Words of Radiance

I could use Hatham most, Dalinar thought. He runs a tight army. If only Aladar hadn’t sided with Sadeas so vigorously; I can’t figure that man out. Thanadal and Bethab… storms, will I bring their mercenaries if either of those two agree to come? Is that the kind of force I want? Dare I refuse any spear that comes to me?

“I’m not going to get a good conversation out of you tonight, am I?” Navani asked.

“No,” he admitted as they reached the base of the Pinnacle and turned south. “I’m sorry.”

She nodded, and he could see the mask cracking. She talked about her work because it was something to talk about. He stopped beside her. “I know it hurts,” he said softly. “But it will get better.”

“She wouldn’t let me be a mother to her, Dalinar,” Navani said, staring into the distance. “Do you know that? It was almost like… like once Jasnah climbed into adolescence, she no longer needed a mother. I would try to get close to her, and there was this coldness, like even being near me reminded her that she had once been a child. What happened to my little girl, so full of questions?”

Dalinar pulled her close; propriety could seek Damnation. Nearby, the three guards shuffled, looking the other way.

“They’ll take my son too,” Navani whispered. “They’re trying.”

“I will protect him,” Dalinar promised.

“And who will protect you?”

He had no answer to that. Answering that his guards would do it sounded trite. That wasn’t the question she’d asked. Who will protect you when that assassin returns?

“I almost wish that you would fail,” she said. “In holding this kingdom together, you make a target of yourself. If everything just collapsed, and we fractured back to princedoms, perhaps he’d leave us alone.”

“And then the storm would come,” Dalinar replied softly. Twelve days.

Navani eventually pulled back, nodding, composing herself. “You’re right, of course. I just… this is the first time, for me. Dealing with this. How did you manage it, when Shshshsh died? I know you loved her, Dalinar. You don’t have to deny it for my ego.”

He hesitated. The first time; an implication that when Gavilar had died, she had not been broken up about it. She had never stated so outright an implication of the… difficulties the two had been having.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Was that too difficult a question, considering its source?” She tucked away her kerchief, which she’d used to dab her eyes dry. “I apologize; I know that you don’t like to talk about her.”

It wasn’t that it was a difficult question. It was that Dalinar didn’t remember his wife. How odd, that he could go weeks without even noticing this hole in his memories, this change that had ripped out a piece of him and left him patched over. Without even a prick of emotion when her name, which he could not hear, was mentioned.

Best to move to some other topic. “I cannot help but assume that the assassin is involved in all of this, Navani. The storm that comes, the secrets of the Shattered Plains, even Gavilar. My brother knew something, something he never shared with any of us.” You must find the most important words a man can say. “I would give almost anything to know what it was.”

“I suppose,” Navani said. “I will go back to my journals of the time. Perhaps he said something that would give us clues—though I warn you, I’ve pored over those accounts dozens of times.”

Dalinar nodded. “Regardless, that isn’t a worry for today. Today, they are our goal.”

They turned, looking as coaches clattered past, making their way to the nearby feasting basin, where lights glowed a soft violet in the night. He narrowed his eyes and found Ruthar’s coach approaching. The highprince had been stripped of Shards, all but his own Blade. They had cut off Sadeas’s right hand in this mess, but the head remained. And it was venomous.

The other highprinces were almost as big a problem as Sadeas. They resisted him because they wanted things to be easy, as they had been. They glutted themselves on their riches and their games. Feasts manifested that all too much, with their exotic food, their rich costumes.

The world itself seemed close to ending, and the Alethi threw a party.

“You must not despise them,” Navani said.

Dalinar’s frown deepened. She could read him too well.

“Listen to me, Dalinar,” she said, turning him to meet her eyes. “Has any good ever come from a father hating his children?”

“I don’t hate them.”