Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)

by Brandon Sanderson

Dalinar,’ eh?” she said. “A few meetings, and you’re on a first-name basis with the most powerful man in the world?” “The boy’s attitude is contagious,” Lirin said.

He’d stopped revering people he didn’t know the day Amaram branded him. God or king. If they wanted his respect, they could earn it.

“Shallan,” he said, and she looked up, meeting his eyes. “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?”

“Would that any of us,” he said, “could protect ourselves from the costs heroism often requires. But again, if there were no cost, no sacrifice, then would it be heroism at all? I cannot promise you that it will be easy, but Shallan, I’m proud of you.” I’m proud of you, Radiant whispered. I’m proud of you, Veil—the part of her that was Veil—agreed.

“Well,” Wit said, his eyes alight with amusement, “if it isn’t my favorite flute thief.” “You gave that flute to me, Wit,” Kaladin said, sighing as he leaned on the doorframe. “Then you lost it.” “I found it again.” “Still lost it.” “That’s not the same as stealing.”

“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.”

“Take it from a guy who is all too capable with a lie: nothing is easier to sell someone than the story they want to hear.

“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.”

Wit tossed his flute, spinning it, then pointed it directly at Kaladin. “Congratulations. You’ve practiced music, you’ve listened to a self-important rant, and you’ve delivered quips at awkward points. I dub you graduated from Wit’s school of practical impracticality.”

“You know what first drew me to you, Kaladin?” Wit asked. “You did one of the most difficult things a man can do: you gave yourself a second chance.”

Then he was gone, his last whistle slowly fading. “Did you ever think,” Kaladin said to Dalinar, “that you’d end up dancing to that man’s whims?” “I suspect,” Dalinar said, stepping back and waving for Kaladin to enter, “we’ve been dancing to them for years without knowing it. Come. I have a few things to tell you two before you leave.”

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

Abidi the Monarch laughed. “An illusion?” he said. “You think I’ll be distracted by something unreal?” He continued laughing until the Shardblade speared him from behind, spilling orange blood on his fine white outfit. Real blood. From a real wound. He gasped, looking down. “Reality,” Shallan hissed, “is what I decide it to be.”

“I’d suggest,” the woman said, “a nice pair of leggings or trousers under the ko-takama for a Windrunner—or whatever you are—so that…” “What?” Syl said innocently. “When you’re flying,” the woman said. “So that, you know…” Syl cocked her head, then gasped. “Oh! Or everyone will see my chull.” “Your … chull?” the woman asked.

“… Chull head,” the woman finally said. “Chull head,” Syl replied. “Down … there.” “Down there.” Syl held the woman’s eyes with an unblinking stare, before adding, “I feed it grass sometimes.”

He was Taravangian, the divided one—and he could save them. All of them.

Jasnah shook her head. “We’ll get answers from Wit—if we’re lucky—on his timeline, not ours.” She seemed expressly annoyed with Wit.

He hadn’t realized how it would overwhelm him. He fell to his knees before the dandelions and stared at them.

with trembling fingers and touched leaves that didn’t pull back. “What’s wrong with that plant?” Kaladin asked. “Is this a sign of the problems in your homeland?” “No,” Szeth whispered. “It is merely a weed. The most beautiful of weeds…”

“You all right?” Kaladin said, hopping off his rock. Oh, I’m fine! said the sword strapped to Szeth’s back. Thank you. Nobody has been paying attention to me today, but I’m famously patient. It comes from being a sword. Kaladin ignored the comment, stepping closer to Szeth. “My spren,” Szeth said, “wishes me to show better composure. I obey.”

Szeth found it amusing how Kaladin rammed his foot down, then stopped with a jerk a fraction of an inch from the plant. Trying to get it to flinch. This is a man, Szeth thought, who pulls back before crushing a weed.

“So…” Lift said. “What you were sayin’ earlier. Gonna become a god, eh, Dalinar? Deevy. Real deevy. When you do it, can I put in some requests? I kinda hate how toes feel. You know, whenever I remember I have them, and start thinkin’ about them. Can you fix that? Also, make porridge taste like meat and vice versa.”

