palafruit halfway to her mouth. “ Cultivation spoke to you?” she said. “ That’s why you called me in here?”

“I believe so,” Dalinar said. “She looked the same. Sounded the same. Felt the same. It could be a trick of some sort, I admit, but … there was something about the meeting …”

“And she said …” Wit prodded.

“She told me I needed to seek the Spiritual Realm,” Dalinar said. “That I didn’t need to expand my powers as a Bondsmith so much as I needed to expand my understanding, particularly of the past. I cannot travel through time, but I can travel the visions. I can see how the Heralds and Radiants dealt with Odium before. She implied I’ve been on this path for years without realizing it, and if I learn correctly, I will know how to defeat Odium.”

Storms. Jasnah thought of the wonder of being able to travel to other times. She’d dedicated her whole life to studying the past as a way to understand the future. Her efforts, though successful at times, had always been uncertain. Akin to searching shadows for shapes to interpret.

Through Dalinar’s visions, she could see what had made those shapes. It wasn’t actually traveling to the past, but the possibilities offered … “Can you visit any other times though? I thought the visions were more rigid than that.”

“I thought so too,” Dalinar said. “But recently I’ve found the Stormfather’s words about them to be full of … well, not contradictions. Incomplete truths. Cultivation implied there was much more to see and learn.”

“Everything exists in three realms,” Wit said. “Physical, where we live now. Shadesmar, the Cognitive Realm, where minds project their impressions. Finally, the Spiritual Realm. The realm of our souls, our links to our past and to other people.

“The Spiritual Realm is a dangerous, confusing place. Every event in the past still echoes in there, yes, just as the scars upon the body are a record of past wounds. However, when you travel the visions with the Stormfather, Dalinar, you do so in a very carefully prescribed way. To deviate from that course risks getting lost in a place with no directions, no lifelines. A place where even I, as one of the ancients, tread cautiously.”

“Would it really be helpful?” Navani asked. “Dalinar, didn’t the Stormfather imply that the visions can’t show you anything he doesn’t know? So what could you learn?”

“It does seem like a risk,” Fen added. “For something so nebulous.”

“There … is more,” Dalinar said, his hands clasped before him. “Something else that Cultivation said. What happened to Honor, Wit? What truly happened at his death?”

“I don’t know,” Wit admitted, his voice soft, arms crossed before him on the back of his chair. “I was off-planet for the event, to my eternal shame. Other matters drew my attention, and I let the centuries slip away from me. He was erratic when I left. When I returned …” He shrugged. “Gone. The Radiants broken. The world in turmoil following the Recreance. I’ve been trying to catch up ever since.”

“And … do you know the location of his power?” Dalinar asked.

Wit didn’t respond immediately. He took a deep breath and cocked a smile at the corner of his lips. “So. She nudged you in that direction, did she?”

“She did,” Dalinar said. “If we are to fight a god, would it not be best to have one on our side?”

Wait, Jasnah thought. What is he saying?

“I have yet to know a person,” Wit said, “who took up one of those Shards and didn’t regret it, my friend.”

“Same as any other burden of responsibility.”

“Yes,” Wit said, “but orders of magnitude worse.” He looked around the room, and Jasnah noted Fen watching with wide eyes. Not questioning, but obviously out of her league.

They were talking about Dalinar Ascending to the Shard of Honor. Storms.

“That seems a big leap to make,” Jasnah said. “Too big a leap.”

“I can think of nothing else to try,” Dalinar whispered.

“What if we renegotiated the contract?” Jasnah said.

They all looked at her.

“If there is a new Odium,” she said, “he might agree to different terms. Perhaps he will stop the war entirely if we give him accommodations.” She didn’t look at Wit. “What if we let him leave?”

“Jasnah,” Wit said, pained. “We can’t unleash him upon the cosmere.”

“We have to at least consider every option,” Jasnah said. “You said that the other worlds, and the beings that rule them, are content to leave Odium to us. They offer no help or succor, and sometimes you have to think about yourself first. What if we renegotiated?”

