Oathbringer: Book Three of the Stormlight Archive

She began another sketch, but then stopped and glanced to the side, where she’d set out a spanreed. The ruby was blinking.

Fen! Dalinar thought. The queen of Thaylenah had asked that, in this morning’s highstorm, Dalinar send her into the vision of Aharietiam, which she knew about from the published accounts of Dalinar’s visions. He’d reluctantly sent her alone, without supervision.

They’d been waiting for her to speak of the event, to say anything. In the morning, she hadn’t replied to their requests for a conversation.

Navani prepared the spanreed, then set it writing. It scribbled for only a brief moment.

“That was short,” Dalinar said, stepping toward her.

“Only one word,” Navani said. She looked up at him. “Yes.”

Dalinar heaved out a long breath. She was willing to visit Urithiru. Finally!

“Tell her we’ll send her a Radiant.” He left the window, watching as she replied. In her sketchpad, he caught sight of some kind of shiplike contraption, but with the sail on the bottom. What in the world?

Fen seemed content to leave the conversation there, and Navani returned to her discussion of engineering, so Dalinar slipped from the room. He passed through his bunker, which felt hollow. Like the rind of a fruit with the pulp scooped out. No servants scuttling back and forth, no soldiers. Kaladin and his men had gone off somewhere, and Kadash was probably at the camp monastery. He’d been keen to get there, and Dalinar had been gratified by his willingness to fly with Kaladin.

They hadn’t spoken much since their confrontation in the sparring room. Well, perhaps seeing the Windrunners’ power firsthand would improve Kadash’s opinion of the Radiants.

Dalinar was surprised—and secretly pleased—to find that no guards had been posted at the bunker’s back door. He slipped out alone and headed to the warcamp monastery. He wasn’t looking for Kadash; he had another purpose.

He soon arrived at the monastery, which looked like most of the warcamp—a collection of buildings with the same smooth, rounded construction. Crafted from the air by Alethi Soulcasters. This place had a few small, hand-built buildings of cut stone, but they looked more like bunkers than places of worship. Dalinar had never wanted his people to forget that they were at war.

He strolled through the campus and found that without a guide, he didn’t know his way among the nearly identical structures. He stopped in a courtyard between buildings. The air smelled of wet stone from the highstorm, and a nice group of shalebark sculptures rose to his right, shaped like stacks of square plates. The only sound was water dripping from the eaves of the buildings.

Storms. He should know his way around his own monastery, shouldn’t he? How often did you actually visit here, during all the years in the warcamps? He’d meant to come more often, and talk to the ardents in his chosen devotary. There had always been something more pressing, and besides, the ardents stressed that he didn’t need to come. They had prayed and burned glyphwards on his behalf; that was why highlords owned ardents.

Even during his darkest days of war, they’d assured him that in pursuing his Calling—by leading his armies—he served the Almighty.

Dalinar stooped into a building that had been divided into many small rooms for prayers. He walked down a hallway until he stepped through a storm door into the atrium, which still smelled faintly of incense. It seemed insane that the ardents would be angry with him now, after training him his whole life to do as he wished. But he’d upset the balance. Rocked the boat.

He moved among braziers filled with wet ash. Everyone liked the system they had. The lighteyes got to live without guilt or burden, always confident that they were active manifestations of God’s will. The darkeyes got free access to training in a multitude of skills. The ardents got to pursue scholarship. The best of them lived lives of service. The worst lived lives of indolence—but what else were important lighteyed families going to do with unmotivated children?

A noise drew his attention, and he left the courtyard and looked into a dark corridor. Light poured from a room at the other end, and Dalinar was not surprised to find Kadash inside. The ardent was moving some ledgers and books from a wall safe into a pack on the floor. On a desk nearby, a spanreed scribbled.

Dalinar stepped into the room. The scarred ardent jumped, then relaxed when he saw it was Dalinar.

“Do we need to have this conversation again, Dalinar?” he asked, turning back to his packing.

“No,” Dalinar said. “I didn’t actually come looking for you. I want to find a man who lived here. A madman who claimed to be one of the Heralds.”

Kadash cocked his head. “Ah, yes. The one who had a Shardblade?”

“All of the other patients at the monastery are accounted for, safe at Urithiru, but he vanished somehow. I was hoping to see if his room offered any clues to what became of him.”

Kadash looked at him, gauging his sincerity. Then the ardent sighed, rising. “That’s a different devotary from mine,” he said, “but I have occupancy records here. I should be able to tell you which room he was in.”

“Thank you.”

Kadash looked through a stack of ledgers. “Shash building,” he finally said, pointing absently out the window. “That one right there. Room thirty-seven. Insah ran the facility; her records will list details of the madman’s treatment. If her departure from the warcamp was anything like mine, she’ll have left most of her paperwork behind.” He gestured toward the safe and his packing.

“Thank you,” Dalinar said. He moved to leave.

“You … think the madman was actually a Herald, don’t you?”

“I think it’s likely.”

“He spoke with a rural Alethi accent, Dalinar.”

“And he looked Makabaki,” Dalinar replied. “That alone is an oddity, wouldn’t you say?”

“Immigrant families are not so uncommon.”

“Ones with Shardblades?”

Kadash shrugged.

“Let’s say I could actually find one of the Heralds,” Dalinar said. “Let’s say we could confirm his identity, and you accepted that proof. Would you believe him if he told you the same things I have?”

Kadash sighed.

“Surely you’d want to know if the Almighty were dead, Kadash,” Dalinar said, stepping back into the room. “Tell me you wouldn’t.”

“You know what it would mean? It would mean there is no spiritual basis for your rule.”

“I know.”

“And the things you did in conquering Alethkar?” Kadash said. “No divine mandate, Dalinar. Everyone accepts what you did because your victories were proof of the Almighty’s favor. Without him … then what are you?”

“Tell me, Kadash. Would you really rather not know?”

Kadash looked at the spanreed, which had stopped writing. He shook his head. “I don’t know, Dalinar. It certainly would be easier.”

“Isn’t that the problem? What has any of this ever required of men like me? What has it required of any of us?”