Words of Radiance

Shallan shut herself in her room as the shouting started, a violent, angry back-and-forth between Malise and her father. Shallan huddled up beside the bed, tried to use a pillow to keep out the sounds. When she thought it was over, she removed the pillow.

Her father stormed out into the hallway. “Why will nobody in this house obey?” he shouted, thumping down the stairs. “This wouldn’t happen if you all just obeyed.”

62. The One Who Killed Promises

This is, I suspect, a little like a skunk naming itself for its stench.

Life continued in Kaladin’s cell. Though the accommodations were nice for a dungeon, he found himself wishing he were back in the slave wagon. At least then he’d been able to watch the scenery. Fresh air, wind, an occasional rinse in the highstorm’s last rains. Life certainly hadn’t been good, but it had been better than being locked away and forgotten.

They took the spheres away at night, abandoning him to blackness. In the dark, he found himself imagining that he was someplace deep, with miles of stone above him and no pathway out, no hope of rescue. He could not conceive a worse death. Better to be gutted on the battlefield, looking up at the open sky as your life leaked away.

* * *

Light awoke him. He sighed, watching the ceiling as the guards—lighteyed soldiers he didn’t know—replaced the lamp spheres. Day after day, everything was the storming same in here. Waking to the frail light of spheres, which only made him wish for the sun. The servant arrived to give him his breakfast. He’d placed his chamber pot in reach of the opening at the bottom of the bars, and it scraped stone as she pulled it out and replaced it with a fresh one.

She scurried away. He frightened her. With a groan at stiff muscles, Kaladin sat up and regarded his meal. Flatbread stuffed with bean paste. He stood, waving away some strange spren like taut wires crossing before him, then forced himself to do a set of push-ups. Keeping his strength up would be difficult if the imprisonment continued too long. Perhaps he could ask for some stones to use for training.

Was this what happened to Moash’s grandparents? Kaladin wondered, taking the food. Waiting for a trial until they died in prison?

Kaladin sat back on his bench, nibbling on the flatbread. There’d been a highstorm yesterday, but he’d barely been able to hear it, locked away in this room.

He heard Syl humming nearby, but couldn’t find where she’d gone. “Syl?” he asked. She kept hiding from him.

“There was a Cryptic at the fight,” her voice said softly.

“You mentioned those before, didn’t you? A type of spren?”

“A revolting type.” She paused. “But not evil, I don’t think.” She sounded begrudging. “I was going to follow it, as it fled, but you needed me. When I went back to look, it had hidden from me.”

“What does it mean?” Kaladin asked, frowning.

“Cryptics like to plan,” Syl said slowly, as if recalling something long lost. “Yes… I remember. They debate and watch and never do anything. But…”

“What?” Kaladin asked, rising.

“They’re looking for someone,” Syl said. “I’ve seen the signs. Soon, you might not be alone, Kaladin.”

Looking for someone. To choose, like him, as a Surgebinder. What kind of Knight Radiant had been made by a group of spren Syl so obviously detested? It didn’t seem like someone he’d want to get to know.

Oh, storms, Kaladin thought, sitting back down. If they choose Adolin…

The thought should have made him sick. Instead, he found Syl’s revelation oddly comforting. Not being alone, even if it did turn out to be Adolin, made him feel better and drove away some small measure of his gloom.

As he was finishing his meal, a thump came from the hallway. The door opening? Only lighteyes could visit him, though so far none had. Unless you counted Wit.

The storm catches everyone, eventually…

Dalinar Kholin stepped into the room.

Despite his sour thoughts, Kaladin’s immediate reaction—drilled into him over the years—was to stand and salute, hand to breast. This was his commanding officer. He felt an idiot as soon as he did it. He stood behind bars and saluted the man who’d put him here?

“At ease,” Dalinar said with a nod. The wide-shouldered man stood with hands clasped behind his back. Something about Dalinar was imposing, even when he was relaxed.

He looks like the generals from the stories, Kaladin thought. Thick of face and greying of hair, solid in the same way that a brick was. He didn’t wear a uniform, the uniform wore him. Dalinar Kholin represented an ideal that Kaladin had long since decided was a mere fancy.

“How are your accommodations?” Dalinar asked.

“Sir? I’m in storming prison.”