The Way of Kings

by Brandon Sanderson

  Broken ribs. Caused by trauma to the side, inflicted by a beating. Wrap the chest and prevent the subject from taking part in strenuous activity.

  Occasionally, he’d open his eyes and see a dark room. It was cold, the walls made of stone, with a high roof. Other people lay in lines, covered in blankets. Corpses. They were corpses. This was a ware house where they were lined up for sale. Who bought corpses?

  Highprince Sadeas. He bought corpses. They still walked after he bought them, but they were corpses. The stupid ones refused to accept it, pretending they were alive.

  Lacerations on face, arms, and chest. Outer layer of skin stripped away in several patches. Caused by prolonged exposure to highstorm winds. Bandage wounded areas, apply a denocax salve to encourage new skin growth.

  Time was passing. A lot of it. He should be dead. Why wasn’t he dead? He wanted to lie back and let it happen.

  But no. No. He had failed Tien. He had failed Goshel. He had failed his parents. He had failed Dallet. Dear Dallet.

  He would not fail Bridge Four. He would not!

  Hypothermia, caused by extreme cold. Warm subject and force him to remain seated. Do not let him sleep. If he survives a few hours, there will likely be no lasting aftereffects.

  If he survives a few hours…

  Bridgemen weren’t supposed to survive.

  Why would Lamaril say that? What army would employ men who were supposed to die?

  His perspective had been too narrow, too shortsighted. He needed to understand the army’s objectives. He watched the battle’s progress, horrified. What had he done?

  He needed to go back and change it. But no. He was wounded, wasn’t he? He was bleeding on the ground. He was one of the fallen spearmen. He was a bridgeman from Bridge Two, betrayed by those fools in Bridge Four, who diverted all of the archers.

  How dare they? How dare they?

  How dare they survive by killing me!

  Strained tendons, ripped muscles, bruised and cracked bones, and pervasive soreness caused by extreme conditions. Enforce bed rest by any means necessary. Check for large and persistent bruises or pallor caused by internal hemorrhaging. That can be life-threatening. Be prepared for surgery.

  He saw the deathspren. They were fist-size and black, with many legs and deep red eyes that glowed, leaving trails of burning light. They clustered around him, skittering this way and that. Their voices were whispers, scratchy sounds like paper being torn. They terrified him, but he couldn’t escape them. He could barely move.

  Only the dying could see deathspren. You saw them, then died. Only the very, very lucky few survived after that. Deathspren knew when the end was close.

  Blistered fingers and toes, caused by frostnip. Make sure to apply antiseptic to any blisters that break. Encourage the body’s natural healing. Permanent damage is unlikely.

  Standing before the deathspren was a tiny figure of light. Not translucent, as she had always appeared before, but of pure white light. That soft, feminine face had a nobler, more angular cast to it now, like a warrior from a forgotten time. Not childlike at all. She stood guard on his chest, holding a sword made of light.

  That glow was so pure, so sweet. It seemed to be the glow of life itself. Whenever one of the deathspren got too close, she would charge at it, wielding her radiant blade.

  The light warded them off.

  But there were a lot of deathspren. More and more each time he was lucid enough to look.

  Severe delusions caused by trauma to the head. Maintain observation of subject. Do not allow alcohol intake. Enforce rest. Administer fathom bark to reduce cranial swelling. Firemoss can be used in extreme cases, but beware letting the subject form an addiction.

  If medication fails, trepanning the skull may be needed to relieve pressure.

  Usually fatal.

  Teft entered the barrack at midday. Ducking into the shadowy interior was like entering a cave. He glanced to the left, where the other wounded usually slept. They were all outside at the moment, getting some sun. All five were doing well, even Leyten.

  Teft passed the lines of rolled-up blankets at the sides of the room, walking to the back of the chamber where Kaladin lay.

  Poor man, Teft thought. What’s worse, being sick near to death, or having to stay all the way back here, away from the light? It was necessary. Bridge Four walked a precarious line. They had been allowed to cut Kaladin down, and so far nobody had tried to stop them from caring for him. Practically the entire army had heard Sadeas give Kaladin to the Stormfather for judgment.

