Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)

by Brandon Sanderson

He had a large spike, also blue, through one eye. The point jutted out the back of his skull.

“Last time you made a tentacle come out of your forehead.” “Highbrow comedy.” “Then it slapped me.” “Punch line. Obviously.

“I’m a storyteller,” Wit said, with a flip of his fingers. “I have the right to redefine words.” “That’s stupid.” “That’s literature.” “It’s confusing.” “The more confusing, the better the literature.” “That might be the most pretentious thing I’ve ever heard.” “Aha!” Wit said, pointing. “Now you’re getting it.”

“If only,” Wit continued, “there were a way to learn to do something productive with this item. It has the look of a tool. Nay, an instrument! Of mythical design. Alas. My poor finite mind is incapable of comprehending the—” “If I don’t interrupt,” Kaladin said, “how long will you keep going?” “Long, long past when it was funny.” “It was funny?” “The words?” Wit said. “Of course not. Your face while I say them though? Well, it’s been said I am an artist.

So instead of saying goodbye, let’s call this … an extended period of necessary separation, requisite to give me time to think of the most perfect, exquisite insult. If I never get to deliver it in person … well, kindly do me the favor of imagining how wonderful it was. All right?”

You can be a good person and say no,

Every sketch was a picture of the artist as well: their perspective, their emphasis, their instinct reclaiming a moment otherwise lost …

This was his true task: help a demigod overcome his megalomania.

“Please, no. I’m broken.” “Life breaks us,” Dalinar said. “Then we fill the cracks with something stronger.”

“He’s good with money.” “So good half of it ends up in his pocket.”

They literally brought the storming horse. With Adolin riding it.

just because something is fleeting, do not imagine it to be unimportant.”

He followed it by hugging Adolin—and if she were the jealous type, she’d have noted that Adolin’s hug was longer than hers.

“But we started this. You and I. Radiants before anyone else.” “Except Jasnah. And maybe Lift. And perhaps—” “You and I,” she said, “were there at the start. We meet at the end,

“Reality warps around you, Kaladin.

A relationship required sacrifice by all parties, but it should not be built on a foundation of sacrifice.

As I fear not the child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.

short, one tall—who

You have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME

But Lift … she couldn’t change. What if Mother returned and didn’t recognize her? What if Mother looked for her and didn’t see her, so found some other little girl to love?

“Well, shit,” Lift said. “You heard that from Zahel, haven’t you?” Wit said, his eyes growing distant. “Why do people keep saying that?” “Rosharans don’t use that particular word as an epithet,” Wit said, his expression still strange as he turned in a slow circle. “You’re only going to confuse people.” “The best words are the ones most people don’t understand.” “That is literally the opposite of how language should function.”

He didn’t want to get into the habit of lowering his standards, but conversely, never being willing to reassess was just as bad.

The darkness was still there and wanted him to believe things would never change, but this little victory proved the opposite. Because while he might never be rid of the thoughts permanently, he was done letting them win.

Not as he had. Outlines of light, the people specifically, and … gemstones, infused. Living things. No color, but … spren. He could see spren. All around.

Huhhhhhhhh

But I feel like I’m ruining everything for everyone. I don’t feel like I’m helping, but I’m also making them all disappointed!”

“Your names are numbers?” Kaladin asked, frowning. “Like … Cryptics?” “What?” both she and the highspren said. “It’s nothing like that,” the highspren replied. “Theirs are formulas. Ours are numbers.” “That was honestly kind of racist,”

You can’t let your soldiers question the difference between the moral decision and the right one.

reminding Szeth of the days when his dances had not left corpses.

“What you did was right.” “Which is why I’m fine taking my duties now.”

You need officers to feel comfortable making decisions. If you muddle that with a fear of repercussions, the result is indecisive leadership. And the result of that is disaster.

Yes, it might get unwieldy. Yes, it might hurt you now and then. But everything you love is going to hurt you now and then, because it is flawed.”

“I’ve never met anyone who wants to do the right thing more than you, Szeth.” “Wanting has never been enough, Father.”

and starting all of this.

WHATTTT

for he was the thing shadows and flames feared. He was a man who did not care what they revealed.

“this is meaningless. None of this is real. What you do is performative.” “Then enjoy the show,”

He was a different man now, but could anything ever make up for such a terrible thing as he’d done?

The question is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path.”

Maybe emotions don’t make us weak. Maybe they teach us.

“What?” Moash asked. “Because you have two hands now?” “You storming idiot,” Lopen said, his expression dark but his grin wide as he leveled his spear. “It’s not the number of hands that makes a man, but the number of cousins.”

A person’s life isn’t meaningless because they can’t hit the hardest anymore, Adolin. At some point, you’re going to realize why you’re really here.

“There is no need to trust someone who couldn’t hurt you, Dalinar. I trust you because you can hold that fire and not be burned.”

As Dalinar had worked to make Adolin into a weapon, Evi had worked to make Adolin into one that had meaning.

Why had he always cared so much that his father be perfect? Why be so worried, then so furious, when Dalinar proved flawed? Because Evi had believed in Dalinar. Against all evidence, she’d loved him. And Adolin, her little boy, desperately wanted her to be right. That was why. That was the final truth of it. With a sigh, Adolin let go. Let her rest, and let his anger flow away like expelled heat from a flame.

He could be the man Evi envisioned. A man who cared. A man who fought for a purpose.

Which flashed to surround Adolin.

“Oh, songs,” Abidi swore.

Honorspren? she asked, with a laugh. You think I went to find a group of stuffy honorspren?

They were wounded. So was he. Sometimes you had to press forward anyway.

An oath could be broken, but a promise? A promise stood as long as you were still trying. A promise understood that sometimes your best wasn’t enough. A promise cried with you when all went to Damnation. A promise came to help when you could barely stand. Because a promise knew that sometimes, being there was all you could offer.

Then he raised his arm to salute the fallen warriors who had come to fight when others hid in their fortresses. In that moment, Adolin saw Honor. Alive and well.

The listener who had been brave enough to infiltrate his enemies—and then the listener who had been kindly enough to see the good in them.