“What is he planning?” Dalinar asked. “This is where I’m most likely to fail everyone, Navani. Sadeas outmaneuvered me, and I fear Taravangian is more crafty in every respect. When I tried to make initial moves to cut him out of the coalition, he’d already worked on the others to undermine any such attempt. He’s playing me, and doing it deftly, right beneath my nose.”
“You don’t have to face him alone,” Navani said. “This isn’t only upon you.”
“I know,” Dalinar said, his eyes seeming to glow as he stared at the bright ruby in the hearth. “I won’t ever suffer that feeling again, Navani. That moment of standing on the Shattered Plains watching Sadeas retreat. Of knowing that my faith in someone—my stupid naivety—had doomed the lives of thousands of men. I won’t be Taravangian’s pawn.”
She reached up and cupped his chin in her hand. “You suffered betrayal by Sadeas because you saw the man as he should have been, if he’d risen above his own pettiness. Don’t lose that faith, Dalinar. It’s part of what makes you the man you have become.”
“Taravangian is confident, Navani. If he’s working with the enemy, there’s a reason for it. He always has a reason.”
“Wealth, renown. Vengeance maybe.”
“No,” Dalinar said. “No, not him.” He closed his eyes. “When I … when I burned the Rift, I did it in anger. Children and innocents died because of my fury. I know that feeling; I could spot it. If Taravangian killed a child, he’d do it not for vengeance. Not for fury. Not for wealth or renown. But because he sincerely thought the child’s death was necessary.”
“He would call it good, then?”
“No. He would acknowledge it as evil, would say it stains his soul. He says … that’s the point of having a monarch. A man to wallow in blood, to be stained by it and destroyed by it, so that others might not suffer.”
He opened his eyes and raised his hand to hold hers. “It’s similar, in a way, to how the ancient Radiants saw themselves. In the visions they said … they were the watchers at the rim. They trained in deadly arts to protect others from needing to do so. The same philosophy, less tarnished. He’s so close to being right, Navani. If I could only get through to him…”
“I worry that instead he’ll change you, Dalinar,” she said. “Don’t listen too closely to what he says.”
He nodded, and seemed to take that to heart. She rested her head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat.
“I want you to stay here,” he said, “in the tower. Jasnah wants to deploy with us into Emul; she’s eager to prove she can lead in battle. With an offensive so large, I’ll be needed in person as well. Taravangian knows that; he must be planning a trap for us. Someone needs to be here in the tower, safe—to pull the rest of us out if something goes wrong.”
Someone to lead the Alethi, in case Jasnah and I are killed in Taravangian’s trap, he left unsaid.
She didn’t object. Yes, an Alethi woman would normally go to war to scribe for her husband. Yes, he was defying this in part because he wanted her safe. He was a little overprotective.
She forgave him this. They would need a member of the royal family to stay in reserve, and besides, she was increasingly certain that the best thing she could do to help would involve unraveling the mysteries of this tower.
“If you’re going to leave me,” she said, “then you’d best treat me well in the days leading up to your departure. So I remember you fondly and know that you love me.”
“Is there ever a question of that?”
She pulled back, then lightly ran her finger along his jaw. “A woman needs constant reminders. She needs to know that she has his heart, even when she cannot have his company.”
“You have my heart always.”
“And tonight specifically?”
“And tonight,” he said, “specifically.” He leaned forward to kiss her, pulling her tight with those formidable arms of his. In this she encountered a fourth warmth to the night, more powerful than all the rest.
THE END OF
Part One
Sylphrena felt the energy of the approaching highstorm like one might hear the sound of a distant musician walking ever closer. Calling out with friendly music.
She zipped through the halls of Urithiru. She was invisible to almost everyone but those she chose—and today she chose the children. They never seemed suspicious of her. They always smiled when they saw her. They also rarely acted too respectful. Despite what she told Kaladin, she didn’t always want people to treat her like a little deity.
Unfortunately, this early, there weren’t a lot of people—children or not—out in the tower. Kaladin was still asleep, but she liked that he slept a little better now.
She heard noises from a particular doorway, so she went that direction, darting into the room to find Rock’s daughter cooking. The others called her Cord, but her real name—Hualinam’lunanaki’akilu—was much prettier. It was a poem about a wedding band.
Cord deserved such a pretty name. She looked so different from the Alethi. More solid, a person who wouldn’t be blown over by a storm, as if she were made of bronze—a shade subtly reflected by her skin tone. And that beautiful red hair was different from Shallan’s. Cord’s was more rusty, darker and deeper; she wore it in a tail, tied with a ribbon.
She saw Syl, of course; she had inherited her father’s blessing of being able to see all spren. She paused, head bowed, and touched one shoulder, then the other, then her forehead. She separated out the next slices of tuber she cut and set them in a neat pile on the counter: an offering for Syl. That was silly, since Syl didn’t eat. She turned into a tuber anyway and rolled around on the counter to say thanks.
That music though. The storm. She could hardly contain herself. It was coming!
She rolled off the counter and zipped over to examine Cord’s Shardplate stacked neatly in the corner. The young Horneater woman was never without it. She was the first of her people in … well, a very, very long time to have a Shard.
It was pretty. Maybe Syl should have hated it, as she did Shardblades, but she didn’t. It was kind of a corpse—well, lots of corpses—but not as offensive. The difference, she supposed, was attitude. She could sense contentment, not pain, from the Plate.
Cord began making noise with her pot, and Syl found herself darting that direction to watch what was being dumped into the water. Sometimes Syl felt like she had two brains. One was the responsible brain; it had driven her to defy the other honorspren and her father in seeking out Kaladin and forming a Radiant bond. This was the brain that she wanted to control her. It cared about important things: people, the fate of the world, figuring out what it truly meant to be of Honor.
She had a different brain too. The brain that was fascinated by the world—the brain that acted like it belonged to a small child. A loud noise? Better go see what caused it! Music on the horizon? Dart back and forth, eager with anticipation! A strange cremling on the wall? Mimic its shape and crawl along to see what it feels like!
Thoughts bombarded her. What did it feel like to be a tuber being cut? How long had it taken Rock and Song to come up with Cord’s name? Should Syl have a name that was a poem? Maybe they had a name for her among the Horneaters. Did they have names for every spren, or just important ones?