“I remember . . . something,” she whispered. “Something bad. Seeing what is to come—it isn’t of Honor, Kaladin. It’s something else. Something dangerous.”
Wonderful.
When he said nothing more, Syl sighed and zipped into the air, becoming a ribbon of light. She followed him up there, moving between gusts of wind.
She said that she’s honorspren, Kaladin thought. So why does she still keep up the act of playing with winds?
He’d have to ask her, assuming she’d answer him. Assuming she even knew the answer.
* * *
Torol Sadeas laced his fingers before himself, elbows on the fine stonework tabletop, as he stared at the Shardblade he’d thrust down through the center of the table. It reflected his face.
Damnation. When had he gotten old? He imagined himself as a young man, in his twenties. Now he was fifty. Storming fifty. He set his jaw, looking at that Blade.
Oathbringer. It was Dalinar’s Shardblade—curved, like a back arching, with a hooklike tip on the end matched by a sequence of jutting serrations by the crossguard. Like waves in motion, peeking up from the ocean below.
How often had he lusted for this weapon? Now it was his, but he found the possession hollow. Dalinar Kholin—driven mad by grief, broken to the point that battle frightened him—still clung to life. Sadeas’s old friend was like a favored axehound he’d been forced to put down, only to find it whimpering at the window, the poison having not quite done its work.
Worse, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Dalinar had gotten the better of him somehow.
The door to his sitting room opened, and Ialai slipped in. With a slender neck and a large mouth, his wife had never been described as a beauty—particularly as the years stretched long. He didn’t care. Ialai was the most dangerous woman he knew. That was more attractive than any simple pretty face.
“You’ve destroyed my table, I see,” she said, eyeing the Shardblade slammed down through the center. She flopped down onto the small couch beside him, draped one arm across his back, and put her feet up on the table.
While with others, she was the perfect Alethi woman. In private, she preferred to lounge. “Dalinar is recruiting heavily,” she said. “I’ve taken the opportunity to place a few more of my associates among the staff of his warcamp.”
“Soldiers?”
“What do you take me for? That would be far too obvious; he will have new soldiers under careful watch. However, much of his support staff has holes as men join the call to take up spears and reinforce his army.”
Sadeas nodded, still staring at that Blade. His wife ran the most impressive network of spies in the warcamps. Most impressive indeed, since very, very few knew of it. She scratched at his back, sending shivers up the skin.
“He released his proclamation,” Ialai noted.
“Yes. Reactions?”
“As anticipated. The others hate it.”
Sadeas nodded. “Dalinar should be dead, but since he is not, at least we can depend upon him to hang himself in time.” Sadeas narrowed his eyes. “By destroying him, I sought to prevent the collapse of the kingdom. Now I’m wondering if that collapse wouldn’t be better for us all.”
“What?”
“I’m not meant for this, love,” Sadeas whispered. “This stupid game on the plateaus. It sated me at first, but I’m growing to loathe it. I want war, Ialai. Not hours of marching on the off chance that we’ll find some little skirmish!”
“Those little skirmishes bring us wealth.”
Which was why he’d suffered them so long. He rose. “I will need to meet with some of the others. Aladar. Ruthar. We need to fan the flames among the other highprinces, raise their indignation at what Dalinar attempts.”
“And our end goal?”
“I will have it back, Ialai,” he said, resting his fingers on Oathbringer’s hilt. “The conquest.”
It was the only thing that made him feel alive any longer. That glorious, wonderful Thrill of being on the battlefield and striving, man against man. Of risking everything for the prize. Domination. Victory.
It was the only time he felt like a youth again.
It was a brutal truth. The best truths, however, were simple.
He grabbed Oathbringer by the hilt and yanked it up out of the table. “Dalinar wants to play politician now, which is unsurprising. He has always secretly wanted to be his brother. Fortunately for us, Dalinar is no good at this sort of thing. His proclamation will alienate the others. He will push the highprinces, and they’ll take up arms against him, fracturing the kingdom. And then, with blood at my feet and Dalinar’s own sword in my hand, I will forge a new Alethkar from flame and tears.”
“What if, instead, he succeeds?”
“That, my dear, is when your assassins will be of use.” He dismissed the Shardblade; it turned to mist and vanished. “I will conquer this kingdom anew, and then Jah Keved will follow. After all, the purpose of this life is to train soldiers. In a way, I’m only doing what God himself wants.”
