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July 28 - August 19, 2017
“I know,” Adolin replied. “But there’s storming little to do out here otherwise. No concerts, no art shows, no sculpture contests.” Is that really what you people spend your time on? Kaladin wondered. Almighty save you if you don’t have sculpture contests to watch.
luxury - white-eyes
“Wow. Well then, Gaw. I don’t talk to myself because I’m crazy.” “No?” “I do it because I’m awesome.”
“You really are crazy,” Gawx whispered. “Nah. Just bored.”
“Thieving in the night, chased by abominations. I was a gardener. A wonderful gardener! Cryptics and honorspren alike came to see the crystals I grew from the minds of your world. Now this. What have I become?” “A whiner,”
“You barely knew him,” Wyndle said. “Yet you mourn.” She nodded. “You’ve seen much death,” Wyndle said. “I know it. Aren’t you accustomed to it?” She shook her head.
“Why do you care?” Wyndle asked again. He sounded curious. Not a challenge. An attempt to understand. “Because someone has to.”
I will remember those who have been forgotten.
Laws don’t matter; what’s right matters.” “On that point, we agree.”
“Nice place you have here, bridgeboy,” Wit said. “I considered moving in here myself on several occasions. The rent might be cheap, but the price of admission is quite steep.”
“More information, please,” Pattern said. “Why not tonight? Is it the day of the week? Do you always not sleep on Jesel? Or is it the weather? Has it grown too warm? The position of the moons relative to—” “It’s none of that,” Shallan said, shrugging. “I just can’t sleep.” “Your body is capable of it, surely.” “Probably,” Shallan said. “But not my head. It surges with too many ideas, like waves against the rocks.
“I find sleeping very odd,” Pattern said. “I know that all beings in the Physical Realm engage in it. Do you find it pleasant? You fear nonexistence, but is not unconsciousness the same thing?” “With sleep, it’s only temporary.”
“Rather than asking question after question. This is good. Your instincts, however, must be judged. Are you the hunter, or are you the quarry?” “Neither,” Shallan said immediately.
The truth destroys more people than it saves, Veil. But you have proven yourself. You no longer need fear our other members; they have been instructed not to touch you. You are required to get a specific tattoo, a symbol of your loyalty. I will send a drawing. You may add it to your person wherever you wish, but must prove it to me when we next meet. Welcome to the Ghostbloods.
No matter how broad that role is, it will be—by nature—a reduction from the infinite variety that is womanhood. I say that there is no role for women—there is, instead, a role for each woman, and she must make it for herself. For some, it will be the role of scholar; for others, it will be the role of wife. For others, it will be both. For yet others, it will be neither.
A woman’s strength should not be in her role, whatever she chooses it to be, but in the power to choose that role. It is amazing to me that I even have to make this point, as I see it as the very foundation of our conversation.
“You’re going to leave,” Shallan said softly. Malise barked a laugh. “He’ll never let me go. He never lets go of anything.” “You’re not going to ask,” Shallan whispered. “Balat is going to run and join Helaran, who has powerful friends. He’s a Shardbearer. He’ll protect the both of you.” “We’ll never reach him,” Malise said. “And if we do, why would Helaran take us in? We have nothing.” “Helaran is a good man.” Malise twisted in her seat, staring away from Shallan, who continued her ministrations. The woman whimpered when Shallan bound her arm, but wouldn’t respond to questions. Finally,
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ruined your chance to duel Sadeas.” “I’d be crippled or dead without you,” Adolin said. “So I wouldn’t have had the chance to fight Sadeas anyway.” The prince stopped in the hallway, and looked at Kaladin. “Besides. You saved Renarin.” “It’s my job,” Kaladin said. “Then we need to pay you more, bridgeboy,” Adolin said. “Because I don’t know if I’ve ever met another man who would jump, unarmored, into a fight among six Shardbearers.” Kaladin frowned. “Wait. Are you wearing cologne? In prison?” “Well, there was no need to be barbaric, just because I was incarcerated.” “Storms, you’re spoiled,”
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“‘As I fear not a child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.’”
damn
The wisest of men know that to render an insult powerless, you often need only to embrace it.”
insults embraced
“I’m not some glorious knight of ancient days. I’m a broken man. Do you hear me, Syl? I’m broken.” She zipped up to him and whispered, “That’s what they all were, silly.” She streaked away.
“I’d rather walk these chasms with a compulsive murderer than you. At least then, when the conversation got tedious, I’d have an easy way out.” “And your feet stink,” she said. “See? Too early. I can’t possibly be witty at this hour.
“Variety?” he asked. “Yes. If we’re both pleasant, there’s no artistry to it. You see, great art is a matter of contrast. Some lights and some darks. The happy, smiling, radiant lady and the dark, brooding, malodorous bridgeman.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that you aren’t witty, Shallan. I just feel like you try too hard. The world is not a sunny place, and frantically trying to turn everything into a joke is not going to change that.” “Technically,” she said, “it is a sunny place. Half the time.”
“The sensation—it’s not sorrow, but something deeper—of being broken. Of being crushed so often, and so hatefully, that emotion becomes something you can only wish for. If only you could cry, because then you’d feel something. Instead, you feel nothing. Just . . . haze and smoke inside. Like you’re already dead.”
