Chapter Text
Kaladin sheathed his knife, taking a weary step away from the man in the green Shardplate, only for the world to snap off cold. For a moment, everything was oddly bright, colors saturated, blurred. Something was happening. What was happening? Time slowed. He struggled for purchase against the slick essence of existence.
“Kaladin!” Syl screamed.
The man in the unadorned King’s Plate had his fist buried in Kaladin’s side.
The force of the blow slammed into Kaladin. His ribs and part of his spine shattered into molten fragments and something inside him tore. He didn’t gasp, he couldn’t breathe, not without the movement ripping the destroyed vertebrae apart. The world listed to the side.
Kaladin felt himself hit the sand only as a renewed jolt of detached heat. He had minutes to live, at most. People didn’t survive a blow like this.
The roar of voices came through a haze. Someone was shouting. Adolin? Renarin scrambled through the sand toward him in Kaladin’s peripheral vision, fumbling with something at his waist. Was Dalinar shouting too? Kaladin couldn’t hear through the wind rushing in his ears.
A touch on his side—Renarin, light but still far too much—jostled him. Kaladin screamed, a mistake, tearing himself open on the inside.
“Kaladin!” Syl screamed. “Stormlight! Breathe!”
He breathed in.
Light streamed from Renarin’s sphere pouch, joining the dregs of what Kaladin had been carrying. It was only a trickle in comparison with the horrific severity of the injury. Kaladin clenched his jaw, trying not to hyperventilate and lose the precious light, even as it tried—agonizingly—to knit his torn organs back together, repair his damaged spine.
It wasn’t enough to heal him fully. Ruptured organs, requiring immediate surgery, outcome uncertain. Shattered spine… virtually untreatable.
Had the shouts changed? There were more people standing over him. He had to face them. Had to run. Had to protect. He tried to move, foolishly. His barely-healed injuries shifted.
But they had Stormlight. Kaladin drank it in desperately, biting back a cry of agony as bones snapped back into place. More shouting. None of it came to Kaladin as anything resembling words.
Dalinar Kholin’s face lowered into his field of view. His mouth was moving. Kaladin’s sluggish brain couldn’t grasp the words.
The light had slowed at putting him back together. He couldn’t tell if it was enough.
He slid into a mercifully numb stupor anyway.
One second: impossible victory. The next: terrible loss.
Adolin watched, trapped in his frozen plate, as Elit—Elit, who Adolin should have known would be a sore loser—came in as Captain Kaladin turned, slamming a fist full-force into the captain’s side.
Adolin struggled to free himself from his locked plate, screaming his denial. Renarin ran toward Kaladin—his commanding officer—but Renarin wasn’t going to be able to do anything. That wasn’t the sort of blow anyone came back from. The captain was already a corpse, just one that had yet to stop breathing.
Adolin shed enough of his plate to move and summoned his blade. He didn’t give Elit time to make excuses. The crowd had gone from shocked silence in the lighteyes’ section and wild cheers in the darkeyes’ to a roar of indistinct noise. Adolin’s guards ran out onto the sand, bracing spears outward. Renarin bent over Kaladin, reaching out as if to assess his injuries.
The captain screamed, an awful, raw sound; the sort of horrible sound Adolin had heard too often on a battlefield—then gasped in air. Light started to stream from Kaladin’s skin, outlining him in an unmistakable halo.
Renarin scrambled back, making room for Dalinar. Dalinar stumbled to a halt a few paces away, staring in horrified awe at the captain’s broken body. Kaladin stirred, the light around him fading. He clawed at the sand, somehow still trying to move. To rise. He sucked in a wet breath, blood splattering onto the ground in front of him.
Light flowed from Dalinar—drawn from his spheres?—into the captain. Kaladin choked on a cry, Stormlight spilling from his mouth like luminous mist.
Dalinar crouched next to him, wide-eyed. “Are you what I’ve been searching for?” he whispered reverently.
The captain didn’t seem to hear. Something inside him seemed to snap back into place. As the last of the light faded, the captain slumped onto the sand. Adolin ran forward. No! After all this, he can’t be dead. He can’t be!
“He’s breathing,” Dalinar said in an undertone. “Adolin, he fought for this. Don’t let the opportunity slip.”
