Chapter 6

Regardless, the events surrounding the cleansing of Shinovar are of specific relevance, and I am doing my best to record what I can discover of the Wind’s own words regarding them. Though, now that the Wind and Heralds have vanished, I have only two sources who can speak of these events.

They are my witnesses.

—From Knights of Wind and Truth , page 5

D alinar looked out a window at the frosted peaks of the Ur mountain range. Kaladin knew these lands were probably claimed by some kingdom, yet it was difficult to imagine. Owning fields was one thing, but mountains ?

If someone could claim them though, it would be the mountain of a man by the window. Dalinar didn’t lean against the stone frame to relax as another might have. He clasped his hands behind him, his spine straight. Wearing a Kholin blue uniform with his glyphs on the back: the tower and the crown.

Szeth sat on the floor near the far corner. Dressed once more in white, head shaved. Eyes closed with his long, silvery-sheathed Shardblade in his lap. Kaladin had always thought the weapon wicked in appearance, with those hooked crossguard arms and the jet-black hilt. Szeth appeared to be meditating. Calm, rhythmic breaths. Storms, even when relaxing, the man was unnerving.

Syl maintained both her human size and the colors on her havah as she walked over to stare Szeth in the face to see if he was peeking.

“How are you feeling?” Dalinar asked. “About your upcoming task?”

“Good, sir,” Kaladin said. “The world is going to be different, whatever happens in ten days. Wit says I need to find a new place in it—so I’m going to try this. You asked me to be a surgeon, not a soldier. I’m game.”

A surgeon for the mind—who didn’t cut with a scalpel, but with calm words and understanding. Storms, that seemed so much more difficult.

“Excellent,” Dalinar said. “I’ve had reports on the men you helped with their battle shock. It’s remarkable.”

“Take a person from the darkness and show them that light still exists. It won’t fix everything, but it does make a difference.”

“Light,” Dalinar said, gazing out across snowfields reflecting sunlight like liquid diamonds. “Ishar said something about light, when he told me he wanted to refound the Oathpact. Saying the Words—the moment when an oath is sworn, even by someone else nearby—brings clarity … and should restore him, if briefly.” He glanced toward Szeth.

“Sir?” Kaladin asked.

“I’m sending Szeth with you.”

“ He’s the companion you promised me?” Kaladin said.

“I return to my homeland,” Szeth said softly, “to set right what is wrong. To cleanse an evil. To achieve the Fourth Ideal, a Skybreaker must undertake a crusade of righteous cause. Upon completing it, I will be poised for the final step, in which a man becomes the law itself. I wished to go alone, but Dalinar has insisted I bring you.”

Kaladin took that in, then stepped closer to Dalinar, turning his back on Szeth—which felt very wrong to do. “Sir,” he hissed. “That man is not stable. He doesn’t need to be sent on a quest. He needs time, attention, and the help of …”

Kaladin trailed off as he noticed Dalinar’s expression.

“Storms,” Kaladin said. “You think I can do something to help Szeth while he’s trying to ‘cleanse the evil’ of his homeland?”

“Yes,” Dalinar said, firm. “You up to it, soldier?”

Kaladin glanced over his shoulder at Szeth. “Sir, with all due respect, I have managed to help one group of men suffering a mental burden that I understand from personal experience. You can’t expect me to replicate that kind of success with an extreme case like Szeth. I would need months to devise a treatment!”

“We should … speak in private. Plus, I feel like I need some perspective. What about you, soldier?”

“Always, sir,” Kaladin said as Syl joined them, head cocked, eyeing Dalinar.

“Excellent,” Dalinar said, turning and walking toward the door. He took a small wooden box from a table by the wall, then tucked it under one arm. “Szeth, will you be fine here on your own for a while?”

“I’m never alone,” the man said in his lightly accented voice. “Even without spren or sword, I’d have the voices.” He looked straight at Kaladin with all the emotion of a corpse. Storms. Dalinar wanted him to help that man? The assassin who had killed Dalinar’s own brother?

Kaladin followed Dalinar out, expecting them to chat in the next room, but Dalinar led them up the steps to the roof of Urithiru. Kaladin hadn’t been up here since …

Well, since he’d thrown himself off.

“I find that this view helps me think,” Dalinar said, turning around to survey the mountains. “How far one can see, when no walls obstruct.” He grew contemplative, and seemed to want a minute, so Kaladin gave it to him, walking toward the edge of the tower.

“Storms,” he said to Syl, reaching the railing. “It feels surreal to be here again. And it’s so warm. ”

“It’s Brightness Navani,” Syl said, leaning over the side to look down. “And her bond to the tower. This city flourished with life once. It will again.”

