Oathbringer: Book Three of the Stormlight Archive

“Might as well make use of the time,” he said, carefully balancing on the chair. He jumped, grabbing the edge of the hole by the ceiling, and pulled himself up to look down it.

It was three feet wide, and about one foot tall. It seemed endless, and he could feel a faint breeze coming out of it. Was that … scraping he heard? A moment later, a mink slunk into the main tunnel from a shadowed crossroad, carrying a dead rat in its mouth. The tubular little animal twitched its snout toward him, then carried its prize away.

“Air is circulating through those,” Navani said as he hopped down off the chair. “The method baffles us. Perhaps some fabrial we have yet to discover?”

Dalinar looked back up at the hole. Miles upon miles of even smaller tunnels threaded through the walls and ceilings of an already daunting system. And hiding in them somewhere, the thing that Shallan had drawn …

“She’s replied, Brightlord!” Teshav said.

“Excellent,” Dalinar said. “Your Majesty, our time is growing short. I’d like—”

“She’s still writing,” Teshav said. “Pardon, Brightlord. She says … um…”

“Just read it, Teshav,” Dalinar said. “I’m used to Fen by now.”

“ ‘Damnation, man. Are you ever going to leave me alone? I haven’t slept a full night in weeks. The Everstorm has hit us twice now; we’re barely keeping this city from falling apart.’ ”

“I understand, Your Majesty,” Dalinar said. “And am eager to send you the aid I promised. Please, let us make a pact. You’ve dodged my requests long enough.”

Nearby, the chair finally dropped from the wall and clattered to the floor. He prepared himself for another round of verbal sparring, of half promises and veiled meanings. Fen had been growing increasingly formal during their exchanges.

The spanreed wrote, then halted almost immediately. Teshav looked at him, grave.

“ ‘No,’ ” she read.

“Your Majesty,” Dalinar said. “This is not a time to forge on alone! Please. I beg you. Listen to me!”

“ ‘You have to know by now,’ ” came the reply, “ ‘that this coalition is never going to happen. Kholin … I’m baffled, honestly. Your garnet-lit tongue and pleasant words make it seem like you really assume this will work.

“ ‘Surely you see. A queen would have to be either stupid or desperate to let an Alethi army into the very center of her city. I’ve been the former at times, and I might be approaching the latter, but … storms, Kholin. No. I’m not going to be the one who finally lets Thaylenah fall to you people. And on the off chance that you’re sincere, then I’m sorry.’ ”

It had an air of finality to it. Dalinar walked over to Teshav, looking at the inscrutable squiggles on the page that somehow made up the women’s script. “Can you think of anything?” he asked Navani as she sighed and settled down into a chair next to Teshav.

“No. Fen is stubborn, Dalinar.”

Dalinar glanced at Taravangian. Even he had assumed Dalinar’s purpose was conquest. And who wouldn’t, considering his history?

Maybe it would be different if I could speak to them in person, he thought. But without the Oathgates, that was virtually impossible.

“Thank her for her time,” Dalinar said. “And tell her my offer remains on the table.”

Teshav started writing, and Navani looked to him, noting what the scribe hadn’t—the tension in his voice.

“I’m fine,” he lied. “I just need time to think.”

He strode from the room before she could object, and his guards outside fell into step behind him. He wanted some fresh air; an open sky always seemed so inviting. His feet didn’t take him in that direction, however. He instead found himself roaming through the hallways.

What now?

Same as always, people ignored him unless he had a sword in his hand. Storms, it was like they wanted him to come in swinging.

He stalked the halls for a good hour, getting nowhere. Eventually, Lyn the messenger found him. Panting, she said that Bridge Four needed him, but hadn’t explained why.

Dalinar followed her, Shallan’s sketch a heavy weight in his mind. Had they found another murder victim? Indeed, Lyn led him to the section where Sadeas had been killed.

His sense of foreboding increased. Lyn led him to a balcony, where the bridgemen Leyten and Peet met him. “Who was it?” he asked as he met them.

“Who…” Leyten frowned. “Oh! It’s not that, sir. It’s something else. This way.”

Leyten led him down some steps onto the wide field outside the first level of the tower, where three more bridgemen waited near some rows of stone planters, probably for growing tubers.

“We noticed this by accident,” Leyten said as they walked among the planters. The hefty bridgeman had a jovial way about him, and talked to Dalinar—a highprince—as easily as he’d talk to friends at a tavern. “We’ve been running patrols on your orders, watching for anything strange. And … well, Peet noticed something strange.” He pointed up at the wall. “See that line?”

Dalinar squinted, picking out a gouge cut into the rock wall. What could score stone like that? It almost looked like …

He looked down at the planter boxes nearest them. And there, hidden between two of them, was a hilt protruding from the stone floor.

A Shardblade.

It was easy to miss, as the blade had sunk all the way down into the rock. Dalinar knelt beside it, then took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to grab the hilt.

Even though he didn’t touch the Blade directly, he heard a very distant whine, like a scream in the back of someone’s throat. He steeled himself, then yanked the Blade out and set it across the empty planter.

The silvery Blade curved at the end almost like a fishhook. The weapon was even wider than most Shardblades, and near the hilt it rippled in wave like patterns. He knew this sword, knew it intimately. He’d carried it for decades, since winning it at the Rift all those years ago.

Oathbringer.

He glanced upward. “The killer must have dropped it out that window. It clipped the stone on its way down, then landed here.”

“That’s what we figured, Brightlord,” Peet said.

Dalinar looked down at the sword. His sword.

No. Not mine at all.

He seized the sword, bracing himself for the screams. The cries of a dead spren. They weren’t the shrill, painful shrieks he’d heard when touching other Blades, but more of a whimper. The sound of a man backed into a corner, thoroughly beaten and facing something terrible, but too tired to keep screaming.

Dalinar steeled himself and carried the Blade—a familiar weight—with the flat side against his shoulder. He walked toward a different entrance back into the tower city, followed by his guards, the scout, and the five bridgemen.

You promised to carry no dead Blade, the Stormfather thundered in his head.

“Calm yourself,” Dalinar whispered. “I’m not going to bond it.”

The Stormfather rumbled, low and dangerous.

“This one doesn’t scream as loudly as others. Why?”