“Ah, that bridgeman grunt dialect again,” she noted. “That grunt meant,” he said, “that at least if the waters come, it will wash away some of your stench.” “Ha! Mildly amusing, but no points to you. I already established that you’re the malodorous one. Reuse of jokes is strictly forbidden on pain of getting dunked in a highstorm.” “All right then,” he said. “It’s a good thing we’re down here because I had guard duty tonight. Now I’m going to miss it. That is practically like getting the day off.” “To go swimming, no less!” He smiled. “I,” she proclaimed, “am glad we are down here because the
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“When did you get so peppy?” she shouted. “Ever since I assumed I was dead, then I suddenly wasn’t.”
“Now comes the storm,” she whispered, “but you’ll be warm, the wind will rock your basket
storm
lullaby
Taravangian asked the scholar, “that genius and idiocy are so similar?” “Similar?” Adrotagia asked. “Vargo, I do not see them as similar at all.” He and Adrotagia had grown up together, and she still used Taravangian’s boyhood nickname. He liked that. It reminded him of days before all of this. “On both my most stupid days and my most incredible,” Taravangian said, “I am unable to interact with those around me in a meaningful way. It is like . . . like I become a gear that cannot fit those turning beside it. Too small or too large, it does not matter. The clock will not work.”
“But it’s so unlikely as to be impossible!” “It’s perfectly possible,” she said. “The likelihood of it having happened is one, as it already occurred. That is the oddity of outliers and probability,
“So the night will reign, for the choice of honor is life
That was all right. She liked Adolin as he was. He was kind, noble, and genuine. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t brilliant or . . . or whatever else Kaladin was. She couldn’t even define it. So there.
Passionate, with an intense, smoldering resolve. A leashed anger that he used, because he had dominated it. And a certain tempting arrogance. Not the haughty pride of a highlord. Instead, the secure, stable sense of determination that whispered that no matter who you were—or what you did—you could not hurt him. Could not change him.
Jasnah had once defined a fool as a person who ignored information because it disagreed with desired results.
idiot
“Chana knows, I wondered sometimes how I raised that child without strangling her. By age six, she was pointing out my logical fallacies as I tried to get her to go to bed on time.” Shallan grinned. “I always just assumed she was born in her thirties.”
My little Jasnah, insufferable and wonderful.”
includes Brightness Navani.” He stopped in place, and stared at her in surprise. Then he grunted, his face barely visible. “I see Jasnah in you.” Rarely had Shallan been given such a compliment.
“Choose the option,” Zahel said, rearranging his pillow, “that makes it easiest for you to sleep at night.” The old ardent closed his eyes and settled back. “That’s what I wish I’d done.”
advice
“Fleet kept running,” Kaladin growled, getting back under Elhokar’s arm. “What?” “He couldn’t win, but he kept running. And when the storm caught him, it didn’t matter that he’d died, because he’d run for all he had.”
“We all die in the end, you see,” Kaladin said. The two of them walked down the corridor, Kaladin leaning on his spear to keep them upright. “So I guess what truly matters is just how well you’ve run.
AM CALLED. I MUST GO. A DAUGHTER DISOBEYS. YOU WILL SEE NO FURTHER VISIONS, CHILD OF HONOR. THIS IS THE END. FAREWELL. “Stormfather!” Dalinar yelled. “There has to be a way! I will not die here!”
“If I protect . . .” He coughed. “If I protect . . . only the people I like, it means that I don’t care about doing what is right.” If he did that, he only cared about what was convenient for himself.
Shouting. Kaladin heard it now, as if it were closer. He is mine! a feminine voice said. I claim him. HE BETRAYED HIS OATH.
“I will protect even those I hate,” Kaladin whispered through bloody lips. “So long as it is right.”
“You’ve been taught well, Adolin,” Dalinar said, eyes on that assassin. “You’re a better man than I am. I was always a tyrant who had to learn to be something else. But you, you’ve been a good man from the start. Lead them, Adolin. Unite them.”
Dalinar did not fight for his life. His life hadn’t been his own for years.
“You sent him to the sky to die, assassin,” Kaladin said, Stormlight puffing from his lips, “but the sky and the winds are mine. I claim them, as I now claim your life.”
could have stopped the murders at any time.” “I don’t know what that means,” Kaladin said. “But you never had to kill.” “My orders—” “Excuses! If that was why you murdered, then you’re not the evil man I assumed. You’re a coward instead.” Szeth looked him in the eyes, then nodded. He pushed Kaladin back, then moved to swing. Kaladin drove his hands forward, forming Syl into a sword. He expected a parry. The move was intended to draw Szeth out of his attack pattern. Szeth did not parry. He just closed his eyes. Kaladin drove his Blade into the assassin’s chest right below the neck, severing the
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“It’s perfectly clear to us,” Syl said. “You’re the strange ones. Break a rock, and it’s still there. Break a spren, and she’s still there. Sort of. Break a person, and something leaves. Something changes. What’s left is just meat. You’re weird.”
“The Almighty could die,” Dalinar said. “If that is true, then this Odium can be killed. I will find a way to do it. The visions mentioned a challenge, a champion. Do you know anything of this?”