  Gaz had come to see Kaladin, then had snorted to himself in amusement. He’d likely told his superiors that Kaladin would die. Men didn’t live long with wounds like those.

  Yet Kaladin hung on. Soldiers were going out of their way to try to get a peek at him. His survival was incredible. People were talking in camp. Given to the Stormfather for judgment, then spared. A miracle. Sadeas wouldn’t like that. How long would it be before one of the lighteyes decided to relieve their brightlord of the problem? Sadeas couldn’t take any overt action—not without losing a great deal of credibility—but a quiet poisoning or suffocation would abbreviate the embarrassment.

  So Bridge Four kept Kaladin as far from outside eyes as possible. And they always left someone with him. Always.

  Storming man, Teft thought, kneeling beside the feverish patient in his tousled blankets, eyes closed, face sweaty, body bound with a frightful number of bandages. Most were stained red. They didn’t have the money to change them often.

  Skar kept watch currently. The short, strong-faced man sat at Kaladin’s feet.

  “How is he?” Teft asked.

  Skar spoke softly. “He seems to be getting worse, Teft. I heard him mumble about dark shapes, thrashing and telling them to keep back. He opened his eyes. He didn’t seem to see me, but he saw something. I swear it.”

  Deathspren, Teft thought, feeling a chill. Kelek preserve us.

  “I’ll take a turn,” Teft said, sitting. “You go get something to eat.”

  Skar stood, looking pale. It would crush the others’ spirit for Kaladin to survive the highstorm, then die of his wounds. Skar shuffled from the room, shoulders slumped.

  Teft watched Kaladin for a long while, trying to gather his thoughts, his emotions. “Why now?” he whispered. “Why here? After so many have watched and waited, you come here?”

  But of course, Teft was getting ahead of himself. He didn’t know for certain. He only had assumptions and hopes. No, not hopes—fears. He had rejected the Envisagers. And yet, here he was. He fished in his pocket and pulled out three small diamond spheres. It had been a long, long while since he’d saved anything of his wages, but he’d held on to these, thinking, worrying. They glowed with Stormlight in his hand.

  Did he really want to know?

  Gritting his teeth, Teft moved closer to Kaladin’s side, looking down at the unconscious man’s face. “You bastard,” he whispered. “You storming bastard. You took a bunch of hanged men and lifted them up just enough to breathe. Now you’re going to leave them? I won’t have it, you hear. I won’t.”

  He pressed the spheres into Kaladin’s hand, wrapping the limp fingers around them, then laying the hand on Kaladin’s abdomen. Then Teft sat back on his heels. What would happen? All the Envisagers had were stories and legends. Fool’s tales, Teft had called them. Idle dreams.

  He waited. Of course, nothing happened. You’re as big a fool as any, Teft, he told himself. He reached for Kaladin’s hand. Those spheres would buy a few drinks.

  Kaladin gasped suddenly, drawing in a short, quick, powerful breath.

  The glow in his hand faded.

  Teft froze, eyes widening. Wisps of Light began to rise from Kaladin’s body. It was faint, but there was no mistaking that glowing white Stormlight streaming off his frame. It was as if Kaladin had been bathed in sudden heat, and his very skin steamed.

  Kaladin’s eyes snapped open, and they leaked light too, faintly colored amber. He gaspe
d again loudly, and the trailing wisps of light began to twist around the exposed cuts on his chest. A few of them pulled together and knit themselves up.

  Then it was gone, the Light of those tiny chips expended. Kaladin’s eyes closed and he relaxed. His wounds were still bad, his fever still raging, but some color had returned to his skin. The puffy redness around several cuts had diminished.

  “My God,” Teft said, realizing he was trembling. “Almighty, cast from heaven to dwell in our hearts…It is true.” He bowed his head to the rock floor, squeezing his eyes shut, tears leaking from their corners.

  Why now? he thought again. Why here?

  And, in the name of all heaven, why me?

  He knelt for a hundred heartbeats, counting, thinking, worrying. Eventually, he pulled himself to his feet and retrieved the spheres—now dun—from Kaladin’s hand. He’d need to trade them for spheres with Light in them. Then he could return and let Kaladin drain those as well.

