“I hold the suckling child in my hands, a knife at his throat, and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip. Spill its blood upon the ground, over my hands, and with it gain us further breath to draw.”

—Dated Shashanan, 1173, 23 seconds pre-death. Subject: a darkeyed youth of sixteen years. Sample is of particular note.

“And all the world was shattered!” Maps yelled, back arching, eyes wide, flecks of red spittle on his cheeks. “The rocks trembled with their steps, and the stones reached toward the heavens. We die! We die!”

He spasmed one last time, and the light faded from his eyes. Kaladin sat back, crimson blood slick on his hands, the dagger he’d been using as a surgical knife slipping from his fingers and clicking softly against the stone. The affable man lay dead on the stones of a plateau, arrow wound in his left breast open to the air, splitting the birthmark he’d claimed looked like Alethkar.

It’s taking them, Kaladin thought. One by one. Open them up, bleed them out. We’re nothing more than pouches to carry blood. Then we die, rain it down on the stones like a highstorm’s floods.

Until only I remain. I always remain.

A layer of skin, a layer of fat, a layer of muscle, a layer of bone. That was what men were.

The battle raged across the chasm. It might as well have been another kingdom, for all the attention anyone gave the bridgemen. Die die die, then get out of our way.

The members of Bridge Four stood in a solemn ring around Kaladin. “What was that he said at the end?” Skar asked. “The rocks trembled?”

“It was nothing,” said thick-armed Yake. “Just dying delirium. It happens to men, sometimes.”

“More often lately, it seems,” Teft said. He held his hand to his arm, where he’d hastily wrapped a bandage around an arrow wound. He wouldn’t be carrying a bridge anytime soon. Maps’s death and Arik’s death left them with only twenty-six members now. It was barely enough to carry a bridge. The greater heaviness was very noticeable, and they had difficulty keeping up with the other bridge crews. A few more losses, and they’d be in serious trouble.

I should have been faster, Kaladin thought, looking down at Maps splayed open, his insides exposed for the sun to dry. The arrowhead had pierced his lung and lodged in his spine. Could Lirin have saved him? If Kaladin had studied in Kharbranth as his father had wished, would he have learned enough—known enough—to prevent deaths like this?

This happens sometimes, son….

Kaladin raised shaking bloody hands to his face, gripping his head, as memory consumed him. A young girl, a cracked head, a broken leg, an angry father.

Despair, hate, loss, frustration, horror. How could any man live this way? To be a surgeon, to live knowing that you would be too weak to save some? When other men failed, a field of crops got worms in them. When a surgeon failed, someone died.

You have to learn when to care….

As if he could choose. Banish it, like snuffing a lantern. Kaladin bowed beneath the weight. I should have saved him, I should have saved him, I should have saved him.

Maps, Dunny, Amark, Goshel, Dallet, Nalma. Tien.

“Kaladin.” Syl’s voice. “Be strong.”

“If I were strong,” he hissed, “they would live.”

“The other bridgemen still need you. You promised them, Kaladin. You gave your oath.”

Kaladin looked up. The bridgemen seemed anxious and worried. There were only eight of them; Kaladin had sent the others to look for fallen bridgemen from other crews. They’d found three initially, minor wounds that Skar could care for. No runners had come for him. Either the bridge crews had no other wounded, or those wounded were beyond help.

Maybe he should have gone to look, just in case. But—numb—he could not face yet another dying man he could not save. He stumbled to his feet and walked away from the corpse. He stepped up to the chasm and forced himself to fall into the old stance Tukks had taught him.

Feet apart, hands behind his back, clasping forearms. Straight-backed, staring forward. The familiarity brought him strength.

You were wrong, Father, he thought. You said I’d learn to deal with the deaths. And yet here I am. Years later. Same problem.

The bridgemen fell in around him. Lopen approached with a waterskin. Kaladin hesitated, then accepted the skin, washing off his face and hands. The warm water splashed across his skin, then brought welcome coolness as it evaporated. He let out a deep breath, nodding thanks to the short Herdazian man.

Lopen raised an eyebrow, then gestured to the pouch tied to his waist. He had recovered the newest pouch of spheres they’d stuck to the bridge with an arrow. This was the fourth time they’d done that, and had recovered them each without incident.

“Did you have any trouble?” Kaladin asked.

“No, gancho,” Lopen said, smiling widely. “Easy as tripping a Horneater.”

“I heard that,” Rock said gruffly, standing in parade rest a short distance away.

“And the rope?” Kaladin asked.

“I dropped the whole coil right over the side,” Lopen said. “But I didn’t tie the end to anything. Just like you said.”

“Good,” Kaladin said. A rope dangling from a bridge would have just been too obvious. If Hashal or Gaz caught scent of what Kaladin was planning…

And where is Gaz? Kaladin thought. Why didn’t he come on the bridge run?

Lopen gave Kaladin the pouch of spheres, as if eager to be rid of the responsibility. Kaladin accepted it, stuffing it into his trouser pocket.

Lopen retreated, and Kaladin fell back into parade rest. The plateau on the other side of the chasm was long and thin, with steep slopes on the sides. Just as in the last few battles, Dalinar Kholin helped Sadeas’s force. He always arrived late. Perhaps he blamed his slow, chull-pulled bridges. Very convenient. His men often had the luxury of crossing without archery fire.

Sadeas and Dalinar won more battles this way. Not that it mattered to the bridgemen.

Many people were dying on the other side of the chasm, but Kaladin didn’t feel a thing for them. No itch to heal them, no desire to help. Kaladin could thank Hav for that, for training him to think in terms of “us” and “them.” In a way, Kaladin had learned what his father had talked about. In the wrong way, but it was something. Protect the “us,” destroy the “them.” A soldier had to think like that. So Kaladin hated the Parshendi. They were the enemy. If he hadn’t learned to divide his mind like that, war would have destroyed him.

