Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

“You have no right—”

“We have every right! The ardents must watch the lighteyes so that you steer your subjects well. That is still our duty, as outlined in the Covenants of Theocracy, witnessed for centuries! Did you really think we would ignore what you’ve been preaching?”

Dalinar gritted his teeth as the stupid ardent began outlining Dalinar’s heresies one by one, demanding that he deny them. The man stepped forward, close enough now that Dalinar could smell his breath.

The Thrill stirred, sensing a fight. Sensing blood.

I’m going to kill him, a part of Dalinar thought. I have to run now, or I will kill this man. It was as clear to him as the sun’s light.

So he ran.

He dashed to the Oathgate control building, frantic with the need to escape. He scrambled up to the keyhole, and only then remembered that he didn’t have a Shardblade that could operate this device.

Dalinar, the Stormfather rumbled. Something is wrong. Something I cannot see, something hidden to me. What are you sensing?

“I have to get away.”

I will not be a sword to you. We spoke of this.

Dalinar growled. He felt something he could touch, something beyond places. The power that bound worlds together. His power.

Wait, the Stormfather said. This is not right!

Dalinar ignored him, reaching beyond and pulling power through. Something bright white manifested in his hand, and he rammed it into the keyhole.

The Stormfather groaned, a sound like thunder.

The power made the Oathgate work, regardless. As his guards called his name outside, Dalinar flipped the dial that would make only the small building transport—not the entire plateau—then pushed the keyhole around the outside of the room, using the power as a handhold.

A ring of light flashed around the structure, and cold wind poured in through the doorways. He stumbled out onto a platform before Urithiru. The Stormfather pulled back from him, not breaking the bond, but withdrawing his favor.



The Thrill flooded in to replace it. Even this far away. Storms! Dalinar couldn’t escape it.

You can’t escape yourself, Dalinar, Evi’s voice said in his mind. This is who you are. Accept it.

He couldn’t run. Storms … he couldn’t run.

Blood of my fathers. Please. Please, help me.

But … to whom was he praying?

He staggered down from the platform in a daze, ignoring questions from soldiers and scribes alike. He made his way to his room, increasingly desperate to find a way—any way—to hide from Evi’s condemning voice.

In his rooms, he pulled a book off the shelf. Bound in hogshide, with thick paper. He held The Way of Kings as if it were a talisman that would drive back the pain.

It did nothing. Once this book had saved him, but now it seemed useless. He couldn’t even read its words.



Dropping the book, he stumbled out of the room. No conscious thought led him to Adolin’s chambers or drove him to ransack the younger man’s room. But he found what he’d hoped, a bottle of wine kept for a special occasion. Violet, prepared in its strength.

This represented that third man he’d been. Shame, frustration, and days spent in a haze. Terrible times. Times he’d given up part of his soul in order to forget.

But storms, it was either this or start killing again. He raised the bottle to his lips.





Moelach is very similar to Nergaoul, though instead of inspiring a battle rage, he supposedly granted visions of the future. In this, lore and theology align. Seeing the future originates with the Unmade, and is from the enemy.

—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 143

Adolin tugged at the jacket, standing in Captain Ico’s cabin. The spren had lent the room to him for a few hours.

The jacket was too short, but was the biggest the spren had. Adolin had cut off the trousers right below the knees, then tucked the bottoms into his long socks and tall boots. He rolled the sleeves of the jacket up to match, approximating an old style from Thaylenah. The jacket still looked too baggy.

Leave it unbuttoned, he decided. The rolled sleeves look intentional that way. He tucked his shirt in, pulled the belt tight. Good by contrast? He studied it in the captain’s mirror. It needed a waistcoat. Those, fortunately, weren’t too hard to fake. Ico had provided a burgundy coat that was too small for him. He removed the collar and sleeves, stitched the rough edges under, then slit it up the back.

He was just finishing it up with some laces on the back when Ico checked in on him. Adolin buttoned on the improvised waistcoat, threw on the jacket, then presented himself with hands at his sides.

“Very nice,” Ico said. “You look like an honorspren going to a Feast of Light.”

“Thanks,” Adolin said, inspecting himself in the small mirror. “The jacket needs to be longer, but I don’t trust myself to let down the hems.”

Ico studied him with metal eyes—bronze, with holes for the pupils, like Adolin had seen done for some statues. Even the spren’s hair appeared sculpted in place. Ico could almost have been a Soulcast king from an age long past.

“You were a ruler among your kind, weren’t you?” Ico asked. “Why did you leave? The humans we get here are refugees, merchants, or explorers. Not kings.”

King. Was Adolin a king? Surely his father would decide not to continue with the abdication, now that Elhokar had passed.

“No answer?” Ico said. “That is fine. But you were a ruler among them. I can read it in you. Highborn status is important to humans.”

“Maybe a little too important, eh?” Adolin said, adjusting the neck scarf he’d made from his handkerchief.

“That is true,” Ico said. “You are all human—and so none of you, regardless of birth, can be trusted with oaths. A contract to travel, this is fine. But humans will betray trust if it is given to them.” The spren frowned, then seemed to grow embarrassed, glancing away. “That was rude.”

“Rudeness doesn’t necessarily imply untruth though.”

“I did not mean an insult, regardless. You are not to be blamed. Betraying oaths is simply your nature, as a human.”

“You don’t know my father,” Adolin said. Still, the conversation left him uncomfortable. Not because of Ico’s words—spren tended to say odd things, and Adolin didn’t take offense.

More, he felt his own growing worry that he might actually have to take the throne. He’d grown up knowing it could happen, but he’d also grown up wishing—desperately—that it never would. In his quiet moments, he’d assumed this hesitance was because a king couldn’t apply himself to things like dueling and … well … enjoying life.