Oathbringer: Book Three of the Stormlight Archive

He dealt with this wagon, then had to break up an argument among men who were angry they had been set to hauling water. They claimed that was parshman work, beneath their nahn. Unfortunately, there were no parshmen any longer.

Adolin soothed them and suggested they could start a water haulers’ guild if forced to continue. Father would approve that for certain, though Adolin worried. Would they have the funds to pay all these people? Wages were based on a man’s rank, and you couldn’t just make slaves of men for no reason.

Adolin was glad for the assignment, to distract him. Though he didn’t have to see to each wagon himself—he was here to supervise—he threw himself into the details of the work. He couldn’t exactly spar, not with his wrist in this shape, but if he sat alone too long he started thinking about what had happened the day before.

Had he really done that?

Had he really murdered Torol Sadeas?

It was almost a relief when at long last a runner came for him, whispering that something had been discovered in the corridors of the third floor.

Adolin was certain he knew what it was.

*

Dalinar heard the shouts long before he arrived. They echoed down the tunnels. He knew that tone. Conflict was near.

He left Navani and broke into a run, sweating as he burst into a wide intersection between tunnels. Men in blue, lit by the harsh light of lanterns, faced off against others in forest green. Angerspren grew from the floor like pools of blood.

A corpse with a green jacket draped over the face lay on the ground.

“Stand down!” Dalinar bellowed, charging into the space between the two groups of soldiers. He pulled back a bridgeman who had gotten right up in the face of one of Sadeas’s soldiers. “Stand down, or I’ll have you all in the stockade, every man!”

His voice hit the men like stormwinds, drawing eyes from both sides. He pushed the bridgeman toward his fellows, then shoved back one of Sadeas’s soldiers, praying the man would have the presence of mind to resist attacking a highprince.

Navani and the scout stopped at the fringes of the conflict. The men from Bridge Four finally backed down one corridor, and Sadeas’s soldiers retreated up the one opposite. Just far enough that they could still glare at one another.

“You’d better be ready for Damnation’s own thunder,” Sadeas’s officer shouted at Dalinar. “Your men murdered a highprince!”

“We found him like this!” Teft of Bridge Four shouted back. “Probably tripped on his own knife. Serves him well, the storming bastard.”

“Teft, stand down!” Dalinar shouted at him.

The bridgeman looked abashed, then saluted with a stiff gesture.

Dalinar knelt, pulling the jacket back from Sadeas’s face. “That blood is dried. He’s been lying here for some time.”

“We’ve been looking for him,” said the officer in green.

“Looking for him? You lost your highprince?”

“The tunnels are confusing!” the man said. “They don’t go natural directions. We got turned about and…”

“Thought he might have returned to another part of the tower,” a man said. “We spent last night searching for him there. Some people said they thought they’d seen him, but they were wrong, and…”

And a highprince was left lying here in his own gore for half a day, Dalinar thought. Blood of my fathers.

“We couldn’t find him,” the officer said, “because your men murdered him and moved the body—”

“That blood has been pooling there for hours. Nobody moved the body.” Dalinar pointed. “Place the highprince in that side room there and send for Ialai, if you haven’t. I want to have a better look.”

*

Dalinar Kholin was a connoisseur of death.

Even since his youth, the sight of dead men had been a familiar thing to him. You stay on the battlefield long enough, and you become familiar with its master.

So Sadeas’s bloodied, ruined face didn’t shock him. The punctured eye, smashed up into the socket by a blade that had been rammed into the brain. Fluid and blood had leaked out, then dried.

A knife through the eye was the sort of wound that killed an armored man wearing a full helm. It was a maneuver you practiced to use on the battlefield. But Sadeas had not been wearing armor and had not been on a battlefield.

Dalinar leaned down, inspecting the body lit by flickering oil lanterns as it lay on the table.

“Assassin,” Navani said, clicking her tongue and shaking her head. “Not good.”

Behind him, Adolin and Renarin gathered with Shallan and a few of the bridgemen. Across from Dalinar stood Kalami; the thin, orange-eyed woman was one of his more senior scribes. They’d lost her husband, Teleb, in the battle against the Voidbringers. He hated to call upon her in her time of grief, but she insisted that she remain on duty.

Storms, he had so few high officers left. Cael had fallen in the clash between Everstorm and highstorm, almost making it to safety. He’d lost Ilamar and Perethom to Sadeas’s betrayal at the Tower. The only highlord he had left was Khal, who was still recuperating from a wound he’d taken during the clash with the Voidbringers—one he’d kept to himself until everyone else was safe.

Even Elhokar, the king, had been wounded by assassins in his palace while the armies were fighting at Narak. He’d been recuperating ever since. Dalinar wasn’t certain if he would come to see Sadeas’s body or not.

Either way, Dalinar’s lack of officers explained the room’s other occupants: Highprince Sebarial and his mistress, Palona. Likable or not, Sebarial was one of the two living highprinces who had responded to Dalinar’s call to march for Narak. Dalinar had to rely on someone, and he didn’t trust most of the highprinces farther than the wind could blow them.

Sebarial, along with Aladar—who had been summoned but had not yet arrived—would have to form the foundation of a new Alethkar. Almighty help them all.

“Well!” said Palona, hands on hips as she regarded Sadeas’s corpse. “I guess that’s one problem solved!”

Everyone in the room turned toward her.

“What?” she said. “Don’t tell me you weren’t all thinking it.”

“This is going to look bad, Brightlord,” Kalami said. “Everyone is going to act like those soldiers outside and assume you had him assassinated.”

“Any sign of the Shardblade?” Dalinar asked.

“No, sir,” one of the bridgemen said. “Whoever killed him probably took it.”

Navani rubbed Dalinar on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t have put it as Palona did, but he did try to have you killed. Perhaps this is for the best.”

“No,” Dalinar said, voice hoarse. “We needed him.”

“I know you’re desperate, Dalinar,” Sebarial said. “My presence here is sufficient proof of that. But surely we haven’t sunk so far as to be better off with Sadeas among us. I agree with Palona. Good riddance.”

Dalinar looked up, inspecting those in the room. Sebarial and Palona. Teft and Sigzil, the lieutenants from Bridge Four. A handful of other soldiers, including the young scout woman who had fetched him. His sons, steady Adolin and impenetrable Renarin. Navani, with her hand on his shoulder. Even the aging Kalami, hands clasped before her, meeting his eyes and nodding.