Words of Radiance

Kaladin did not claim these lands as he did the chasms, where his men had found safety. Kaladin remembered all too well the pain of bloodied feet on his first run, battered by this broken stone wasteland. Barely anything grew out here, only the occasional patch of rockbuds or set of enterprising vines draping down into a chasm on the leeward side of a plateau. The bottoms of the cracks were clogged with life, but up here it was barren.

The aching feet and burning shoulders from running a bridge had been nothing compared to the slaughter that had awaited his men at the end of a bridge run. Storms… even looking across the Plains made Kaladin flinch. He could hear the hiss of arrows in the air, the screams of terrified bridgemen, the song of the Parshendi.

I should have been able to save more of Bridge Four, Kaladin thought. If I’d been faster to accept my powers, could I have done so?

He breathed in Stormlight to reassure himself. Only it didn’t come. He stood, dumbfounded, while soldiers marched across one of Dalinar’s enormous mechanical bridges. He tried again. Nothing.

He fished a sphere from his pouch. The firemark glowed with its customary light, tinting his fingers red. Something was wrong. Kaladin couldn’t feel the Stormlight inside as he once had.

Syl flitted across the chasm high in the air with a group of windspren. Her giggling laughter rained down upon him, and he looked up. “Syl?” he asked quietly. Storms. He didn’t want to look like an idiot, but something deep within him was panicking like a rat caught by its tail. “Syl!”

Several marching soldiers glanced at Kaladin, then up toward the air. Kaladin ignored them as Syl zipped down in the form of a ribbon of light. She swirled around him, still giggling.

The Stormlight returned to him. He could feel it again, and he greedily sucked it from the sphere—though he did have the presence of mind to clutch the sphere in a fist and hold it to his chest to make the process less obvious. The Light of one mark wasn’t enough to expose him, but he felt far, far better with that Stormlight raging inside of him.

“What happened?” Kaladin whispered to Syl. “Is something wrong with our bond? Is it because I haven’t found the Words soon enough?”

She landed on his wrist and took the form of a young woman. She peered at his hand, cocking her head. “What’s inside?” she asked with a conspiratorial whisper.

“You know what this is, Syl,” Kaladin said, feeling chilled, as if he’d been hit by a wave of stormwater. “A sphere. Didn’t you see it just now?”

She looked at him, face innocent. “You are making bad choices. Naughty.” Her features mimicked his for a moment and she jumped forward, as if to startle him. She laughed and zipped away.

Bad choices. Naughty. So, this was because of his promise to Moash that he’d help assassinate the king. Kaladin sighed, continuing forward.

Syl couldn’t see why his decision was the right one. She was a spren, and had a stupid, simplistic morality. To be human was often to be forced to choose between distasteful options. Life wasn’t clean and neat like she wanted it to be. It was messy, coated with crem. No man walked through life without getting covered in it, not even Dalinar.

“You want too much of me,” he snapped at her as he reached the other side of the chasm. “I’m not some glorious knight of ancient days. I’m a broken man. Do you hear me, Syl? I’m broken.”

She zipped up to him and whispered, “That’s what they all were, silly.” She streaked away.

Kaladin watched as the soldiers filed across the bridge. They weren’t doing a plateau run, but Dalinar had brought plenty of soldiers anyway. Going out onto the Shattered Plains was entering a war zone, and the Parshendi were ever a threat.

Bridge Four tromped across the mechanical bridge, carrying their smaller one. Kaladin wasn’t about to leave the camps without that. These mechanisms Dalinar employed—the massive, chull-pulled bridges that could be ratcheted down into place—were amazing, but Kaladin didn’t trust them. Not nearly as much as he did a good bridge on his shoulders.

Syl flitted by again. Did she really expect him to live according to her perception of what was right and wrong? Was she going to yank his powers away every time he did something that risked offending her?

That would be like living with a noose around his neck.

Determined to not let his worries ruin the day, he went to check on Bridge Four. Look at the open sky, he told himself. Breathe the wind. Enjoy the freedom. After so much time in captivity, these things were wonders.