The Way of Kings

Could a man both believe, and not believe, at the same time? Teft stopped beside Rock and – steeling himself – looked up at the wall of the barrack.

There he saw what he’d expected and what he’d feared. The corpse looked like a hunk of slaughter house meat, skinned and bled. Was that a person? Kaladin’s skin was sliced in a hundred places, dribbles of blood mixing with rainwater running down the side of the building. The lad’s body still hung by the ankles. His shirt had been ripped off; his bridgeman trousers were ragged. Ironically, his face was cleaner now than when they’d left him, washed by the storm.

Teft had seen enough dead men on the battlefield to know what he was looking at. Poor lad, he thought, shaking his head as the rest of Bridge Four gathered around him and Rock, quiet, horrified. You almost made me believe in you.

Kaladin’s eyes snapped open.

The gathered bridgemen gasped, several cursing and falling to the ground, splashing in the pools of rainwater. Kaladin drew in a ragged breath, wheezing, eyes staring forward, intense and unseeing. He exhaled, blowing flecks of bloody spittle out over his lips. His hand, hanging below him, slipped open.

Something dropped to the stones. The sphere Teft had given him. It splashed into a puddle and stopped there. It was dun, no Stormlight in it.

What in the name of Kelek? Teft thought, kneeling. You left a sphere out in the storm, and it gathered Stormlight. Held in Kaladin’s hand, this one should have been fully infused. What had gone wrong?

“Umalakai’ki!” Rock bellowed, pointing. “Kama mohoray namavau–” He stopped, realizing he was speaking the wrong language. “Somebody be helping me get him down! Is still alive! We need ladder and knife! Hurry!”

The bridgemen scrambled. The soldiers approached, muttering, but they didn’t stop the bridgemen. Sadeas himself had declared that the Stormfather would choose Kaladin’s fate. Everyone knew that meant death.

Except… Teft stood up straight, holding the dun sphere. An empty sphere after a storm, he thought. And a man who’s still alive when he should be dead. Two impossibilities.

Together they bespoke something that should be even more impossible.

“Where’s that ladder!” Teft found himself yelling. “Curse you all, hurry, hurry! We need to get him bandaged. Somebody go fetch that salve he always puts on wounds!”

He glanced back at Kaladin, then spoke much more softly. “And you’d better survive, son. Because I want some answers.”

36 The Lesson

“Taking the Dawnshard, known to bind any creature voidish or mortal, he crawled up the steps crafted for Heralds, ten strides tall apiece, toward the grand temple above.”

– From The Poem of Ista. I have found no modern explanation of what these “Dawnshards” are. They seem ignored by scholars, though talk of them was obviously prevalent among those recording the early mythologies.

It was not uncommon for us to meet native peoples while traveling through the Unclaimed Hills, Shallan read. These ancient lands were once one of the Silver Kingdoms, after all. One must wonder if the great-shelled beasts lived among them back then, or if the creatures have come to inhabit the wilderness left by humankind’s passing.

She settled back in her chair, the humid air warm around her. To her left, Jasnah Kholin floated quietly in the pool inset in the floor of the bathing chamber. Jasnah liked to soak in the bath, and Shallan couldn’t blame her. During most of Shallan’s life, bathing had been an ordeal involving dozens of parshmen carting heated buckets of water, followed by a quick scrub in the brass tub before the water cooled.

Kharbranth’s palace offered far more luxury. The stone pool in the ground resembled a small personal lake, luxuriously warmed by clever fabrials that produced heat. Shallan didn’t know much about fabrials yet, though part of her was very intrigued. This type was becoming increasingly common. Just the other day, the Conclave staff had sent Jasnah one to heat her chambers.