Edgedancer (The Stormlight Archive, #2.5)

by Brandon Sanderson

The wrong things were changing. She was supposed to stay the same, and the world was supposed to change around her. She’d asked for that, hadn’t she?

Everyone pays attention to that bald guy who collects the heads of kings, but this guy has been murdering his way across Roshar too.

Szeth?

“Do you know why we had to leave Azir?” Lift said softly. “To chase after that Skybreaker, the one you call Darkness.” “No. We’re not doing that.” “Sure.” “We left because people started to know who I am. If you stay in the same place too long, then people start to recognize you. The shopkeepers learn your name. They smile at you when you enter, and already know what to get for you, because they remember what you need.” “That’s a bad thing?” She nodded, still staring at the sky. “It’s worse when they think they’re your friend. Gawx, the viziers. They make assumptions. They think they know you, then start to expect things of you. Then you have to be the person everyone thinks you are, not the person you actually are.”

“But profiting off people’s emotions?” “Pity can be a powerful tool. Anytime you can make someone else feel something, you’ve got power over them.”

She hated dreams. They either showed her a life she couldn’t have, or a life that terrified her. What was the good of either one?

“Everyone gets happy for a little while when you let them go outside,”

You can’t just go throwing things out! They might be useful later on.

“He’s right about that, um…” “Say it,” Lift said. “Your Pancakefulness.”

Over the next few hours, she tried cajoling, threatening, dancing, bribing, and—as a last-ditch, crazy option—remaining perfectly quiet and letting them read.

“You know, the day the Almighty was handin’ out brains to folks? I went out for flatbread that day.”