Adolin looked up to the King’s box to demand his boon. As he did, his eyes slipped to the Sadeas box.
It was already empty.
“What just happened, Uncle?” Elhokar’s words could have sounded petulant, but today he sounded a mix of confused and tired. It was a state Dalinar could relate to.
“I’m not quite sure,” Dalinar said. He folded his hands behind his back neatly, trying to project a calm he did not feel. He had watched Captain Kaladin die and then… come back from the dead, choking and gasping for breath. Dalinar was supposed to refound the Knights Radiant, who had been said to have mysterious abilities. Could it be…?
“We need to react to this immediately,” Navani said. “Your visions have been exposed publicly. This could give us credibility.”
Dalinar thought of a young man, sharp and hard, brittle at the edges like a sword with insufficient temper. “If I betray his trust now, he will never trust me—any of us—again.”
“Betray his trust?” Elhokar frowned. “What do you mean, uncle?”
“Something happened to that young man,” Dalinar said. “There is a reason he doesn’t trust.” Captain Kaladin’s accusation of Meridas hung heavy in his thoughts. Even if it was not true, the captain was a man wronged. Every line of his tense posture, his constant watchfulness, told the tale.
“If this was a secret he meant to keep, it’s already been exposed.” Navani said softly. “And not on his terms.”
Dalinar inclined his head. “How would you recommend we handle this, Navani?”
Navani tapped one carefully kept nail on her painted lower lip. “His trust is important.”
Elhokar coughed. “Surely one darkeyed guard…”
“One Knight Radiant,” Dalinar said. “Possibly the only one in existence.”
“For now, we should let it be known that he’s recovering. We must imply that we knew of his abilities beforehand. If the court assumed we did not, it would be disastrous.” Navani sighed, her hair ornaments clinking softly together as she shook her head. “We can’t appear to look out of our depth, my son.”
“I knew that,” Elhokar said. He frowned. “Do you think he used his abilities to fight off the assassin, uncle?”
“Unfortunately, Elhokar, I don’t know.”
“We were so close, Ialai,” Torol murmured. “Humiliation for Adolin Kholin and a devastating loss to his house. An opening to Elhokar. How did we lose it?” He rolled his knuckles on either side of her spine, applying just enough pressure. One darkeyed slave shouldn’t make him lose his composure.
He had cost Torol his victory, though.
“Mmm. Our spies in the Kholin camp report some interesting rumors flying about that boy,” Ialai said. “Similar rumors are abroad in every camp. They claim he glowed like a lit sphere and was carried off the field by Dalinar’s surgeons.”
“Preposterous,” Torol snorted. “They carried off a corpse.”
“Kholin’s surgeons claim he’s recuperating.” Ialai turned so her breath tickled Torol’s ear.
“What is Dalinar playing at?” Torol grumbled. “What’s the point in propping up a corpse to stand guard? If I didn’t believe the rumors of his madness before…”
“Shall I have my spies investigate Kholin’s hospitals, or is it a waste of resources?” Ialai whispered.
“Look for proof the slave’s dead,” Torol said. “If Dalinar is lying to keep his rabble of a guard in order, informing them the boy is dead could inflame them into an open revolt. And if Dalinar’s surgeons didn’t carry a corpse out of that arena… then it’s more than just Dalinar who’s gone mad.”
Kaladin found himself again blinking hazily at a whitewashed ceiling. The back of his throat tasted like old blood and his side ached out a dull throb. It didn’t feel as bad as it should have. Why was that?
He was aware he was in pain. He just couldn’t bring himself to care.
What had happened? Kaladin made an effort to summon something—anything—out of the dull haze in his skull.
Where is our honor? Dalinar’s voice.
The duel. Adolin. Renarin.
What had happened? Were they safe? Kaladin tried to remember. Memory felt strange, sluggish. He had… jumped into the arena, hadn’t he?
Alarm. Kaladin tried to struggle up, but he had no coordination. Had he lost a limb to a Blade? No no no no no no no no no… He tried to sit up, throw back the blanket. He ignored the warning heat in his side. He had to know.
