Oathbringer: Book Three of the Stormlight Archive

Rock eyed her while his companion—a bridgeman she thought she’d seen before—wrapped his hand. “Who are you to ask me this thing?”

Storms. She was Veil right now, but she didn’t dare expose the ruse, especially not in the open. “I’m on Aladar’s policing force,” she said, digging in her pocket. “I have my commission here…”

“Is fine,” Rock said, sighing, his wariness seeming to evaporate. “I did nothing. Some person pulled knife. I did not see him well—long coat, and a hat. A woman in crowd screamed, drawing my attention. Then, this man, he attacked.”

“Storms. Who is dead?”

“Dead?” The Horneater looked to his companion. “Nobody is dead. Attacker stabbed my hand, then ran. Was assassination attempt, maybe? Person got angry about rule of tower, so he attacked me, for being in Kholin guard?”

Veil felt a chill. Horneater. Tall, burly.

The attacker had chosen a man who looked very similar to the one she had stabbed the other day. In fact, they weren’t far from All’s Alley. Just a few “streets” over in the market.

The two bridgemen turned to leave, and Veil let them go. What more could she learn? The Horneater had been targeted not because of anything he’d done, but because of how he looked. And the attacker had been wearing a coat and hat. Like Veil usually did …

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Veil started, then whirled around, hand going to her belt knife. The speaker was a woman in a brown havah. She had straight Alethi hair, dark brown eyes, bright red painted lips, and sharp black eyebrows almost certainly enhanced with makeup. Veil recognized this woman, who was shorter than she’d seemed while sitting down. She was one of the thieves that Veil had approached at All’s Alley, the one whose eyes had lit up when Shallan had drawn the Ghostbloods’ symbol.

“What did he do to you?” the woman asked, nodding toward Rock. “Or do you just have a thing for stabbing Horneaters?”

“This wasn’t me,” Veil said.

“I’m sure.” The woman stepped closer. “I’ve been waiting for you to turn up again.”

“You should stay away, if you value your life.” Veil started off through the market.

The short woman scrambled after her. “My name is Ishnah. I’m an excellent writer. I can take dictations. I have experience moving in the market underground.”

“You want to be my ward?”

“Ward?” The young woman laughed. “What are we, lighteyes? I want to join you.”

The Ghostbloods, of course. “We’re not recruiting.”

“Please.” She took Veil by the arm. “Please. The world is wrong now. Nothing makes sense. But you … your group … you know things. I don’t want to be blind anymore.”

Shallan hesitated. She could understand that desire to do something, rather than just feeling the world tremble and shake. But the Ghostbloods were despicable. This woman would not find what she desired among them. And if she did, then she was not the sort of person that Shallan would want to add to Mraize’s quiver.

“No,” Shallan said. “Do the smart thing and forget about me and my organization.”

She pulled out of the woman’s grip and hurried away through the bustling market.





TWENTY-NINE YEARS AGO


Incense burned in a brazier as large as a boulder. Dalinar sniffled as Evi threw a handful of tiny papers—each folded and inscribed with a very small glyph—into the brazier. Fragrant smoke washed over him, then whipped in the other direction as winds ripped through the warcamp, carrying windspren like lines of light.

Evi bowed her head before the brazier. She had strange beliefs, his betrothed. Among her people, simple glyphwards weren’t enough for prayers; you needed to burn something more pungent. While she spoke of Jezerezeh and Kelek, she said their names strangely: Yaysi and Kellai. And she made no mention of the Almighty—instead she spoke of something called the One, a heretical tradition the ardents told him came from Iri.

Dalinar bowed his head for a prayer. Let me be stronger than those who would kill me. Simple and to the point, the kind he figured the Almighty would prefer. He didn’t feel like having Evi write it out.

“The One watch you, near-husband,” Evi murmured. “And soften your temper.” Her accent, to which he was now accustomed, was thicker than her brother’s.

“Soften it? Evi, that’s not the point of battle.”

“You needn’t kill in anger, Dalinar. If you must fight, do it knowing that each death wounds the One. For we are all people in Yaysi’s sight.”

“Yeah, all right,” Dalinar said.

The ardents didn’t seem to mind that he was marrying someone half pagan. “It is wisdom to bring her to Vorin truth,” Jevena—Gavilar’s head ardent—had told him. Similar to how she’d spoken of his conquest. “Your sword will bring strength and glory to the Almighty.”

Idly, he wondered what it would take to actually earn the ardents’ displeasure.

“Be a man and not a beast, Dalinar,” Evi said, then pulled close to him, setting her head on his shoulder and encouraging him to wrap his arms around her.

He did so with a limp gesture. Storms, he could hear the soldiers snicker as they passed by. The Blackthorn, being consoled before battle? Publicly hugging and acting lovey?

Evi turned her head toward him for a kiss, and he presented a chaste one, their lips barely touching. She accepted that, smiling. And she did have a beautiful smile. Life would have been a lot easier for him if Evi would have just been willing to move along with the marriage. But her traditions demanded a long engagement, and her brother kept trying to get new provisions into the contract.

Dalinar stomped away. In his pocket he held another glyphward: one provided by Navani, who obviously worried about the accuracy of Evi’s foreign script. He felt at the smooth paper, and didn’t burn the prayer.

The stone ground beneath his feet was pocked with tiny holes—the pinpricks of hiding grass. As he passed the tents he could see it properly, covering the plain outside, waving in the wind. Tall stuff, almost as high as his waist. He’d never seen grass that tall in Kholin lands.

Across the plain, an impressive force gathered: an army larger than any they’d faced. His heart jumped in anticipation. After two years of political maneuvering, here they were. A real battle with a real army.

Win or lose, this was the fight for the kingdom. The sun was on its way up, and the armies had arrayed themselves north and south, so neither would have it in their eyes.

Dalinar hastened to his armorers’ tent, and emerged a short time later in his Plate. He climbed carefully into the saddle as one of the grooms brought his horse. The large black beast wasn’t fast, but it could carry a man in Shardplate. Dalinar guided the horse past ranks of soldiers—spearmen, archers, lighteyed heavy infantry, even a nice group of fifty cavalrymen under Ilamar, with hooks and ropes for attacking Shardbearers. Anticipationspren waved like banners among them all.

Dalinar still smelled incense when he found his brother, geared up and mounted, patrolling the front lines. Dalinar trotted up beside Gavilar.