“Navani tells me,” Rushu said, “that you are neither male nor female.” “It is true.” “Could you tell me more about that?” Rushu asked. “To a human, it must sound very strange.” “Actually, it doesn’t,”

Time became thick when he danced. Molasses minutes and syrup seconds.

“Pardon,” Wyndle said, “but you’re staring right now.” “Do you think,” Lift said, “he likes poetry?” “Who doesn’t?” Wyndle said. “Ooh, I’ve written seventeen poems about the delightful nature of Iriali footstools!” “Shut up,” Lift said. “Gav. Do you think he likes poetry?” “I … don’t know what that is,” Gav said. “Yeah,” Lift said, still watching Sigzil. Then she added, “I don’t either.” “What?” Wyndle said. “It’s just a term I’ve heard girls say. Somethin’ about words’n’shit, right?” Wyndle sighed. “Mistress, please don’t use such crude terminology.” “That sword ardent does it.”

Still, Lift probably should be a better role model. “Gav,” she said to the prince, “forget you heard me say that word.” “Poetry?” he asked. “Yeah. Sure. That’s the one. Bad word, that.”

Both he and Breteh were former bridgemen from Bridge Thirteen, the group that had become Teft’s squires. She thought that was why they wore red glyphwards on their arms—something about a pact relating to Moash and vengeance.

“Lift, you’re so highly Invested I’m surprised normal people can’t feel it. You glow so brightly to my life sense that you outshine anyone nearby. You’re sure Gavinor was here?”

So cold, Maya thought. She’s not a good match for you. I’m surprised you considered it. I considered a lot of women, Adolin thought back. There wasn’t a lot else to do on the Shattered Plains. I dated basically everyone eligible and at least halfway interested. Wait, wait, Maya thought, laughing—something that was so good to hear from her. Adolin. Were you a slut?

I, he thought to her, was not a slut. A trollop at worst. Besides, I find that a wise commander investigates every strategy, so that he knows his options. Of course, she thought. You are correct. A wise soldier knows all the best positions. Adolin grinned. From speaking to Pattern and Syl, he’d gotten the impression that spren were innocent in the ways of romance and intimacy. Maya was different. He supposed it was what happened when you spent your life around soldiers.

“She’s amazing,” Szeth whispered. You are better, his spren said. Go. Destroy her. “It is a duel,” Szeth said. “It is not about destruction.” She will kill you if she can, my squire. Imagine a slow death encased by stone, the whispers all around you … That image was cold and sharp, like a spear through his chest. It made him tremble, and something sparked inside him. Control it, the spren warned.

Some of the others said that you were not diligent or worthy, the spren said, because you did not choose the law as your guide. But now … now I prove them wrong. Well done, Szeth.

It was still. Not. Permission. You may use your second Surge, the spren said. Fight. As a full Skybreaker.

He set the very air alight as he moved. Skybreaker. Rit opened her mouth to scream, and he plunged his Blade straight through, out the back of her skull, into the next column of stone.

I deserve peace. The spear formed in his hand again, but then was Syl, laughing as they danced. I deserve to be happy. He tossed her as a spear from one hand, then caught her as a woman—Syl choosing when to be which, but him sensing each change. They turned, whirling, two hands holding two hands. I will enjoy this. I will let myself enjoy living. The darkness didn’t die, but it retreated as all darkness did before light. And as they twirled, Syl’s laughter calling to the sky, the Wind arrived and began dancing with them. The Wind began moving them both. Pushing him this way, then that. A swirling, gusting, powerful force. Alive, guiding his steps. I remember this, Kaladin thought. From my childhood. I remember moving, and the Wind joining me. I remember … peace and freedom.

In that—at the edge of the world and the advent of the end of all things—Kaladin Stormblessed allowed himself to be happy. For what felt like the first time since Tien’s death.

He looked at Syl, whose smile was made of light, and he grinned. He let himself grin. Happiness was a part of what defined Kaladin.

There was no wind, but Szeth danced anyway.

Because Adolin Kholin was bad at a whole terrible host of things. But he refused to let people be one of those.

“I’m used to it, sir,” she said. “I have papers.” Papers? He hesitated, then glanced at his scribe. “One who has filled out the forms,” Challa the scribe whispered, “to live as a man.” Ah. He’d heard of that. Well, the Azish did things their own way, didn’t they?

