Words of Radiance

by Brandon Sanderson

  “You think you can actually get clemency for these men? From a man like Highprince Sadeas? Don’t be an idiot. Even if you get the con going with Dalinar, you want to spend what little credibility we can fake in order to free murderers from Dalinar’s political enemy? How long did you think you could keep this lie going?”

  Shallan sat back down on the stool, agitated—both at Tyn and at herself. She shouldn’t be surprised that Tyn wanted to betray Vathah and his men—she knew what Tyn was, and had eagerly let the woman teach her. In truth, Vathah and his men probably did deserve their punishments.

  That didn’t mean Shallan was going to betray them. She had told them they could change. She had given her word.

  Lies . . .

  Just because you learned how to lie didn’t mean you had to let the lie rule you. But how could she protect Vathah without alienating Tyn? Did she even have that option?

  What would Tyn do when Shallan proved to actually be the woman betrothed to Dalinar Kholin’s son?

  How long did you think you could keep this lie going . . .

  “Here now,” Tyn said, smiling broadly. “That’s some good news.”

  Shallan shook herself from her ruminations, glancing at what the spanreed had been writing.

  In regards to your mission in Amydlatn, it read, our benefactors have written to say that they are pleased. They do want to know if you recovered the information, but I think this is secondary to them. They let slip that they’ve found the information they need elsewhere, something about a city they’ve been researching.

  For your part, there is no news of the target surviving. It seems that your worry about the mission’s failure is unfounded. Whatever happened aboard the ship, it worked to our favor. The Wind’s Pleasure is reported lost with all hands. Jasnah Kholin is dead.

  Jasnah Kholin is dead.

  Shallan gaped, jaw dropping. That . . . it isn’t . . .

  “Maybe those idiots did manage to complete the job,” Tyn said, satisfied. “It looks like I’ll be paid after all.”

  “Your mission in Amydlatn,” Shallan whispered. “It was to assassinate Jasnah Kholin.”

  “Run the operation, at least,” Tyn said, distracted. “Would have gone myself, but can’t stand ships. Those churning seas turn my stomach inside out. . . .”

  Shallan couldn’t speak. Tyn was an assassin. Tyn had been behind the hit on Jasnah Kholin.

  The spanreed was still writing.

  . . . some interesting news. You asked after House Davar in Jah Keved. It looks like Jasnah, before leaving Kharbranth, took a new ward . . .

  Shallan reached for the spanreed.

  Tyn caught her hand, the woman’s eyes widening as the reed wrote a few last sentences.

  . . . a girl named Shallan. Red hair. Pale skin. Nobody knows much about her. Didn’t seem important news to our informants until I pried.

  Shallan looked up just as Tyn did, meeting the woman’s eyes.

  “Ah, Damnation,” Tyn said.

  Shallan tried to pull free. Instead, she found herself being hauled off the chair.

  She couldn’t follow Tyn’s quick motions as the woman slammed her to the ground, face-first. The woman’s boot followed to Shallan’s back, knocking the air from her and throwing a shock through her body. Shallan’s vision fuzzed as she gasped for air.

  “Damnation, Damnation!” Tyn said. “You’re Kholin’s ward? Where’s Jasnah? Did she live?”

  “Help!” Shallan croaked, barely able to speak as she tried to crawl toward the tent wall.

  Tyn knelt on Shallan’s back, pressing the air from her lungs again. “I had my men clear the area around this tent. I was worried about you alerting the deserters that we would turn them in. Stormfather!” She knelt down, head closer to Shallan’s ear. As Shallan struggled, Tyn grabbed her on the shoulder and squeezed hard. “Did. Jasnah. Live?”

  “No,” Shallan whispered, tears of pain coming to her eyes.

  “The ship, you may have noticed,” Jasnah’s voice said from behind them, “has two very fine cabins which I hired out for us at no small expense.”

  Tyn cursed, leaping up and spinning to see who had spoken. It was, of course, Pattern. Shallan didn’t give him a glance, but scrambled toward the tent wall. Vathah and the others were out there, somewhere. If she could just—

  Tyn caught her leg, yanking her backward.