“No,” Dalinar said softly. “He took advantage of us once—and he’d only renegotiate if it served him better. He would do so only to take further advantage. I think we need to explore options outside the contract—options like Honor’s power.”

They sat quietly at that, and Jasnah had to admit that negotiating the first time hadn’t worked spectacularly. She looked to Wit, who slumped, offended, as he met her eyes. Keeping Odium from destroying more worlds was one of his primary goals.

“Peace,” she said, resting a hand on his arm. “I’m only asking questions, as I must.”

“I understand,” he said, nodding. And he did seem to. “And what is put upon all of you is unfair. You have every right to be annoyed at the other Shards. I certainly am. Dalinar, you have a good point in what you’re contemplating.”

Dalinar nodded. “I worry that I need something far, far greater than what this contest under any terms can offer. If you bring an army of six men against an army of tens of thousands, you’ll lose. That’s what I’m doing, in facing Odium. What if there’s a better way? What if there’s a way to fight Odium? Defeat, destroy, exile him. Using the power of a god.”

Jasnah shivered, and forced herself to consider it. She had known, even when no one else wanted to acknowledge it, that there was nothing watching or protecting them. All the aphorisms, rituals, and writings were for the comfort of the people at best—or the control of them at worst. She’d accepted this, though at times she had dearly wished for that comfort.

Recently, in talking with Wit, she’d discovered the extent to which she’d been right. There was something up there, it just wasn’t God. It was a group of ordinary people. She didn’t know what terrified her more. The idea of some powerful, all-knowing deity that controlled everything—destroying her free will, yet for some reason still leaving the entire world in so much pain. Or the knowledge that there were beings who ruled the cosmere with immense power—but they had all the foibles, flaws, and limited morality of anyone else.

After contemplation, giving Dalinar’s idea due thought, she still found herself against it. Kings were bad enough. This was far worse.

“Dalinar,” she said, “I don’t feel comfortable with this line of reasoning.”

“Neither do I,” he said. “Storms, Jasnah, neither do I. But we face a being of immense strength and intelligence. When I get to that contest in eight days, they are going to outmaneuver me. I’m increasingly certain it will happen.”

“So you’re saying the only way to win,” Fen said, “is to face them as an equal? With the power of Honor?”

“Do you know, Wit?” Dalinar asked. “What happens to the power of a god when they die?”

“It’s different on each world,” Wit said. “On one it was all around, and we didn’t realize it. In another, the god’s power was stuffed in a metaphorical closet—packed into Shadesmar, left to rot. Here, if it wasn’t Splintered after all, then it’s in the Spiritual Realm. I think it might be the very substance of your visions, which behave so interestingly.”

“Cultivation said the same,” Dalinar said. “That if I travel the Spiritual Realm, it will be all around me.”

“But … isn’t it all around us already?” Navani asked. “In the spren, the Stormlight, the power of the Radiants?”

“Yes and no,” Wit said. “This is complicated. A Shard—a god—suffuses everything. Every axon on the world is, in some way, Connected to it. But the Spiritual Realm must hold a core of what Honor used to be. A well of energy, you might say. If you were to Connect to it in the right way, you would ascend to Honor’s position. Then all the ambient power of the world would be part of you. You’d need to find a way to persuade the power to accept you.”

“And if I did want to do that …” Dalinar said.

Wit met his eyes. “Then yes, the Spiritual Realm is where you’d start.” Uncharacteristically subdued, he rested his head on his folded arms. “Navani, did the Sibling notice the visit of a god to their tower?”

Navani looked upward for a moment, then shook her head. “The Sibling says, however, that their mother is … quiet. Sneaky.”

“Her kind tend to be,” Wit mumbled, “for all their enormous size. Tricky lizards who hide where you least expect them. Like someone else I know.” He took up an empty bowl, then threw it across the room toward the stacked tables. It hit the tablecloth covering one and smacked into something, which yelped.