Perhaps it had done so anyway.

As he watched the battle, he focused on one thing in particular to distract himself. How did the Parshendi treat their dead? Their actions seemed irregular. The Parshendi soldiers rarely disturbed their dead after they fell; they’d take roundabout paths of attack to avoid dead bodies. And when the Alethi marched over the Parshendi dead, they formed points of terrible conflict.

Did the Alethi notice? Probably not. But he could see that the Parshendi revered their dead—revered them to the extent that they would endanger the living to preserve the corpses of the fallen. Kaladin could use that. He would use that. Somehow.

The Alethi eventually won the battle. Before long, Kaladin and his team were slogging back across the plateau, carrying their bridge, three wounded lashed to the top. They had found only those three, and a part of Kaladin felt sick inside as he realized another part of him was glad. He had already rescued some fifteen men from other bridge crews, and it was straining their resources—even with the money from the pouches—to feed them. Their barrack was crowded with the wounded.

Bridge Four reached a chasm, and Kaladin moved to lower his burden. The process was rote to him now. Lower the bridge, quickly untie the wounded, push the bridge across the chasm. Kaladin checked on the three wounded. Every man he rescued this way seemed bemused at what he’d done, even though he’d been doing it for weeks now. Satisfied that they were all right, he moved to stand at parade rest while the soldiers crossed.

Bridge Four fell in around him. Increasingly, they earned scowls from the soldiers—both darkeyed and lighteyed—who crossed. “Why do they do that?” Moash said quietly as a passing soldier tossed an overripe pile-vine fruit at the bridgemen. Moash wiped the stringy, red fruit from his face, then sighed and fell back into his stance. Kaladin had never asked them to join him, but they did it each time.

“When I fought in Amaram’s army,” Kaladin said, “I dreamed about joining the troops at the Shattered Plains. Everyone knew that the soldiers left in Alethkar were the dregs. We imagined the real soldiers, off fighting in the glorious war to bring retribution to those who had killed our king. Those soldiers would treat their fellows with fairness. Their discipline would be firm. Each would be an expert with the spear, and he would not break rank on the battlefield.”

To the side, Teft snorted quietly.

Kaladin turned to Moash. “Why do they treat us so, Moash? Because they know they should be better than they are. Because they see discipline in bridgemen, and it embarrasses them. Rather than bettering themselves, they take the easier road of jeering at us.”

“Dalinar Kholin’s soldiers don’t act like that,” Skar said from just behind Kaladin. “His men march in straight ranks. There is order in their camp. If they’re on duty, they don’t leave their coats unbuttoned or lounge about.”

Will I never stop hearing about Dalinar storming Kholin? Kaladin thought.

Men had spoken that way of Amaram. How easy it was to ignore a blackened heart if you dressed it in a pressed uniform and a reputation for honesty.

Several hours later, the sweaty and exhausted group of bridgemen tramped up the incline to the lumberyard. They dumped their bridge in its resting place. It was getting late; Kaladin would have to purchase food immediately if they were going to have supplies for the evening stew. He wiped his hands on his towel as the members of Bridge Four lined up.

“You’re dismissed for evening activities,” he said. “We have chasm duty early tomorrow. Morning bridge practice will have to be moved to late afternoon.”

The bridgemen nodded, then Moash raised a hand. As one, the bridgemen raised their arms and crossed them, wrists together, hands in fists. It had the look of a practiced effort. After that, they trotted away.

Kaladin raised an eyebrow, tucking his towel into his belt. Teft hung back, smiling.

“What was that?” Kaladin asked.

“The men wanted a salute,” Teft said. “We can’t use a regular military salute—not with the spearmen already thinking we’re too bigheaded. So I taught them my old squad salute.”

“When?”

“This morning. While you were getting our schedule from Hashal.”

Kaladin smiled. Odd, how he could still do that. Nearby, the other nineteen bridge crews on today’s run dropped off their bridges, one by one. Had Bridge Four once looked like them, with those ragged beards and haunted expressions? None of them spoke to one another. Some few glanced at Kaladin as they passed, but they looked down as soon as they saw he was watching. They’d stopped treating Bridge Four with the contempt they’d once shown. Curiously, they now seemed to regard Kaladin’s crew as they did everyone else in camp—as people above them. They hastened to avoid his notice.

Poor sodden fools, Kaladin thought. Could he, maybe, persuade Hashal to let him take a few into Bridge Four? He could the use extra men, and seeing those slumped figures twisted his heart.

“I know that look, lad,” Teft said. “Why is it you always have to help everyone?”

“Bah,” Kaladin said. “I can’t even protect Bridge Four. Here, let me look at that arm of yours.”

“It’s not that bad.”

Kaladin grabbed his arm anyway, peeling away the blood-crusted bandage. The cut was long, but shallow.

“We need antiseptic on this,” Kaladin said, noting a few red rotspren crawling around on the wound. “I should probably sew it up.”

“It’s not that bad!”

“Still,” Kaladin said, waving for Teft to follow as he approached one of the rain barrels alongside the lumberyard. The wound was shallow enough that Teft would probably be able to show the others spear thrusts and blocks tomorrow during chasm duty, but that was no excuse for leaving it alone to fester or scar.

At the rain barrel, Kaladin washed out the wound, then called for Lopen—who was standing in the shade beside the barrack—to bring his medical equipment. The Herdazian man gave that salute again, though he did it with one arm, and sauntered away to get the pack.

“So, lad,” Teft said. “How do you feel? Any odd experiences lately?”

