Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

“We have none,” Ico said. “Stormlight fades too quickly on this side.”

That was true. Kaladin’s team carried several larger unset gemstones, which would hold Stormlight for weeks—but the smaller spheres would run out after a week or so without seeing a storm. They’d been able to trade the chips and marks to the lighthouse keeper in exchange for barter supplies—mostly cloth—to buy passage on this ship.

“The lighthouse keeper wanted the Stormlight,” Kaladin said. “He kept it in some kind of globe.”

Captain Ico grunted. “Foreign technology,” he said. “Dangerous. Draws the wrong spren.” He shook his head. “At Celebrant, the moneychangers have perfect gemstones that can hold the light indefinitely. Similar.”

“Perfect gemstones? Like, the Stone of Ten Dawns?”

“I don’t know of this thing. Light in a perfect stone doesn’t run out, so you can give Stormlight to the moneychangers. They use devices to transfer it from smaller gemstones to their perfect ones. Then they give you credit to spend in the city.”

The hold was closely packed with barrels and boxes that were lashed to the walls and floor. Kaladin could barely squeeze through. Ico selected a rope-handled box from a stack, then asked Kaladin to pull it out as Ico resettled the boxes that had been atop it, then relashed them.

Kaladin spent the time thinking about perfect gemstones. Did such a thing exist on his side? If there really were flawless stones that could hold Stormlight without ever running out, that seemed important to know. It could mean the difference between life and death for Radiants during the Weeping.

Once Ico was done resettling the cargo, he gestured for Kaladin to help him pick up the box they’d removed. They maneuvered it out of the hold and up onto the top deck. Here, the captain knelt and opened the box, which revealed a strange device that looked a little like a coatrack—although only about three feet tall. Made entirely of steel, it had dozens of small metal prongs extending from it, like the branches of a tree—only it had a metal basin at the very bottom.

Ico fished in a pocket and took out a small box, from which he removed a handful of glass beads like those that made up the ocean. He placed one of them into a hole in the center of the device, then waved toward Kaladin. “Stormlight.”

“For what?”

“For you to live.”

“Are you threatening me, Captain?”



Ico sighed and regarded him with a suffering expression. Very human in its nature. It seemed the look of a man talking to a child. The spren captain waved his hand, insistent, so Kaladin took a diamond mark from his pocket.

Cradling the sphere in one hand, Ico touched the glass bead he’d put in the fabrial. “This is a soul,” he said. “Soul of water, but very cold.”

“Ice?”

“Ice from a high, high place,” he said. “Ice that has never melted. Ice that has never known warmth.” The light in Kaladin’s sphere dimmed as Ico concentrated. “You know how to manifest souls?”

“No,” Kaladin said.

“Some of your kind do,” he said. “It is rare. Rare among us too. The gardeners among the cultivationspren are best at it. I am unpracticed.”

The ocean bead expanded and grew cloudy, looking like ice. Kaladin got a distinct sense of coldness from it.

Ico handed back the diamond mark, now partially drained, then dusted off his hands and stood up, pleased.

“What does it do?” Kaladin asked.

Ico nudged the device with his foot. “It gets cold now.”

“Why?”

“Cold makes water,” he said. “Water collects in that basin. You drink, and don’t die.”

Cold makes water? It didn’t seem to be making any water that Kaladin could see. Ico hiked off to survey the spren steering the ship, so Kaladin knelt beside the device, trying to understand. Eventually, he spotted drops of water collecting on the “branches” of the device. They ran down the metal and gathered in the basin.

Huh. When the captain had said—during their initial negotiations—that he could provide water for human passengers, Kaladin had assumed the ship would have some barrels in the hold.

The device took about a half hour to make a small cup of water, which Kaladin drank as a test—the basin had a spigot and a detachable tin cup. The water was cool but flavorless, unlike rainwater. How did coldness make water though? Was this melting ice in the Physical Realm somehow, and bringing it here?

As he was sipping the water, Syl walked over—her skin, hair, and dress still colored like those of a human. She stopped next to him, placed her hands on her hips, and went into full pout.

“What?” Kaladin asked.

“They won’t let me ride one of the flying spren.”

“Smart.”

“Insufferable.”

“Why on Roshar would you look at one of those things and think, ‘You know what, I need to get on its back’?”

Syl looked at him as if he were crazy. “Because they can fly.”

“So can you. Actually, so can I.”

“You don’t fly, you fall the wrong way.” She unfolded her arms so that she could fold them immediately again and huff loudly. “You’re telling me you’re not even curious what it’s like to climb on one of those things?”

“Horses are bad enough. I’m not about to get onto something that doesn’t even have legs.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I dragged it out back and clubbed it senseless for getting me into the army. What have you done to your skin and hair, by the way?”

“It’s a Lightweaving,” she said. “I asked Shallan, because I didn’t want rumors of an honorspren spreading from the ship’s crew.”

“We can’t waste Stormlight on something like that, Syl.”

“We used a mark that was running out anyway!” she said. “So it was worthless to us; it would have been depleted by the time we arrived. So it’s wasting nothing.”

“What if there’s an emergency?”

She stuck her tongue out at him, then at the sailors at the front of the ship. Kaladin returned the little tin cup to its place on the side of the device, then settled with his back to the ship railing. Shallan sat across the deck near the flying spren, doing sketches.

“You should go talk to her,” Syl said, sitting next to him.

“About wasting Stormlight?” Kaladin said. “Yes, perhaps I should. She does seem inclined to be frivolous with who she expends it for.”

Syl rolled her eyes.

“What?”

“Don’t go lecture her, silly. Chat with her. About life. About fun things.” Syl nudged him with her foot. “I know you want to. I can feel that you do. Be glad I’m the wrong kind of spren, or I would probably be licking your forehead or something to get at your emotions.”

The ship surged against a wave of beads. The souls of things in the physical world.

“Shallan is betrothed to Adolin,” Kaladin said.

“Which isn’t an oath,” Syl said. “It’s a promise to maybe make an oath sometime.”

“It’s still not the sort of thing you play around with.”

Syl rested her hand on his knee. “Kaladin. I’m your spren. It’s my duty to make sure that you’re not alone.”