Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

“Using all our Stormlight in the process?” Shallan asked.

“I’m just trying to think of something!”

“Guys,” Syl said. “I might have an idea. A great bad idea.”

“The Fused went looking for you,” Shallan said to Kaladin. “It flew to the market.”

“It passed us.”

“Guys?”

“Not for long though. It’s going to turn around soon.”

“Turns out Syl has a bounty on her head.”

“Guys?”

“We need a plan,” Kaladin said. “If nobody…” He trailed off.

Syl had started running toward the majestic white and gold ship, which was slowly being pulled away from the docks. She threw down her poncho and hat, then screamed up at the ship while running along the pier beside it.

“Hey!” she screamed. “Hey, look down here!”

The vessel stopped ponderously, handlers slowing its mandras. Three blue-white honorspren appeared at the side, looking down with utter shock.

“Sylphrena, the Ancient Daughter?” one shouted.

“That’s me!” she shouted back. “You’d better catch me before I scamper away! Wow! I’m feeling capricious today. I might just vanish again, off to where nobody can find me!”

It worked.

A gangway dropped, and Syl scrambled up onto the ship—followed by the rest of them. Kaladin went last, watching nervously over his shoulder, expecting the Fused to come after them at any moment. It did, but it stopped at the mouth of the alleyway, watching them board the ship. Honorspren gave it pause, apparently.

On board, Kaladin discovered that most of the sailors were those spren made of fog or mist. One of these was tying Syl’s arms together with rope. Kaladin tried to intervene, but Syl shook her head. “Not now,” she mouthed.

Fine. He would argue with the honorspren later.

The ship pulled away, joining others that fled the city. The honorspren didn’t pay much mind to Kaladin and the others—though one did take their harpoons, and another went through their pockets, confiscating their infused gemstones.

As the city grew smaller, Kaladin caught sight of the Fused hovering over the docks, beside the smoke trail of a burning ship.

It finally streaked off in the other direction.





Many cultures speak of the so-called Death Rattles that sometimes overtake people as they die. Tradition ascribes them to the Almighty, but I find too many to be seemingly prophetic. This will be my most contentious assertion I am sure, but I think these are the effects of Moelach persisting in our current times. Proof is easy to provide: the effect is regionalized, and tends to move across Roshar. This is the roving of the Unmade.

—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 170

Dalinar started awake in an unfamiliar place, lying on a floor of cut stone, his back stiff. He blinked sleepily, trying to orient himself. Storms … where was he?

Soft sunlight shone through an open balcony on the far side of the room, and ethereal motes of dust danced in the streams of light. What were those sounds? They seemed like the voices of people, but muffled.

Dalinar stood, then fastened the side of his uniform jacket, which had come undone. It had been … what, three days since his return from Jah Keved? His excommunication from the Vorin church?

He remembered those days as a haze of frustration, sorrow, agony. And drink. A great deal of drink. He’d been using the stupor to drive away the pain. A terrible bandage for his wounds, blood seeping out on all sides. But so far, it had kept him alive.

I know this room, he realized, glancing at the mural on the ceiling. I saw it in one of my visions. A highstorm must have come while he was passed out.

“Stormfather?” Dalinar called, his voice echoing. “Stormfather, why have you sent me a vision? We agreed they were too dangerous.”

Yes, he remembered this place well. This was the vision where he’d met Nohadon, author of The Way of Kings. Why wasn’t it playing out as it had before? He and Nohadon had walked to the balcony, talked for a time, then the vision had ended.

Dalinar started toward the balcony, but storms, that light was so intense. It washed over him, making his eyes water, and he had to raise his hand to shield his eyes.

He heard something behind him. Scratching? He turned—putting his back to the brilliance—and spotted a door on the wall. It swung open easily beneath his touch, and he stepped out of the loud sunlight to find himself in a circular room.

He shut the door with a click. This chamber was much smaller than the previous one, with a wooden floor. Windows in the walls looked out at a clear sky. A shadow passed over one of these, like something enormous moving in front of the sun. But … how could the sun be pointed this direction too?

Dalinar looked over his shoulder at the wooden door. No light peeked underneath it. He frowned and reached for the handle, then paused, hearing the scratching once more. Turning, he saw a large desk, heaped with papers, by the wall. How had he missed that earlier?

A man sat at the desk, lit by a loose diamond, writing with a reed pen. Nohadon had aged. In the previous vision, the king had been young—but now his hair was silver, his skin marked by wrinkles. It was the same man though, same face shape, same beard that came to a point. He wrote with focused concentration.

Dalinar stepped over. “The Way of Kings,” he whispered. “I’m watching it be written.…”

“Actually,” Nohadon said, “it’s a shopping list. I’ll be cooking Shin loaf bread today, if I can get the ingredients. It always breaks people’s brains. Grain was not meant to be so fluffy.”

What…? Dalinar scratched at the side of his head.

Nohadon finished with a flourish and tossed the pen down. He threw back his chair and stood, grinning like a fool, and grabbed Dalinar by the arms. “Good to see you again, my friend. You’ve been having a hard time of it lately, haven’t you?”

“You have no idea,” Dalinar whispered, wondering who Nohadon saw him as. In the previous vision, Dalinar had appeared as one of Nohadon’s advisors. They’d stood together on the balcony as Nohadon contemplated a war to unite the world. A drastic resort, intended to prepare mankind for the next Desolation.

Could that morose figure have really become this spry and eager? And where had this vision come from? Hadn’t the Stormfather told Dalinar that he’d seen them all?

“Come,” Nohadon said, “let’s go to the market. A little shopping to turn your mind from your troubles.”

“Shopping?”

“Yes, you shop, don’t you?”

“I … usually have people to do that for me.”

“Ah, but of course you do,” Nohadon said. “Very like you to miss a simple joy so you can get to something more ‘important.’ Well, come on. I’m the king. You can’t very well say no, now can you?”