Kaladin frowned, looking up from the arm. “Storm it, Teft! That’s the fifth time in two days you’ve asked me that. What are you getting at?”

“Nothing, nothing!”

“It is something,” Kaladin said. “What is it you’re digging for, Teft? I—”

“Gancho,” Lopen said, walking up, carrying the medical supply pack over his shoulder. “Here you go.”

Kaladin glanced at him, then reluctantly accepted the pack. He pulled the drawstrings open. “We’ll want to—”

A quick motion came from Teft. Like a punch being thrown.

Kaladin moved by reflex, taking in a sharp breath, moving to a defensive stance, arms up, one hand a fist, the other back to block.

Something blossomed within Kaladin. Like a deep breath drawn in, like a burning liquor injected directly into his blood. A powerful wave pulsed through his body. Energy, strength, awareness. It was like the body’s natural alert response to danger, only it was a hundredfold more intense.

Kaladin caught Teft’s fist, moving blurringly quick. Teft froze.

“What are you doing?” Kaladin demanded.

Teft was smiling. He stepped back, pulling his fist free. “Kelek,” he said, shaking his hand. “That’s some grip you’ve got.”

“Why did you try to strike me?”

“I wanted to see something,” Teft said. “You’re holding that pouch of spheres Lopen gave you, you see, and your own pouch with what we’ve gathered lately. More Stormlight than you’ve probably ever carried, at least recently.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Kaladin demanded. What was that heat inside of him, that burning in his veins?

“Gancho,” Lopen said, his voice awed. “You’re glowing.”

Kaladin frowned. What is he—

And then he noticed it. It was very faint, but it was there, wisps of luminescent smoke curling up from his skin. Like steam coming off a bowl of hot water on a cold winter night.

Shaking, Kaladin put the medical pack on the broad rim of the water barrel. He felt a moment of coldness on his skin. What was that? Shocked, he raised his other hand, looking at the wisps streaming off of it.

“What did you do to me?” he demanded, looking up at Teft.

The older bridgeman was still smiling.

“Answer me!” Kaladin said, stepping forward, grabbing the front of Teft’s shirt. Stormfather, but I feel strong!

“I didn’t do anything, lad,” Teft said. “You’ve been doing this for a while now. I caught you feeding off Stormlight when you were sick.”

Stormlight. Kaladin hastily released Teft, fishing at the pouch of spheres in his pocket. He yanked it free and pulled it open.

It was dark inside. All five gemstones had been drained. The white light streaming from Kaladin’s skin faintly illuminated the inside of the bag.

“Now that’s something,” Lopen said from the side. Kaladin spun to find the Herdazian man bending down and looking at the medical pack. Why was that so important?

Then Kaladin saw it. He thought he’d set the pack on the rim of the barrel, but in his haste he’d just pressed it against the side of the barrel. The pack now clung to the wood. Stuck there, hanging as if from an invisible hook. Faintly streaming light, just like Kaladin. As Kaladin watched, the light faded, and the pack slumped free and fell to the ground.

Kaladin raised a hand to his forehead, looking from the surprised Lopen to the curious Teft. Then he glanced around the lumberyard, frantic. Nobody else was looking at them; in the sunlight, the vapors were too faint to see from a distance.

Stormfather…what…how…

He caught sight of a familiar shape above. Syl moved like a blown leaf, tossed this way and that, leisurely, faint.

She did it! Kaladin thought. What has she done to me?

He stumbled away from Lopen and Teft, running toward Syl. His footsteps propelling him forward with too much speed. “Syl!” he bellowed, stopping beneath her.

She zipped down to hover before him, changing from a leaf to a young woman standing in the air. “Yes?”

Kaladin glanced around. “Come with me,” he said, hurrying to one of the alleys between barracks. He pressed himself up against a wall, standing in the shade, breathing in and out. Nobody could see him here.

Syl alighted in the air before him, hands behind her back, looking closely at him. “You’re glowing.”

“What have you done to me?”

She cocked her head, then shrugged.

“Syl…” he said threateningly, though he wasn’t certain what harm he could do a spren.

“I don’t know, Kaladin,” she said frankly, sitting down, her legs hanging over the side of the invisible platform. “I can…I can only faintly remember things I used to know so well. This world, interacting with men.”

“But you did do something.”

“We have done something. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t you. But together…” She shrugged again.

“That isn’t very helpful.”

She grimaced. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Kaladin raised a hand. In the shade, the light streaming off of him was more obvious. If someone walked by…“How do I get rid of it?”

“Why do you want to get rid of it?”

“Well, because…I…Because.”

Syl didn’t respond.

Something occurred to Kaladin. Something, perhaps, he should have asked long ago. “You’re not a windspren, are you?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “No.”

“What are you, then?”

“I don’t know. I bind things.”

Bind things. When she played pranks, she made items stick together. Shoes stuck to the ground and made men trip. People reached for their jackets hanging on hooks and couldn’t pull them free. Kaladin reached down, picking a stone up off the ground. It was as big as his palm, weathered smooth by highstorm winds and rain. He pressed it against the wall of the barrack and willed his Light into the stone.

He felt a chill. The rock began to stream with luminescent vapors. When Kaladin pulled his hand away, the stone remained where it was, clinging to the side of the building.

Kaladin leaned close, squinting. He thought he could faintly make out tiny spren, dark blue and shaped like little splashes of ink, clustering around the place where the rock met the wall.

“Bindspren,” Syl said, walking up beside his head; she was still standing in the air.

“They’re holding the rock in place.”

“Maybe. Or maybe they’re attracted to what you’ve done in affixing the stone there.”

“That’s not how it works. Is it?”

“Do rotspren cause sickness,” Syl said idly, “or are they attracted to it?”

“Everyone knows they cause it.”

