Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

I’m getting worse, a piece of him realized. The first month in Dalinar’s employ, he’d been able to resist for the most part. But he’d had money again, after so long as a bridgeman. Having money was dangerous.

He’d functioned, only mossing an evening here, an evening there. But then Kaladin had left, and this tower, where everything had felt so wrong … Those monsters of darkness, including one that had looked just like Teft.

He’d needed the moss to deal with that. Who wouldn’t? He sighed. When he looked up, he found that spren standing in front of him.

Teft … she whispered. You’ve spoken oaths.…

Foolish, stupid oaths, spoken when he’d hoped that being Radiant would remove the cravings. He turned away from her and found his way to a tent nestled among the taverns. Those were closed for the morning, but this place—it had no name and didn’t need one—was open. It was always open, just like the ones back in Dalinar’s warcamp had been, just like the ones in Sadeas’s warcamp. They were harder to find in some places than others. But they were always there, nameless but still known.

The tough-looking Herdazian man sitting at the front waved him in. It was dim inside, but Teft found his way to a table and slumped down. A woman in tight clothing and a glove with no fingers brought him a little bowl of firemoss. They didn’t ask for payment. They all knew that he wouldn’t have any spheres on him today, not after his binge last night. But they would make sure to get paid eventually.

Teft stared at the little bowl, loathing himself. And yet the scent of it made his longing multiply tenfold. He let out a whimpering groan, then seized the firemoss and ground it between his thumb and forefinger. The moss let off a small plume of smoke, and in the dim light, the center of the moss glowed like an ember.

It hurt, of course. He’d worn through his calluses last night, and now rubbed the moss with raw, blistering fingers. But this was a sharp, present pain. A good kind of pain. Merely physical, it was a sign of life.

It took a minute before he felt the effects. A washing away of his pains, followed by a strengthening of his resolve. He could remember long ago that the firemoss had done more to him—he remembered euphoria, nights spent in a dizzy, wonderful daze, where everything around him seemed to make sense.

These days, he needed the moss to feel normal. Like a man scrambling up wet rocks, he could barely reach where everyone else was standing before he slowly started sliding back down. It wasn’t euphoria he craved anymore; it was the mere capacity to keep on going.

The moss washed away his burdens. Memories of that dark version of himself. Memories of turning his family in as heretics, even though they’d been right all along. He was a wretch and a coward, and didn’t deserve to wear the symbol of Bridge Four. He’d as good as betrayed that spren already. She’d best have fled.

For a moment he could give that all up to the firemoss.

Unfortunately, there was something broken in Teft. Long ago he’d gone to the moss at the urgings of other men in his squad in Sadeas’s army. They could rub the stuff and get some benefit, like a man chewed ridgebark when on guard duty to stay awake. A little firemoss, a little relaxation, and then they moved on with their lives.

Teft didn’t work that way. Burdens shoved aside, he could have gotten up and gone back to the bridgemen. He could have started his day.

But storms, a few more minutes sounded so nice. He kept going. He went through three bowls before a garish light made him blink. He pulled his face off the table where—to his shame—he’d drooled a puddle. How long had it been, and what was that terrible, awful light?

“Here he is,” Kaladin’s voice said as Teft blinked. A figure knelt beside the table. “Oh, Teft…”

“He owes us for three bowls,” said the den’s keeper. “One garnet broam.”

“Be glad,” an accented voice growled, “we do not rip off pieces of your body and pay you with those.”

Storms. Rock was here too? Teft groaned, turning away. “Don’t see me,” he croaked. “Don’t…”

“Our establishment is perfectly legal, Horneater,” the den keeper said. “If you assault us, be assured we will bring the guard and they will defend us.”

“Here’s your blood money, you eel,” Kaladin said, pushing the light toward them. “Rock, can you get him?”

Large hands took Teft, surprisingly gentle with their touch. He was crying. Kelek …

“Where’s your coat, Teft?” Kaladin asked from the darkness.

“I sold it,” Teft admitted, squeezing his eyes shut against the shamespren that drifted down around him, in the shape of flower petals. “I sold my own storming coat.”

Kaladin fell silent, and Teft let Rock carry him from the den. Halfway back, he finally managed to scrounge up enough dignity to complain about Rock’s breath and make them let him walk on his own feet—with a little support under the arms.

*

Teft envied better men than he. They didn’t have the itch, the one that went so deep that it stung his soul. It was persistent, always with him, and couldn’t ever be scratched. Despite how hard he tried.

Kaladin and Rock set him up in one of the barrack rooms, private, wrapped in blankets and with a bowl of Rock’s stew in his hands. Teft made the proper noises, the ones they expected. Apologies, promises he would tell them if he was feeling the need again. Promises that he’d let them help him. Though he couldn’t eat the stew, not yet. It would be another day before he could keep anything down.

Storms, but they were good men. Better friends than he deserved. They were all growing into something grand, while Teft … Teft just stayed on the ground, looking up.

They left him to get some rest. He stared at the stew, smelling the familiar scent, not daring to eat it. He’d go back to work before the day was out, training bridgemen from the other crews. He could function. He could go for days, pretending that he was normal. Storms, he’d balanced everything in Sadeas’s army for years before taking one step too far, missing duty one too many times, and landing himself in the bridge crews as punishment.

Those months running bridges had been the only time in his adult life when he hadn’t been dominated by the moss. But even back then, when he’d been able to afford a little alcohol, he’d known that eventually he’d find his way back. The liquor wasn’t ever enough.

Even as he braced himself to go to work for the day, one nagging thought overshadowed his mind. A shameful thought.

I’m not going to get any more moss for a while, am I?

That sinister knowledge hurt him more than anything. He was going to have to go a few excruciating days feeling like half a man. Days when he couldn’t feel anything but his own self-loathing, days living with the shame, the memories, the glances of other bridgemen.

Days without any storming help whatsoever.

That terrified him.





Cephandrius, bearer of the First Gem,