They found Highprince Valam… King Valam… in bed coughing. His hair had fallen out since Taravangian had last seen him, and his cheeks were so sunken that rainwater would have pooled in them. Redin, the king’s bastard son, stood at the foot of the bed, head bowed. With the three guards who stood in the room, there wasn’t room for Taravangian, so he stopped in the doorway.
“Taravangian,” Valam said, then coughed into his handkerchief. The cloth came back bloodied. “You’ve come for my kingdom, have you?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Your Majesty,” Taravangian said.
“Don’t play coy,” Valam snapped. “I can’t stand it in women or in rivals. Stormfather… I don’t know what they’re going to make of you. I half think they’ll have you assassinated by the end of the week.” He waved with a sickly hand, all draped in cloth, and the guards made way for Taravangian to enter the small bedchamber.
“Clever ploy,” the king said. “Sending that food, those healers. The soldiers love you, I’ve heard. What would you have done if one side had won decisively?”
“I’d have had a new ally,” Taravangian said. “Grateful for my aid.”
“You helped all sides.”
“But the winner the most, Your Majesty,” Taravangian said. “We can minister to survivors, but not the dead.”
Valam coughed again, a great hacking mess. His bastard stepped up, concerned, but the king waved him back. “Would have figured,” the king said to him between wheezes, “you’d be the only one of my children to live, bastard.” He turned to Taravangian. “Turns out, you have a legitimate claim on the throne, Taravangian. Through your mother’s side, I think? A marriage to a Veden princess some three generations back?”
“I am not aware,” Taravangian said.
“Didn’t you hear me about being coy?”
“We both have a role to play in this production, Your Majesty,” Taravangian said. “I am merely speaking the lines as they were written.”
“You talk like a woman,” Valam said. He spat blood to the side. “I know what you’re up to. In a week or so, after caring for my people, your scribes will ‘discover’ your claim on the throne. You’ll reluctantly step in to save the kingdom, as urged by my own storming people.”
“I see you’ve had the script read to you,” Taravangian said softly.
“That assassin will come for you.”
“He very well might.” That was the truth.
“Don’t know why I even storming tried for this throne,” Valam said. “At least I’ll die as king.” He heaved a deep breath, then raised his hand, gesturing impatiently at the scribes huddled outside the room. The women perked up, peeking around Taravangian.
“I’m making this idiot my heir,” Valam said, waving at Taravangian. “Ha! Let the other highprinces chew on that.”
“They’re dead, Your Majesty,” Taravangian said.
“What? All of them?”
“Yes.”
“Even Boriar?”
“Yes.”
“Huh,” Valam said. “Bastard.”
At first, Taravangian thought that was a reference to one of the deceased. Then, however, he noticed the king waving at his illegitimate son. Redin stepped up, going onto one knee beside the bed as Taravangian made room.
Valam struggled with something beneath his blankets; his side knife. Redin helped him get it out, then held the knife awkwardly.
Taravangian inspected this Redin, curious. This was the king’s ruthless executioner that he had read about? This concerned, helpless-looking man?
“Through my heart,” Valam said.
“Father, no…” Redin said.
“Through my storming heart!” Valam shouted, spraying bloody spittle across his sheet. “I won’t lie here and let Taravangian coax my own servants into poisoning me. Do it, boy! Or can’t you do a single thing that—”
Redin slammed the knife down into his father’s chest with such force, it made Taravangian jump. Redin then stood, saluted, and shoved his way out of the room.
The king heaved a final gasp, eyes glazing over. “So the night will reign, for the choice of honor is life…”
Taravangian raised an eyebrow. A Death Rattle? Here, now? Blast, and he wasn’t in a position where he could write down the exact phrasing. He’d have to remember it.
Valam’s life faded away until he was simply meat. A Shardblade appeared from vapor beside the bed, then thumped to the wooden floor of the wagon. Nobody reached for it, and the soldiers in the room and scribes outside it looked to Taravangian, then knelt.
“Cruel, what Valam did to that one,” Mrall said, nodding toward the bastard, who shoved his way out of the stormwagon and into the light.
“More than you know,” Taravangian said, reaching out to touch the knife protruding through blanket and clothing from the old king’s chest. He hesitated, fingers inches from the handle. “The bastard will be known as a patricide on the official records. If he had interest in the throne, this will make it… difficult for him, even more so than his parentage.” Taravangian pulled his fingers away from the knife. “Might I have a moment with the fallen king? I would speak a prayer for him.”
The others left him, even Mrall. They shut the small door, and Taravangian sat down on the stool beside the corpse. He had no intention of saying any sort of prayer, but he did want a moment. Alone. To think.
It had worked. Just as the Diagram instructed, Taravangian was king of Jah Keved. He had taken the first major step toward unifying the world, as Gavilar had insisted would need to happen if they were to survive.
That was, at least, what the visions had proclaimed. Visions Gavilar had confided in him six years ago, the night of the Alethi king’s death. Gavilar had seen visions of the Almighty, who was also now dead, and of a coming storm.
Unite them.
“I am doing my best, Gavilar,” Taravangian whispered. “I am sorry that I need to kill your brother.”
That would not be the only sin upon his head when this was done. Not by a faint breeze or a stormwind.
He wished, once again, that this day had been a day of brilliance. Then he wouldn’t have felt so guilty.
Part Five: Winds Alight
76. The Hidden Blade
They will come you cannot stop their oaths look for those who survive when they should not that pattern will be your clue.
From the Diagram, Coda of the Northwest Bottom Corner: paragraph 3
You have killed her…
Kaladin couldn’t sleep.
He knew he should sleep. He lay in his dark barrack room, surrounded by familiar stone, comfortable for the first time in days. A soft pillow, a mattress as good as the one he’d had back home in Hearthstone.
His body felt wrung out, like a rag after the washing was done. He’d survived the chasms and brought Shallan home safely. Now he needed to sleep and heal.
You have killed her…
He sat up in his bed, and felt a wave of dizziness. He gritted his teeth and let it pass. His leg wound throbbed inside his bandage. The camp surgeons had done a good job with that; his father would have been pleased.