“And do windspren cause the wind? Rainspren cause the rain? Flamespren cause fires?”

He hesitated. No, they didn’t. Did they? “This is pointless. I need to find out how to get rid of this light, not study it.”

“And why,” Syl repeated, “must you get rid of it? Kaladin, you’ve heard the stories. Men who walked on walls, men who bound the storms to them. Windrunners. Why would you want to be rid of something like this?”

Kaladin struggled to define it. The healing, the way he never got hit, running at the front of the bridge…Yes, he’d known something odd was happening. Why did it frighten him so? Was it because he feared being set apart, like his father always was as the surgeon in Hearthstone? Or was it something greater?

“I’m doing what the Radiants did,” he said.

“That’s what I just said.”

“I’ve been wondering if I’m bad luck, or if I’ve run afoul of something like the Old Magic. Maybe this explains it! The Almighty cursed the Lost Radiants for betraying mankind. What if I’m cursed too, because of what I’m doing?”

“Kaladin,” she said, “you are not cursed.”

“You just said you don’t know what’s happening.” He paced in the alleyway. To the side, the rock finally plopped free and clattered to the ground. “Can you say, with all certainty, that what I’m doing might not have drawn bad luck down upon me? Do you know enough to deny it completely, Syl?”

She stood in the air, her arms folded, saying nothing.

“This…thing,” Kaladin said, gesturing toward the stone. “It isn’t natural. The Radiants betrayed mankind. Their powers left them, and they were cursed. Everyone knows the legends.” He looked down at his hands, still glowing, though more faintly than before. “Whatever we’ve done, whatever has happened to me, I’ve somehow brought upon myself their same curse. That’s why everyone around me dies when I try to help them.”

“And you think I’m a curse?” she asked him.

“I…Well, you said you’re part of it, and…”

She strode forward, pointing at him, a tiny, irate woman hanging in the air. “So you think I’ve caused all of this? Your failures? The deaths?”

Kaladin didn’t respond. He realized almost immediately that silence might be the worst response. Syl—surprisingly human in her emotions—spun in the air with a wounded look and zipped away, forming a ribbon of light.

I’m overreacting, he told himself. He was just so unsettled. He leaned back against the wall, hand to head. Before he had time to collect his thoughts, shadows darkened the entry to the alleyway. Teft and Lopen.

“Rock talkers!” Lopen said. “You really shine in shade, gancho!”

Teft gripped Lopen’s shoulder. “He’s not going to tell anyone, lad. I’ll make certain of it.”

“Yeah, gancho,” Lopen said. “I swore I’d say nothing. You can trust a Herdazian.”

Kaladin looked at the two, overwhelmed. He pushed past them, running out of the alley and across the lumberyard, fleeing from watching eyes.

By the time night drew close, the light had long since stopped streaming from Kaladin’s body. It had faded like a fire going out, and had only taken a few minutes to vanish.

Kaladin walked southward along the edge of the Shattered Plains, in that transitional area between the warcamps and the Plains themselves. In some areas—like at the staging area near Sadeas’s lumbercamp—there was a soft slope leading down between the two. At other points, there was a short ridge, eight or so feet tall. He passed one of these now, rocks to his right, open Plains to his left.

Hollows, crevasses, and nooks scored the rock. Some shadowed sections here still hid pools of water from the highstorms days ago. Creatures still scuttled around the rocks, though the cooling evening air would soon drive them to hide. He passed a place pocked with small, water-filled holes; cremlings—multilegged, bearing tiny claws, their elongated bodies plated with carapace—lapped and fed at the edges. A small tentacle snapped out, yanking one down into the hole. Probably a grasper.

Grass grew up the side of the ridge beside him, and the blades peeked from their holes. Bunches of fingermoss sprouted like flowers amid the green. The bright pink and purple fingermoss tendrils were reminiscent of tentacles themselves, waving at him in the wind. When he passed, the timid grass pulled back, but the fingermoss was bolder. The clumps would only pull into their shells if he tapped the rock near them.

Above him, on the ridge, a few scouts stood watch over the Shattered Plains. This area beneath the ridge belonged to no specific highprince, and the scouts ignored Kaladin. He would only be stopped if he tried to leave the warcamps at the southern or northern sides.

None of the bridgemen had come after him. He wasn’t certain what Teft had told them. Perhaps he’d said Kaladin was distraught following Maps’s death.

It felt odd to be alone. Ever since he’d been betrayed by Amaram and made a slave, he had been in the company of others. Slaves with whom he’d plotted. Bridgemen with whom he’d worked. Soldiers to guard him, slavemasters to beat him, friends to depend on him. The last time he’d been alone had been that night when he’d been tied up for the highstorm to kill him.

No, he thought. I wasn’t alone that night. Syl was there. He lowered his head, passing small cracks in the ground to his left. Those lines eventually grew into chasms as they moved eastward.

What was happening to him? He wasn’t delusional. Teft and Lopen had seen it too. Teft had actually seemed to expect it.

Kaladin should have died during that highstorm. And yet, he had been up and walking shortly afterward. His ribs should still be tender, but they hadn’t ached in weeks. His spheres, and those of the other bridgemen near him, had consistently run out of Stormlight.

Had it been the highstorm that had changed him? But no, he’d discovered drained spheres before being hung out to die. And Syl…she’d as much as admitted responsibility for some of what had happened. This had been going on a long time.

He stopped beside a rock outcropping, resting against it, causing grass to shrink away. He looked eastward, over the Shattered Plains. His home. His sepulcher. This life on them was ripping him apart. The bridgemen looked up to him, thought him their leader, their savior. But he had cracks in him, like the cracks in the stone here at the edges of the Plains.

