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I’m certain some will feel threatened by this record. Some few may feel liberated. Most will simply feel that it should not exist.
A golden light, brilliant yet terrible. Standing before it, a dark figure in black Shardplate. The figure had nine shadows, each spreading out in a different direction, and its eyes glowed a brilliant red.
Odium, the Stormfather rumbled. The enemy. The god who had killed the Almighty. The force behind the Desolations. “Nine shadows,” Dalinar whispered, trembling. Nine shadows? The Unmade. His minions, ancient spren.
I needed to write it anyway.
Something thrummed inside Dalinar, the pulse of the battle, the rhythm of killing and dying. The Thrill.
“Well, in any case, welcome to my elites,” Dalinar said. “Someone get the fellow a horse.” “What?” the archer said. “I tried to kill you!” “Yes, from a distance. Which shows remarkably good judgment. I can make use of someone with your skills.” “We’re enemies!”
There are no foolish oaths. All are the mark of men and true spren over beasts and subspren. The mark of intelligence, free will, and choice.
Your life is defined by deciding what you want, then seizing it. The rest of us could learn from that, if only we could figure out how to keep up.”
“Please, Dalinar. Don’t ever repeat what you just said. I think I can explain away what happened tonight. Maybe. But you don’t seem to realize you’re aboard a ship barely afloat in a storm, while you insist on doing a jig on the prow!”
“The winds are of Honor,” she said, laughing as if he’d said something ridiculous. “We are kindred blood.”
Syl landed on Kaladin’s shoulder, hands on her hips. She tapped her foot. “He probably deserved that.”
“Brightlord, sir,” the man said, eyes down. “I may not be the best soldier around, but … well, sir, trust me on this. We should just pretend that punch never happened.” The other two soldiers nodded their heads in agreement.
“Syl?” Kaladin whispered. “I might need you again.” “You sound apologetic,” she replied, cocking her head. “I am. I don’t like the idea of swinging you about, smashing you into things.” She sniffed. “Firstly, I don’t smash into things. I am an elegant and graceful weapon, stupid. Secondly, why would you be bothered?” “It doesn’t feel right,” Kaladin replied, still whispering. “You’re a woman, not a weapon.” “Wait … so this is about me being a girl?”
You I will protect, little one, Kaladin thought at the child. I will protect them all.
Nearby, Renarin had turned toward his father, eyes wide, jaw dropping. Nobody else seemed to notice.
has he seen him in his own visions?
“You want me,” Adolin said, “to investigate who killed Sadeas.”
“I don’t think she was thinking about marriage, Kaladin…” Syl said, turning and looking backward over her shoulder. “I know you’ve been busy lately fighting guys in white clothing and stuff, but I’ve been doing research. People lock their doors, but there’s plenty of room to get in underneath. I figured, since you don’t seem inclined to do any learning yourself, I should study. So if you have questions…”
Renarin looked to him, then smiled. A pulse of Radiance washed through Adolin, and for an instant he saw himself perfected. A version of himself that was somehow complete and whole, the man he could be.
Only after Gallant trotted off did Adolin realize he’d used his right hand. He held it up, amazed, moving his fingers. His wrist had been completely healed.
Nothing these men did could touch him. He was a destroyer, a conqueror, a glorious maelstrom of death. A god.
I ask not that you forgive me. Nor that you even understand.
this is totally dalinar writing
“Well,” she said, thinking fast and closing her hand, dismissing the image of Adolin. “I just think it might give us an edge. Sometimes secrets are important.” Adolin nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, they are.”
“Inappropriate?” Pattern said. “Such as … dividing by zero?”
The trick to happiness wasn’t in freezing every momentary pleasure and clinging to each one, but in ensuring one’s life would produce many future moments to anticipate.
“Very well, you two,” Pattern said. “No mating. NO MATING.”
“I still think there might be two murderers,” Adolin said. “You know … like someone saw Sadeas dead, and figured they could get away with killing someone else, blaming it on the first fellow.” Oh, Adolin, Shallan thought. He’d arrived at a theory he liked, and now wouldn’t let it go. It was a common mistake warned of in her scientific books.
“Every moment in our lives seems trivial,” Zahel said. “Most are forgotten while some, equally humble, become the points upon which history pivots. Like white on black.”
Evi. He could hear his wife’s name. And he suddenly remembered her face.
