Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

The Thrill regarded these events with a sad sense of abandonment and confusion. The Thrill didn’t hate. Though some spren could make decisions, others were like animals—primal, driven by a single overpowering directive. Live. Burn. Laugh.

Or in this case, fight.

*

Jasnah existed halfway in the Cognitive Realm, which made everything a blurry maze of shadows, floating souls of light, and beads of glass. A thousand varieties of spren churned and climbed over one another in Shadesmar’s ocean. Most did not manifest in the physical world.

She willed steps to Soulcast beneath her feet. Individual axi of air lined up and packed next to each other, then Soulcast into stone—though in spite of the realms being linked, this was difficult. Air was amorphous, even in concept. People thought of it as the sky, or a breath, or a gust of wind, or a storm, or just “the air.” It liked to be free, difficult to define.

Yet, with a firm command and a concept of what she wanted, Jasnah made steps form beneath her feet. She reached the top of the wall and found her mother there with Queen Fen and some soldiers. They had made a command station at one of the old guard posts. Soldiers huddled outside with pikes pointed toward two Fused in the sky.

Bother. Jasnah strode along the wall, taking in the melee of illusions and men outside. Shallan stood at the back; most of the spheres around her had been drained already. She was burning through Stormlight at a terrible rate.

“Bad?” she asked Ivory.

“It is,” he said from her collar. “It is.”

“Mother,” Jasnah called, approaching where Fen and Navani stood by the guard post. “You need to rally the troops within the city and clear the enemy inside.”

“We’re working on it,” Navani said. “But— Jasnah! In the air—”

Jasnah raised an absent hand without looking, forming a wall of black pitch. A Fused crashed through it, and Jasnah Soulcast a flick of fire, sending the thing screaming and flailing, burning with a terrible smoke.



Jasnah Soulcast the rest of the pitch on the wall to smoke, then continued forward. “We must take advantage of Radiant Shallan’s distraction and cleanse Thaylen City. Otherwise, when the assault comes from outside once more, our attention will be divided.”

“From outside?” Fen said. “But we have the wall fixed, and— Storms! Brightness!”

Jasnah stepped aside without looking as the second Fused swooped down—the reactions of spren in Shadesmar allowed her to judge where it was. She turned and swung her hand at the creature. Ivory formed and sliced through the Fused’s head as it passed, sending it curling about itself—eyes burning—and tumbling along the wall top.

“The enemy,” Jasnah said, “will not be stopped by a wall, and Brightness Shallan has feasted upon almost all of the spheres Uncle Dalinar recharged. My Stormlight is nearly gone. We have to be ready to hold this position through conventional means once the power is gone.”

“Surely there aren’t enough enemy troops to…” Fen’s consort said, but trailed off as Jasnah pointed with Ivory—who obligingly formed again—toward the waiting parshman armies. Neither the hovering red haze nor the breaking lightning of the storm was enough to drown out the red glows beginning to appear in the parshmen’s eyes.

“We must be ready to hold this wall as long as it takes for troops to arrive from Urithiru,” Jasnah said. “Where is Renarin? Wasn’t he to deal with that thunderclast?”

“One of my soldiers reported seeing him,” Fen said. “He had been slowed by the crowds. Prince Adolin expressed an intention to go help.”

“Excellent. I will trust that task to my cousins, and instead see what I can do to keep my ward from getting herself killed.”

*

Szeth wove and dodged between the attacks of five enemy Fused, carrying the large dun ruby in his left hand, the sheathed black sword in his right. He tried to approach Dalinar in the red mist, but the enemy cut him off, and he was forced to turn east.

He skimmed the now-repaired wall and crossed over the city, eventually soaring past the monster of stone. It flung several soldiers into the air, and for a moment they soared with Szeth.

Szeth Lashed himself downward, diving for the city streets. Behind him, Fused broke around the monster and swarmed after. He shot through a doorway and into a small home—and heard a thump above as a soldier’s body fell onto the roof—then crashed out the back door and Lashed himself upward, narrowly avoiding the next building.

“Was I supposed to save those soldiers, sword-nimi?” Szeth said. “I am a Radiant now.”

I think they would have flown like you instead of falling down, if they’d wanted to be saved.

There was a profound puzzle in the words, one which Szeth could not consider. The Fused were deft, more skilled than he was. He dodged among the streets, but they kept on him. He swung around, left the Ancient Ward, and shot for the wall—trying to get back to Dalinar. Unfortunately, a swarm of the enemies cut him off. The rest surrounded him.

Looks like we’re cornered, the sword said. Time to fight, right? Accept death, and die slaying as many as possible? I’m ready. Let’s do it. I’m ready to be a noble sacrifice.

No. He did not win by dying.

Szeth lobbed the gemstone away as hard as he could.

The Fused went after it, leaving him an avenue to escape. He dropped toward the ground, where spheres glistened like stars. He drew in a deep breath of Stormlight, then spotted Lift waiting on the field between the fighting illusions and the waiting parshmen.

Szeth settled down lightly beside her. “I have failed to carry this burden.”

“That’s okay. Your weird face is burden enough for one man.”

“Your words are wise,” he said, nodding.

Lift rolled her eyes. “You’re right, sword. He’s not very fun, is he?”

I think he’s deevy anyway.

Szeth did not know this word, but it sent Lift chortling in a fit of amusement, which the sword mimicked.

“We have not fulfilled the Blackthorn’s demands,” Szeth snapped at the two of them, Stormlight puffing from his lips. “I could not stay ahead of those Fused long enough to deliver the stone to our master.”

“Yeah, I saw,” Lift said. “But I’ve got an idea. People are always after stuff, but they don’t really like the stuff—they like having the stuff.”

“These words are … not so wise. What do you mean?”

“Simple. The best way to rob someone is leave them thinking that nothing is wrong.…”

*

Shallan clung to Veil’s and Radiant’s hands.

She’d long since fallen to her knees, staring ahead as tears leaked from her eyes. Taut, her teeth gritted. She’d made thousands of illusions. Each one … each one was her.

A portion of her mind.