Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)

by Brandon Sanderson

Those storming Words. The most important ones Gavilar would ever say. With them, he would become the Stormfather’s champion—and, he had deduced, something more. Gavilar suspected he would be accepted into the Oathpact and ascend beyond mortality. He had not asked which Herald he would replace; it felt crass, and he did not want to appear crass before the Stormfather. He suspected, though, that he would replace Talenelat, the one who had not left his Blade.

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

His face melted into a simple floating sphere with some kind of arcane rune at the center.

know where she is hidden,” Restares whispered. “Where her soul is. Ba-Ado-Mishram. Granter of Forms. The one who could rival Him. The one … we betrayed.”

Gavilar smiled. None of them knew of the secret scholar he kept in reserve. A master of all things scientific. A man who was neither Ghostblood nor Son of Honor. A man from another world.

She created your parshmen by accident, he said. Long ago, just before the Recreance, Mishram tried to rise up and replace Odium, giving the Voidbringers powers. “Curious,” Gavilar said. “And then?” And then … she fell. She was too small a being to uphold an entire people. It all came crashing down, and so some brave Radiants trapped Mishram in a gemstone to prevent her from destroying all of Roshar. A side effect created the parshmen.

and acknowledged that while he didn’t feel great, someday he would feel great again. For today, that was enough.

storm is coming, Kaladin, the wind whispered. The worst storm … I’m sorry …

“If it weren’t for that capacity, then what good would choices be? If we never had the power to do terrible things, then what heroism would it be to resist?”

The Radiants prepared a flawless heliodor the color of sunlight, and they trapped her inside, then hid her prison. Not in the Physical Realm, and not in Shadesmar.” He bit his lip, then forced out another part. “In the Spiritual Realm. Melishi hid it there.”

“The Spiritual Realm is stranger by orders of magnitude. It is a place where the future blends with the present, where the past echoes like the striking of a clock. Time and distance stretch, like numbers infinitely repeating. It is where the gods live, and it baffles even some of them.”

“When this world was created,” Wit said, “long before Honor, Cultivation, or Odium arrived, Adonalsium left something behind on it. Sometimes it’s called the Old Magic. That term is often applied to the Nightwatcher, who came—with Cultivation’s efforts—from one of those ancient spren. Listen to the Wind when it speaks, Kaladin. It’s weaker than it once was, but it has seen so very much.”

“The wrong people get far too much mileage out of things that sound nice,”

“You think that kid who starved didn’t want to eat? You think her parents didn’t want to escape the ravages of war badly enough? You think if they’d had more Passion, the cosmere would have saved them? How convenient to believe that people are poor because they didn’t care enough about being rich. That they just didn’t pray hard enough. So convenient to make suffering their own fault, rather than life being unfair and birth mattering more than aptitude. Or storming Passion.”

“A virtue is something that is valuable even if it gives you nothing. A virtue persists without payment or compensation. Positive thinking is great. Vital. Useful. But it has to remain so even if it gets you nothing. Belief, truth, honor … if these exist only to get you something, you’ve missed the storming point.”

“Oh, Sazed is among the best. Hope I get to meet him someday.”

“Life breaks us,” Dalinar said. “Then we fill the cracks with something stronger.”

“Reality,” Shallan hissed, “is what I decide it to be.”

Eventually the herd moved off, giving Gallant nuzzles before going. All except one, who lingered, looking over its shoulder at Adolin. In a strangely intimate moment, this horselike spren trotted back and put its muzzle out to Adolin—who lifted his hand to touch it. The interaction lasted barely a moment, then the spren was off again, galloping through the air after the others.

“I’m fine. Just … making sure you all know how proud I am of you.”

Thaidakar, a Herald from another world, a creature who was resourceful and brutal.

“And Lord Kelsier?” Felt said.

I could wave my hand, heal this boy’s body—but I’d return in several weeks and find him starving again, because the systems that caused this suffering are still in place.”

It reminded her of the soft restraints they’d given her when she’d been young. When those who loved her had locked her away

Only that my lightning did not strike his corpse, the Stormfather spat. And my wind did not dash it against stones until it broke.

“The Nightwatcher came from the Night, as the Stormfather came from the Wind. Though, when I was young, the Wind was different. So very different.”

“Each ‘god’ is a slice of a greater entity killed some ten thousand years ago, its power divided. Those fragments have Identities, Intents. Honor: the instinct to make bonds and keep them. Odium: a god’s divine wrath, uncoupled from essential moderating factors like mercy and love.”

Free time was the greatest blessing in the world.

Those terrible men, like any petulant child, destroyed what they could not have.

I feel that something has been guiding me all this time. Something I can’t explain, something beyond Honor.

“Once. It wasn’t a full Ascension, but a mortal did give up the power once. It proved to be the wrong choice, but it was the most selfless thing I believe I’ve ever witnessed. So yes, Dalinar, it is possible. But not easy.”

sometimes, it is not weakness, but strength, to stand up and walk away.

“Rock from Ashyn,”

He instead was most curious about the fact that two of the Shards appeared to be missing, completely vanished from interacting with the others. Hidden. One he understood with some effort. But Valor—where had Valor gone, and how did she hide from even his eyes?

The Skybreakers feared Division. It was related to the fate of the human homeworld, which had been burned.

“I met a couple of windspren who told me that few spren come here anymore. They didn’t know why—they don’t think all that logically. They prefer to stay away because it feels wrong.”

Wait, wait, Maya thought, laughing—something that was so good to hear from her. Adolin. Were you a slut?

He struck by instinct, and his Blade became longer by a few inches and speared straight through another flying Heavenly One—this

He knelt beside the corpse and heard the faintest words whispered from what should have been dead lips. “Your family awaits you, pilgrim.” He stumbled back then, as the body disintegrated. Becoming black smoke, leaving only empty clothing behind.

“Good,” Pattern said. “Excellent, even! Let’s go murder some folks!”

“Do you know the price that was paid on a distant world for your peace, by a man who never wanted this? A man who would have been content with his horses? Are you worth it?”

In that—at the edge of the world and the advent of the end of all things—Kaladin Stormblessed allowed himself to be happy.

The stones didn’t think about tomorrow. Let the wind worry about that. The stones could enjoy the past.

Perhaps these were the tones of the gods. But if that was the case, why four?

gazed out at the passing Stormstriders, enormous spren with long limbs.

The fourth moon. Now dead. Now fallen. With stone that is not quite stone. And when gods came here …

that the human desire to create misery and dominate one’s fellows would prove more durable than her reign.

“Be ready to take the bond,” Ishar said, “and accept the power of Honor.

“It’s all wrapped up in one knot,” Rlain said, nodding. “The fall of your god. The imprisonment of one of ours. The Radiants walking away from their vows, and the singers ending up in slaveform. Renarin … there are so many secrets here.”

“Hmask?” Adolin demanded. “Did you follow me into the storming enemy fortification?” With a grin, Hmask saluted.