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December 6 - December 12, 2024
So strange, to hold his hand again. The man she’d come to see, over the centuries, as the sibling she’d never had. The one they’d betrayed. The one they’d abandoned. The one who had, through sheer determination, carried Roshar on his back into the modern age.
“You fools,” Ash said to the Fused. “You could have had the city, but you came here. For the broken.”
And for the first time in over four thousand years, the Bearer of Agonies fought back.
Strangely, he found he didn’t fear even the gods. What was the worst they could do? Destroy him?
And … sometimes I feel it would be so much more convenient for everyone if I weren’t there.”
Renarin, Glys said eventually. Shallan has arrived, and is responding oddly.
Shallan? he thought. What do you mean? I brought her out of her vision, Glys said, because you indicated you wanted to gather us again. Your window is still standing, and she’s watching. Oh, blood of his fathers. Shallan was watching? What’s she doing? he asked. Hopping up and down, Glys said, making a high-pitched sound like she’s in pain. She’s not in pain, Renarin said back, sighing. She’s squealing in excitement. That girl …
The future—for once—seemed extraordinarily bright. Like glowing, brilliant glass.
Adolin had to stumble and crawl to climb that pile of corpses. At the top, they found two bodies. Unarmored. Taln, the Herald, knelt here with his head back, speared with a dozen lances, which propped up his corpse—his hand still holding the crushed skull of a dead Fused. In death, he was covered in blood, his face tipped toward the sky and his mouth open as if in a shout. Leaning against him from behind, nestled among the bodies as if looking for a place to rest, was Ash, a bloodied and chipped sword in her lap. She was smiling. Bleeding from a good two dozen hits, she looked at Adolin, who
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They’d paid a terrible price, but the city would last another day.
“They will betray it,” Melishi said. “They are the Voidbringers, destroyers.” “And what are we?” Garith snapped. “We’re all Voidbringers. Every time we pick up a spear or a Blade and slaughter someone over this cursed land, we become Voidbringers. Singer or human, it’s the same. That’s the Void, Melishi.”
Nale strode off, though as he did, Kaladin found Szeth settled on a rock nearby. Watching. “What?” Kaladin said. “I’m waiting,” Szeth said softly, “for some stew.”
“I hate this,” Szeth said, “but I have made promises. Oaths. I am doing good for this land; I can feel it. I should carry on, regardless of the cost to me.”
Between bites, Szeth said, “I would … welcome your thoughts, Kaladin Stormblessed.”
The mythical power of stew.
“You blamed yourself for surviving, didn’t you?” Kaladin nodded. “It hurts to live,” Szeth said, with a nod, “when you don’t deserve it. So
Storms. If he let this need to protect control him completely, he would never be able to help anyone. He’d break first. And so, carefully, he fought back.
“Wit would have done better.” “Wit would have gotten himself stabbed.” “Maybe,”
“I would like to engage your services,” the figure said, sitting cross-legged between Kaladin and the stewpot. “Services…?” “Whatever you’re doing to help Szeth,” the spren said. “Talking to him.” “Wit calls it therapy,” Kaladin said with a grunt. “Well, I want that. Um … please?” “You want help?” Syl said. “You’re a highspren!”
“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,” Syl whispered to Kaladin.
“Rule one, I’m not a thing,” 12124 said. “Rule two, I get to choose.” “Rule three…” Syl whispered. The highspren stopped. “I deserve to be happy.” He turned to regard them. “What if being happy means … doing things differently from other spren?”
If they die now, they die as they are. But their journey is not complete, Kaladin. Neither is yours.
Please, Kaladin. He is worth saving. Do not let him die like this …
Goodbye. It might be a great long time before we see one another again, if ever.
Renarin felt powerless. He thought his gasp earlier—while hiding in the leaves—might have ruined things. It hadn’t, fortunately, but seeing a singer and a human kiss … This had all been started by love. Love and betrayal.
