Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)

by Brandon Sanderson

“You,” she said, “were one of the few humans ever to taste divinity. A man who could think with incredible speed. A man who could feel the powerful crushing emotions of Odium. You had both the mind and emotions of a god.” “… Yet never,” he whispered, “at the same time. Until now.”

The question of opposing his friends cut to his very soul. For by its light, he saw that he had been lying, even to himself.

The burden of a king was to make the difficult choices, and he’d done that for so many years.

Conquest was not a need, but a want. And he was done denying himself the things he wanted.

You now know of my sins in full. You now also know of my revelations, if they may be called that, in full. Each of my visions is here. Each experience of my past that shaped me.

“I believe he is thinking for himself,” Nale said. “He has simply chosen answers you do not like. Why is it that all proponents of ‘free thinking’ only accept the answers they want? Anyone who agrees with them is a free thinker. Anyone who doesn’t? Why, they must be blinded by the oppressive norms of society, or are dancing on strings to the evil delight of those in control.”

It was unfair that convincing someone depended not on the strength of ideas, but the strength of the arguer.

It’s just … I felt something from you. “Felt it?” Szeth said. “How can you feel what I do?” I don’t know. I feel close to you. You hurt. “I always hurt.” Shouldn’t that … go away? Human pains fade, don’t they? “I should very much like it to be so, sword-nimi. But I do not think I deserve such peace.” You said you weren’t going to kill anymore. “I should like that as well,”

Thude, Odium didn’t care about her. Eshonai was disposable to him. I think that’s when I started to change. That day when we found her, and I realized all anyone cared about was her armor…”

“I still think it was a little brash,” Syl said. “Sometimes,” Szeth said, hefting the sword, “you simply have to make a decision.”

he was fighting for something. Because ideals were stupid unless there were people behind them.

“We’re on a journey,” she said. “Between who we were, and who we want to be. Both of us.” “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, though.”

“You truly are brilliant. Not with this alone, but with helping Szeth. You’re incredible, Syl.”

“Don’t you start.” “Start what? I have nothing at all to say about a budding young Radiant being distracted from important events by romantic dalliances. Nothing at all.” She halted at the window. “You’re getting better at sarcasm.”

How many people who get close to me will I end up killing? Why does it happen so often to me?”

“You are working to repair that error,” Pattern said. “Shallan, it is my job to help and protect you. I do a bad job sometimes! But today, let me promise: in you, I have found someone sincere. That is what attracted me—your sincerity and your lies, combining to create a more important truth.

“You will not hurt the people around you. Not intentionally, and not any more than any other human. The statistics Formless gives you are the bad kind of lies—the lies that look at a truth and twist it into something worse. I trust you. Testament trusts you, despite what happened. We love you. Statistically—real statistics—you have done an excellent job! I have ultimate, mathematically backed faith that you will continue to do an excellent job! So please, do not listen to Formless. Do not give her life.”

“When did you get so good at talking to humans?” “I listen to you,”...

“Listen,” Sivi said. “Life was never easy when you were young, Szeth. You were merely allowed to pretend that it was. Other people were always out there making these kinds of choices.”

“Just because your life gave you the luxury of simplicity doesn’t mean the world was magically less complex,”

You know how many nights I spent holding his hand while he cried? You weren’t there, Szeth. I was.” “I know.”

“Why?” Shallan asked as Mishram gently lowered her to the ground. “He does not love us,” Mishram said. She looked to the sky, as if worried. “So we must love ourselves.”

“You cry for them, singer?” Mishram asked. “I cry for all of us,” Shallan whispered. “And for the pain that we all cause one another. Is there no way to stop this, Mishram?”

Shallan had made a practice of studying eyelines for sketching. She was absolutely certain that Mishram was staring at the way Renarin had taken Rlain’s hand for support.

“We are children of Sja-anat,” Glys said from behind Renarin. “You remember your sister?” “Help us find you,” Rlain demanded. “We cannot free you, but it will be better for everyone if you are found by us, and not by our enemies.”

“A good general understands the stakes. Almost nothing is worth fighting for until you’re all dead.”