“Reminds me of home,” Kaladin said. “It’s more humid there than on the Plains.”

“Home …” Syl glanced toward the sky, where Kaladin’s armor spren played. Her ponytail loosened, letting her hair fly freely, white-blue, waving in real wind. She grinned at him. “I never felt like I had a home until I found this.”

“Urithiru?” Kaladin asked.

“By association, yes.”

“Have you been taking lessons on being enigmatic from Wit?”

“Hardly,” she said, resting against the stone railing. “Your family is here now, Kaladin. Does that make this your home now?”

“I suppose it has to be. My other home is in the hands of the enemy.”

“Not just the enemy,” Syl said. “The singers.”

It was a valid point, difficult to remember. It was their home as well. The Alethi parshmen had been enslaved too, but had taken their homeland for themselves. In other circumstances, he would have cheered their fight—he knew precisely what it was like to have your dignity stripped away, to be beaten until you lost personality and volition, becoming a thing.

He looked again toward Dalinar, whose contest with Odium was supposed to offer a way out of this mess. Kaladin walked over, the breeze in his face—which always felt invigorating.

“I keep hoping,” Dalinar said softly, “that there are answers somewhere.”

“Sir?”

“I have set us on a collision course with destiny,” he explained. “If I lose, I might have roped all of us into a much greater war than we knew was possible.”

“So you have to win,” Kaladin said.

“I do,” Dalinar said. “But I can’t imagine what the contest will be like. I feel it won’t be a clash of swords, but what? What am I missing ? Have I doomed us, Kaladin?” He took a deep breath, and with the arm that the small wooden box was tucked under, he pointed out at the field of white snowcaps. “Can you take us to that peak? The big one that looks like the tallest spike on a crown.”

“Sir,” Kaladin said, “the tower’s warmth won’t reach that far.”

“Exactly the point, Kaladin.” Dalinar held his hand toward him. “If you please.”

Kaladin breathed in, drawing strength—Light—from the tower. He Lashed them upward, Syl shrinking and zipping after them as Kaladin flew Dalinar to the specific peak, his armor spren spinning about him. The transition to colder air was gradual—the circle of warmth around Urithiru was more like a corona than a bubble. Bare stone gave way to little rivers of snowmelt, which gave way to icy slush, until they finally entered a realm of deep-packed snow.

As they drew close, the Towerlight he’d taken failed him, and he had to rely on Stormlight from his pouch. It seemed the human body couldn’t hold Towerlight unless it was right by Urithiru. Once he’d taken in replacement Light and stabilized them, he increased the pressure. The tower’s protections offered more than just warmth. Rock could talk all day about how the air in the Peaks was healthier, but Kaladin had seen firsthand that people found it hard to breathe up this high. Fortunately, Kaladin’s powers included a more nebulous ability to sculpt pressure and air.

He kept a little invisible bubble of thicker air around them. It was something he had been doing instinctively, but wanted to be more conscious of. Syl returned to full size as Kaladin settled himself and Dalinar down into the snow with a crunching sound. Such bizarre stuff. Why did it crunch? It was only very cold water, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t it crack?

Their breath puffed in the air—except Syl’s, of course. Though she did mimic breathing; her chest subtly rose and fell. Had she always done that?

Coldspren began to grow around Kaladin’s feet, like little crystal spikes. Dalinar picked up a handful of snow and let it trail between his fingers. “Navani says that some of the deeper snow here is likely ancient. We walk on strata of ice like the strata of rock, for it never gets warm enough up here for it to melt. It remains frozen. For eons.”

“Sir?” Kaladin said. “Why did we come out into the cold?”

“I wanted to look at the tower from the outside,” he said, turning and studying Urithiru. “I never can get a good view of it from the Oathgates. It’s too massive.”

Kaladin stepped up beside Dalinar and examined the tower, their breath puffing in front of them.

“Roshar has seen so many versions of this war, Kaladin,” Dalinar said softly. “We’ve been fighting the singers since our first generations on this planet, a time that stretches back far beyond our written histories. Through multiple calamities, and the almost utter loss of civilization. I want to see that cycle ended.”

“We all want that, sir,” Syl said.

“I know. Yet I can’t help wondering. Should one man have such power and authority as I do?” Dalinar shook his head. “Jasnah puts ideas in my mind, like cremlings wintering in the heart of a plant, eating it from the inside until the weather turns. The world didn’t decide upon this contest. I did. Was there a better way?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Kaladin said. “I really don’t.”