Voices outside. “He can’t be awake yet, Highprince. Even if he is, he won’t be coherent.” The voice paused weightily, then continued. “We really didn’t know what to do with him. All we could do was treat the pain. He should have bled out internally, or suffered organ failure within minutes or seconds. His spine should be broken. As far as we can tell, his ribs still are broken, but he’s showing no signs of dying from organ failure or worsening internal bleeding, and I’m fairly certain I saw him move his foot as we were sedating him. I don’t know what to make of it, brightlord.”
Kaladin missed what the next voice said, but it was Dalinar. He frowned, struggling to remember what had happened.
The privacy curtain—he had one of those—oh. Infirmary.—drew back. A man in a military surgeon’s tunic and apron held it. Behind him were an orderly carrying a stool and Dalinar Kholin.
Kaladin tried to at least sit up and salute. The surgeon cried out in alarm, grabbing and steadying him before laying him back down on the cot. “What do you think you’re doing, Captain? Your spine should be broken!”
Kaladin stared at him in confusion. I’m showing respect to my commanding officer? That wasn’t what came out of his mouth, though. “Legs. Severed?” The surgeon frowned.
“Your legs are fine, soldier,” Dalinar interrupted. “It’s your side.”
“Which you seem damnation-bent on aggravating,” the surgeon added. The orderly set down the stool next to Kaladin’s cot.
“Leave us,” Dalinar said. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t make himself worse.”
The surgeon shot Dalinar a doubtful look, but he said nothing. Both he and the orderly bowed themselves out, closing the curtain behind them. Dread settled around Kaladin’s shoulders like a heavy cloak.
Dalinar sat across from the captain of his guard. Captain Kaladin watched him with unreadable eyes, slightly tense at the corners. His shoulders were bare, though the sheet still covered most of him. Despite the fathombark compound, he was still clearly in pain, though he didn’t say anything. A single painspren crawled across his side. He looked aware.
“Can you move your legs?” Dalinar asked.
In response, the young man drew them up under the thin blanket, one toward his chest and the other crossed on the bed. He didn’t wince or grimace, but the painspren was joined by two others.
Dalinar tried not to stare. He had watched Elit Ruthar throw that punch. He had thrown punches like it. Even a Shardbearer with only Plate, no weapons, left behind an ugly trail of broken bodies.
Dalinar faced an impossibility. A miracle.
“Are you what I’ve been looking for?” Dalinar asked.
As he spoke, Dalinar recognized the Captain’s expression—too late. Not quite dread. Resignation. Head held high—the face of a man going to his execution. That expression turned blank as Dalinar completed his question.
Captain Kaladin shoved himself back against the wall at the head of his cot, hard. The painspren multiplied in seconds but the captain didn’t seem to notice. He curled in on himself, breathing fast and shallow, each one seeming to rip through him like a saw-toothed knife. Fearspren oozed through the thin sheet. He clutched the blanket to his chest and stared into nothing, wide-eyed and shaking. Dalinar reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder. Kaladin caught his wrist in a crushing grip, eyes still unseeing.
Gradually, Captain Kaladin’s eyes shifted up and to Dalinar’s right. They fixed on something there, slowly growing more present. His breathing slowed. He released Dalinar’s arm, leaving white marks where his fingers had been, and pulled back into himself, burying his head in his hands with a choking sob.
Dalinar watched in shock, not sure what to do. “Captain?”
Kaladin just stiffened, as if Dalinar’s voice was an accusation. He didn’t move for a long time.
Finally, Captain Kaladin sat up against the wall, squaring his shoulders. “May I have some water, please?” His voice was hoarse, as if he had been screaming for hours.
He still looked like he was waiting for death.
Dalinar poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the bedside table. He handed it to Kaladin. The captain swished a little water around his mouth, leaned over and spat it into the chamber pot. The water came out a dull red-brown. Kaladin drank properly, set the glass back down with a hand that was too steady, and faced Dalinar again.
“What are you?” Dalinar asked. “Are you what I’ve been looking for?”
The captain seemed far too worn for his age. Not much older than Renarin. “Yes.” The word seemed dead.
“You were aware I was searching for you?”
“Yes,” the captain repeated.
“Why did you fail to report this?”
Kaladin flinched at his tone, but looked him in the eyes. “I was afraid, sir.”
