Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, #3)

by Brandon Sanderson

The Assassin in White. Murderer. And apparently savior.

A windspren appeared near him, like a line of light. Then another. A single hope. The Words. Say the Words!

And then, of course, he thought of Tien.

For he saw the future. He saw his father in black armor, a plague upon the land. He saw the Blackthorn return, a terrible scourge with nine shadows. Odium’s champion. “He’s going to fall,” Renarin whispered. “He’s already fallen. He belongs to the enemy now. Dalinar Kholin … is no more.”

Jasnah fell to her knees, then pulled Renarin into an embrace. He broke down crying, like he had as a boy, burying his head in her shoulder.

Trembling, bleeding, agonized, Dalinar forced air into his lungs and spoke a single ragged sentence. “You cannot have my pain.”

“YOU CANNOT HAVE MY PAIN!” Dalinar bellowed, stepping toward Odium.

Something stirred inside of Dalinar. A warmth that he had known once before. A warm, calming light. Unite them.

“Journey before destination,” Dalinar said. “It cannot be a journey if it doesn’t have a beginning.”

“I will take responsibility for what I have done,” Dalinar whispered. “If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.”

“I know what you are,” Jasnah said. “You’re my cousin. Family, Renarin. Hold my hand. Run with me.”

“I am Unity.” He slammed both hands together. And combined three realms into one.

“I will protect those I hate. Even … even if the one I hate most … is … myself.”

Renarin popped out behind her, then cried out and ran for Adolin. He grabbed his older brother in an embrace, then gasped. Adolin was wounded? Good lad, Dalinar thought as Renarin immediately set to healing his brother.

Pattern appeared as a Shardblade with a faint, almost invisible latticework running up the length. She wove her power, and an army climbed from the ground around her. In Urithiru, she’d made an army of a score to distract the Unmade. Now, hundreds of illusions rose around her: soldiers, shopkeepers, washwomen, scribes, all drawn from her pages. They glowed brilliantly, Light streaming from them—as if each were a Knight Radiant.

The illusory Adolin glowed with Stormlight and floated a few inches off the ground. She’d made him a Windrunner.

“I’m sorry,” he said, lifting the glistening weapon. “And thank you.”

All right then. Jasnah didn’t need help.

Something tickled his mind, very faint, like a sigh. A single word: Mayalaran. A … name? “Right, Maya,” Adolin said. “Let’s bring that thing down.”

She held up the sphere, and then—heart fluttering—she drank it in. Her skin started glowing with a soft white light. “Journey before destination.”

“All right, Maya,” Adolin said. “We’ve practiced this.” He wound up, then hurled the Shardblade, which spun in a gleaming arc before slamming into the Fused on Hrdalm’s chest, piercing her straight through. Dark smoke trailed from her eyes as they burned away.

He crawled out onto the street, half expecting Skar and Drehy to be there to pull him to his feet. Storms, he missed those bridgemen.

He leaped at Kaladin, propelling himself off the ground, hanging in the air. And in so doing, he entered Kaladin’s domain.

“Ten spears go to battle,” he whispered, “and nine shatter. Did that war forge the one that remained? No, Amaram. All the war did was identify the spear that would not break.”

These had always been right. Until today—until they had proclaimed that Jasnah Kholin’s love would fail.

Teft. Knight Radiant.

Dalinar met her eyes. “I want you to teach me how to read.”

She opened her eyes to find Adolin scrambling across the wall to her. He skidded a little as he fell to his knees beside her, then raised his hands—only to hesitate, as if confronted by something very fragile.

There, she thought. That’s the one. That’s the one I am. He knows.

Never mind if the other option is as handsome as sin, kind to everyone he meets regardless of their station, passionate about his art, and genuinely humble in the weirdest, most confident way. Never mind if he actually seems to get you, and remarkably listens to your problems, encouraging you to be you—not to hide yourself away. Never mind if being near him makes you want to rip his shirt off and push him into the nearest alleyway, then kiss him until he can’t breathe anymore.

Storms, she loved this man.

“But that’s the thing, Shallan. I don’t want anyone. I want you.”

Down below, in an alleyway off the main thoroughfare, a woman with flowing red hair kissed a man in a ragged and ripped uniform.

“That’s a nice rock,” she said, completely serious. “Thank you.” “Where did you get it?” “I found it on the battlefield below. If you get it wet it changes colors. It looks brown, but with a little water, you can see the white, black, and grey.”

“We lift the bridge together, Teft,” Kaladin said. “And we carry it.”

The final death of Jezrien. Yaezir. Jezerezeh’Elin, king of Heralds. A figure known in myth and lore as the greatest human who had ever lived.

Yes, I began my journey alone, and I ended it alone. But that does not mean that I walked alone.

Two men: one tall and lanky, the other short and scrappy, silver-haired at the temples. Drehy and Skar.

Elhokar’s son.

At its root, a name. Renarin Kholin.

“It looks beautiful.” “You look beautiful,” she replied. “You are beautiful.” “Only because you’re here. Without you, I fade.”

“What? Son, why did you hide this from me?” “Because you’re you.”

She wore a small but unmistakable crown on her head. The Kholin family, it seemed, had chosen their new monarch.

Vyre, He Who Quiets, sucked in the light of the sphere.

A pair of boots. Ka seemed embarrassed as she opened the box and revealed them as a gift from Kaladin and Bridge Four, but Shallan just laughed.

Balat, tallest and round faced. Wikim, still gaunt, with skin as pale as Shallan’s. Jushu, thinner than she recalled, but still plump.

We took Shardblades from the women, he thought, glancing at the one hung on the wall above his desk. And they seized literacy from us. Who got the better deal, I wonder?

To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one.

Oathbringer, My Glory and My Shame. Written by the hand of Dalinar Kholin.