  I can’t escape, a primal part of her thought. Panic surged within Shallan, bringing with it memories of days spent completely impotent. Her father’s increasingly destructive violence. A family falling apart.

  Powerless.

  Can’t run, can’t run, can’t run . . .

  Fight.

  Shallan pulled her leg free of Tyn and spun, launching herself at the woman. She would not be powerless again. She would not!

  Tyn gasped as Shallan attacked with everything she had. A clawing, angry, frantic mess. It wasn’t effective. Shallan knew next to nothing about how to fight, and in moments she found herself croaking in pain a second time, Tyn’s fist buried in her stomach.

  Shallan sank to her knees, tears on her cheeks. She tried, ineffectively, to inhale. Tyn cracked her on the side of the head, making her vision go all white.

  “Where did that come from?” Tyn said.

  Shallan blinked, looking up, vision swimming. She was on the ground again. Her fingernails had left a set of bloody rips across Tyn’s cheek. Tyn reached up, hand coming away red. Her expression darkened, and she reached to the table, where her sword rested in its sheath.

  “What a mess,” Tyn growled. “Storm it! I’m going to have to invite that Vathah here, then find a way to blame this on him.” Tyn pulled the sword from its sheath.

  Shallan struggled to her knees, then tried to climb to her feet, but her legs were unsteady and the room lurched around her, as if she were still on the ship.

  “Pattern?” she croaked. “Pattern?”

  She heard something outside. Shouts?

  “I’m sorry,” Tyn said, voice cold. “I’m going to have to tie this up tight. In a way, I’m proud of you. You fooled me. You’d have been good at this.”

  Calm, Shallan told herself. Be calm!

  Ten heartbeats.

  But for her, it didn’t have to be ten, did it?

  No. It must be. Time, I need time!

  She had spheres in her sleeve. As Tyn approached, Shallan breathed in sharply. Stormlight became a raging tempest inside of her and she raised her hand, thrusting out a pulse of Light. She couldn’t form it into anything—she still didn’t know how—but it seemed for a moment to show a rippling image of Shallan, standing proudly like a woman of the court.

  Tyn stopped short at the sight of the projection of light and color, then waved her sword out in front of her. The Light rippled, dissipating into smoky trails.

  “So I’m going mad,” Tyn said. “Hearing voices. Seeing things. I guess part of me doesn’t want to do this.” She advanced, raising her blade. “I’m sorry that you have to learn the lesson this way. Sometimes, we must do things we don’t like, kid. Difficult things.”

  Shallan growled, thrusting her hands forward. Mist twisted and writhed in her hands as a brilliantly silver Blade formed there, spearing Tyn through the chest. The woman barely had time to gasp in surprise as her eyes burned in her skull.

  Tyn’s corpse slid back off the weapon, collapsing in a heap.

  “Difficult things,” Shallan growled. “Yes. I believe I told you. I’ve learned that lesson already. Thank you.” She crawled to her feet, wobbling.

  The tent flap ripped open and Shallan turned, holding up the Shardblade point-first toward the opening. Vathah, Gaz, and a few other soldiers stopped there in a jumble, weapons bloodied. They looked from Shallan to the corpse on the floor with its burned-out eyes, then back to Shallan.

  She felt numb. She wanted to dismiss the Blade, hide it. It was terrible.

  She did not. She crushed those emotions and hid them deep within. At the moment, she needed
something strong to hold to, and the weapon served that purpose. Even if she hated it.

  “Tyn’s soldiers?” Was that her voice, completely cold, purged of emotion?

  “Stormfather!” Vathah said, stepping into the tent, hand to his chest as he stared at the Shardblade. “That night, when you pled with us, you could have killed us every one, and the bandits too. You could have done it on your own—”

  “Tyn’s men!” Shallan shouted.

  “Dead, Brightness,” Red said. “We heard . . . heard a voice. Telling us to come get you, and they wouldn’t let us pass. Then we heard you screaming, and—”

  “Was it the voice of the Almighty?” Vathah asked in a whisper.

