Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

Shallan let the illusion melt around her, then slumped down, exhausted. She’d tried pleading, cajoling, yelling, and even Lightweaving. It was no use. She had failed. Her illusions on the bridge were wavering and vanishing, their Stormlight running out.

Through them shot a Fused trailing dark energy, lance leveled directly toward Shallan. She dove to the side, barely getting out of the way. The creature passed in a whoosh, then slowed and turned for another pass.

Shallan leaped to her feet first. “Pattern!” she yelled, sweeping her hands forward by instinct, trying to summon the Blade. A part of her was impressed that was her reaction. Adolin would be proud.

It didn’t work, of course. Pattern shouted in apology from the bridge, panicked. And yet in that moment—facing the enemy bearing down, its lance pointed at her heart—Shallan felt something. Pattern, or something like him, just beyond her mental reach. On the other side, and if she could just tug on it, feed it …

She screamed as Stormlight flowed through her, raging in her veins, reaching toward something in her pocket.

A wall appeared in front of her.

Shallan gasped. A sickening smack from the other side of the wall indicated that the Fused had collided with it.

A wall. A storming wall of worked stones, broken at the sides. Shallan looked down and found that her pocket—she was still wearing Veil’s white trousers—was connected to the strange wall.

What on Roshar? She pulled out her small knife and sawed the pocket free, then stumbled back. In the center of the wall was a small bead, melded into the stone.

That’s the bead I used to cross the sea down below, Shallan thought. What she’d done felt like Soulcasting, yet different.

Pattern ran up to her, humming as he left the bridge. Where were Adolin and Syl?

“I took the soul of the wall,” Shallan said, “and then made its physical form appear on this side.”

“Mmm. I think these beads are more minds than souls, but you did manifest it here. Very nice. Though your touch is unpracticed. Mmm. It will not stay for long.”

The edges were already starting to unravel to smoke. A scraping sound on the other side indicated that the Fused had not been defeated, merely stunned. Shallan turned from it and scrambled over the bridge, away from the towering sentinels. She passed some of her illusions and recovered a little of their Stormlight. Now, where was—

Adolin. Bleeding!

Shallan dashed over and grabbed him by the arm, trying to keep him upright as he stumbled.

“It’s just a little cut,” he said. Blood seeped out between his fingers, which were pressed to his gut, right below the navel. The back of his uniform was bloody too.

“Just a little cut? Adolin! You—”

“No time,” he said, leaning against her. He nodded toward the Fused she’d fought, who rose into the air over Shallan’s wall. “The other one is back behind me somewhere. Could be on us at any moment.”

“Kaladin,” Shallan said. “Where—”

“Mmm…” Pattern said, pointing. “He ran out of Stormlight and fell into the beads over that way.”

Great.

“Take a deep breath,” Shallan said to Adolin, then pulled him off the bridge with her and leaped for the beads.

*

Lift became awesome.

Her powers manifested as the ability to slide across objects without truly touching them. She could become really, really slick—which was handy, because soldiers tried to snatch her as she rounded the Alethi army. They grabbed at her unbuttoned overshirt, her arm, her hair. They couldn’t hold her. She just slid away. It was like they were trying to grab hold of a song.

She burst from their ranks and fell to her knees, which she’d slicked up real good. That meant she kept going, sliding on her knees away from the men with the glowing red eyes. Wyndle—who she knew by now was almost certainly not a Voidbringer—was a little snaking line of green beside her. He looked like a fast-growing vine, jutting with small crystals here and there.

“Oh, I don’t like this,” he said.

“You don’t like nothin’.”

“Now, that is not true, mistress. I liked that nice town we passed back in Azir.”

“The one that was deserted?”

“So peaceful.”

There, Lift thought, picking out a real Voidbringer—the type that looked like parshmen, only big and scary. This one was a woman, and moved across the rock smoothly, like she was awesome too.

“I’ve always wondered,” Lift said. “Do you suppose they got those marble colorings on all their parts?”

“Mistress? Does it matter?”

“Maybe not now,” Lift admitted, glancing at the red storm. She kept her legs slick, but her hands not slick, which let her paddle and steer herself. Going about on your knees didn’t look as deevy as standing up—but when she tried being awesome while standing, she usually ended up crashed against a rock with her butt in the air.

That Fused did seem to be carrying something large in one hand. Like a big gemstone. Lift paddled in that direction—which was taking her dangerously close to that parshman army and their ships. Still, she got up pretty close before the Voidbringer woman turned and noticed.

Lift slid to a halt, letting her Stormlight run out. Her stomach growled, so she took a bite of some jerky she’d found in her guard’s pocket.

The Voidbringer said something in a singsong voice, hefting the enormous ruby—it didn’t have any Stormlight, which was good, since one that big would have been bright. Like, redder and brighter than Gawx’s face when Lift told him about how babies was made. He should know stuff like that already. He’d been a starvin’ thief! Hadn’t he known any whores or anything?

Anyway … how to get that ruby? The Voidbringer spoke again, and while Lift couldn’t figure out the words, she couldn’t help feeling that the Voidbringer sounded amused. The woman pushed off with one foot, then slid on the other, easy as if she were standing on oil. She coasted for a second, then looked over her shoulder and grinned before kicking off and sliding to the left, casually moving with a grace that made Lift seem super stupid.

“Well starve me,” Lift said. “She’s more awesome than I am.”

“Do you have to use that term?” Wyndle asked. “Yes, she appears to be able to access the Surge of—”

“Shut it,” Lift said. “Can you follow her?”

“I might leave you behind.”

“I’ll keep up.” Maybe. “You follow her. I’ll follow you.”

Wyndle sighed but obeyed, streaking off after the Voidbringer. Lift followed, paddling on her knees, feeling like a pig trying to imitate a professional dancer.

*

“You must choose, Szeth-son-Neturo,” Nin said. “The Skybreakers will swear to the Dawnsingers and their law. And you? Will you join us?”

Wind rippled Szeth’s clothing. All those years ago, he’d been correct. The Voidbringers had returned.

Now … now he was to simply accept their rule?

“I don’t trust myself, aboshi,” Szeth whispered. “I cannot see the right any longer. My own decisions are not trustworthy.”

“Yes,” Nin said, nodding, hands clasped behind his back. “Our minds are fallible. This is why we must pick something external to follow. Only in strict adherence to a code can we approximate justice.”