  He’d have to be careful. A few spheres each day, but not too many. If the boy healed too quickly, it would draw too much attention.

  And I need to tell the Envisagers, he thought. I need to…

  The Envisagers were gone. Dead, because of what he had done. If there were others, he had no idea how to locate them.

  Who would he tell? Who would believe him? Kaladin himself probably didn’t understand what he was doing.

  Best to keep it quiet, at least until he could figure out what to do about it.

  “Within a heartbeat, Alezarv was there, crossing a distance that would have taken more than four months to travel by foot.”

  —Another folktale, this one recorded in Among the Darkeyed, by Calinam. Page 102. Stories of instantaneous travel and the Oathgates pervade these tales.

  Shallan’s hand flew across the drawing board, moving as if of its own accord, charcoal scratching, sketching, smudging. Thick lines first, like trails of blood left by a thumb drawn across rough granite. Tiny lines like scratches made by a pin.

  She sat in her closetlike stone chamber in the Conclave. No windows, no ornamentation on the granite walls. Just the bed, her trunk, the nightstand, and the small desk that doubled as a drawing table.

  A single ruby broam cast a bloody light on her sketch. Usually, to produce a vibrant drawing, she had to consciously memorize a scene. A blink, freezing the world, imprinting it into her mind. She hadn’t done that during Jasnah’s annihilation of the thieves. She’d been too frozen by horror or morbid fascination.

  Despite that, she could see each of those scenes in her mind just as vividly as if she’d deliberately memorized them. And these memories didn’t vanish when she drew them. She couldn’t rid her mind of them. Those deaths were burned into her.

  She sat back from her drawing board, hand shaking, the picture before her an exact charcoal representation of the suffocating nightscape, squeezed between alley walls, a tortured figure of flame rising toward the sky. At that moment, its face still held its shape, shadow eyes wide and burning lips agape. Jasnah’s hand was toward the figure, as if warding, or worshipping.

  Shallan drew her charcoal-stained fingers to her chest, staring at her creation. It was one of dozens of drawings she’d done during the last few days. The man turned into fire, the other frozen into crystal, the two transmuted to smoke. She could only draw one of those two fully; she’d been facing down the alleyway to the east. Her drawings of the fourth man’s death were of smoke rising, clothing already on the ground.

  She felt guilty for being unable to record his death. And she felt stupid for that guilt.

  Logic did not condemn Jasnah. Yes, the princess had gone willingly into danger, but that didn’t remove responsibility from those who had chosen to hurt her. The men’s actions were reprehensible. Shallan had spent the days poring through books on philosophy, and most ethical frameworks exonerated the princess.

  But Shallan had been there. She’d watched those men die. She’d seen the terror in their eyes, and she felt terrible. Hadn’t there been another way?

  Kill or be killed. That was the Philosophy of Starkness. It exonerated Jasnah.

  Actions are not evil. Intent is evil, and Jasnah’s intent had been to stop men from harming others. That was the Philosophy of Purpose. It lauded Jasnah.

  Morality is separate from the ideals of men. It exists whole somewhere, to be approached—but never truly understood—by the mortal. The Philosophy of Ideals. It claimed that removing evil was ultimately moral, and so in destroying evil men, Jasnah was justified.

  Objective must be weighed against methods. If the goal is worthy, then the steps taken are worthwhile, even if some of them—on their own—are reprehensible. The Philosophy of Aspiration. It, more than any, called Jasnah’s actions ethical.

  Shallan pulled the sheet from her drawing board and tossed it down beside the others scattered across her bed. Her fingers moved again, clutching the charcoal pencil, beginning a new picture on the blank sheet strapped in place on the table, unable to escape.

  Her theft nagged at her as much as the killings did. Ironically, Jasnah’s demand that Shallan study moralistic philosophy forced her to contemplate her own, terrible actions. She’d come to Kharbranth to steal the fabrial, then use it to save her brothers and their house from massive debt and destruction. Yet in the end, this wasn’t why Shallan had stolen the Soulcaster. She’d taken it because she was angry with Jasnah.