Those cracks were growing larger. He kept making promises to himself, like a man running a long distance with no energy left. Just a little farther. Run just to that next hill. Then you can give up. Tiny fractures, fissures in the stone.

It’s right that I came here, he thought. We belong together, you and I. I’m like you. What had made the Plains break in the first place? Some kind of great weight?

A melody began playing distantly, carrying over the Plains. Kaladin jumped at the sound. It was so unexpected, so out of place, that it was startling despite its softness.

The sounds were coming from the Plains. Hesitant, yet unable to resist, he walked forward. Eastward, onto the flat, windswept rock. The sounds grew louder as he walked, but they were still haunting, elusive. A flute, though one lower in pitch than most he’d heard.

As he grew closer, Kaladin smelled smoke. A light was burning out there. A tiny campfire.

Kaladin walked out to the edge of this particular peninsula, a chasm growing from the cracks until it plunged down into darkness. At the very tip of the peninsula—surrounded on three sides by chasm—Kaladin found a man sitting on a boulder, wearing a lighteyes’s black uniform. A small fire of rockbud shell burned in front of him. The man’s hair was short and black, his face angular. He wore a thin, black-sheathed sword at his waist.

The man’s eyes were a pale blue. Kaladin had never heard of a lighteyed man playing a flute. Didn’t they consider music a feminine pursuit? Lighteyed men sang, but they didn’t play instruments unless they were ardents.

This man was extremely talented. The odd melody he played was alien, almost unreal, like something from another place and time. It echoed down the chasm and came back; it almost sounded like the man was playing a duet with himself.

Kaladin stopped a short distance away, realizing that the last thing he wanted to do now was deal with a brightlord, particularly one who was eccentric enough to dress in black and wander out onto the Shattered Plains to practice his flute. Kaladin turned to go.

The music cut off. Kaladin paused.

“I always worry that I’ll forget how to play her,” a soft voice said from behind. “It’s silly, I know, considering how long I’ve practiced. But these days I rarely give her the attention she deserves.”

Kaladin turned toward the stranger. His flute was carved from a dark wood that was almost black. The instrument seemed too ordinary to belong to a lighteyes, yet the man held it reverently.

“What are you doing here?” Kaladin asked.

“Sitting. Occasionally playing.”

“I mean, why are you here?”

“Why am I here?” the man asked, lowering his flute, leaning back and relaxing. “Why are any of us here? That’s a rather deep question for a first meeting, young bridgeman. I generally prefer introductions before theology. Lunch too, if it can be found. Perhaps a nice nap. Actually, practically anything should come before theology. But especially introductions.”

“All right,” Kaladin said. “And you are…?”

“Sitting. Occasionally playing… with the minds of bridgemen.”

Kaladin reddened, turning again to go. Let the fool lighteyes say, and do, what he wished. Kaladin had difficult decisions to think about.

“Well, off with you then,” the lighteyes said from behind. “Glad you are going. Wouldn’t want you too close. I’m rather attached to my Stormlight.”

Kaladin froze. Then he spun. “What?”

“My spheres,” the strange man said, holding up what appeared to be a fully infused emerald broam. “Everyone knows that bridgemen are thieves, or at least beggars.”

Of course. He had been talking about spheres. He didn’t know about Kaladin’s… affliction. Did he? The man’s eyes twinkled as if at a grand joke.

“Don’t be insulted at being called a thief,” the man said, raising a finger. Kaladin frowned. Where had the sphere gone? He had been holding it in that hand. “I meant it as a compliment.”

“A compliment? Calling someone a thief?”

“Of course. I myself am a thief.”

“You are? What do you steal?”

“Pride,” the man said, leaning forward. “And occasionally boredom, if I may take the pride unto myself. I am the King’s Wit. Or I was until recently. I think I shall probably lose the title soon.”

“The king’s what?”

“Wit. It was my job to be witty.”

“Saying confusing things isn’t the same as being witty.”

“Ah,” the man said, eyes twinkling. “Already you prove yourself more wise than most who have been my acquaintance lately. What is it to be witty, then?”

“To say clever things.”

“And what is cleverness?”

“I…” Why was he having this conversation? “I guess it’s the ability to say and do the right things at the right time.”

The King’s Wit cocked his head, then smiled. Finally, he held out his hand to Kaladin. “And what is your name, my thoughtful bridgeman?”

Kaladin hesitantly raised his own hand. “Kaladin. And yours?”

“I’ve many.” The man shook Kaladin’s hand. “I began life as a thought, a concept, words on a page. That was another thing I stole. Myself. Another time, I was named for a rock.”

“A pretty one, I hope.”

“A beautiful one,” the man said. “And one that became completely worthless for my wearing it.”

“Well, what do men call you now?”

“Many a thing, and only some of them polite. Almost all are true, unfortunately. You, however, you may call me Hoid.”

“Your name?”

“No. The name of someone I should have loved. Once again, this is a thing I stole. It is something we thieves do.” He glanced eastward, over the rapidly darkening Plains. The little fire burning beside Hoid’s boulder shed a fugitive light, red from glimmering coals.

“Well, it was pleasant to meet you,” Kaladin said. “I will be on my way….”

“Not before I give you something.” Hoid picked up his flute. “Wait, please.”

Kaladin sighed. He had a feeling that this odd man was not going to let him escape until he was done.

“This is a Trailman’s flute,” Hoid said, inspecting the length of dark wood. “It is meant to be used by a storyteller, for him to play while he is telling a story.”

“You mean to accompany a storyteller. Being played by someone else while he speaks.”

“Actually, I meant what I said.”

“How would a man tell a story while playing the flute?”

