Dawnshard (The Stormlight Archive, #3.5)

by Brandon Sanderson

“When Aimia fell,” he explained, “the Na-Alind—a family among the greatshelled gods of the Reshi—took in the last of the larkin. Greatshells do not think or speak like people do, and the ways of our gods are strange. But best we can tell, there was a promise among them. To protect these, their cousins.

“The island said to take her home.”

It seemed that Rysn needed to pay a visit to Urithiru.

No feeling sorry for yourself, she thought forcefully. You filled your quota on that months ago.

Most of Rysn’s contemporaries entered a discussion asking, “What can I get from this?” Rysn had been disabused of that notion early in her training. Her babsk taught a different way of seeing the world, training her to ask, “What need can I fulfill?”

The problem with people was that everyone saw other nations from far away. Saw them as big mountainous blobs. Foreigners. Strange. Got it. Up close, it was hard to see people that way. Each was so distinctive. Everyone should use a “the” in front of their name. He’d merely figured that out first.

Lopen could appreciate, from up here, how they all looked the same. One shouldn’t forget that they weren’t, sure, but there was a perspective from a distance—different from the up-close perspective. Up close, differences could chafe. But if you remembered that from far away you all looked the same . . . well, that was important too.

The Lopen did not have that particular problem. He was fascinating. She’d

The problem is not that, Nikli sent. The problem is that I am coming to like them.

Arclomedarian crosses us again, said Yelamaiszin, the First. It meddles more and more. It has met with these new Radiants.

It hurts us to kill Radiants, let alone one of the Sighted, said Yelamaiszin, the First.

He thought for a moment, drinking the Light from a big garnet gemstone. The others called him silly, but he thought the different colors tasted different.

“I believe that passionate people make their own luck,”

“Apaliki’tokoa’a. Lopen called them luckspren.”

I said to him, ‘whenever you build a sandwich, you accidentally put the flatbread in the middle. How are you going to put back together a fabrial?’ ” “Is true,” Huio admitted. “Middle bread taste good.” “Your fingers get wet!” Lopen said. “Wet fingers taste good,” Huio said.

“More science happens through lucky accidents than you’d believe,

She’d tasted freedom, something forbidden her for two years.

“Yes,” Rysn said. “Take him.”

I was worried there for a second!

You didn’t let your friends drown in nameless oceans during a frigid storm. That was, sure, basic friendship rules right there.

Curious.

“Curious,”

she says this a lot, reminds me of Alice in Wonderland

The luckspren began moving more quickly. Rysn lost sight of them, and Cord gasped. Chiri-Chiri immediately tucked and dove straight down into the water.

It was too perfect.

Something about this place felt wrong. Like it . . . like it had lodged in his throat as he tried to swallow it. And he couldn’t get it down. He had to cough it back up instead.

That mural . . . it was circular and—inlaid with golden foil—it seemed to glow with its own light. The writing on parts of it was unfamiliar to Rysn; she hadn’t seen the script during any of her travels. It wasn’t even the Dawnchant. The peculiar letters were art themselves, curling around the outside of the exploding sun—which was divided into mostly symmetrical pieces. Four of them, each in turn broken into four smaller sections.

You were brought here, she thought to herself, by one of the Guardians of Ancient Sins. Of course she had been. That made sense. Wait. Did it? Yes, she thought. You were. There are few of them left. And so the Sleepless take up the task.

“And what is it you assume I need?” Nikli asked. She met the thing’s gaze. “You need someone to keep your secrets.”

“You have been tricked, god! I am Hualinam’lunanaki’akilu, the daughter of Numuhukumakiaki’aialunamor, the Fal’ala’liki’nor, he who drew the Bow of Hours at the dawn of the new millennium, heralding the years of change! If you were to kill me, you would be violating the ancient pact of the Seven Peaks, and so must now forfeit the battle!”

“Don’t let me get killed by a monster that looks so stupid. Please.”

His cousin exploded with light.

“As I and my kind are not native to this planet, we prefer the term ‘hordelings.’

“Mere words cannot explain. The Dawnshards are Commands, Rysn. The will of a god.”

“The most powerful forms of Surgebinding transcend traditional mortal understanding,” Nikli said. His body began to re-form, hordelings crawling back into place. “All their greatest applications require Intent and a Command. Demands on a level no person could ever manage alone. To make such Commands, one must have the reasoning—the breadth of understanding—of a deity. And so, the Dawnshards. The four primal Commands that created all things.” He paused. “And then eventually, they were used to undo Adonalsium itself. . . .”

“It is the job of a trademaster to see a need, then fulfill it,”

“So, Rysn is a Shardbearer now?” Cord asked. “A . . . Dawnshardbearer?” “No,” Nikli said. “She bears nothing. She is the Dawnshard now. That is how it works.”

“I joke with the people I love. It’s how I am.” “Yes, but does it have to be?” Huio asked. “Could you, sure, tease a little less?”

“Do . . . others complain about me?” Lopen asked Rua, who settled onto the table. “Do my jokes . . . actually hurt people?” The little spren shrugged. Then nodded. Sometimes they did.

Storm it, he thought. No. No, I gotta take this like Bridge Four. Arrow straight to the heart, but I can pull it out and heal. Huio could have held the truth back, laughed everything off. But he’d trusted Lopen with this wound. “I’ll do it, then,” Lopen said, standing up. “I’ve got to protect people, you know? Even from myself. Gotta rededicate to being the best Lopen possible. A better, improved, extra-incredible Lopen.”

These Words are accepted.

But, well, he was the Lopen. Things should be different for him. “Hey

If no one had traveled this path before, then she didn’t have to compare herself to anyone, did she?

Storms. Was it her, or did this tea taste extra good? She inspected it, then glanced at the sunlight pouring through the porthole. Was it . . . brighter than usual? Why did the colors in her room look so exceptionally vivid all of a sudden?

“Most people who are different from us are frightening at first,” Rysn said. “But one thing Vstim taught me was to see past my own expectations. In this case, it meant looking past what I assumed made someone a person, and seeing the humanity—and the fear—in what appeared to be a nightmare.”

Mundane. Boring. She had an inkling that neither would ever accurately describe her life again.