“That was,” he said—and she winced at what might come next—“perhaps the most impressive display of raw talent I’ve ever witnessed.” She … slowly uncringed. “What? I fell over myself.” “That woman is a full Feruchemist. You reacted in time despite her manyfold speed enhancement. And the use of Abrasion … your manipulation of forces…”
“You need,” he said softly, “a teacher.” “You need,” she replied, “some pants.”
“The man I was,” Jezrien said. “He escaped me. I let him go, like leaves before a storm. Have you seen him? I … would be him again. Please.”
“You, Dalinar Kholin, think you can make peace? You break everything you touch. You took the throne from Elhokar, then sent him to die. You want to be a god because you want power.”
Kaladin couldn’t argue someone out of being mentally ill.
“Painful,” Nale said. “But glorious. I wasn’t always so harsh, you know. I spoke of it to Lift. I should like to see her again … something about that child … always outside my reach, taunting me with who I used to be…”
It was the meaning of “journey before destination.” And Kaladin believed it. That would have to be enough.
“I’m supposed to kill you,” she whispered. “I won my own Blade after you left. To prove I wasn’t weak, I wasn’t Truthless. In the end, your leaving wasn’t enough. You still ruined my life.”
Even if you recognized my voice, you must know that I was ready to kill you. Why did you trust that I wouldn’t?” “I didn’t, Elid. I just decided to be done.” “Hell of a time to decide that,” she said, holding to him.
“Me? Are you insane?” “I have been told we are,”
First, this Voice had stolen the grasslands from him, then it had stolen his innocence, then finally it had ascended him to master of wind and Truth.
face. A face she knew from art and description. Nale—Nalan’Elin, the Herald. “Chana,” he said. “I need you to join Kalak and myself in Kholinar. Our work grows more difficult.” Nale. Kalak. Chana.
“She is one of them,” Mother said. “Yes,” Nale said. “Which means…” Mother didn’t respond. “Dreder will kill her if you do not,” said Nale. “We have legal justification, by the Veden Voidcraft Act, to punish those who seek such powers—as you well know. Kill her. Those are my orders.”
Her mother had not been well. Obviously. That didn’t excuse her actions, but somehow seeing it … seeing it and confronting it helped.
She could do this. She had already done it. She’d survived it as a child—the only way she knew how, but even then she’d been strong.
Shallan? Pattern said in her mind. Are you … are you all right? I can handle it, she replied. We worried it would break you, he said. I think the Spiritual Realm itself wants to show you things that hurt. “It never broke me,” Shallan said. “It merely cracked me, Pattern. I filled those cracks.” She took another deep breath, shuddering. “I’m glad to remember.”
Are we … just going to ignore … that you’re the daughter of a Herald?
“I know,” Shallan said, wiping her tears again as her father continued to sing. “Pattern … she was at my wedding.”
But that day, Szeth was stronger than he’d ever been. For as the shadow called to him, Szeth turned and fled.
Szeth wasn’t certain he wanted to keep living. Yet Nin said they wanted to make Szeth immortal?
He had chosen Kaladin’s path, that of peace, but now the world itself had been settled upon his shoulders. Peace was something for other people. For Szeth, there had always been—and would always be—voices in the darkness. And his insides were crushed between the force of landscapes: one made of stone, and the other soil.
Then when I choose, I hate my choices. How can you trust me?” “I’ve never met anyone who wants to do the right thing more than you, Szeth.”
“She wanted to be here, with you,” Pattern said. “On this day, a year ago. Unfortunately, she had to remain hidden. To protect you.” “From myself.”
“From the pains of life,” Pattern replied. “And from truth, for a time. In you, the lie was life, Shallan. We need them sometimes. Even spren. You taught me that.” Shallan took Testament’s hands in her own. “Thank you.”
He’d been given forty-seven different swords that day, including one from her, and had chosen to wear Kaladin’s.
