Oathbringer: Book Three of the Stormlight Archive

“It was a long trek across Jah Keved,” Nan Balat said. “Shallan … we didn’t hear anything until we were transported here through that device. You’re getting married? The son of the Blackthorn?”

So much to tell them. Storms, these tears were going to ruin her makeup. She’d have to go through it all again.

She found herself too overwhelmed to talk, to explain. She pulled them tight again, and Wikim even complained about the affection, as he always had. She hadn’t seen them in how long, and he still complained? That made her even more giddy, for some reason.

Navani appeared behind them, looking over Balat’s shoulder. “I will call for a delay of the festivities.”

“No!” Shallan said.

No. She was going to enjoy this. She pulled her brothers tight, one after another. “I’ll explain after the wedding. So much to explain…”

Balat, as she hugged him, handed her a slip of paper. “He said to give you this.”

“Who?”

“He said you’d know.” Balat still had the haunted look that had always shadowed him. “What is going on? How do you know people like that?”

She unfolded the letter.

It was from Mraize.

“Brightness,” Shallan said to Navani, “will you provide my brothers with seats of honor?”

“Of course.”

Navani drew the three boys away, joining Eylita, who had been waiting. Storms. Her brothers were back. They were alive.

A wedding gift, Mraize’s note read.

In payment for work done. You will find that I do keep my promises. I apologize for the delay.

I congratulate you on your upcoming nuptials, little knife. You have done well. You have frightened away the Unmade who was in this tower, and in payment, we forgive a part of your debt owed from the destruction of our Soulcaster.

Your next mission is equally important. One of the Unmade seems willing to break from Odium. Our good and that of your Radiant friends align. You will find this Unmade, and you will persuade it to serve the Ghostbloods. Barring that, you will capture it and deliver it to us.

Details will be forthcoming.

She lowered the note, then burned it in the brazier meant for her prayer. So Mraize knew about Sja-anat, did he? Did he know about Renarin accidentally bonding one of her spren? Or was that a secret Shallan actually had over the Ghostbloods?

Well, she could worry about him later. Today, she had a wedding to attend. She pulled open the door and strode out. Toward a celebration.

Of being herself.

*

Dalinar entered his rooms, full of food from the wedding feast, glad to finally get some peace after the celebrations. The assassin settled down outside his door to wait, as was becoming his custom. Szeth was the only guard Dalinar had for the moment, as Rial and his other bodyguards were all in Bridge Thirteen—and that whole crew had gone up as squires to Teft.

Dalinar smiled to himself, then walked to his desk and settled down. A Shardblade hung on the wall before him. A temporary place; he’d find it a home. For now, he wanted it near. It was time.

He picked up the pen and started writing.

Three weeks had seen him progress far, though he still felt uncertain as he scratched out each letter. He worked at it a good hour before Navani returned, slipping into their rooms. She bustled over, opening the balcony doors, letting in the light of a setting sun.

A son married. Adolin was not the man Dalinar had thought he was—but then, couldn’t he forgive someone for that? He dipped his pen and continued writing. Navani walked up and placed hands on his shoulders, looking at his paper.

“Here,” Dalinar said, handing it to her. “Tell me what you think. I’ve run into a problem.”

As she read, he resisted the urge to shift nervously. This was as bad as his first day with the swordmasters. Navani nodded to herself, then smiled at him, dipping her pen and making a few notes on his page to explain mistakes. “What’s the problem?”

“I don’t know how to write ‘I.’ ”

“I showed you. Here, did you forget?” She wrote out a few letters. “No, wait. You used this several times in this piece, so you obviously know how to write it.”

“You said pronouns have a gender in the women’s formal script, and I realized that the one you taught me says ‘I, being female.’ ”

Navani hesitated, pen in her fingers. “Oh. Right. I guess … I mean … Huh. I don’t think there is a masculine ‘I.’ You can use the neuter, like an ardent. Or … no, here. I’m an idiot.” She wrote some letters. “This is what you use when writing a quote by a man in the first person.”

Dalinar rubbed his chin. Most words in the script were the same as the ones from spoken conversation, but small additions—that you wouldn’t read out loud—changed the context. And that didn’t even count the undertext—the writer’s hidden commentary. Navani had explained, with some embarrassment, that that was never read to a man requesting a reading.

We took Shardblades from the women, he thought, glancing at the one hung on the wall above his desk. And they seized literacy from us. Who got the better deal, I wonder?

“Have you thought,” Navani said, “about how Kadash and the ardents will respond to you learning to read?”

“I’ve been excommunicated already. There’s not much more they could do.”

“They could leave.”

“No,” Dalinar said. “I don’t think they will. I actually think … I think I might be getting through to Kadash. Did you see him at the wedding? He’s been reading what the ancient theologians wrote, trying to find justification for modern Vorinism. He doesn’t want to believe me, but soon he won’t be able to help it.”

Navani seemed skeptical.

“Here,” Dalinar said. “How do I emphasize a word?”

“These marks here, above and below a word you want to stress.”

He nodded in thanks, dipped his pen, then rewrote what he’d given to Navani, substituting the proper changes.

The most important words a man can say are, “I will do better.” These are not the most important words any man can say. I am a man, and they are what I needed to say.

The ancient code of the Knights Radiant says “journey before destination.” Some may call it a simple platitude, but it is far more. A journey will have pain and failure. It is not only the steps forward that we must accept. It is the stumbles. The trials. The knowledge that we will fail. That we will hurt those around us.

But if we stop, if we accept the person we are when we fall, the journey ends. That failure becomes our destination.

To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one.

I’m certain some will feel threatened by this record. Some few may feel liberated. Most will simply feel that it should not exist.

I needed to write it anyway.

He sat back, pleased. It seemed that in opening this doorway, he had entered a new world. He could read The Way of Kings. He could read his niece’s biography of Gavilar. He could write down his own orders for men to follow.