* * *
The walk between the barracks and the king’s palace—which the king had started calling the Pinnacle—took an hour or so, which gave Kaladin plenty of time to think. Unfortunately, on his way, he passed a group of Dalinar’s surgeons in a field with servants, gathering knobweed sap for an antiseptic.
Seeing them made Kaladin think not only of his own efforts gathering the sap, but of his father. Lirin.
If he were here, Kaladin thought as he passed them, he’d ask why I wasn’t out there, with the surgeons. He’d demand to know why, if Dalinar had taken me in, I hadn’t requested to join his medical corps.
In fact, Kaladin could probably have gotten Dalinar to employ all of Bridge Four as surgeons’ assistants. Kaladin could have trained them in medicine almost as easily as he had the spear. Dalinar would have done it. An army could never have too many good surgeons.
He hadn’t even considered it. The choice for him had been simpler—either become Dalinar’s bodyguards or leave the warcamps. Kaladin had chosen to put his men in the path of the storm again. Why?
Eventually, they reached the king’s palace, which was built up the side of a large stone hill, with tunnels dug down into the rock. The king’s own quarters sat at the very top. That meant lots of climbing for Kaladin and his men.
They hiked up the switchbacks, Kaladin still lost in thought about his father and his duty.
“That’s a tad unfair, you know,” Moash said as they reached the top.
Kaladin looked to the others, realizing that they were puffing from the long climb. Kaladin, however, had drawn in Stormlight without noticing. He wasn’t even winded.
He smiled pointedly for Syl’s benefit, and regarded the cavernous hallways of the Pinnacle. A few men stood guard at the entrance gates, wearing the blue and gold of the King’s Guard, a separate and distinct unit from Dalinar’s own guard.
“Soldier,” Kaladin said with a nod to one of them, a lighteyes of low rank. Militarily, Kaladin outranked a man like this—but not socially. Again, he wasn’t certain how all of this was supposed to work.
The man looked him up and down. “I heard you held a bridge, practically by yourself, against hundreds of Parshendi. How’d you do that?” He did not address Kaladin with “sir,” as would have been appropriate for any other captain.
“You want to find out?” Moash snapped from behind. “We can show you. Personally.”
“Hush,” Kaladin said, glaring at Moash. He turned back to the soldier. “I got lucky. That’s it.” He stared the man in the eyes.
“I suppose that makes sense,” the soldier said.
Kaladin waited.
“Sir,” the soldier finally added.
Kaladin waved his men forward, and they passed the lighteyed guards. The interior of the palace was lit by spheres grouped in lamps on the walls—sapphires and diamonds blended to give a blue-white cast. The spheres were a small but striking reminder of how things had changed. Nobody would have let bridgemen near such casual use of spheres.
The Pinnacle was still unfamiliar to Kaladin—so far, his time spent guarding Dalinar had mostly been in the warcamp. However, he’d made certain to look over maps of the place, so he knew the way to the top.
“Why did you cut me off like that?” Moash demanded, catching up to Kaladin.
“You were in the wrong,” Kaladin said. “You’re a soldier now, Moash. You’re going to have to learn to act like one. And that means not provoking fights.”
“I’m not going to scrape and bow before lighteyes, Kal. Not anymore.”
“I don’t expect you to scrape, but I do expect you to watch your tongue. Bridge Four is better than petty gibes and threats.”
Moash fell back, but Kaladin could tell he was still smoldering.
“That’s odd,” Syl said, landing on Kaladin’s shoulder again. “He looks so angry.”
“When I took over the bridgemen,” Kaladin said softly, “they were caged animals who had been beaten into submission. I brought back their fight, but they were still caged. Now the doors are off those cages. It will take time for Moash and the others to adjust.”
They would. During the final weeks as bridgemen, they’d learned to act with the precision and discipline of soldiers. They stood at attention while their abusers marched across bridges, never uttering a word of derision. Their discipline itself had become their weapon.
They’d learn to be real soldiers. No, they were real soldiers. Now they had to learn how to act without Sadeas’s oppression to push against.
Moash moved up beside him. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “You’re right.”
Kaladin smiled, this time genuinely.
“I’m not going to pretend I don’t hate them,” Moash said. “But I’ll be civil. We have a duty. We’ll do it well. Better than anyone expects. We’re Bridge Four.”