Dalinar opened his mouth to respond, except he did not know how to respond. The captain did not drop eye contact. He held the edge of the blanket in a white-knuckled grip. A solitary fearspren crawled along the floor under the cot.
“What did you think would happen?” Dalinar asked, finally.
A harsh, brittle laugh snapped free of Captain Kaladin. “The same things that always happen.” He didn’t speak for a moment, but when he did, it all came out in a rush. “Every good thing I’ve ever had has been taken from me eventually. Just as soon as I get complacent.” He stared through Dalinar, as if he couldn’t see Dalinar at all. “My commanding officers are happy to use me for a while, but when they’re done they rip whatever they please out of me. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice? Shame on me. I hope I’m on my pyre before the third time comes.”
“And everything you’ve seen of me,” Dalinar said. “That makes no difference?”
Kaladin choked on a sob, lowering his head into his hands again. Dalinar rested a hand on his shoulder.
Captain Kaladin jerked away, taking a tumble off the cot. He cried out in pain and breathed in sharply. The sphere lanterns in the hallway dimmed. Wisps of light rose from the captain’s skin. He pushed himself up the wall and into a standing position facing Dalinar, trembling slightly and still clinging to the blanket.
“What now, sir?” he asked. He sounded calm, but there was a hysterical edge in his voice. “When I’m placed under Amaram’s command, are you willing to wager my safety against my honesty? Even if I falsely accused Amaram, what will happen when he finds out I slandered him?” When, not if. “Is he going to see an opportunity to further humiliate and debase me, or a threat to his reputation and authority?”
He was right, Dalinar realized. The doubts that had crept in when the captain had made his accusation redoubled. Dalinar never should have given Amaram that cloak. “Soldier, please sit down. We’ll…”
Kaladin jammed his fist into his mouth and let out a muffled scream. Surgeon Aranad came running back into the ward, followed by several assistants. They pried the hand from Kaladin’s mouth and covered his nose and mouth with a cloth. Captain Kaladin staggered and collapsed across the head of the cot. Aranad turned to Dalinar. “Brightlord! Are you injured?”
Light still rose from the captain’s skin in wisps. He tried to push himself up with no coordination, collapsed, then managed to raise himself. He sank to his knees next to the cot, his upper body thrown across it. “Stop. Please,” he begged.
“He wasn’t violent,” Dalinar said. “Only distressed.”
“How was he standing?” Aranad gasped. He reached for the blanket the captain still clutched to himself, only for Kaladin to flinch violently away.
“Captain,” one of the assistants said, speaking in a low voice. “Your spine had to have been broken earlier. Please lie down.”
Kaladin hesitated, eyes drifting up and to his left. He climbed back onto the cot and lay down, pulling the blanket over himself. He held it in a white-knuckled grip and lay still, eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. The assistant sighted softly, relieved. “Please let Surgeon Aranad examine you, Captain. By all the medical knowledge I have, you really should not be alive.”
“No,” Captain Kaladin said, toneless.
“Captain—”
Kaladin looked directly at the surgeon’s assistant. “You do it, Nerem.”
Aranad spluttered, but the assistant—Nerem—stepped closer. “May I remove the blanket, Captain?”
“Yes.” Captain Kaladin was back to staring firmly at the ceiling.
Nerem pulled the blanket and sheet aside. The captain was dressed only in his smallclothes, all lean muscle and bones jutting out too sharply. What struck Dalinar most was the number of scars on him. Some of them he’d seen on many soldiers—a messy knot of pale tissue on one thigh from a stab wound, cuts long healed, a starburst shape from an arrow badly removed, a long jagged tear across the stomach. Others…
Twisted harsh splashes as if the tops of his shoulders had been ripped apart. Curving silvery lines wrapping around his ribs, left behind by a whip. Ugly weals from burns along his ribs, matching the shape of a common fire poker. The soles of his feet were just as torn up as his shoulders.
The unhealed injury was a massive bruise on his left side, fully black in the center and radiating out to purple, then blotched green and yellow at the edges. The center of it was roughly the shape of an armored fist.
Shockingly, Captain Kaladin’s injured side looked symmetrical to his relatively uninjured one. There was no sign of caving in around the fist. That blow should have broken his spine, and yet the captain had been standing, moving around.