Hoid raised an eyebrow, then lifted the flute to his lips. He played it differently from flutes Kaladin had seen—instead of holding it down in front of him, Hoid held it out to the side and blew across its top. He tested a few notes. They had the same melancholy tone that Kaladin had heard before.

“This story,” Hoid said, “is about Derethil and the Wandersail.”

He began to play. The notes were quicker, sharper, than the ones he’d played earlier. They almost seemed to tumble over one another, scurrying out of the flute like children racing one another to be first. They were beautiful and crisp, rising and falling scales, intricate as a woven rug.

Kaladin found himself transfixed. The tune was powerful, almost demanding. As if each note were a hook, flung out to spear Kaladin’s flesh and hold him near.

Hoid stopped abruptly, but the notes continued to echo in the chasm, coming back as he spoke. “Derethil is well known in some lands, though I have heard him spoken of less here in the East. He was a king during the shadowdays, the time before memory. A powerful man. Commander of thousands, leader of tens of thousands. Tall, regal, blessed with fair skin and fairer eyes. He was a man to envy.”

Just as the echoes faded below, Hoid began to play again, picking up the rhythm. He actually seemed to continue just where the echoing notes grew too soft, as if there had never been a break in the music. The notes grew more smooth, suggesting a king walking through court with his attendants. As Hoid played, eyes closed, he leaned forward toward the fire. The air he blew over the flute churned the smoke, stirring it.

The music grew softer. The smoke swirled, and Kaladin thought he could make out the face of a man in the patterns of smoke, a man with a pointed chin and lofty cheekbones. It wasn’t really there, of course. Just imagination. But the haunting song and the swirling smoke seemed to encourage his imagination.

“Derethil fought the Voidbringers during the days of the Heralds and Radiants,” Hoid said, eyes still closed, flute just below his lips, the song echoing in the chasm and seeming to accompany his words. “When there was finally peace, he found he was not content. His eyes always turned westward, toward the great open sea. He commissioned the finest ship men had ever known, a majestic vessel intended to do what none had dared before: sail the seas during a highstorm.”

The echoes tapered off, and Hoid began playing again, as if alternating with an invisible partner. The smoke swirled, rising in the air, twisting in the wind of Hoid’s breath. And Kaladin almost thought he could see an enormous ship in a shipyard, with a sail as large as a building, secured to an arrowlike hull. The melody became quick and clipped, as if to imitate the sounds of mallets pounding and saws cutting.

“Derethil’s goal,” Hoid paused and said, “was to seek the origin of the Voidbringers, the place where they had been spawned. Many called him a fool, yet he could not hold himself back. He named the vessel the Wandersail and gathered a crew of the bravest of sailors. Then, on a day when a highstorm brewed, this ship cast off. Riding out into the ocean, the sail hung wide, like arms open to the stormwinds….”

The flute was at Hoid’s lips in a second and he stirred the fire by kicking at a piece of rockbud shell. Sparks of flame rose in the air and smoke puffed, swirling as Hoid rotated his head down and pointed the flute’s holes at the smoke. The song became violent, tempestuous, notes falling unexpectedly and trilling with quick undulations. Scales rippled into high notes, where they screeched airily.

And Kaladin saw it in his mind’s eye. The massive ship suddenly miniscule before the awesome power of a highstorm. Blown, carried out into the endless sea. What had this Derethil hoped or expected to find? A highstorm on land was terrible enough. But on the sea?

The sounds bounced off the echoing walls below. Kaladin found himself sinking down to the rocks, watching the swirling smoke and rising flames. Seeing the tiny ship captured and held within a furious maelstrom.

Eventually, Hoid’s music slowed, and the violent echoes faded, leaving a much gentler song. Like lapping waves.

“The Wandersail was nearly destroyed in the crash, but Derethil and most of his sailors survived. They found themselves on a ring of small islands surrounding an enormous whirlpool, where, it is said, the ocean drains. Derethil and his men were greeted by a strange people with long, limber bodies who wore robes of single color and shells in their hair unlike any that grow back on Roshar.

“These people took the survivors in, fed them, and nursed them back to health. During his weeks of recovery, Derethil studied the strange people, who called themselves the Uvara, the People of the Great Abyss. They lived curious lives. Unlike the people in Roshar—who constantly argue— the Uvara always seemed to agree. From childhood, there were no questions. Each and every person went about his duty.”

Hoid began the music again, letting the smoke rise unhindered. Kaladin thought he could see in it a people, industrious, always working. A building rose among them with a figure at the window, Derethil, watching. The music was calming, curious.

“One day,” Hoid said, “while Derethil and his men were sparring to regain strength, a young serving girl brought them refreshment. She tripped on an uneven stone, dropping the goblets to the floor and shattering them. In a flash, the other Uvara descended on the hapless child and slaughtered her in a brutal way. Derethil and his men were so stunned that by the time they regained their wits, the child was dead. Angry, Derethil demanded to know the cause of the unjustified murder. One of the other natives explained. ‘Our emperor will not suffer failure.’”

The music began again, sorrowful, and Kaladin shivered. He witnessed the girl being bludgeoned to death with rocks, and the proud form of Derethil bowing above her fallen body.

Kaladin knew that sorrow. The sorrow of failure, of letting someone die when he should have been able to do something. So many people he loved had died.

He had a reason for that now. He’d drawn the ire of the Heralds and the Almighty. It had to be that, didn’t it?

He knew he should be getting back to Bridge Four. But he couldn’t pull himself away. He hung on the storyteller’s words.

“As Derethil began to pay more attention,” Hoid said, his music echoing softly to accompany him, “he saw other murders. These Uvara, these People of the Great Abyss, were prone to astonishing cruelty. If one of their members did something wrong—something the slightest bit untoward or unfavorable—the others would slaughter him or her. Each time he asked, Derethil’s caretaker gave him the same answer. ‘Our emperor will not suffer failure.’”

