The Way of Kings

“Undoubtedly, Your Majesty.” Sadeas’s reply was smooth, quick, and said with a knowing smile. “One might say that gods, as a rule, should fear the Alethi nobility. Most of us at least.”

Adolin gripped his reins a little more tightly; it put him on edge every time Highprince Sadeas spoke.

“Do we have to ride up here at the front?” Renarin whispered.

“I want to listen,” Adolin replied softly.

He and his brother rode near the front of the column, near the king and his highprinces. Behind them extended a grand procession: a thousand soldiers in Kholin blue, dozens of servants, and even women in palanquins to scribe accounts of the hunt. Adolin glanced at them all as he reached for his canteen.

He was wearing his Shardplate, and so he had to be careful when grabbing it, lest he crush it. One’s muscles reacted with increased speed, strength, and dexterity when wearing the armor, and it took practice to use it correctly. Adolin was still occasionally caught by surprise, though he’d held this suit – inherited from his mother’s side of the family – since his sixteenth birthday. That was now seven years past.

He turned and took a long drink of lukewarm water. Sadeas rode to the king’s left, and Dalinar – Adolin’s father – was a solid figure riding at the king’s right. The final highprince on the hunt was Vamah, who wasn’t a Shardbearer.

The king was resplendent in his golden Shardplate – of course, Plate could make any man look regal. Even Sadeas looked impressive when wearing his red Plate, though his bulbous face and ruddy complexion weakened the effect. Sadeas and the king flaunted their Plate. And… well, perhaps Adolin did too. He’d had his painted blue, a few ornamentations welded onto the helm and pauldrons to give an extra look of danger. How could you not show off when wearing something as grand as Shardplate?

Adolin took another drink, listening to the king talk about his excitement for the hunt. Only one Shardbearer in the procession – indeed, only one Shardbearer in the entirety of the ten armies – used no paint or ornamentations on his Plate. Dalinar Kholin. Adolin’s father preferred to leave his armor its natural slate-grey color.

Dalinar rode beside the king, his face somber. He rode with his helm tied to his saddle, exposing a square face topped by short black hair that had gone white at the temples. Few women had ever called Dalinar Kholin handsome; his nose was the wrong shape, his features blocky rather than delicate. It was the face of a warrior.

He rode astride a massive black Ryshadium stallion, one of the largest horses that Adolin had ever seen – and while the king and Sadeas looked regal in their armor, somehow Dalinar managed to look like a soldier. To him, the Plate was not an ornament. It was a tool. He never seemed to be surprised by the strength or speed the armor lent him. It was as if, for Dalinar Kholin, wearing his Plate was his natural state – it was the times without that were abnormal. Perhaps that was one reason he’d earned the reputation of being one of the greatest warriors and generals who ever lived.

Adolin found himself wishing, passionately, that his father would do a little more these days to live up to that reputation.

He’s thinking about the visions, Adolin thought, regarding his father’s distant expression and troubled eyes. “It happened again last night,” Adolin said softly to Renarin. “During the highstorm.”

“I know,” Renarin said. His voice was measured, controlled. He always paused before he replied to a question, as if testing the words in his mind. Some women Adolin knew said Renarin’s ways made them feel as if he were dissecting them with his mind. They’d shiver when they spoke of him, though Adolin had never found his younger brother the least bit discomforting.

“What do you think they mean?” Adolin asked, speaking quietly so only Renarin could hear. “Father’s… episodes.”

“I don’t know.”

“Renarin, we can’t keep ignoring them. The soldiers are talking. Rumors are spreading through all ten armies!”

Dalinar Kholin was going mad. Whenever a highstorm came, he fell to the floor and began to shake. Then he began raving in gibberish. Often, he’d stand, blue eyes delusional and wild, swinging and flailing. Adolin had to restrain him lest he hurt himself or others.

“He sees things,” Adolin said. “Or he thinks he does.”

Adolin’s grandfather had suffered from delusions. When he’d grown old, he’d thought he was back at war. Was that what happened to Dalinar? Was he reliving youthful battles, days when he’d earned his renown? Or was it that terrible night he saw over and over, the night when his brother had been murdered by the Assassin in White? And why did he so often mention the Knights Radiant soon after his episodes?