Words of Radiance

Kaladin shook his head. Lighteyes and their games. How had he found himself in such a position that he had to spend so much time around them? He walked back to the barrel and got another drink. Soon after, a practice sword crunching to the sand announced Moash joining him.

Moash nodded gratefully as Kaladin handed over the ladle. Teft and Yake were having a turn facing down the Shardblade.

“She let you go?” Kaladin asked, nodding toward their trainer.

Moash shrugged, gulping water. “I didn’t flinch.”

Kaladin nodded appreciatively.

“What we’re doing here is good,” Moash said. “Important. After the way you trained us in those chasms, I thought I didn’t have anything left to learn. Shows how much I knew.”

Kaladin nodded, folding his arms. Adolin displayed several dueling stances for Renarin, Zahel nodding approvingly. Shallan had settled down to sketch them. Was this all an excuse to get her close, so she could wait for the right time to slide a knife into Adolin’s gut?

A paranoid way to think, perhaps, but that was his job. So he kept an eye on Adolin as the man turned and began sparring with Zahel, to give Renarin some perspective on how to use the stances.

Adolin was a good swordsman. Kaladin would give him that much. So was Zahel, for that matter.

“It was the king,” Moash said. “He had my family executed.”

It took Kaladin a moment to realize what Moash was talking about. The person that Moash wanted to kill, the person he had a grudge against. It was the king.

Kaladin felt a shock spike through him, as if he’d been punched. He turned on Moash.

“We’re Bridge Four,” Moash continued, staring off to the side at nothing in particular. He took another drink. “We stick together. You should know about… why I am the way I am. My grandparents were the only family I ever knew. Parents died when I was a child. Ana and Da, they raised me. The king… he killed them.”

“How did it happen?” Kaladin asked softly, checking to make sure none of the ardents were close enough to hear.

“I was away,” Moash said, “working a caravan that ran out here, to this wasteland. Ana and Da, they were second nahn. Important for darkeyes, you know? Ran their own shop. Silversmiths. I never picked up on the trade. Liked to be out walking. Going somewhere.

“Well, a lighteyed man owned two or three silversmith shops in Kholinar, one of which was across from my grandparents. He never did like the competition. This was a year or so before the old king died, and Elhokar was left in charge of the kingdom while Gavilar was out at the Plains. Anyway, Elhokar was good friends with the lighteyes who was in competition with my grandparents.

“So, he did his friend a favor. Elhokar had Ana and Da dragged in on some charge or another. They were important enough to demand a right to trial, an inquest before magistrates. I think it surprised Elhokar that he couldn’t completely ignore the law. He pled lack of time and sent Ana and Da to the dungeons to wait until an inquest could be arranged.” Moash dipped the ladle back into the barrel. “They died there a few months later, still waiting for Elhokar to approve their paperwork.”

“That’s not exactly the same as killing them.”

Moash met Kaladin’s eyes. “You doubt that sending a seventy-five-year-old couple to the palace dungeons is a death sentence?”

“I guess… well, I guess you’re right.”

Moash nodded sharply, tossing the ladle into the barrel. “Elhokar knew they’d die in there. That way, the hearing would never go before the magistrates, exposing his corruption. That bastard killed them—murdered them to keep his secret. I came home from my trip with the caravan to an empty house, and the neighbors told me my family was already two months dead.”

“So now you’re trying to assassinate King Elhokar,” Kaladin said softly, feeling a chill to be speaking it. Nobody was close enough to hear, not over the sounds of weapons and shouting common to sparring grounds. Still, the words seemed to hang in front of him, as loud as a trumpeter’s call.

Moash froze, looking him in the eye.

“That night on the balcony,” Kaladin said, “did you make it look like a Shardblade cut the railing?”

Moash took him by the arm in a tight grip, looking about. “We shouldn’t talk about this here.”

“Stormfather, Moash!” Kaladin said, the depth of it sinking in. “We’ve been hired to protect

the man!”

“Our job,” Moash said, “is to keep Dalinar alive. I can agree with that. He doesn’t seem too bad, for a lighteyes. Storms, this kingdom would be a lot better off if he were king instead. Don’t tell me you think differently.”

“But killing the king—”

“Not here,” Moash hissed through clenched teeth.

“I can’t just let it go. Nalan’s hand! I’m going to have to tell—”

“You’d do that?” Moash demanded. “You’d turn on a member of Bridge Four?”

They locked gazes.

Kaladin turned away. “Damnation. No, I won’t. At least, not if you’ll agree to stop. You may have a grudge with the king, but you can’t just try to… you know…”