  If the intentions were more important than the action, then she had to condemn herself. Perhaps the Philosophy of Aspiration—which stated that objectives were more important than the steps taken to achieve them—would agree with what she’d done, but that was the philosophy she found most reprehensible. Shallan sat here sketching, condemning Jasnah. But Shallan was the one who had betrayed a woman who had trusted her and taken her in. Now she was planning to commit heresy with the Soulcaster by using it although she was not an ardent.

  The Soulcaster itself lay in the hidden part of Shallan’s trunk. Three days, and Jasnah had said nothing about the disappearance. She wore the fake each day. She said nothing, acted no differently. Maybe she hadn’t tried Soulcasting. Almighty send that she didn’t go out and put herself into danger again, expecting to be able to use the fabrial to kill men who attacked her.

  Of course, there was one other aspect of that night that Shallan had to think of. She carried a concealed weapon that she hadn’t used. She felt foolish for not even thinking of getting it out that night. But she wasn’t accustomed to—

  Shallan froze, realizing for the first time what she’d been drawing. Not another scene from the alleyway, but a lavish room with a thick, ornamented rug and swords on the walls. A long dining table, set with a half-eaten meal.

  And a dead man in fine clothing, lying face-first on the floor, blood pooling around him. She jumped back, tossing aside the charcoal, then crumpled up the paper. Shaking, she moved over and sat down on the bed among the pictures. Dropping the crumpled drawing, she raised her fingers to her forehead, feeling the cold sweat there.

  Something was wrong with her, with her drawings.

  She had to get out. Escape the death, the philosophy and the questions. She stood and hurriedly strode into the main room of Jasnah’s quarters. The princess herself was away researching, as always. She hadn’t demanded that Shallan come to the Veil today. Was that because she realized that her ward needed time to think alone? Or was it because she suspected Shallan of stealing the Soulcaster, and no longer trusted her?

  Shallan hurried through the room. It was furnished only with the basics provided by King Taravangian. Shallan pulled open the door to the hallway, and nearly ran into a master-servant who had been reaching up to knock.

  The woman started, and Shallan let out a yelp. “Brightness,” the woman said, bowing immediately. “Apologies. But one of your spanreeds is flashing.” The woman held up the reed, affixed on the side with a small blinking ruby.

  Shallan breathed in and out, stilling her heart. “Thank you,” sh
e said. She, like Jasnah, left her spanreeds in the care of servants because she was often away from her rooms, and was likely to miss any attempt to contact her.

  Still flustered, she was tempted to leave the thing and continue on her way. However, she did need to speak with her brothers, Nan Balat particularly, and he’d been away the last few times she’d contacted home. She took the spanreed and closed the door. She didn’t dare return to her rooms, with all of those sketches accusing her, but there was a desk and a spanreed board in the main room. She sat there, then twisted the ruby.

  Shallan? the reed wrote. Are you comfortable? It was a code phrase, meant to indicate to her that it was indeed Nan Balat—or, at least, his betrothed—on the other side.

  My back hurts and my wrist itches, she wrote back, giving the other half of the code phrase.

  I’m sorry I missed your other communications, Nan Balat sent. I had to attend a feast in Father’s name. It was with Sur Kamar, so it wasn’t really something I could miss, despite the day of traveling each way.

  It’s all right, Shallan wrote. She took a deep breath. I have the item. She turned the gem.

  The reed was still for a long moment. Finally, a hurried hand wrote, Praise the Heralds. Oh, Shallan. You’ve done it! You are on your way back to us, then? How can you use the spanreed on the ocean? Are you in port?

  I haven’t left, Shallan wrote.

  What? Why?

  Because it would be too suspicious, she wrote. Think about it, Nan Balat. If Jasnah tries the item and finds it broken, she might not immediately decide that she’s been had. That changes if I’ve suddenly and suspiciously left for home.

  I have to wait until she’s made the discovery, then see what she does next. If she realizes that her fabrial was replaced with a fake, then I can deflect her toward other culprits. She’s already suspicious of the ardentia. If—on the other hand—she assumes that her fabrial has broken somehow, I’ll know we’re free.

  She twisted the gem, setting the spanreed in place.