“Well,” Dalinar replied, “you’re not the only one going into a situation blind, soldier. I respect your complaints about Szeth. I understand them. He is a difficult case, and you have only just begun to learn how to help those with mental wounds.” Dalinar turned, scanning the snowfield. From here the peak of the mountain didn’t seem pointed at all—merely a gentle hilltop covered in snow. “And yet, all these eons. All those deaths, like strata beneath our feet … We need to change, Kaladin. To do things differently. I think we start by not throwing people away when we worry they’re defective.”

“He murdered dozens.”

“On orders from the person who was effectively his owner,” Dalinar said, “while in a compromised mental state. He’s trying to find a better path. Kaladin, when I asked you to step down from your post, how did you feel?”

“Worthless,” Kaladin said, remembering what Wit had told him. Who would you be if there was no one you needed to save, no one you needed to kill?

“You saved me from Szeth once,” Dalinar said. “Now I’m asking for a different kind of rescue. Save him, and save the Herald Ishar. Hard, I know, but I want you to try anyway. Because this is the end, and I don’t have other options.”

Kaladin glanced at Syl, who nodded. And storm him, Dalinar was right. Again.

“I’ll try to help them,” Kaladin said. “I’ll do what I can. But sir … you should know. Wit told me I won’t be able to come back in time to help you.”

“He said that, did he? Well, Szeth can write, so we can send a spanreed with you to report back that way, in case you truly can’t return in time.”

“I guess,” Kaladin said. “But … well, Wit told me that Ishar couldn’t help you, sir. Not in the way you want.”

Dalinar grunted. “What else?”

“Mostly just that … and that I should listen to the Wind, and Roshar.” Kaladin took a deep breath. “I think the Wind has been speaking to me, sir. A … version of it that is a spren? I don’t fully understand. It told me to listen to you though.”

“Well, I appreciate it for that. The Heralds are important; they’re part of this. I can’t explain why yet, but I have felt it in my gut for weeks now. Maybe longer.” Dalinar put a firm hand on Kaladin’s shoulder, wet from the snow, his foot crunching as he moved. “Ishar … he’s not like Ash or Taln. He’s active, and planning to interfere with what we’re doing. He’s dangerous. Exceptionally dangerous.” Dalinar met his eyes. “He’s in Shinovar, which means he has the Honorblades.”

Syl whistled softly.

“Each weapon,” Dalinar said, “is as dangerous as the one Szeth used to wreak terror across Roshar. Ishar thinks he’s the actual champion, not me. Either that or he thinks he’s the Almighty himself … probably some crazed mix of both. He was able to raise an army in Tukar. Now he’s in Shinovar, which we know nothing about, and which has been suspiciously quiet for this entire war. I’m worried.

“Szeth is going regardless, but I can’t rely upon him for anything needing nuance or strong decision-making. I can rely on you for both. I need someone watching my back, soldier. I don’t want to find myself outmaneuvered by a madman at the last moment. Maybe if we’re lucky, you’ll be able to get through to Ishar and bring me help, despite what Wit fears. Even if not, I need some eyes on that land. We’ve ignored it far too long.”

Storms. This was his true task: help a demigod overcome his megalomania. By Sigzil’s reports, Ishar had been taking spren from Shadesmar and bringing them physically to this realm—permanently killing them in the process. Creating twisted half-flesh bodies for them that could not survive.

Each of the Heralds was suffering some kind of severe mental trauma. Worse, Kaladin worried that their problems were partially supernatural in nature. Who was Kaladin to try to figure out the pathology of gods?

He didn’t say any of this, because he knew the answer.

Who was Kaladin to do this?

The only person available. Stormfather help them all.

“We’ll do it, sir,” Syl said. “Well, Kaladin will do the mental healing bit. I’ll do what I can though.”

This drew an odd glance from Dalinar. He wasn’t used to honorspren being visible to anyone but their Radiant, let alone ones who walked around full sized and acted like soldiers. Kaladin, though, found it appropriate. In a way, Syl had kicked all this off by deciding to bond him. Why shouldn’t she get a voice in agreeing to their next mission?

“Good,” Dalinar said to the two of them. “I do have … one other thing, Kaladin. Do you still have that cloak I gave you when you first joined my army?”

“I do,” he said. “I keep it as a mark of pride, sir, though I don’t often wear it. Doesn’t match the uniform, and … well, it has your house glyphs on the back. Emblazoned to indicate a member of the royal family.”

“I can understand that,” Dalinar said. “House Stormblessed is a new lighteyed house, sure to begin its own grand traditions. It’s not normally fitting that you would wear another house’s glyphs.”

“Except?” Kaladin asked.

