Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

Rine changed to a new rhythm, one she rarely heard. The Rhythm of Withdrawal—one of the only new rhythms that had a calm tone. “The strongest and most skilled of our number have yet to awaken—but even if we were all awake, we would not fight this war alone. This world will not be ours; we fight to give it to you, our descendants. When it is won, our vengeance taken and our homeland secured at long last, we will sleep. Finally.”

He then pointed at the cabin. “Go prepare. We will sail swiftly, with Odium’s own storm to guide us.”

As if in agreement with his words, red lightning flashed on the western horizon.





Rysn was bored.

Once she’d walked to the farthest reaches of Roshar, trading with the isolationist Shin. Once she’d sailed with her babsk to Icewater and cut a deal with pirates. Once she’d climbed Reshi greatshells, which were as large as towns.

Now she kept Queen Fen’s ledgers.

It was a good job, with an office in the Thaylen Gemstone Reserve. Vstim—her former babsk—had traded favors to get her the job. Her apprenticeship finished, she was a free woman. No longer a student. Now a master.

Of boredom.

She sat in her chair, doodling at the edges of a Liaforan word puzzle. Rysn could balance while sitting, though she couldn’t feel her legs and embarrassingly couldn’t control certain bodily functions. She had to rely upon her porters to move her.

Career, over. Freedom, over. Life, over.

She sighed and pushed away her word puzzle. Time to get back to work. Her duties included annotating the queen’s pending mercantile contracts with references to previous ones, keeping the queen’s personal vault in the Gemstone Reserve, preparing weekly expenditure reports, and accounting the queen’s salary as a portion of taxable income from various Thaylen interests at home and abroad.

Wheeeeeeeee.

She had an audit today, which had prevented her from attending Fen’s meeting with the monarchs. She might have enjoyed seeing the Blackthorn and the Azish emperor. Well, the other aides would bring her word once the meeting was through. For now, she prepared for her audit, working by spherelight, as the reserve didn’t have windows.

The walls of her office were blank. She’d originally hung souvenirs from her years traveling, but those had reminded her of a life she could no longer have. A life full of promise. A life that had ended when she’d stupidly fallen from the head of a greatshell, and landed here, in this cripple’s chair. Now, the only memento she kept was a single pot of Shin grass.

Well, that and the little creature sleeping among the blades. Chiri-Chiri breathed softly, rippling the too-dumb grass, which didn’t pull into burrows. It grew in something called soil, which was like crem that never hardened.

Chiri-Chiri herself was a small winged beast a little longer than Rysn’s outstretched palm. The Reshi named her a larkin, and though she was the size of a large cremling, she had the snout, carapace, and build of a creature far more grand. An axehound, perhaps, with wings. A lithe little flying predator—though, for all her dangerous appearance, she sure did like to nap.

As Rysn worked, Chiri-Chiri finally stirred and peeked out from the grass, then made a series of clicking sounds with her jaw. She climbed down onto the desk and eyed the diamond mark Rysn was using for light.

“No,” Rysn said, double-checking numbers in her ledger.

Chiri-Chiri clicked again, slinking toward the gem.

“You just ate,” Rysn said, then used her palm to shoo the larkin back. “I need that for light.”

Chiri-Chiri clicked in annoyance, then flew—wings beating very quickly—to the upper reaches of the room, where she settled onto one of her favorite perches, the lintel above the doorway.

A short time later, a knock at the door interrupted Rysn’s tedium. “Come,” she said. Her man, Wmlak—who was half assistant, half porter—poked his head in.

“Let me guess,” Rysn said, “the auditor is early.” They always were.

“Yes, but…”

Behind Wmlak, Rysn caught sight of a familiar flat-topped, conical hat. Wmlak stepped back and gestured toward an old man in blue and red robes, his Thaylen eyebrows tucked behind his ears. Spry for a man past his seventieth year, Vstim had a wise but unyielding way about him. Inoffensively calculating. He carried a small box under his arm.

Rysn gasped in delight; once, she would have leaped to her feet to embrace him. Now she could only sit there and gape. “But you were off to trade in New Natanan!”

“The seas are not safe these days,” Vstim said. “And the queen requested my aid in difficult negotiations with the Alethi. I have returned, with some reluctance, to accept an appointment from Her Majesty.”

An appointment …

“In the government?” Rysn asked.

“Minister of trade, and royal liaison to the guild of shipping merchants.”

Rysn could only gape further. That was the highest civilian appointment in the kingdom. “But … Babsk, you’ll have to live in Thaylen City!”

“Well, I am feeling my age these days.”

“Nonsense. You’re as lively as I am.” Rysn glanced at her legs. “More.”

“Not so lively that I wouldn’t mind a seat…”

She realized he was still standing in the doorway to her office. Even all these months after her accident, she pushed with her arms as if to spring up and fetch him a seat. Idiot.

“Please, sit!” she said, waving toward the room’s other chair. He settled down and placed his box on the table while she twisted to do something to welcome him, leaning over—precariously—to get the teapot. The tea was cold, unfortunately. Chiri-Chiri had drained the gemstone in her fabrial hotplate.

“I can’t believe you’d agree to settle down!” she said, handing him a cup.

“Some would say that the opportunity offered me is far too important to refuse.”

“Storm that,” Rysn said. “Staying in one city will wilt you—you’ll spend your days doing paperwork and being bored.”

“Rysn,” he said, taking her hand. “Child.”

She looked away. Chiri-Chiri flew down and landed on her head, clicking angrily at Vstim.

“I promise I’m not going to hurt her,” the old man said, grinning and releasing Rysn’s hand. “Here, I brought you something. See?” He held up a ruby chip.

Chiri-Chiri considered, then hovered down above his hand—not touching it—and sucked the Stormlight out. It flew to her in a little stream, and she clicked happily, then zipped over to the pot of grass and wriggled into it, peeking out at Vstim.

“You still have the grass, I see,” he said.

“You ordered me to keep it.”

“You’re now a master merchant, Rysn! You needn’t obey the orders of a doddering old man.”

The grass rustled as Chiri-Chiri shifted. She was too big to hide in it, though that never stopped her from trying.

“Chiri-Chiri likes it,” Rysn said. “Maybe because it can’t move. Kind of like me…”

“Have you tried that Radiant who—”

“Yes. He can’t heal my legs. It’s been too long since my accident, which is appropriate. This is my consequence—payment for a contract I entered into willingly the moment I climbed down the side of that greatshell.”

“You don’t have to lock yourself away, Rysn.”

“This is a good job. You yourself got it for me.”