The echoing music faded, but once again Hoid lifted his flute just as it grew too soft to hear. The melody grew solemn. Soft, quiet, like a lament for one who had passed. And yet it was edged with mystery, occasional quick bursts, hinting at secrets.

Kaladin frowned as he watched the smoke spin, making what appeared to be a tower. Tall, thin, with an open structure at the top.

“The emperor, Derethil discovered, resided in the tower on the eastern coast of the largest island among the Uvara.”

Kaladin felt a chill. The smoke images were just from his mind, adding to the story, weren’t they? Had he really seen a tower before Hoid mentioned it?

“Derethil determined that he needed to confront this cruel emperor. What kind of monster would demand that such an obviously peaceful people kill so often and so terribly? Derethil gathered his sailors, a heroic group, and they armed themselves. The Uvara did not try to stop them, though they watched with fright as the strangers stormed the emperor’s tower.”

Hoid fell silent, and didn’t turn back to his flute. Instead, he let the music echo in the chasm. It seemed to linger this time. Long, sinister notes.

“Derethil and his men came out of the tower a short time later, carrying a desiccated corpse in fine robes and jewelry. ‘This is your emperor?’ Derethil demanded. ‘We found him in the top room, alone.’ It appeared that the man had been dead for years, but nobody had dared enter his tower. They were too frightened of him.

“When he showed the Uvara the dead body, they began to wail and weep. The entire island was cast into chaos, as the Uvara began to burn homes, riot, or fall to their knees in torment. Amazed and confused, Derethil and his men stormed the Uvara shipyards, where the Wandersail was being repaired. Their guide and caretaker joined them, and she begged to accompany them in their escape. So it was that Nafti joined the crew.

“Derethil and his men set sail, and though the winds were still, they rode the Wandersail around the whirlpool, using the momentum to spin them out and away from the islands. Long after they left, they could see the smoke rising from the ostensibly peaceful lands. They gathered on the deck, watching, and Derethil asked Nafti the reason for the terrible riots.”

Hoid fell silent, letting his words rise with the strange smoke, lost to the night.

“Well?” Kaladin demanded. “What was her response?”

“Holding a blanket around herself, staring with haunted eyes at her lands, she replied, ‘Do you not see, Traveling One? If the emperor is dead, and has been all these years, then the murders we committed are not his responsibility. They are our own.’”

Kaladin sat back. Gone was the taunting, playful tone Hoid had used earlier. No more mockery. No more quick tongue intended to confuse. This story had come from within his heart, and Kaladin found he could not speak. He just sat, thinking of that island and the terrible things that had been done.

“I think…” Kaladin finally replied, licking his dry lips, “I think that is cleverness.”

Hoid raised an eyebrow, looking up from his flute.

“Being able to remember a story like that,” Kaladin said, “to tell it with such care.”

“Be wary of what you say,” Hoid said, smiling. “If all you need for cleverness is a good story, then I’ll find myself out of a job.”

“Didn’t you say you were already out of a job?”

“True. The king is finally without wit. I wonder what that makes him.”

“Um… witless?” Kaladin said.

“I’ll tell him you said that,” Hoid noted, eyes twinkling. “But I think it’s inaccurate. One can have a wit, but not a witless. What is a wit?”

“I don’t know. Some kind of spren in your head, maybe, that makes you think?”

Hoid cocked his head, then laughed. “Why, I suppose that’s as good an explanation as any.” He stood up, dusting off his black trousers.

“Is the story true?” Kaladin asked, rising too.

“Perhaps.”

“But how would we know it? Did Derethil and his men return?”

“Some stories say they did.”

“But how could they? The highstorms only blow one direction.”

“Then I guess the story is a lie.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, I said it. Fortunately, it’s the best kind of lie.”

“And what kind is that?”

“Why, the kind I tell, of course.” Hoid laughed, then kicked out the fire, grinding the last of the coals beneath his heel. It didn’t really seem there had been enough fuel to make the smoke Kaladin had seen.

“What did you put in the fire?” Kaladin said. “To make that special smoke?”

“Nothing. It was just an ordinary fire.”

“But, I saw—”

“What you saw belongs to you. A story doesn’t live until it is imagined in someone’s mind.”

“What does the story mean, then?”

“It means what you want it to mean,” Hoid said. “The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. Too often, we forget that.”

Kaladin frowned, looking westward, back toward the warcamps. They were alight now with spheres, lanterns, and candles. “It means taking responsibility,” Kaladin said. “The Uvara, they were happy to kill and murder, so long as they could blame the emperor. It wasn’t until they realized there was nobody to take the responsibility that they showed grief.”

“That’s one interpretation,” Hoid said. “A fine one, actually. So what is it you don’t want to take responsibility for?”

Kaladin started. “What?”

“People see in stories what they’re looking for, my young friend.” He reached behind his boulder, pulling out a pack and slinging it on his shoulder. “I have no answers for you. Most days, I feel I never have had any answers. I’ve come to your land to chase an old acquaintance, but I end up spending most of my time hiding from him instead.”

“You said… about me and responsibility…”

“Just an idle comment, nothing more.” He reached over, laying a hand on Kaladin’s shoulder. “My comments are often idle. I never can get them to do any solid work. Would that I could make my words carry stones. That would be something to see.” He held out the dark wood flute. “Here. I’ve carried her for longer than you’d believe, were I to tell you the truth. Take her for yourself.”

“But I don’t know how to play it!”

“Then learn,” Hoid said, pressing the flute into Kaladin’s hand. “When you can make the music sing back at you, then you’ve mastered it.” He began to walk away. “And take good care of that blasted apprentice of mine. He really should have let me know he was still alive. Perhaps he feared I’d come to rescue him again.”