The man untucked the small wooden box from under his arm and opened it, then took out a sheet of paper and unfolded it. It was covered in script, which Dalinar looked over. Kaladin’s instinct was to glance away, as a man reading was … well, embarrassing, even still. But times were changing, and Kaladin himself had invited women into the military. So he didn’t avert his eyes.

“My sons,” Dalinar said softly, “have both declined to be named as my heirs to any throne I might claim.”

“I know, sir,” Kaladin said. “That’s why Jasnah was chosen as queen.”

“Queen of Alethkar,” Dalinar said. “In exile. I have a second throne now, shared with Navani, here at Urithiru. Yet we are old, and our children are either unwilling or already committed. Jasnah is dedicated to restoring Alethkar, and wishes her focus to stay there. Gavinor must remain her heir, to the Alethi throne. He will ascend to it if she dies.”

“At his age?” Kaladin asked.

“A child can, and must, inherit to preserve the throne,” Dalinar said. “That settles Alethkar, which is separate from Urithiru and from the Knights Radiant. So this kingdom has no heir to take over should something happen to me and Navani.”

Dalinar turned, holding the sheet of paper, and looked to Kaladin. Syl gasped. Pale yellow shockspren burst around Kaladin, and he felt his insides crumbling. “Sir,” he said, going stiff. “Please, no. I’m broken.”

“Life breaks us,” Dalinar said. “Then we fill the cracks with something stronger.”

“Renarin. He’s Radiant.”

“He can see glimpses of the future, and what he’s seen makes him reject this charge. I support him in this. Soldier, Renarin is bonded to a corrupted spren, and we as yet don’t know the effects that might have. Adolin flat-out refuses. I … hope to be able to resolve our problems, as I worry I am the reason he turned down the throne of Alethkar. But even if we did, Urithiru should have a Radiant at its head.” Dalinar held out the sheet to Kaladin. “I will not force this upon you, Kaladin. But I will ask, because I must. Will you be our heir?”

It was like a cold bucket of rainwater thrown over him. He couldn’t respond. Being an officer was difficult, being a lighteyes worse, but being royalty ?

“Son,” Dalinar said softly. “I see your hatred still. Hopefully not for anyone specific—but for what has been done to you. In the last years, I’ve been forced to accept that the distinction between lighteyes and dark is one of pure social construction. Nobility is not of the blood, but of the heart. But it must go the other way too. You don’t like what we represent, but to continue feeling as you do … it will eat you from the inside.”

“I know,” Kaladin forced out. “But this?”

“Nothing more,” Dalinar said, handing him the document, “than a duty to serve. Navani and I are Bondsmiths. If I fall in this contest, she will take the throne. She will also be a target though, and it is entirely possible that neither of us will survive.

“If the worst happens, present that letter at Urithiru. It is ratified by multiple ardents. I’ve spoken to Jasnah, the highprinces, and the other monarchs about this, and everyone agrees that a Radiant is best for this duty. Unfortunately, most of them are untested. It is, of course, your decision. If you don’t take the throne, I’ve arranged for Dami to be next.”

Dami. He was a Riran Stoneward, with whom Kaladin hadn’t spent much time. He was well liked, however, and had reportedly said the fourth oath the day before, after the campaign in Emul, becoming the third to do so after Jasnah and Kaladin.

“If he won’t do it,” Dalinar added, “then it will fall to the highprinces of Alethkar. Aladar first and—God Beyond help us—Sebarial after that.”

“You’re kidding.”

“He’s good with money.”

“So good half of it ends up in his pocket.”

“He’s a better man than he gives himself credit for. Navani thinks the state of his books is a front for his hidden competence. Regardless, I hope that we’ll all survive, and other Radiants with proper leadership training can be placed into the line. Or perhaps something like Jasnah has always dreamed of, a more … representational method of governance. You should read some of her essays on the topic.”

“I …” Kaladin glanced at Syl for support.

She grinned back at him.

“You’re not helping,” he said.

“I’m kind of royalty already,” she said. “It’s not so bad. Trust me.”

“It’s not the same.” Kaladin looked down at the paper. “I will do what I can for Ishar and Szeth, sir, and send you information on Shinovar. But this letter … this is too much.”

“I’ll accept your decision,” Dalinar said. “All I ask is that instead of making an immediate judgment call now, you consider a little while. For me. Out of respect?”

Storming man. But he was right—this was something that should be given some time. Kaladin forced himself to fold the sheet and put it into his pocket. Logically, there was no difference between darkeyed and light—and he was a lighteyes anyway now. Ruler of a small piece of land in Alethkar that he’d probably never visit. Even so, this felt like a betrayal.

“I’ll consider it,” he said anyway.