  “It was my spren,” Shallan said. “That is all you need know. Search this tent. This woman was hired to assassinate me.” It was true, after a fashion. “There might be records of who hired her. Bring me anything you find with writing on it.”

  As they swarmed in and set to work, Shallan sat down on the stool beside the table. The spanreed still waited there, hovering, paused at the bottom of the page. It needed a new sheet.

  Shallan dismissed the Shardblade. “Do not speak of what you saw here to the others,” she told Vathah and his men. Though they promised quickly, she doubted that would hold for long. Shardblades were near-mythical objects, and a woman holding one? Rumors would spread. Just what she needed.

  You’re alive because of that cursed thing, she thought to herself. Again. Stop complaining.

  She took the spanreed up and changed the paper, then set it with its point at the corner. After a moment, Tyn’s distant accomplice started writing again.

  Your benefactors on the Amydlatn job wish to meet with you, the pen wrote. It seems that the Ghostbloods have something else for you to do. Would you like me to arrange a meeting with them in the warcamps?

  The pen stopped in place, waiting for a response. What had the spanreed said above? That these people—Tyn’s benefactors, the Ghostbloods—had found the information they sought . . . information about a city.

  Urithiru. The people who had killed Jasnah, the people who threatened her family, were searching for the city too. Shallan stared at the paper and its words for an extended moment as Vathah and his men began pulling clothing out of Tyn’s trunk, knocking on its sides to find anything hidden.

  Would you like me to arrange a meeting with them . . .

  Shallan took the spanreed, switched the fabrial’s setting, then wrote a single word.

  Yes.

  THE END OF

  Part Two

  In the city of Narak, people closed up windows tightly as night approached and the storm loomed. They stuffed rags under doors, shoved bracing boards into position, pounded large, square blocks of wood into windows.

  Eshonai did not join in the preparations, but stood outside Thude’s dwelling, listening to his report—he’d just returned from meeting with the Alethi, arranging a parley to discuss peace. She had wanted to send someone earlier, but the Five had deliberated and complained until Eshonai wanted to throttle the lot of them. At least they’d finally agreed to let her send a messenger.

  “Seven days,” Thude said. “The meeting will happen on a neutral plateau.”

  “Did you see him?” Eshonai asked, eager. “The Blackthorn?”

  Thude shook his head.

  “What of the other one?” Eshonai asked. “The Surgebinder?”

  “No sign of him either.” Thude looked troubled. He looked eastward. “You’d better go. I can give you more details after the storm is done.”

  Eshonai nodded, resting her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

  “Good luck,” Thude said to Resolve.

  “To all of us,” she replied as he shut the door, leaving her alone in a dark, seemingly empty city. Eshonai checked the stormshield on her back, then took the sphere with Venli’s captive spren from her pocket and attuned the Rhythm of Resolve.

  The time had come. She ran toward the storm.

  Resolve was a stately beat with a steady, rising sense of import and power. She left Narak, and reaching the first chasm, she jumped. Only warform had the strength for such leaps; for the workers to reach outer plateaus and grow food, they used rope bridges that were pulled back and stowed before each storm.

  She landed in full stride, her footsteps falling to the beat of Resolve. The stormwall appeared in the distance, barely visible in the darkness. Winds rose, pushing against her, as if to hold her back. Above, windspren zipped and danced in the air. They were heralds of what was to come.

  Eshonai jumped two more chasms, then slowed, striding up to the top of a low hill. The stormwall now dominated the night sky, advancing at a terrible pace. The enormous sheet of darkness mingled debris with rain, a banner of water, rock, dust, and fallen plants. Eshonai unhooked the large shield on her back.

  For the listeners, there was a certain romanticism to going out in the storm. Yes, the storms were terrible—but every listener would have to spend a number of nights out in them, alone. The songs said that someone seeking a new form would be protected. She wasn’t certain if this was fancy or fact, but the songs didn’t prevent most listeners from hiding in a cleft of rock to avoid the stormwall, then coming out once it had passed.

  Eshonai preferred a shield. It felt more like facing the Rider straight on. This one, the soul of the storm, was the one the humans called Stormfather—and he was not one of her people’s gods. In fact, the songs named him a traitor—a spren who had chosen to protect humans instead of the listeners.