Dalinar stood and spun, toppling his chair, alert, with yellow shockspren breaking around him. A fraction of a second later, he realized who it was. “Lift?” he said. “ Again? ”

The head of a teenage girl popped out, with round features and long, straight dark hair spilling around her face. A second head emerged beside hers, much older, with a grey mustache.

“Dieno?” Dalinar said, righting his chair and sitting back down.

The Mink seemed embarrassed to have been caught—though as usual Lift didn’t care. She scampered forward and helped herself to the snacks. The Mink stood up and straightened his clothing.

“You could have just asked instead of spying,” Dalinar said. “How did you get in, anyway?”

“Vents,” the Mink said. “And pardon, Blackthorn, the fatal problem with asking is that people can, and do, say no.”

“Did you realize,” Lift said around a mouthful of fruit, “it’s easier to get through a hole if you break your shoulder?”

“Dislocate, child,” the Mink said. “ Dislocate your shoulder.”

She shrugged. Jasnah watched the two, considering them. Lift had significant potential as a spy, and Jasnah had contemplated encouraging her in that direction. The Mink though … he was too dangerous. He acted small, unassuming, but he was not loyal to her family, and she did not blame him. In his place, she wouldn’t be either.

“I’ll admit,” the Mink said, stepping up to them, “I didn’t anticipate a discussion of deification. It is … puelo arandan ? The Alethi word is …”

“Blasphemous,” Jasnah said.

“Ah, yes,” the Mink said. “That.”

“What did you expect to hear?” Jasnah asked, toying with a small green palafruit but not biting into it.

“A discussion of whether or not to assault Alethkar,” the Mink said, shrugging.

“Alethkar?” Navani said. “Why? If we win, we get it back—and your homeland as well.”

“If you lose?” the Mink asked, looking to Dalinar.

“They keep both kingdoms,” Dalinar said.

“ If they control them,” the Mink said. “The contract loophole works both ways, no?”

Wit cocked his head. “I suppose … yes. If we were to assault and reclaim Alethkar before the deadline it would be ours, regardless of the outcome of the contest.”

“When you all scuttled off,” the Mink said, “I assumed you’d seen this, and didn’t want anyone else to get their hopes up as you discussed.”

Reclaim Alethkar? She could help her people become a nation again, not a group of refugees. Jasnah sat up straight and looked to Dalinar, who had hunched forward. He met her eyes, and she saw the truth in them. Even before her own mind—scrambling to work out the logistics—did.

It was impossible.

Kholinar was in the very heart of Alethkar—fortified, home to thousands of Fused and multiple Unmade. They’d need to somehow deliver enough troops to accomplish the assault, pulling them away from every other fortified position—and the distances involved …

The enemy’s assaults were in places it could reach quickly: Thaylenah by ship, Azimir through Shadesmar, and the Shattered Plains via a smaller number of Fused arriving by air. Reaching Alethkar on such short notice would be …

Well, it simply couldn’t be done. Not unless they pulled every Windrunner away, and risked everything on this one gamble.

“The logistics of it are impossible, I’m afraid,” Dalinar said. “Kholinar is too far away and too well fortified.”

“And Herdaz?” the Mink asked. “Barely any Fused. Spy reports say they’ve moved most of their military away, following the collapse of my rebellion.” He stepped closer to Dalinar. “I could reclaim it.”

“We’re going to reclaim it,” Dalinar said. “When I win the contest.”

“Pardon, gancho,” the Mink said, “but I just overheard your reservations about the likelihood of that victory. Even if you were confident, I should not like to trust our freedom to another man’s sword. No matter how comically large said sword may be.” He stepped closer, holding something. A tattered remnant of a banner, one Jasnah knew he kept in his pocket. “You are to be commended for remembering Herdaz in your contract, Blackthorn. I no longer think you will forget us, as the Alethi so often have.