He felt the winds behind him grow still, and he could make out the shouts of men fighting in the dome. Men who were exhausted, barely holding on. Men who would have to hold out for three and a half more days. Because no help was coming.

“I cannot afford to care any longer,” Honor said. “I can’t afford to care about any of you. I need … distance. Yes.”

“Was it bad, being in the strange place?” “A little,” the boy said. “But … I knew you’d come for me.” “I will,” Dalinar said, then took the boy in an embrace. “I always will, Gav.”

I should never have picked you, Dalinar. You are born of war, and trail blood like a shadow. The sole thing you know how to do is break. If you are told no, you just punch harder—because life has taught you that’s how to get what you want. But sometimes, deny it though you may, the world doesn’t need what you want.

“Can I study you?” “Um…” Uma said. “No?” “I told you to stop phrasing it that way, Demoux,”

“What does it say?” Galladon said. Baon closed the envelope. “It has only his signature. And a crude depiction of male genitalia.” “From the Trickster Aspect,” Mother said. “He was here too, last year.” “Of course he was,” Demoux repeated, then sighed. “I’m ready to get off this rusting planet. What about you two?” “Yes, please,” Galladon said. “One of the eldest beings in the cosmere … and he has the mental age of a thirteen-year-old.”

“You…” Odium said, his anger stoking. “You monster.” “I do what must be done.”

“Admit it, Cultivation. You let the war proceed for millennia and did not intercede, because conflict doesn’t just inflame emotion, it forces growth. Your power’s Intent.”

Then Odium, God of Passions, destroyed Kharbranth entirely—the one city he’d bargained all his mortal life to protect.

“Once in a while,” Sigzil said, smiling, “fate hits us with something that’s downright poetic, doesn’t it?”

Sigzil found himself. In a way that training with Master Hoid, or learning beneath Kaladin, had never done for him. Sigzil was, at long last, the man he’d always wanted to be.

Do the most good, she thought to herself. When decisions grew difficult, she relied on this guiding philosophy.

Is this why you wanted to train and become a soldier? Glys asked. Because you wanted to be like him? “No,” Renarin whispered. “I wanted to not need him.” You were just thinking of how you love the way he helped. “I do,” Renarin said as the boys ran off. “But I don’t want to have to rely on him, Glys. All my life, I’ve needed the help of others in a way my father and my brother never did. I like to think that has taught me a thing or two, but storms … this day. This storming day.”

Renarin would always love his brother for that, and would always quietly resent being unable to do it for himself.

They didn’t care to know him. He was always there, but never relevant. The quiet one at the edge of the conversation.

Ultimately, he’d ended up in Bridge Four. Where he would think back to this day, this meeting. And he’d hum to Longing as he remembered how not a single one of his friends had spoken up to request he stay.

Keep going, Sigzil. This is where you belong: the scholar with a spear.

“Two ordinary horses could barely pull this,” Adolin added to Gallant. “Stallions.” Gallant eyed him, then blew out. “Yes, I’m trying to manipulate you,” Adolin said, with a grin. “Is it working?”

die!” Leyten shouted, spasming. “The Scholar with a Spear! I die by the hands of a friend! My spren screams in death, and I know that I have failed to lead! I am no captain! I am nothing! Vyre strikes me, and my eyes burn!”

“The man you were can’t fix this, Dalinar. He never could have.”

“Perception,” she said, remembering the research into spren. “Perception changes Investiture, Dalinar. Wit talked about this place, and how it is a shifting web of Connections.”

“He said it was beyond our ability to understand,” she replied. “But so are all natural phenomena, in the beginning. It is the scientist’s duty to make that which was once unknowable so commonplace that you can wear it on your arm and think nothing of it.”

“I climb!” Tuko shouted, ragged. “I climb the wall of grief toward the light, locked away above! I climb, the weight of my darkened twin on my back, and seek the captive! The light I love! I … Storms … the light I love!”

Renarin didn’t need him any longer, and that was good. But … storms. What did you do when you weren’t enough anymore? When you had been the best all your life, but suddenly you were obsolete?