Words of Radiance

“It’s from The Way of Kings,” Dalinar said. “I am not a youth, nervous at his first feast. Sadeas makes a mistake in believing I will respond to this as he would. Unlike a sword, scorn has only the bite you give it.”

“This does hurt you,” Navani said, meeting his eyes. “I can see it, Dalinar.”

Hopefully, the others would not know him well enough to see what she did. Yes, it did hurt. It hurt because these visions were his, entrusted to him—to be shared for the good of men, not to be held up for mockery. It was not the laughter itself that pained him, but the loss of what could have been.

He stepped away from her, passing through the crowd. Some of those eyes he now interpreted as being sorrowful, not just amused. Perhaps he was imagining it, but he thought some pitied him more than scorned him.

He wasn’t certain which emotion was more damaging.

Dalinar reached the food table at the back of the island. There, he picked up a large pan and handed it to a bewildered serving woman, then hauled himself up onto the table. He set one hand on the lantern pole beside the table and looked out over the small crowd. They were the most important people in Alethkar.

Those who hadn’t already been watching him turned with shock to see him up there. In the distance, he noticed Adolin and Brightness Shallan rushing onto the island. They’d likely only just arrived, and heard the talk.

Dalinar looked to the crowd. “What you have read,” he bellowed, “is true.”

Stunned silence. Making a spectacle of oneself in this way was not done in Alethkar. He, however, had already been

this evening’s spectacle.

“Commentary has been added to discredit me,” Dalinar said, “and the tone of Navani’s writing has been changed. But I will not hide what has been happening to me. I see visions from the Almighty. They come with almost every storm. This should not surprise you. There have been rumors circulating about my experiences for weeks now. Perhaps I should have released these visions already. In the future, each one I receive will be published, so that scholars around the world can investigate what I have seen.”

He sought out Sadeas, who stood with Aladar and Ruthar. Dalinar gripped the lantern pole, looking back at the Alethi crowd. “I do not blame you for thinking I am mad. It is natural. But in the coming nights, when rain washes your walls and the wind howls, you will wonder. You will question. And soon, when I offer you proof, you will know. This attempt to destroy me will then vindicate me instead.”

He looked over their faces, some aghast, some sympathetic, others amused.

“There are those among you who assume I will flee, or be broken, because of this attack,” he said. “They do not know me as well as they presume. Let the feast continue, for I wish to speak with each and every one of you. The words you hold may mock, but if you must laugh, do it while looking me in the eyes.”

He stepped down from the table.

Then he went to work.

* * *

Hours later, Dalinar eventually let himself sit down in a seat beside a table at the feast, exhaustionspren swirling around him. He’d spent the rest of the evening moving through the crowd, forcing his way into conversations, drumming up support for his excursion onto the Plains.

He had pointedly ignored the pages with his visions on them, except when asked direct questions about what he’d seen. Instead, he had presented them with a forceful, confident man—the Blackthorn turned politician. Let them chew on that and compare him to the frail madman the falsified transcripts would make him out to be.

Outside, past the small rivers—they now glowed blue, the spheres having been changed to match the second moon—the king’s carriage rolled away, bearing Elhokar and Navani the short distance to the Pinnacle, where porters would carry them in a palanquin up to the top. Adolin had already retired, escorting Shallan back to Sebarial’s warcamp, which was a fair ride away.

Adolin seemed to be fonder of the young Veden woman than of any woman in the recent past. For that reason alone, Dalinar was increasingly inclined to encourage the relationship, assuming he could ever get some straight answers out of Jah Keved about her family. That kingdom was a mess.

Most of the other lighteyes had retired, leaving him on an island populated by servants and parshmen who cleared away food. A few master-servants, trusted for such duties, began to scoop the spheres out of the river with nets on long poles. Dalinar’s bridgemen, at his suggestion, were attacking the feast’s leftovers with the voracious appetite exclusive to soldiers who had been offered an unexpected meal.

A servant strolled by, then stopped, resting his hand on his side sword. Dalinar started, realizing he’d mistaken Wit’s black military uniform for that of a master-servant in training.