  Still, her people respected him. He would kill any who did not respect him.

  She placed the base of the shield against a ridge of rock on the ground, then turned her shoulder against it, lowered her head, and braced herself with one foot back. Her other hand held the stone with the spren in it. She’d have preferred to wear her Plate, but for some reason having it on interfered with the transformation process.

  She felt and heard the storm approach. The ground shook, the air roared. Bits of leaves swept across her in a chill gust, like scouts before an oncoming army that charged behind, the howling wind its battle cry.

  She squeezed her eyes shut.

  It slammed against her.

  Despite her posture and her braced muscles, something cracked against the shield and flipped it away. The wind caught it and ripped it from her fingers. She stumbled backward, then threw herself to the ground, shoulder to the wind, head ducked.

  Thunder beat against her as the raging wind tried to pull her off the plateau and toss her into the air. She kept her eyes closed, as all was black within the storm save for the flashes of lightning. It did not seem to her she was being protected. Her shoulder against the wind, huddling down behind a hillock, it seemed that the wind was doing its best to destroy her. Rocks crunched against the dark plateau nearby, shaking the ground. All she could hear was the roar of wind in her ears, punctuated occasionally by thunder. A terrible song without rhythm.

  She kept Resolve attuned inside of her. She could feel that, at least, even if she couldn’t hear.

  Rain that fell like arrowheads beat into her body, bouncing off her skullplate and her armor. She set her jaw against the deep, bone-chilling cold and stayed in place. She had done this many times before, either when transforming or when on the occasional surprise raid against the Alethi. She could survive. She would survive.

  She focused on the rhythm in her head, clinging to some rocks as the wind tried to push her back off the plateau. Demid, Venli’s once-mate, had started a movement where people who wanted to transform waited inside buildings until the storm had been going for a while. They only stepped out once the initial burst of fury was past. That was risky, as you never knew when the point of transformation would come.

  Eshonai had never tried it. The storms were violent, they were dangerous, but they were also things of discovery. Within them, the familiar became something grand, majestic, and terrible. She did not look forward to entering
them, but when she had to, she always found the experience thrilling.

  She lifted her head, eyes closed, and put her face to the winds—feeling them blast her, shake her. She felt the rain on her skin. The Rider of Storms was a traitor, yes—but you could not have a traitor who had not originally been a friend. These storms belonged to her people. The listeners were of the storms.

  The rhythms changed in her mind. In a moment, they all aligned and became the same. No matter which one she attuned, she heard the same rhythm—single, steady beats. Like that of a heart. The moment had arrived.

  The storm vanished. Wind, rain, sound . . . gone. Eshonai stood up, dripping wet, her muscles cold, her skin numb. She shook her head, spraying water, and looked up into the sky.

  The face was there. Infinite, expansive. The humans spoke of their Stormfather, yet they never knew him as a listener did. As wide as the sky itself, with eyes full of countless stars. The gemstone in Eshonai’s hand burst alight.

  Power, energy. She imagined it coursing through her, energizing her, enlivening her. Eshonai threw the gemstone against the ground, smashing it and releasing the spren. She worked hard to get the proper feel down, as Venli had trained her.

  IS THIS REALLY WHAT YOU WANT? The voice reverberated through her like crashing thunder.

  The Rider had spoken to her! That happened in songs, but not . . . never . . . She attuned Appreciation, but of course it was the same rhythm now. Beat. Beat. Beat.

  The spren escaped from its prison and spun around her, giving off a strange red light. Splinters of lightning sprang from it. Angerspren?

  This was wrong.

  I SUPPOSE THIS MUST BE, the Stormfather said. IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.

  “No,” Eshonai said, stepping back from that spren. In a moment of panic, she cast from her mind the preparations that Venli had given her. “No!”

  The spren became a streak of red light and hit her in the chest. Tendrils of red spread outward.

  I CANNOT STOP THIS, the Stormfather said. I WOULD SHELTER YOU, LITTLE ONE, IF I WERE GIVEN THAT POWER. I AM SORRY.