Right. With someone else, Rlain would have simply reached out to grab their shoulder for support, but Renarin liked people to ask first. Right, right. That was what Rlain was asking.

You need not always have the last word, though I know you collect them like badges of honor.

Adolin didn’t intend to let that blow fall. He roared again, drawing their attention, and was rewarded by looks of confusion, shock, and—most importantly—terror. Adolin grabbed the nearest direform and smashed a fist through the malen’s face, breaking carapace, then flesh, then bone. As the corpse sagged in his hands, Adolin took it by one leg and began swinging. It was difficult to find weapons a Shardbearer wouldn’t break within one or two swings. Even the best swords shattered when you hit someone with them using the full force of Plate—but direforms had extremely strong carapace. Adolin made full use of this, swinging his grisly trophy around, bashing it into the others, shocking them with the brutality of it. As the body ripped apart, leaving him brandishing a leg, Adolin at last achieved his goal. The demoralized and confused enemy broke, Regals included. Most battles weren’t about killing everyone who stood against you; they were instead about getting your enemy to stop fighting.

“Szeth,” Kaladin said. “How old were you when they took you from your home?” “Eleven,” Szeth whispered, hoarse. “I was eleven.” Szeth wasn’t Kaladin. Szeth was Tien. Szeth wasn’t the young man who had gone to war, determined to save and protect. He was the child who had been ripped from his peaceful life, then transformed into a killer against his will. A scared little boy who just yearned to go home.

“The world needs killers,” Kaladin said. “So if it can’t find them, it makes them out of whatever raw materials are at hand. Like children who love to dance.”

Szeth put one hand to the wall and let the bundle of swords slump from his other hand onto the floor. “Why?” he asked, his back bowed. “Why would I deserve happiness? Give me a single good reason, bridgeman.” Kaladin took a gamble. A line that wouldn’t be true for everyone, and would be dangerously untrue to say to some who had come from places of abuse. But he’d heard enough of Szeth’s story, despite the parts that the man obviously hadn’t shared. “One good reason, Szeth?” Kaladin replied. “I’ll give you two. One mother. One father. I don’t know where your parents are, if they’re still alive or if they’ve passed, but I’ll tell you this. They loved you. They want you to be happy.” “I don’t deserve their names,” Szeth said. “The things I’ve done…” “Things you were made to do,” Kaladin said, stepping forward. “I spent years believing my parents would hate me for my failings, but I knew—I always knew—that was a lie. You know too, don’t you?” Szeth looked away. So Kaladin stepped forward again, careful, as if he were approaching a timid animal. “You are not a thing,” Kaladin whispered. “You can choose. What do you want, Szeth?” “You’re wrong,” Szeth said, harsh. He turned, then cocked his head—and was probably hearing the spren. That cursed highspren who hovered around him, unseen, whispering lies. “I … I’m flawed. My choices can’t be trusted. I do not know right and wrong.” “No,” Kaladin said. “Szeth, listen to what that spren is saying, then think. When you were about to hit...

“I want…” Szeth said. “I … want to stop killing.” He looked to Kaladin, wide-eyed, as if admitting this were some terrible transgression. “I want to be done with it. I want to cause no more pain.”

“You are so bad at math!” “Don’t say that, Pattern,” she replied. “My name, at least, is parallel. That’s a mathematical concept.” “… Your name?” “Yes.” “Parallel?” “Shallan,” she said. “Two ‘l’s. Pair’a’els.” His pattern froze. Then, remarkably, he let out a loud guffaw. “That was actually funny!”

She put her hand on his, resting on her shoulder. “When did you get so good at talking to humans?” “I listen to you,” Pattern said softly. She smiled. “Then I do the opposite,” he added. He could only let that hang for a moment before snickering and whispering that it was a joke. Shallan smiled, then turned and walked into the sitting room with the men.

“But … Sig, what if I’m not good enough? Those squires … they’re my fault. Their deaths. I…” “Blame Kaladin.” Leyten frowned, glancing at him. “Kal put us in charge,” Sigzil said, trying a calculated gambit. “He could have been here. He isn’t. So it’s his fault.” “He led us well!” Leyten snapped, pulling out of his funk, eyes alight with determination. “He did everything he could, then more. He’s not to blame.” “Oh, so you trust his decisions?”