Words of Radiance

“We wait on our own time, sir,” Teft said. “Neither of us three are supposed to be anywhere else.” He blushed as soon as he said it. And here he’d been thinking about how Moash talked back to his betters.

“I didn’t come to order you away from your chosen task, soldier,” Dalinar said. “I came to make certain you were caring for yourselves. No men are to skip meals to wait here, and I don’t want you getting any ideas about waiting during a highstorm.”

“Er, yes, sir,” Teft said. He had used his morning meal break to put in duty here. How had Dalinar known?

“Good luck, soldier,” Dalinar said, then continued on his way, flanked by attendants, apparently off to inspect the battalion that was nearest to the eastern edge of camp. Soldiers there scurried like cremlings after a storm, carrying supply bags and piling them inside their barracks. The time for Dalinar’s full expedition onto the Plains was quickly approaching.

“Sir,” Teft called after the highprince.

Dalinar turned back toward him, his attendants pausing mid-sentence.

“You don’t believe us,” Teft said. “That he’ll come back, I mean.”

“He’s dead, soldier. But I understand that you need to be here anyway.” The highprince touched his hand to his shoulder, a salute to the dead, then continued on his way.

Well, Teft supposed that was all right, Dalinar not believing. He’d just be that much more surprised when Kaladin did return.

Highstorm tonight, Teft thought, settling back down on his rock. Come on, lad. What are you doing out there?

* * *

Kaladin felt like one of the ten fools.

Actually, he felt like all of them. Ten times an idiot. But most specifically Eshu, who spoke of things he did not understand in front of those who did.

Navigation this deep in the chasms was hard, but he could usually read directions by the way that the debris was deposited. Water blew in from the east to the west, but then it drained out the other way—so cracks on walls where debris was smashed in tight usually marked a western direction, but places where debris had been deposited more naturally—as water drained—marked where water had flowed east.

His instincts told him which way to go. They’d been wrong. He shouldn’t have been so confident. This far from the warcamps, the waterflows must be different.

Annoyed at himself, he left Shallan drawing and walked out a ways. “Syl?” he asked.

No response.

“Sylphrena!” he said, louder.

He sighed and walked back to Shallan, who knelt on the mossy ground—she’d obviously given up on protecting the once-fine dress from stains and rips—drawing on her sketchpad. She was another reason he felt like a fool. He shouldn’t let her provoke him so. He could hold in the retorts against other, far more annoying lighteyes. Why did he lose control when talking with her?

Should have learned my lesson, he thought as she sketched, her expression growing intense. She’s won every argument so far, hands down.

He leaned against a section of the chasm wall, spear in the crook of his arm, light shining from the spheres tied tightly at its head. He had made invalid assumptions about her, as she had so poignantly noted. Again and again. It was like a part of him frantically wanted to dislike her.

If only he could find Syl. Everything would be better if he could see her again, if he could know that she was all right. That scream…

To distract himself, he moved over to Shallan, then leaned down to see her sketch. Her map was more of a picture, one that looked eerily like the view Kaladin had had, nights ago, when flying above the Shattered Plains.

“Is all that necessary?” he asked as she shaded in the sides of a plateau.

“Yes.”

“But—”

“Yes.”

It took longer than he’d have preferred. The sun passed through the crack overhead, vanishing from sight. Already past noon. They had seven hours until the highstorm, assuming the timing prediction was right—even the best stormwardens got the calculations wrong sometimes.

Seven hours. The hike out here, he thought, took about that long. But surely they’d made some progress toward the warcamps. They’d been walking all morning.

Well, no use rushing Shallan. He left her to it, walking back along the chasm, looking up at the shape of the rift up above and comparing it to her drawing. From what he could see, her map was dead on. She was drawing, from memory, their entire path as if seen from above—and she did it perfectly, every little knob and ledge accounted for.

“Stormfather,” he whispered, jogging back. He’d known she had skill in drawing, but this was something entirely different.

Who was this woman?

She was still drawing when he arrived. “Your picture is amazingly accurate,” he said.