It is not a lesson I claim to be able to teach. Experience herself is the great teacher, and you must seek her directly.
No. Veil was a woman who didn’t giggle when she got drunk, or whine, fanning her mouth when the drink was too hard for her. She never acted like a silly teenager. Veil hadn’t been sheltered, practically locked away, until she went crazy and murdered her own family. Shallan stopped in place, suddenly frantic. “My brothers. Pattern, I didn’t kill them, right?” “What?” he said. “I talked to Balat over spanreed,” Shallan said, hand to her forehead. “But … I had Lightweaving then … even if I didn’t fully know it. I could have fabricated that. Every message from him. My own memories…” “Shallan,”
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“If someone insulted my biceps, I wouldn’t attack him,” Dalinar said. “I’d refer him to a physician, because obviously something is wrong with his eyes.”
Dalinar cut his steak again, shoving another piece into his mouth. What? He wasn’t going to drink the wine he’d washed the blood into. He wasn’t a barbarian.
“ ‘Freedom’ is a strange word, Sah,” Kaladin said softly, settling down. “These last few months, I’ve probably been more ‘free’ than at any time since my childhood. You want to know what I did with it? I stayed in the same place, serving another highlord. I wonder if men who use cords to bind are fools, since tradition, society, and momentum are going to tie us all down anyway.”
“Get menstrual cramps?” Shallan said. “Yeah. Mother Cultivation can be hateful. I’m an all-powerful, Shardblade-wielding pseudo-immortal, but nature still sends a friendly reminder every now and then to tell me I should be getting around to having children.” “No mating,” Pattern buzzed softly on the wall.
A failed soldier is often one that has been failed.”
I will confess my murders before you. Most painfully, I have killed someone who loved me dearly.
oh my god, dalinar totally killed evi
“Plays?” “Oh, you’d like them,” she said. “People in a group each pretend to be someone different, and tell a story together.” She strode down the steps at the side, walking among the benches. “The audience out here watches.” Pattern hovered in the center of the stage, like a soloist. “Ah…” he said. “A group lie?”
The girl started climbing. Had her hair been white when she’d started? Shallan frowned.
He was not a man. He was judgment.
Helmless, Kalanor dangled. The sense of the Thrill in his eyes faded to panic. “Mercy,” he whispered. “This is a mercy,” Dalinar said, then struck him straight through the face with his Shardblade.
“I respect you greatly, Brightlord,” Amaram said. “Your life has been one of grand accomplishment, and you have spent it seeking the good of Alethkar. But you—and take this with the respect I intend—are a hypocrite. “You stand where you do because of a brutal determination to do what had to be done. It is because of that trail of corpses that you have the luxury to uphold some lofty, nebulous code. Well, it might make you feel better about your past, but morality is not a thing you can simply doff to put on the helm of battle, then put back on when you’re done with the slaughter.”
“Many people do, but our laws will claim innocent men—for all judges are flawed, as is our knowledge. Eventually, you will execute someone who does not deserve it. This is the burden society must carry in exchange for order.” “I hate that,” Dalinar said softly. “Yes … I do too. But it’s not a matter of morality, is it? It’s a matter of thresholds. How many guilty may be punished before you’d accept one innocent casualty? A thousand? Ten thousand? A hundred? When you consider, all calculations are meaningless except one. Has more good been done than evil? If so, then the law has done its job.
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“I am,” Dalinar said softly. “But sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a person who is in the process of changing.”
She could be that person. That’s you, a part of her cried as she adopted the persona. That’s the real you. Isn’t it? Why do you have to paint that face over another?
“One of the Unmade. Re-Shephir … the Midnight Mother.”
The pain of an Ideal sworn, but not yet overcome.
Power could be an illusion of perception. Even within yourself.
“They conquered the city. They’re Voidbringers.” “No, they’re people. And they’re angry, with good reason.” A gust of wind blew across him, making him drift to the side. “I know that feeling. It burns in you, worms inside your brain until you forget everything but the injustice done to you. It’s how I felt about Elhokar. Sometimes a world of rational explanations can become meaningless in the face of that all-consuming desire to get what you deserve.”
SON OF TANAVAST.
windrunner spren god? or honor spren god?
It made Shallan wonder if this spren wasn’t merely trying to understand humankind, but rather searching for something it itself had lost.
