Darkness turned her and pushed her against the wall. She couldn’t stand, and slumped down, sitting. Wyndle moved up beside her, spreading out a starburst of creeping vines.
Darkness knelt next to her. He held out his hand.
“I saved him,” Lift said. “I did something good, didn’t I?”
“Goodness is irrelevant,” Darkness said. His Shardblade dropped into his fingers.
“You don’t even care, do you?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t.”
“You should,” she said, exhausted. “You should . . . should try it, I mean. I wanted to be like you, once. Didn’t work out. Wasn’t . . . even like being alive . . .”
Darkness raised his Blade.
Lift closed her eyes.
“She is pardoned!”
Darkness’s grip on her shoulder tightened.
Feeling completely drained—like somebody had held her up by the toes and squeezed everything out of her—Lift forced her eyes to open. Gawx stumbled to a stop beside them, breathing heavily. Behind, the viziers and scions moved up as well.
Clothing bloodied, his eyes wide, Gawx clutched a piece of paper in his hand. He thrust this at Darkness. “I pardon this girl. Release her, constable!”
“Who are you,” Darkness said, “to do such a thing?”
“I am the Prime Aqasix,” Gawx declared. “Ruler of Azir!”
“Ridiculous.”
“The Kadasixes have spoken,” said one of the scions.
“The Heralds?” Darkness said. “They have done no such thing. You are mistaken.”
“We have voted,” said a vizier. “This young man’s application was the best.”
“What application?” Darkness said. “He is a thief!”
“He performed the miracle of Regrowth,” said one of the older scions. “He was dead and he returned. What better application could we ask for?”
“A sign has been given,” said the lead vizier. “We have a Prime who can survive the attacks of the One All White. Praise to Yaezir, Kadasix of Kings, may he lead in wisdom. This youth is Prime. He has been Prime always. We have only now realized it, and beg his forgiveness for not seeing the truth sooner.”
“As it always has been done,” the elderly scion said. “As it will be done again. Stand down, constable. You have been given an order.”
Darkness studied Lift.
She smiled tiredly. Show the starvin’ man some teeth. That was the right of it.
His Shardblade vanished to mist. He’d been bested, but he didn’t seem to care. Not a curse, not even a tightening of the eyes. He stood up and pulled on his gloves by the cuffs, first one, then the other. “Praise Yaezir,” he said. “Herald of Kings. May he lead in wisdom. If he ever stops drooling.”
Darkness bowed to the new Prime, then left with a sure step.
“Does anyone know the name of that constable?” one of the viziers asked. “When did we start letting officers of the law requisition Shardblades?”
Gawx knelt beside Lift.
“So you’re an emperor or something now,” she said, closing her eyes, settling back.
“Yeah. I’m still confused. It seems I performed a miracle or something.”
“Good for you,” Lift said. “Can I eat your dinner?”
Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, sat atop the highest tower in the world and contemplated the End of All Things.
The souls of the people he had murdered lurked in the shadows. They whispered to him. If he drew close, they screamed.
They also screamed when he shut his eyes. He had taken to blinking as little as possible. His eyes felt dry in his skull. It was what any . . . sane man would do.
The highest tower in the world, hidden in the tops of the mountains, was perfect for his contemplation. If he had not been bound to an Oathstone, if he had been another man entirely, he would have stayed here. The only place in the East where the stones were not cursed, where walking on them was allowed. This place was holy.
Bright sunlight shone down to banish the shadows, which kept those screams to a minimum. The screamers deserved their deaths, of course. They should have killed Szeth. I hate you. I hate . . . everyone. Glories within, what a strange emotion.
He did not look up. He would not meet the gaze of the God of Gods. But it was good to be in the sunlight. There were no clouds here to bring the darkness. This place was above them all. Urithiru ruled even the clouds.
The massive tower was also empty; that was another reason he liked it. A hundred levels, built in ring shapes, each one beneath larger than the one above it to provide a sunlit balcony. The eastern side, however, was a sheer, flat edge that made the tower look from a distance as if that side had been sliced off by an enormous Shardblade. What a strange shape.
He sat on that edge, right at the top, feet swinging over a drop of a hundred massive stories and a plummet down the mountainside below. Glass sparkled on the smooth surface of the flat side there.
Glass windows. Facing east, toward the Origin. The first time he had visited this place—just after being exiled from his homeland—he hadn’t understood just how odd those windows were. Back then, he’d still been accustomed to gentle highstorms. Rain, wind, and meditation.
Things were different in these cursed lands of the stonewalkers. These hateful lands. These lands flowing with blood, death, and screams. And . . . And . . .
Breathe. He forced the air in and out and stood up on the rim of the parapet atop the tower.
He had fought an impossibility. A man with Stormlight, a man who knew the storm within. That meant . . . problems. Years ago, Szeth had been banished for raising the alarm. The false alarm, it had been said.
The Voidbringers are no more, they had told him.
The spirits of the stones themselves promised it.
The powers of old are no more.
The Knights Radiant are fallen.
We are all that remains.
All that remains. . . . Truthless.
“Have I not been faithful?” Szeth shouted, finally looking up to face the sun. His voice echoed against the mountains and their spirit-souls. “Have I not obeyed, kept my oath? Have I not done as you demanded of me?”
The killing, the murder. He blinked tired eyes.
SCREAMS.
“What does it mean if the Shamanate are wrong? What does it mean if they banished me in error?”
It meant the End of All Things. The end of truth. It would mean that nothing made sense, and that his oath was meaningless.
It would mean he had killed for no reason.
He dropped off the side of the tower, white clothing—now a symbol to him of many things—flapping in the wind. He filled himself with Stormlight and Lashed himself southward. His body lurched in that direction, falling across the sky. He could only travel this way for a short time; his Stormlight did not last long.
Too imperfect a body. The Knights Radiant . . . they’d been said . . . they’d been said to be better at this . . . like the Voidbringers.
He had just enough Light to free himself from the mountains and land in a village in the foothills. They often set out spheres for him there as an offering, considering him some kind of god. He would feed upon that Light, and it would let him go a farther distance until he found another city and more Stormlight.
It would take days to get where he was going, but he would find answers. Or, barring that, someone to kill.
Of his own choice, this time.