hard-eyed man with a flat cut of firm hair.
“Not really,” the peasant said. “Even if she hadn’t Awakened him, they
would have burned the body. If I’d realized she was going to have the
funeral so soon, I wouldn’t have bothered trying to talk her into giving
me the corpse.”
“Still too close,” the companion said decisively. “If she’d waited just one
THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 801
more day to hold the funeral . . . Anyway, it’s over now. He’s gone for good this time.”
The peasant nodded, eyes trailing the last bits of smoke evaporating
above. Around the pyre, men were yelling in outrage—one in particular
demanding an end to his marriage, based on the fact that his wife had
hidden her nature as an Awakener from him.
The peasant ignored such screams. He focused only on the smoke.
No more immortality. Though they didn’t age, they could no longer be
reborn. The cycle was over. Death was final, now.
His companion was ready to leave—impatient to be moving, as always.
The peasant, however, was more thoughtful. “Why did he come back, Nale?”
he asked. “It’s all supposed to be over.”
“I don’t know,” Nale snapped. “What did I ever care about these things?
Perhaps he found an Elsecaller or something—there are several ways he
could have gotten here.”
The peasant nodded. But then he asked the harder question. “Do you
think . . . they’re coming too?”
Nale snorted. “Don’t be foolish, Prael. After this long? It’s all over, just like Jezrien promised. Come on, we’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”
Prael nodded obligingly, and he began to trail after his companion as he
slipped away from the crowd. Prael paused, however, when he caught sight
of someone standing at the front of the group, with the noblemen—a man
who had been hidden from Prael’s sight earlier by the large pyre.
He reached out with a shaking hand, catching Nale on the shoulder.
“What?” Nale asked with annoyance.
“Nale!” Prael whispered, pointing back toward the crowd. “Look!”
Nale paused, then suddenly grew tense. “Well, I’ll . . .” The man trailed
off. It wasn’t often that one saw Nale stunned silent.
“He’s supposed to be dead!” Prael said. “Dead for good. No coming back
this time!”
“I never did see a body,” Nale said thoughtfully. “Did you?”
“No, but—”
“Well, I guess we were wrong then,” Nale said, turning.
“We can’t . . . go, can we?”
“Why not?
“Because,” Prael said, floundering. “It’s him.”
“None of our business,” Nale said. “That’s what we promised a thousand
years ago. No interfering, no looking for one another. It’s over. Let’s go.”
802
BRAND ON SANDERS ON
Nale walked away, not waiting for his companion to follow. Prael
lingered, looking toward the pyre.
There, standing almost unnoticed by the noblemen, was an aged, beard-
less man. He had a full head of silvery hair, and he wore the robes of the new scholars people were calling ‘stormkeepers.’ He was probably posing
as a simple learned man from the south.
However, Prael knew him to be someone different. That man was
Ishar’Elin, spiritual leader of the Heralds, founder of the Vorin religion, author of the Arguments, and designer of the Oathgates. Ishar’Elin, arguably the most powerful of the ten, undeniably the most wise.
Ishar’Elin, the man who had betrayed the other Heralds a thousand
years before, breaking the Oathpact and shattering the cycle of Returns.
ilofazrN
BRANDON SANDERSON grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. He
lives in Utah with his wife and children and teaches creative writing at
Brigham Young University. In addition to completing Robert Jordan’s The
Wheel of Time, he is the author of such bestsellers as the Mistborn saga,
Warbreaker, The Stormlight Archive series beginning with The Way of Kings, The Rithmatist, the Skyward series, The Reckoners series beginning with Steelheart, and the Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series. He won the 2013 Hugo Award for The Emperor’s Soul, a novella set in the world of his acclaimed first novel, Elantris. For behind- the- scenes information on all his books, visit brandonsanderson .com.
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