Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

Eshonai … no …

“Ah,” Ulim’s voice said. “Excellent.” The spren approached across the stone wall, like crackling lightning moving through the stone. “Demid, your hand.”

Demid obediently raised his hand, palm up, and Ulim shot across from the wall to the hand, then formed into his human shape, standing on the perch. “Hmmm. Plate looks completely drained. Broken along the back, I see. Well, it’s said to regrow on its own, even now that it is separated from its master from so long ago.”

“The … Plate,” Venli said softly, numb. “You wanted the Plate.”

“Well, the Blade too, of course. Why else would we be hunting a corpse? You … Oh, you thought she was alive?”

“When you said we needed to find my sister,” Venli said, “I thought…”

“Yes, looks like she drowned in the storm’s floodwaters,” Ulim said, making a sound like a tongue clicking. “Rammed the sword into the stone, held on to it to stay in place, but couldn’t breathe.”

Venli attuned the Rhythm of the Lost.

It was one of the old, inferior rhythms. She hadn’t been able to find those since transforming, and she had no idea how she happened upon this one. The mournful, solemn tone felt distant to her.

“Eshonai…?” she whispered, and nudged the corpse again. Demid gasped. Touching the bodies of the fallen was taboo. The old songs spoke of days when humans had hacked apart listener corpses, searching for gemhearts. Leave the dead to peace instead; it was their way.

Venli stared into Eshonai’s dead eyes. You were the voice of reason, Venli thought. You were the one who argued with me. You … you were supposed to keep me grounded.

What do I do without you?

“Well, let’s get that Plate off, kids,” Ulim said.

“Show respect!” Venli snapped.

“Respect for what? It’s for the best that this one died.”

“For the best?” Venli said. “For the best?” She stood, confronting the little spren on Demid’s outstretched palm. “That is my sister. She is one of our greatest warriors. An inspiration, and a martyr.”

Ulim rolled his head in an exaggerated way, as if perturbed—and bored—by the chastisement. How dare he! He was merely a spren. He was to be her servant.

“Your sister,” Ulim said, “didn’t undergo the transformation properly. She resisted, and we’d have eventually lost her. She was never dedicated to our cause.”

Venli attuned the Rhythm of Fury, speaking in a loud, punctuating sequence. “You will not say such things. You are spren! You are to serve.”

“And I do.”

“Then you must obey me!”



“You?” Ulim laughed. “Child, how long have you been fighting your little war against the humans? Three, four years?”

“Six years, spren,” Demid said. “Six long, bloody years.”

“Well, do you want to guess how long we’ve been fighting this war?” Ulim asked. “Go ahead. Guess. I’m waiting.”

Venli seethed. “It doesn’t matter—”

“Oh, but it does,” Ulim said, his red figure electrifying. “Do you know how to lead armies, Venli? True armies? Supply troops across a battlefront that spans hundreds of miles? Do you have memories and experiences that span eons?”

She glared at him.

“Our leaders,” Ulim said, “know exactly what they’re doing. Them I obey. But I am the one who escaped, the spren of redemption. I don’t have to listen to you.”

“I will be a queen,” Venli said to Spite.

“If you survive? Maybe. But your sister? She and the others sent that assassin to kill the human king specifically to keep us from returning. Your people are traitors—though your personal efforts do you justice, Venli. You may be blessed further, if you are wise. Regardless, get that armor off your sister, shed your tears, and get ready to climb back up. These plateaus are crawling with men who stink of Honor. We must be away and see what your ancestors need us to do.”

“Our ancestors?” Demid said. “What do the dead have to do with this?”

“Everything,” Ulim replied, “seeing as they’re the ones in charge. Armor. Now.” He zipped to the wall as a tiny streak of lightning, then moved off.

Venli attuned Derision at the way she’d been treated, then—defying taboos—helped Demid remove the Shardplate. Ulim returned with the others and ordered them to gather up the armor.

They hiked off, leaving Venli to bring the Blade. She lifted it from the stone, then lingered, regarding her sister’s corpse—which lay there in only padded underclothing.

Venli felt something stir inside her. Again, distantly, she was able to hear the Rhythm of the Lost. Mournful, slow, with separated beats.

“I…” Venli said. “Finally, I don’t have to listen to you call me a fool. I don’t have to worry about you getting in the way. I can do what I want.”

That terrified her.

She turned to go, but paused as she saw something. What was that small spren that had crept out from beneath Eshonai’s corpse? It looked like a small ball of white fire; it gave off little rings of light and trailed a streak behind it. Like a comet.

“What are you?” Venli demanded to Spite. “Shoo.”

She hiked off, leaving her sister’s corpse there at the bottom of the chasm, stripped and alone. Food for either a chasmfiend or a storm.





Dearest Cephandrius,

I received your communication, of course.

Jasnah was alive.

Jasnah Kholin was alive.

Shallan was supposed to be recovering from her ordeal, never mind that the bridgemen had handled the fighting. All she’d done was grope an eldritch spren. Still, she spent the next day holed up in her room sketching and thinking.

Jasnah’s return sparked something in her. Shallan had once been more analytical in her drawing, including notes and explanations with the sketches. Lately she’d only been doing pages and pages of twisted images.

Well, she’d been trained as a scholar, hadn’t she? She shouldn’t just draw; she should analyze, extrapolate, speculate. So, she addressed herself to fully recording her experiences with the Unmade.

Adolin and Palona visited her separately, and even Dalinar came to check on her while Navani clicked her tongue and asked after her health. Shallan endured their company, then eagerly returned to her drawing. There were so many questions. Why exactly had she been able to drive the thing away? What was the meaning of its creations?

Hanging over her research, however, was a single daunting fact. Jasnah was alive.

Storms … Jasnah was alive.



That changed everything.

Eventually, Shallan couldn’t remain locked up any longer. Though Navani mentioned Jasnah was planning to visit her later in the evening, Shallan washed and dressed, then threw her satchel over her shoulder and went searching for the woman. She had to know how Jasnah had survived.