“But you gave me a promise. I should like it fulfilled. First Alethkar, then Herdaz. If you cannot send armies for your homeland, then our promise comes due. I would like to try, and I should like you to keep your oath to me. Troops. Support.”

“Eight days?” Navani asked. “You want us to deliver troops to a nation hundreds of miles away in eight days?”

“The Fourth Bridge, ” the Mink said. “Your flying machine—”

“Would take weeks to travel that distance,” Navani said.

“Windrunners, then,” the Mink said. “They can get a person across the continent in under a day.”

“But an entire army?” Navani said.

“We’d need a few hundred at most,” the Mink said. “The members of my personal army, which we have rescued. If you drop us at the border on the western side, we will assault the capital a little inland, reclaiming my homeland.” He placed the tattered remnant before Dalinar on the food table. “Your oath, Blackthorn.”

He stared at it. Damnation. He was going to say yes.

“Dalinar,” Jasnah said. “Look at me.”

He turned from the banner, meeting her eyes.

“Even an assault force of two hundred would require some fifty Windrunners. Windrunners we need to protect what we have. There are barely three hundred! You can’t send so many of them on a quest like this. That would make you—no offense, General Dieno—of the ten fools!”

“I swore an oath, Jasnah,” Dalinar said.

“But—”

“What are we, if we don’t have our word?” Dalinar said. “Dieno. We could use your knowledge in the upcoming battles. Are you certain you must leave us?”

“Yes,” he said. “I won the campaign in Emul for you. Now prove you’re no longer the man who burned my lands in your youth, Dalinar. Keep your word.”

Dalinar nodded. “I will set fifty Windrunners to the task. Go, with my blessing.”

The Mink took back his banner, held it in a fist, then gripped Dalinar’s shoulder in thanks. He rushed out—not looking at Jasnah as he did. Damnation. She liked the man Dalinar had become over the years since they had made a connection reading The Way of Kings after her father’s death. But this version of him could be storming inconvenient at times. She took deep breaths to banish the angerspren at her feet.

“This is right, Jasnah,” Dalinar said, settling in his seat. “We must always do what is right. Those Windrunners will return before the deadline and join the battle. In the meantime, we’ve kept our oath.”

“What is right,” she said, “is not so easy as swearing an oath, Uncle. It’s about what brings the greatest good to the most people—and sometimes that requires making difficult decisions.”

“What makes you think,” he said, “that wasn’t a difficult decision?”

They continued to lock gazes, Jasnah’s will against his, until a slurping sound distracted her and she turned to find Lift standing next to her, watching the two of them like it was some puppet show, a dozen palafruit pits at her feet and another wiggling in her mouth. Storms above … how did that girl manage to pack down so much so quickly? And be so frighteningly skinny at the same time?

“So …” Lift said. “What you were sayin’ earlier. Gonna become a god, eh, Dalinar? Deevy. Real deevy. When you do it, can I put in some requests? I kinda hate how toes feel. You know, whenever I remember I have them, and start thinkin’ about them. Can you fix that? Also, make porridge taste like meat and vice versa.”

“Wait,” Fen said. “What?”

“Porridge. Should taste like meat.”

“Why?”

“It’s all slimy and gross. Meat, it comes out of a body. It should be slimy and gross. Innards and blood and guts and stuff. Meat should taste like porridge.” She spat out the last pit, and Jasnah noticed that remarkably, all the snacks Wit had brought were gone. “So, you know, fix that. Also, war and death and stuff. Actually, there are a whole lotsa things the Almighty should fix and hasn’t. Wonder if he gets distracted by all the prayers.”

“The fact that he’s dead,” Navani said dryly, “might be the most distracting part.”

Dalinar suddenly sat up in his seat. Then stood again, looking skyward.

“The Stormfather,” Ivory whispered in Jasnah’s ear. “I feel him near.”

“What?” Fen asked.

“The Stormfather has overheard our conversation,” Dalinar said. “And he’s not happy. I might … need a few minutes.”