The Way of Kings

Storming man, Teft thought, kneeling beside the feverish patient in his tousled blankets, eyes closed, face sweaty, body bound with a frightful number of bandages. Most were stained red. They didn’t have the money to change them often.

Skar kept watch currently. The short, strong-faced man sat at Kaladin’s feet.

“How is he?” Teft asked.

Skar spoke softly. “He seems to be getting worse, Teft. I heard him mumble about dark shapes, thrashing and telling them to keep back. He opened his eyes. He didn’t seem to see me, but he saw something. I swear it.”

Deathspren, Teft thought, feeling a chill. Kelek preserve us.

“I’ll take a turn,” Teft said, sitting. “You go get something to eat.”

Skar stood, looking pale. It would crush the others’ spirit for Kaladin to survive the highstorm, then die of his wounds. Skar shuffled from the room, shoulders slumped.

Teft watched Kaladin for a long while, trying to gather his thoughts, his emotions. “Why now?” he whispered. “Why here? After so many have watched and waited, you come here?”

But of course, Teft was getting ahead of himself. He didn’t know for certain. He only had assumptions and hopes. No, not hopes – fears. He had rejected the Envisagers. And yet, here he was. He fished in his pocket and pulled out three small diamond spheres. It had been a long, long while since he’d saved anything of his wages, but he’d held on to these, thinking, worrying. They glowed with Stormlight in his hand.

Did he really want to know?

Gritting his teeth, Teft moved closer to Kaladin’s side, looking down at the unconscious man’s face. “You bastard,” he whispered. “You storming bastard. You took a bunch of hanged men and lifted them up just enough to breathe. Now you’re going to leave them? I won’t have it, you hear. I won’t.”

He pressed the spheres into Kaladin’s hand, wrapping the limp fingers around them, then laying the hand on Kaladin’s abdomen. Then Teft sat back on his heels. What would happen? All the Envisagers had were stories and legends. Fool’s tales, Teft had called them. Idle dreams.

He waited. Of course, nothing happened. You’re as big a fool as any, Teft, he told himself. He reached for Kaladin’s hand. Those spheres would buy a few drinks.

Kaladin gasped suddenly, drawing in a short, quick, powerful breath.

The glow in his hand faded.

Teft froze, eyes widening. Wisps of Light began to rise from Kaladin’s body. It was faint, but there was no mistaking that glowing white Stormlight streaming off his frame. It was as if Kaladin had been bathed in sudden heat, and his very skin steamed.

Kaladin’s eyes snapped open, and they leaked light too, faintly colored amber. He gasped again loudly, and the trailing wisps of light began to twist around the exposed cuts on his chest. A few of them pulled together and knit themselves up.

Then it was gone, the Light of those tiny chips expended. Kaladin’s eyes closed and he relaxed. His wounds were still bad, his fever still raging, but some color had returned to his skin. The puffy redness around several cuts had diminished.

“My God,” Teft said, realizing he was trembling. “Almighty, cast from heaven to dwell in our hearts… It is true.” He bowed his head to the rock floor, squeezing his eyes shut, tears leaking from their corners.

Why now? he thought again. Why here?

And, in the name of all heaven, why me?

He knelt for a hundred heartbeats, counting, thinking, worrying. Eventually, he pulled himself to his feet and retrieved the spheres – now dun – from Kaladin’s hand. He’d need to trade them for spheres with Light in them. Then he could return and let Kaladin drain those as well.

He’d have to be careful. A few spheres each day, but not too many. If the boy healed too quickly, it would draw too much attention.

And I need to tell the Envisagers, he thought. I need to…

The Envisagers were gone. Dead, because of what he had done. If there were others, he had no idea how to locate them.

Who would he tell? Who would believe him? Kaladin himself probably didn’t understand what he was doing.

Best to keep it quiet, at least until he could figure out what to do about it.

39 Burned into Her

“Within a heartbeat, Alezarv was there, crossing a distance that would have taken more than four months to travel by foot.”

– Another folktale, this one recorded in Among the Darkeyed, by Calinam. Page 102. Stories of instantaneous travel and the Oathgates pervade these tales.