Words of Radiance

I’ll address this letter to my “old friend,” as I have no idea what name you’re using currently.

Kaladin had never been in prison before.

Cages, yes. Pits. Pens. Under guard in a room. Never a proper prison.

Perhaps that was because prisons were too nice. He had two blankets, a pillow, and a chamber pot that was changed regularly. They fed him far better than he’d ever been fed as a slave. The stone shelf wasn’t the most comfortable bed, but with the blankets, it wasn’t too bad. He didn’t have any windows, but at least he wasn’t out in the storms.

All in all, the room was very nice. And he hated it.

In the past, the only times he’d been stuck in a small space had been to weather a highstorm. Now, being enclosed here for hours on end, with nothing to do but lie on his back and think… Now he found himself restless, sweating, missing the open spaces. Missing the wind. The solitude didn’t bother him. Those walls, though. They felt like they were crushing him.

On the third day of his imprisonment, he heard a disturbance from farther inside the prison, beyond his chamber. He stood up, ignoring Syl, who sat on an invisible bench on his wall. What was

that shouting? It echoed in from the hallway.

His little cell was in its own room. The only people he’d seen since being locked up were the guards and the servants. Spheres glowed on the walls, keeping the place well lit. Spheres in a room meant for criminals. Were they there to taunt the men locked away? Riches just beyond reach.

He pressed against the cold bars, listening to the indistinct shouts. He imagined Bridge Four having come to break him out. Stormfather send they didn’t try something so foolish.

He eyed one of the spheres in its setting on the wall.

“What?” Syl asked him.

“I might be able to get close enough to suck that Light out. It’s only a little farther than the Parshendi were when I drew the Light from their gemstones.”

“Then what?” Syl asked, voice small.

Good question. “Would you help me break out, if I wanted to?”

“Do you want to?”

“I’m not sure.” He turned around, still standing, and rested his back against the bars. “I might need to. Breaking out would be against the law, though.”

She lifted her chin. “I’m no highspren. Laws don’t matter; what’s right matters.”

“On that point, we agree.”

“But you came willingly,” Syl said. “Why would you leave now?”

“I won’t let them execute me.”

“They’re not going to,” Syl said. “You heard Dalinar.”

“Dalinar can go rot. He let this happen.”

“He tried to—”

“He let it happen!” Kaladin snapped, turning and slamming his hands against the bars. Another storming cage. He was right back where he’d begun! “He’s the same as the others,” Kaladin growled.

Syl zipped over to him, coming to rest between the bars, hands on hips. “Say that again.”

“He…” Kaladin turned away. Lying to her was hard. “All right, fine. He’s not. But the king is. Admit it, Syl. Elhokar is a terrible king. At first he lauded me for trying to protect him. Now, at the snap of his fingers, he’s willing to execute me. He’s a child.”

“Kaladin, you’re scaring me.”

“Am I? You told me to trust you, Syl. When I jumped down into the arena, you said this time things would be different. How is this different?”

She looked away, seeming suddenly very small.

“Even Dalinar admitted that the king had made a big mistake in letting Sadeas wiggle out of the challenge,” Kaladin said. “Moash and his friends are right. This kingdom would be better off without Elhokar.”

Syl dropped to the floor, head bowed.

Kaladin walked back to his bench, but was too stirred up to sit. He found himself pacing. How could a man be expected to live trapped in a little room, without fresh air to breathe? He wouldn’t let them leave him here.

You’d better keep your word, Dalinar. Get me out. Soon.

The disturbance, whatever it had been, quieted. Kaladin asked the servant about it when she came with his food, pushing it through the small opening at the bottom of the bars. She wouldn’t speak to him, and scurried off like a cremling before a storm.

Kaladin sighed, retrieving the food—steamed vegetables, dribbled with a salty black sauce—and flopping back on his bench. They gave him food he could eat with his fingers. No forks or knives for him, just in case.

“Nice place you have here, bridgeboy,” Wit said. “I considered moving in here myself on several occasions. The rent might be cheap, but the price of admission is quite steep.”

Kaladin scrambled up to his feet. Wit sat on a bench by the far wall, outside the cell and under the spheres, tuning some kind of strange instrument on his lap made of taut strings and polished wood. He hadn’t been there a moment ago. Storms… had the bench even been there before?

“How did you get in?” Kaladin asked.

“Well, there are these things called doors…”

“The guards let you?”