“Apprentice?”

“Tell him I graduate him,” Hoid said, still walking. “He’s a full Worldsinger now. Don’t let him get killed. I spent far too long trying to force some sense into that brain of his.”

Sigzil, Kaladin thought. “I’ll give him the flute,” he called after Hoid.

“No you won’t,” Hoid said, turning, walking backward as he left. “It’s a gift to you, Kaladin Stormblessed. I expect you to be able to play it when next we meet!”

And with that, the storyteller turned and broke into a jog, heading off toward the warcamps. He didn’t move to go up into them, however. His shadowed figure turned to the south, as if he were intending to leave the camps. Where was he going?

Kaladin looked down at the flute in his hand. It was heavier than he had expected. What kind of wood was it? He rubbed its smooth length, thinking.

“I don’t like him,” Syl’s voice said suddenly, coming from behind. “He’s strange.”

Kaladin spun to find her on the boulder, sitting where Hoid had been a moment ago.

“Syl!” Kaladin said. “How long have you been here?”

She shrugged. “You were watching the story. I didn’t want to interrupt.” She sat with hands in her lap, looking uncomfortable.

“Syl—”

“I’m behind what is happening to you,” she said, voice soft. “I’m doing it.”

Kaladin frowned, stepping forward.

“It’s both of us,” she said. “But without me, nothing would be changing in you. I’m… taking something from you. And giving something in return. It’s the way it used to work, though I can’t remember how or when. I just know that it was.”

“I—”

“Hush,” she said. “I’m talking.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m willing to stop it, if you want,” she said. “But I would go back to being as I was before. That scares me. Floating on the wind, never remembering anything for longer than a few minutes. It’s because of this tie between us that I can think again, that I can remember what and who I am. If we end it, I lose that.”

She looked up at Kaladin, sorrowful.

He looked into those eyes, then took a deep breath. “Come,” he said, turning, walking back down the peninsula.

She flew over, becoming a ribbon of light, floating idly in the air beside his head. Soon they reached the place beneath the ridge leading to the warcamps. Kaladin turned north, toward Sadeas’s camp. The cremlings had retreated to their cracks and burrows, but many of the plants still continued to let their fronds float in the cool wind. When he passed, the grass pulled back in, looking like the fur of some black beast in the night, lit by Salas.

What responsibility are you avoiding….

He wasn’t avoiding responsibility. He took too much responsibility! Lirin had said it constantly, chastising Kaladin for feeling guilt over deaths he couldn’t have prevented.

Though there was one thing he clung to. An excuse, perhaps, like the dead emperor. It was the soul of the wretch. Apathy. The belief that nothing was his fault, the belief that he couldn’t change anything. If a man was cursed, or if he believed he didn’t have to care, then he didn’t need to hurt when he failed. Those failures couldn’t have been prevented. Someone or something else had ordained them.

“If I’m not cursed,” Kaladin said softly, “then why do I live when others die?”

“Because of us,” Syl said. “This bond. It makes you stronger, Kaladin.”

“Then why can’t it make me strong enough to help the others?”

“I don’t know,” Syl said. “Maybe it can.”

If I get rid of it, I’ll go back to being normal. For what purpose… so I can die with the others?

He continued to walk in the darkness, passing lights above that made vague, faint shadows on the stones in front of him. The tendrils of fingermoss, clumped in bunches. Their shadows seemed arms.

He thought often about saving the bridgemen. And yet, as he considered, he realized that he often framed saving them in terms of saving himself. He told himself he wouldn’t let them die, because he knew what it would do to him if they did. When he lost men, the wretch threatened to take over because of how much Kaladin hated failing.

Was that it? Was that why he searched for reasons why he might be cursed? To explain his failure away? Kaladin began to walk more quickly.

He was doing something good in helping the bridgemen—but he also was doing something selfish. The powers had unsettled him because of the responsibility they represented.

He broke into a jog. Before long, he was sprinting.

But if it wasn’t about him—if he wasn’t helping the bridgemen because he loathed failure, or because he feared the pain of watching them die— then it would be about them. About Rock’s affable gibes, about Moash’s intensity, about Teft’s earnest gruff ness or Peet’s quiet dependability. What would he do to protect them? Give up his illusions? His excuses?

Seize whatever opportunity he could, no matter how it changed him? No matter how it unnerved him, or what burdens it represented?

He dashed up the incline to the lumberyard.

Bridge Four was making their evening stew, chatting and laughing. The nearly twenty wounded men from other crews sat eating gratefully. It was gratifying, how quickly they had lost their hollow-eyed expressions and begun laughing with the other men.

The smell of spicy Horneater stew was thick in the air. Kaladin slowed his jog, coming to a stop beside the bridgemen. Several looked concerned as they saw him, panting and sweating. Syl landed on his shoulder.

Kaladin sought out Teft. The aging bridgeman sat alone below the barrack’s eaves, staring down at the rock in front of him. He hadn’t noticed Kaladin yet. Kaladin gestured for the others to continue, then walked over to Teft. He squatted down before the man.

Teft looked up in surprise. “Kaladin?”

“What do you know?” Kaladin said quietly, intense. “And how do you know it?”

“I—” Teft said. “When I was a youth, my family belonged to a secret sect that awaited the return of the Radiants. I quit when I was just a youth. I thought it was nonsense.”

He was holding things back; Kaladin could tell from the hesitation in his voice.

Responsibility. “How much do you know about what I can do?”

“Not much,” Teft said. “Just legends and stories. Nobody really knows what the Radiants could do, lad.”

Kaladin met his eyes, then smiled. “Well, we’re going to find out.”