“We’re going to move you onto your side, Captain,” Nerem said. He took Kaladin’s hip as another assistant took his shoulder, counted to three and rolled him onto his side. The captain bore up silently under it all. Dalinar caught a glimpse of his back—a mess of crisscrossing lines overlying older scars that many would have called more honorable. Nerem felt along his spine, every bone of which seemed to stand out too sharply. A look of shock crossed his face. “No breaks. No damage at all that I can feel.” They lowered Captain Kaladin back into place.
“I’m going to check your ribs now,” Nerem said, a note of apology in his voice. He felt cautiously along the edges of the bruise.
Captain Kaladin made a choked-off sound behind clenched teeth. Nerem pulled back. “I’m sorry. I had to check. Your ribs are still broken.”
“How is that possible?” asked Aranad. Captain Kaladin kept his lips pressed firmly together.
Dalinar interrupted the surgeon. “For the time being, I must ask you to keep quiet about this.” He paused, thinking of Elhokar’s jangled nerves and the ineffectual circular conversation they had held just before coming here. Elhokar had not made up his mind yet what to do. Hopefully Navani’s influence would change that, and quickly. Rumors were already spreading. They had to act.
“Just what do I have under my roof, Highprince?” Aranad asked.
“Hope for the future,” Dalinar said, glancing toward the captain—the Knight Radiant. Nerem had already brought a plain tunic and loose pants for Captain Kaladin to change into, now they knew that his back wasn’t broken—any more, at least. The light reflected off a cut on his ribs—not curved, the shallow graze from an arrow—as he tugged the tunic over his head. “He feeds on Stormlight. I believe that’s what lets him heal. Be generous.”
Aranad stared at him. “Will you take responsibility, Highprince?”
Dalinar paused, raising an eyebrow.
“I don’t know what I have in this ward. Multiple instances of malpractice, quite possibly.” Aranad said, eyes straying to Captain Kaladin. “I can’t in good conscience assign a treatment this untested myself, Highprince.”
“Do it,” Dalinar said. “I take responsibility.”
“Thank you, Highprince.”
Adolin stopped and knocked outside the curtained-off section of the hospital ward where he had been told Captain Kaladin was staying, then ducked inside. The captain was sitting up on the cot, staring at the curtains across from him. Without looking, he brushed a solitary painspren from his side. His eyes shifted toward Adolin. “Was there something you needed, Princeling?”
Adolin pulled up a stool. “Didn’t they give you anything to do other than stare at the far wall all day, bridgeboy?”
Again Kaladin’s eyes slid toward him for a moment. “Was there something you wanted, brightlord?” he repeated. There was no inflection in his voice.
Adolin cleared his throat. “I came to thank you. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead or maimed. Renarin, too.”
“It’s my responsibility to protect you.”
Adolin laughed incredulously. “So you interfered in a duel with four Shardbearers with just a spear. You do realize most men wouldn’t do that? It takes a special kind of crazy.”
“No one else was going to do anything.” The captain’s voice was too quiet. “Did you challenge Sadeas?”
Adolin sighed. “No. By the time Elhokar got control of the crowd, Sadeas managed to wriggle out of it. He snuck away in the chaos after Elit broke convention by attacking you after he yielded. Sadeas probably planned it. That eel. How are you alive?” People don’t come back from blows like that, he didn’t say.
“Your father didn’t explain already?” Captain Kaladin said, brows furrowing slightly.
“No one’s said anything,” Adolin replied. “Everything’s still in chaos.”
“I am a Knight Radiant,” the captain admitted. “Or… close to becoming one. I can heal from most things, as long as I’m not killed outright.”
“Before yesterday, I would have called a blow like that ‘killed outright.’”
Captain Kaladin rolled his eyes. “Fine. As long as I’m not killed instantaneously.”
“I knew there was something odd about you,” Adolin said triumphantly. “I could have sworn… did the assassin actually cut you, then?”
Kaladin nodded, reluctance plain on his face. “Yes. I healed.”
Adolin gaped. “Wow. That’s—wow.” He straightened up. “Well. If you fight like that with just a spear, I’d love to see what you could do with a Blade and Plate.”
