Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

As their porters skillfully carried them up some steps, Dalinar watched out the palanquin window. This upper section of the city had weathered the storm well enough, as many of the structures here were of thick stone. Still, some had cracked, and a few roofs had fallen in. The palanquin passed a fallen statue, which had broken off at the ankles and toppled from a ledge toward the Loft Wards.

This city was hit harder than any I’ve had a report about, he thought. This level of destruction is unique. Is it just all that wood, and the lack of anything to blunt the storm? Or is it more? Some reports of the Everstorm mentioned no winds, only lightning. Others confusingly reported no rain, but burning embers. The Everstorm varied greatly, even within the same passing.

“It’s probably comforting for Fen to do something familiar,” Navani told him quietly as the porters set them down at the next stop. “This tour is a reminder of days before the city suffered such terrors.”

He nodded. With that in mind, it was easier to bear the thought of yet another temple.

Outside, they found Fen emerging from her palanquin. “The temple of Battah, one of the oldest in the city. But of course the greatest sight here is the Simulacrum of Paralet, the grand statue that…” She trailed off, and Dalinar followed her gaze to the stone feet of the statue nearby. “Oh. Right.”

“Let’s see the temple,” Dalinar urged. “You said it’s one of the oldest. Which are older?”

“Only Ishi’s temple is more ancient,” she said. “But we won’t linger there, or here.”



“We won’t?” Dalinar asked, noticing the lack of prayer smoke from this roof. “Is the structure damaged?”

“The structure? No, not the structure.”

A pair of tired ardents emerged and walked down the steps, their robes stained with flecks of red. Dalinar looked to Fen. “Do you mind if I go up anyway?”

“If you wish.”

As Dalinar climbed the steps with Navani, he caught a scent on the wind. The scent of blood, which reminded him of battle. At the top, the sight inside the doors of the temple was a familiar one. Hundreds of wounded covered the marble floor, lying on simple pallets, painspren reaching out like orange sinew hands between them.

“We had to improvise,” Fen said, stepping up behind him in the doorway, “after our traditional hospitals filled.”

“So many?” Navani said, safehand to her mouth. “Can’t some be sent home to heal, to their families?”

Dalinar read the answers in the suffering people. Some were waiting to die; they’d bled internally, or had rampant infections, marked by tiny red rotspren on their skin. Others had no homes left, evidenced by the families that huddled around a wounded mother, father, or child.

Storms … Dalinar felt almost ashamed at how well his people had weathered the Everstorm. When he eventually turned to go, he almost ran into Taravangian, who haunted the doorway like a spirit. Frail, draped in soft robes, the aged monarch was weeping openly as he regarded the people in the temple.

“Please,” he said. “Please. My surgeons are in Vedenar, an easy trip through the Oathgates. Let me bring them. Let me ease this suffering.”

Fen pursed her lips to a thin line. She’d agreed to meet, but that didn’t make her a part of Dalinar’s proposed coalition. But what could she say to a plea like that?

“Your help would be appreciated,” she said.

Dalinar suppressed a smile. She’d conceded one step by letting them activate the Oathgate. This was another one. Taravangian, you are a gem.

“Lend me a scribe and spanreed,” Taravangian said. “I will have my Radiant bring aid immediately.”

Fen gave the necessary orders, her consort nodding for the words to be recorded. As they walked back toward the palanquins, Taravangian lingered on the steps, looking out over the city.

“Your Majesty?” Dalinar asked, pausing.

“I can see my home in this, Brightlord.” He put a trembling hand against the wall of the temple for support. “I blink bleary eyes, and I see Kharbranth destroyed in war. And I ask, ‘What must I do to preserve them?’ ”

“We will protect them, Taravangian. I vow it.”

“Yes … Yes, I believe you, Blackthorn.” He took a long, drawn-out breath, and seemed to wilt further. “I think … I think I shall remain here and await my surgeons. Please go on.”

Taravangian sat down on the steps as the rest of them walked away. At his palanquin, Dalinar looked back up and saw the old man sitting there, hands clasped before himself, liver-spotted head bowed, almost in the attitude of one kneeling before a burning prayer.

Fen stepped up beside Dalinar. The white ringlets of her eyebrows shook in the wind. “He is far more than people think of him, even after his accident. I’ve often said it.”

Dalinar nodded.

“But,” Fen continued, “he acts as if this city is a burial ground. That is not the case. We will rebuild from stone. My engineers plan to put walls on the front of each ward. We’ll get our feet underneath us again. We just have to get ahead of the storm. It’s the sudden loss of labor that really crippled us. Our parshmen…”

“My armies could do much to help clear rubble, move stones, and rebuild,” Dalinar said. “Simply give the word, and you will have access to thousands of willing hands.”

Fen said nothing, though Dalinar caught muttered words from the young soldiers and attendants waiting beside the palanquins. Dalinar let his attention linger on them, picking out one in particular. Tall for a Thaylen, the young man had blue eyes, with eyebrows combed and starched straight back alongside his head. His crisp uniform was, naturally, cut in the Thaylen style, with a shorter jacket that buttoned tight across the upper chest.

That will be her son, Dalinar thought, studying the young man’s features. By Thaylen tradition, he would be merely another officer, not the heir. The monarchy of the kingdom was not a hereditary position.

Heir or not, this young man was important. He whispered something jeering, and the others nodded, muttering and glaring at Dalinar.

Navani nudged Dalinar and gave him a questioning look.

Later, he mouthed, then turned to Queen Fen. “So the temple of Ishi is full of wounded as well?”

“Yes. Perhaps we can skip that.”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing the lower wards of the city,” Dalinar said. “Perhaps the grand bazaar I’ve heard so much about?”

Navani winced, and Fen grew stiff.

“It was … by the docks then, was it?” Dalinar said, looking out at the rubble-filled plain before the city. He’d assumed that it would have been in the Ancient Ward, the central part of the city. He should have paid better attention to those maps, apparently.

“I have refreshments set up at the courtyard of Talenelat,” Fen said. “It was to be the last stop on our tour. Shall we go directly there now?”

Dalinar nodded, and they reboarded the palanquins. Inside, he leaned forward and spoke softly to Navani. “Queen Fen is not an absolute authority.”

“Even your brother wasn’t absolutely powerful.”

“But the Thaylen monarch is worse. The councils of merchants and naval officers pick the new monarch, after all. They have great influence in the city.”