The Way of Kings

“You look thoughtful, Uncle,” Elhokar said.

“Just considering the past, Your Majesty.”

“The past is irrelevant. I only look forward.”

Dalinar was not certain he agreed with either statement.

“I sometimes think I should be able to see the Parshendi,” Elhokar said. “I feel that if I stare long enough, I will find them, pin them down so I can challenge them. I wish they’d just fight me, like men of honor.”

“If they were men of honor,” Dalinar said, clasping his hands behind his back, “then they would not have killed your father as they did.”

“Why did they do it, do you suppose?”

Dalinar shook his head. “That question has churned in my head, over and over, like a boulder tumbling down a hill. Did we offend their honor? Was it some cultural misunderstanding?”

“A cultural misunderstanding would imply that they have a culture. Primitive brutes. Who knows why a horse kicks or an axehound bites? I shouldn’t have asked.”

Dalinar didn’t reply. He’d felt that same disdain, that same anger, in the months following Gavilar’s assassination. He could understand Elhokar’s desire to dismiss these strange, wildland parshmen as little more than animals.

But he’d seen them during those early days. Interacted with them. They were primitive, yes, but not brutes. Not stupid. We never really understood them, he thought. I guess that’s the crux of the problem.

“Elhokar,” he said softly. “It may be time to ask ourselves some difficult questions.”

“Such as?”

“Such as how long we will continue this war.”

Elhokar started. He turned, looking at Dalinar. “We’ll keep fighting until the Vengeance Pact is satisfied and my father is avenged!”

“Noble words,” Dalinar said. “But we’ve been away from Alethkar for six years now. Maintaining two far-flung centers of government is not healthy for the kingdom.”

“Kings often go to war for extended periods, Uncle.”

“Rarely do they do it for so long,” Dalinar said, “and rarely do they bring every Shardbearer and Highprince in the kingdom with them. Our resources are strained, and word from home is that the Reshi border encroachments grow increasingly bold. We are still fragmented as a people, slow to trust one another, and the nature of this extended war – without a clear path to victory and with a focus on riches rather than capturing ground – is not helping at all.”

Elhokar sniffed, wind blowing at them atop the peaked rock. “You say there’s no clear path to victory? We’ve been winning! The Parshendi raids are coming less frequently, and aren’t striking as far westward as they once did. We’ve killed thousands of them in battle.”

“Not enough,” Dalinar said. “They still come in strength. The siege is straining us as much as, or more than, it is them.”

“Weren’t you the one to suggest this tactic in the first place?”

“I was a different man, then, flush with grief and anger.”

“And you no longer feel those things?” Elhokar was incredulous. “Uncle, I can’t believe I’m hearing this! You aren’t seriously suggesting that I abandon the war, are you? You’d have me slink home, like a scolded axehound?”

“I said they were difficult questions, Your Majesty,” Dalinar said, keeping his anger in check. It was taxing. “But they must be considered.”

Elhokar breathed out, annoyed. “It’s true, what Sadeas and the others whisper. You’re changing, Uncle. It has something to do with those episodes of yours, doesn’t it?”

“They are unimportant, Elhokar. Listen to me! What are we willing to give, in order to get vengeance?”

“Anything.”

“And if that means everything your father worked for? Do we honor his memory by undermining his vision for Alethkar, all to get revenge in his name?”

The king hesitated.

“You pursue the Parshendi,” Dalinar said. “That is laudable. But you can’t let your passion for just retribution blind you to the needs of our kingdom. The Vengeance Pact has kept the highprinces channeled, but what will happen once we win? Will we shatter? I think we need to forge them together, to unite them. We fight this war as if we were ten different nations, fighting beside one another but not with one another.”

The king didn’t respond immediately. The words, finally, seemed to be sinking in. He was a good man, and shared more with his father than others chose to admit.

He turned away from Dalinar, leaning against the railing. “You think I’m a poor king, don’t you, Uncle?”

“What? Of course not!”

“You always talk about what I should be doing, and where I am lacking. Tell me truthfully, Uncle. When you look at me, do you wish you saw my father’s face instead?”

“Of course I do,” Dalinar said.

Elhokar’s expression darkened.