The captain froze, going pale. His expression of apprehension became dread. Horror. He looked as if he was about to be sick. Fearspren oozed across the ground and anguishspren lined the walls. It felt wrong to see them surrounding Captain Kaladin. He always seemed so decisive, so confident.
“Captain?” Kaladin didn’t respond. “What’s wrong?” Still no response. Kaladin’s shoulders began to shake in time with his ragged breathing.
It didn’t look like one of Renarin’s fits, but Adolin started talking anyway. Aimless inane chatter, just to break the silence. Horses, swords, fashion, the terrible poetry reading he’d been to the other day, military history. Adolin had seen the captain dismiss all but the last of those topics with scorn. Still, it seemed to work. The captain’s shoulders gradually lowered, the tension bleeding from his body like wine from a slashed skin.
Finally, he started to look present again. Adolin leaned forward, resting a hand on the young man’s knee. “What’s wrong?”
Kaladin turned his face away. Shamespren fell around him. Adolin didn’t expect him to speak, but then… he did.
“I can’t use shards,” Kaladin said, speaking quietly, but with an intensity that made Adolin’s heart race. “I’ve seen too many of my men die on those things. I can’t touch them. I can barely look at them. When I do, all I can see is my men with dead faces and burned eyes.”
“You were a soldier before,” Adolin said. It was the only thing that made sense. Captain Kaladin had somehow turned bridgemen into soldiers. He had to have military experience; Adolin should have noticed it sooner. “Sadeas’ army?” What had he done to end up on the bridge crews? It probably was something minor, maybe not even a crime. Adolin had been to the Sadeas camp.
“Back in Alethkar,” Kaladin said.
“What?” Adolin frowned. The highprinces’ armies back in Alethkar were the dregs. Kaladin was wasted back there. “Under…”
Kaladin’s jaw clenched. “Amaram.”
“Well…” Adolin trailed off. He had been about to comment on Amaram’s reputation of running a tight, well-organized army, but he noted Kaladin’s expression. “What happened?”
Kaladin pushed his hair back, exposing the brands. “I deserted.”
Adolin took Kaladin in, looking him up and down. “Chull dung. What actually happened?”
A series of emotions crossed Kaladin’s face. Shock. Disbelief. Relief? Hope. He opened his mouth, and… stopped.
Just… stopped, staying as he was. Frozen.
“Captain?” Adolin asked.
Kaladin’s mouth snapped shut. “Deserted. That’s all.” He sounded wrong. There was no inflection to his voice; it sounded dead. Like a fabrial offering heat, but not the comfort of a good fire. “No more lies.” He held his elbows to his sides in a stiff, unnatural posture. “I won’t lie again.”
“Captain? What’s going on?”
Kaladin looked him in the eyes sharply, then broke eye contact. He was much too still.
“You can talk to me,” Adolin pleaded. This man had saved his life.
“I can’t,” Kaladin choked. Twisting black crosses punctuated the rain of petals around him. “I can’t lie. I can’t tell the truth. I can’t.” He squeezed his eyes shut, moisture clumping his eyelashes to each other. “I can’t, Princeling. Please don’t. No more lies.” The captain pushed himself back against the wall at the head of the cot, arms crossed tightly—protectively—across his chest.
“Okay,” Adolin said, trying to sound cheerful. “We can talk about something else, then. What do you like to do for fun?”
Captain Kaladin stared at him as if he’d grown a second head; as if fun was something he had never even conceived of. “I like flying.”
Adolin’s jaw dropped. He stared.
“I can do… whatever the assassin did. But not with a Shardblade.”
“Okay!” Adolin squeaked. He had no idea what to talk about next. “Uhhh… you like spears?”
Kaladin raised an eyebrow at him.
“Give me something to work with here,” Adolin pleaded.
“I’m decent with one?”
That was a storming lie. Adolin had seen him in brief glimpses during the duel, had caught him performing kata on the training grounds a few times after Zahel was done with him and his men; kata which Adolin now viewed in memory with fresh eyes. Kaladin was an artist in a weapon Adolin had always been taught to disregard. “Damnation you are. You’re storming incredible with one.”
Kaladin just shrugged.