Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, #3)

by Brandon Sanderson

Too many eyes to see through. Too many emotions. Were these his only two options? Pain or oblivion? Fight it.

“I had a splinter once,” Shallan noted. “It eventually got out of hand.” “You … you did not just say that.” “Yes, you obviously imagined it. What a sick, sick mind you have, Kaladin.”

She punched him lightly in the arm. “It’s good to see you smiling.” “That was smiling?” “It was the Kaladin equivalent. That scowl was almost jovial.” She smiled at him. Something felt warm within him at being near her. Something felt right.

“There is satisfaction,” he said to Dalinar, “in creating a list of things you can actually accomplish, then removing them one at a time. As I said, a simple joy.”

“The cost? There shouldn’t be a cost to being principled.” “Oh? What if making the right decision created a spren who instantly blessed you with wealth, prosperity, and unending happiness? What then? Would you still have principles? Isn’t a principle about what you give up, not what you gain?”

“So it’s all negative?” Dalinar said. “Are you implying that nobody should have principles, because there’s no benefit to them?” “Hardly,” Nohadon said. “But maybe you shouldn’t be looking for life to be easier because you choose to do something that is right! Personally, I think life is fair. It’s merely that often, you can’t immediately see what balances it.” He wagged the finger he’d used to tip the merchant’s scales. “If you’ll forgive a somewhat blatant metaphor. I’ve grown fond of them. You might say I wrote an entire book about them.”

“Sometimes, a hypocrite is nothing more than a man who is in the process of changing.”

She just had to give Dalinar time. Even if, deep down, a part of her was angry. Angry that his pain so overshadowed her growing fear for Elhokar and Adolin. Angry that he got to drink himself to oblivion, leaving her to pick up the pieces. But she had learned that nobody was strong all the time, not even Dalinar Kholin. Love wasn’t about being right or wrong, but about standing up and helping when your partner’s back was bowed. He would likely do the same for her someday.

done before?’ “ ‘In some things, yes. You will love. You will hurt. You will dream. And you will die. Each man’s past is your future.’ “ ‘Then what is the point?’ I asked. ‘If all has been seen and done?’ “ ‘The question,’ she replied, ‘is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path.’ ”

For years, it seemed that Dalinar had been seeing everything around him through a haze. But those words … something about them … Could words give off light?

Taravangian felt old. His age was more than the aches that no longer faded as the day proceeded. It was more than the weak muscles, which still surprised him when he tried to lift an object that should have seemed light. It was more than finding that he’d slept through yet another meeting, despite his best efforts to pay attention. It was even more than slowly seeing almost everyone he’d grown up with fade away and die. It was the urgency of knowing that tasks he started today, he wouldn’t finish.

“Shallan’s broken, so I think I’m trying to hide her. Like a cracked vase, where you turn the nice side toward the room, hiding the flaw. I’m not doing it on purpose, but it’s happening, and I don’t know how to stop it.” He held her.

She leaned into him, listening to his heartbeat, his breathing. She felt his warmth. “You never did say,” she whispered, “which one you prefer.” “It’s obvious. I prefer the real you.” “Which one is that, though?” “She’s the one I’m talking to right now. You don’t have to hide, Shallan. You don’t have to push it down. Maybe the vase is cracked, but that only means it can show what’s inside. And I like what’s inside.” So warm. Comfortable. And strikingly unfamiliar. What was this peace? This place without fear?